1 Thessalonians 4:3 Commentary and Bible Study

What does sanctification mean? Well it is purity, it is holiness, purification. Calvin wonderfully defined it as renouncing the world and clearing ourselves from the pollution of earth. That is sanctification and it is something that has its place every day in our lives. You take your car into service and they give it a health check. They go through some eight, nine, ten, twelve points that are important and then you get your service. The various key working parts are checked out. But we do it in some shape or form every day – a sanctification check. Looking for uncleanness, looking for selfishness, looking for pride, looking for deceit, looking for hatred, looking for lack of self-control, intemperance, temper, looking for greed.You cannot make progress if you have not abstained from the things that are wrong. So the Christian life involves constant abstention. The example given is we should abstain from fornication. That is not the only thing. If we have got a bad temper, or if we tend to tell lies and the old sin has come back, we pray to God and abstain. You cannot go straight on to the positive if you have not struggled to abstain absolutely. Shoot it down the thing you are about to say, just before you say it. Stop it, pray an emergency prayer. Be horrified, hate it. Now the particular example the apostle picks out is fornication, not because it was common among the Thessalonian converts, but because they were vulnerable. They were most of them converted pagans, and the pagan idolaters licensed immorality. When you manufacture your own religion, you create a religion that permits you to do whatever you want to do. The apostle writes to them after a year, just about the right time for the devil to be sneaking in their old sin and tempting them back to their former ways before conversion.