1 Thessalonians 4:3

For this is the will of God, even your sanctification,.... Which is another reason to enforce the above exhortation. "Sanctification" is internal or external.

For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication: For - enforcing the assertion, 1 Thessalonians 4:2. Since "this is the will of God," let it be your will also.

What in the former verse he called commandments from Christ, he here calls the will of God; or he had some further duties to lay before them, which he had not yet given commandments about, which were the will of God. There is the secret and revealed will of God, and his revealed will is about things to be believed or practised. The latter is here meant, so that the will of God is put figuratively here for the things he willeth, or commandeth of us. And that which the apostle first mentions is sanctification, which is often taken for holiness in general, which consists in men’ s conformity to the will of God both in the heart and life. But I think not so taken here, but for chastity, as opposite to the sin of uncleanness, as the apostle explains it in the next words. For to abstain from fornication is the will of God. And by it is meant all unchasteness, either of persons married or unmarried; and that either in the heart, or in speech, or in the eye, or lascivious gesture, as well as in the very act itself. It was a sin common among the Gentiles, especially the Grecians, and judged as no sin. And therefore it is particularly mentioned and forbidden to the believing Gentiles by the council of Jerusalem, lest they should apprehend it not to be an evil, . For it is not so evident by the light of nature as many other moral evils; and therefore the apostle tells the Thessalonians that it is the will of God they should abstain from it, and that is a sufficient ground either of doing or not doing. This will of God is expressed in the seventh commandment, which though the Jews well knew, yet these new converted Gentiles might not yet so well understand. And therefore the apostle in his several Epistles to the Gentile churches doth dehort them from it, especially the Corinthians, , and that by many arguments. It is a sin which corrupts and effeminates the mind, captivates the heart, consumes the flesh, and wastes men’ s estates. So that this will of God that forbids it is a good will, , as all the commandments of God are said to be for our good, .

3 For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication: Ver. 3. For this is the will of God] This is his prescribing will, which we must obey; as we must submit to his disposing will, the will of his providence, and grow acquainted with his approving will, the will of his gracious acceptance, Matthew 18:14; John 1:23.

(3) For.—The word further enforces the appeal to their memory: “Ye know what commandments . . . for this (you will recollect) is what God wants;” “a commandment given through the Lord Jesus,” being, of course, identical with “God’s will.” Your sanctification.—In apposition to the word this. The mere conversion, justification, salvation of us are not the aim of God: He would have us holy. The general idea of sanctification passes however here, as the following clauses show, into the more limited sense of purification. Fornication.—The word is often used in late Greek for any kind of impurity, as, e.g., 1 Corinthians 5:1, of incest; but here it must be understood in its strict sense. To the Gentile mind, while the wickedness of adultery or incest was fully recognised, it was a novelty to be told that fornication was a “deadly sin;” hence the strange connection in which it stands in the Synodal letter to the Gentile churches (Acts 15:20; Acts 15:29; Acts 21:25). This consideration also makes it easier to understand how St. Paul can praise these Gentile Thessalonians so heartily, although they need earnest correction on this vital point. It is a true instance of the sacerdotal metriopathy (or, compassionate consideration) towards the ignorant and deceived. (See Hebrews 5:1-2.)

Verse 3. This is the will of God, even your sanctification] God has called you to holiness; he requires that you should be holy; for without holiness none can see the Lord. This is the general calling, but in it many particulars are included. Some of these he proceeds to mention; and it is very likely that these had been points on which he gave them particular instructions while among them. That ye should abstain from fornication] The word πορνεια, as we have seen in other places, includes all sorts of uncleanness; and it was probably this consideration that induced several MSS., some versions and fathers, to add here πασης, all. Directions of this kind were peculiarly necessary among the Greeks, and indeed heathens in general, who were strongly addicted to such vices.

3. For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, &c.] The connection will be clearer if we render thus: For this is God’s will—it is your sanctification—that you abstain from fornication, &c.It was not some counsel or wish of his own that he pressed on the Thessalonians under the authority of Christ; it was nothing less than God’s holy will: the primary ground of this charge. At the same time it was their sanctification. God’s will and their consecration to Him are the double reason for their leading a chaste life; and these two reasons are one, the latter springing out of the former. God had chosen them to be His own (comp. ch. 1 Thessalonians 1:4). And He willed that their sanctification should be realised and carried into effect in the important particular about to be stated. This will of God was proclaimed in His “call,” by which the Thessalonians had been summoned to a pure and holy life (ch. 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24; comp. 1 Thessalonians 2:12). In all endeavours after purity it is our best support to know that God wishes and means ms to be holy; that His almighty help is at the back of our weak resolves, Who both “puts into our minds good desires” and “brings the same to good effect.”“Sanctification” is the act or process of making holy: then, in the second instance, it comes to denote the result of this process, the state of one who is made holy,—as in Romans 6:22, “You have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end eternal life;” similarly in Hebrews 12:14, “Follow after sanctification.” It is synonymous with consecration, i.e. devotion to God,—but to God as the Holy One.Holy is the single word which by itself denotes the Divine character, as it is revealed to us in its moral transcendence, in the awfulness and glory of its absolute perfection, raised infinitely above all that is earthly and sinful (see 1 Samuel 2:2, Psalms 99, Psalms 111:9, Isaiah 57:15, &c). Now it is the character of God—“thy Maker … and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel”—that constitutes His right to the consecration of those to whom He is revealed. Our “sanctification” is the acknowledgement of God’s claim upon us as the Holy One Who made us. This involves our assimilation to His nature. In Him, first the character, then the claim: in us, first the claim admitted, then the character impressed. In short, Sanctification is fulfilment of the supreme command, “Be ye holy, for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:15-16; Leviticus 11:44; Leviticus 19:2; Leviticus 20:7).—See, further, notes on 1 Thessalonians 4:7, and ch. 1 Thessalonians 5:23; also on ch. 1 Thessalonians 2:10, for the difference between the two Greek words for holy used in this Ep.St Paul makes chastity a part of holiness. He finds a new motive and powerful safeguard for virtue in the fact of the redemption of the body. Our physical frame belongs to God; it is a sharer in Christ’s resurrection, and in the new life received through Him.

For this is the will of God, even your sanctification - It is the will or command of God that you should be holy.

3. For this—To sum up the whole of these commandments. Will— Without the Greek article, a will. So Bengel, “Many are God’s wills or volitions.