Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Thessalonians 4

We now approach the practical portion of the Epistle. The first point on which the Thessalonians need instruction is in the matter of social purity (1 Thessalonians 4:1–8).

Furthermore hardly expresses the original. St. Paul is not adding a further injunction, for he has not yet given any. It is literally, For the rest, then; and serves to introduce the conclusion of the letter.

Beseech.—The marginal request is better, the word signifying a calm and friendly asking, implying that the person so addressed will recognize the propriety of complying.

Exhort is correct, though “encourage” suits the context a little better, as it assumes that they are already acting this way, but not with enough heart.

By the Lord.—Better, in the Lord. It is not an adjuration, as in Romans 12:1, but states the authoritative ground of his request: “We encourage you, on the strength of our union in the Lord Jesus.” (Compare to 1 Thessalonians 1:1).

How ye ought to walk.—Literally, the how. It indicates that part of the apostolic tradition was a systematic moral code, almost as if it were the title of a well-known book: “We gave you the ‘How ye ought to walk, so as to please God.’” The best texts add immediately after, “even as also ye walk.”

Abound more and more.—Or, still more. “You did receive from us the rules of a holy life; you are living by them, and that to a very large degree; but we beg you and encourage you, in your Christian faith, to be still more lavish in your self-denial.”

For you know.—He calls on the Thessalonians’ memory to support his statement, “you received;” at the same time awakening their interest to catch the special point next to come, by laying stress on “what commandments.”

By the Lord Jesus.—Not as if the Lord were the one who delivered the commandments from St. Paul to the Thessalonians, but rather the one by whose inspiration St. Paul was enabled to give such commandments.

For.—The word further enforces the appeal to their memory: You know what commandments were given... for this (you will recall) is what God wants; “a commandment given through the Lord Jesus” is, of course, identical with “God’s will.”

Your sanctification.—This is in apposition to the word this. Our mere conversion, justification, and salvation are not God’s aim: He wants us to be holy. The general idea of sanctification, however, passes 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, for example, in 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 .

Should know.—The clause is simply parallel to the previous one and, with it, explains the word “sanctification.” The Bulgarian Father, Theophylact, says pointedly in reference to the word “to know” or “understand,” “He indicates that chastity is a matter that requires self-discipline and study” .

To possess his vessel.—The word rendered “to possess” should rather be translated, to procure, win, gain possession of. The word “vessel” here has been interpreted in two ways:

1. “his wife;”
2. “his body.”

In favor of (1) it is argued that (while “gaining possession of one’s own body” is unintelligible), “acquiring a wife of one’s own” is an ordinary Greek expression; that in this context, “a vessel,” or “instrument,” is an expressive and natural metaphor; that the word was familiar to Hebrew speakers in that sense (e.g., Ahasuerus says of Vashti, in one of the Targums, “My vessel which I use is neither Median nor Persian, but Chaldee”); that St. Peter (1 Peter 3:7) uses the word of the wife.

But it may be answered that this interpretation does not suit our context. First, it would be laying an emphatic and binding veto upon celibacy if “each one” is “to acquire a wife of his own.” Secondly, concerning the verb “to know,” it is certainly not part of a religious man’s duty “to know how to procure a wife.” Thirdly, the Greek cannot be translated “a vessel (or wife) of his own,” but “his own vessel” (or wife)—literally, the vessel of himself. To speak of “procuring” the wife who is already one’s own seems meaningless.

Furthermore, although the quotations from the Targums are certainly to the point, the reference to St. Peter distinctly points the other way, since the wife is called “the weaker vessel of the two,” evidently meaning that the husband is also “a vessel.”

Thus we are driven to suppose that (2) the “vessel” is the man’s own self. This usage also is well supported. In 1 Samuel 21:5, it is used in precisely this sense and in the same context, as well as in 1 Peter 3:7. The passages, however, usually quoted in support of this interpretation from 2 Corinthians 4:7, Philo, Barnabas, Lucretius, etc., do not seem quite parallel; for there the word signifies a “vessel” in the sense of a receptacle for containing something, whereas here it is rather “an instrument” or “implement” for doing something.

Hence it approaches more closely to the use in such phrases as Acts 9:15, “a vessel of choice,” or even (though the Greek word is different) to Romans 6:13. “The vessel of himself” (the “himself” being strongly emphasized in the Greek) means not “the vessel which is his own,” but “the vessel or instrument which consists of himself.” Thus the body, which of course is chiefly meant here, is not dissociated from the man’s personality, as in the fanciful Platonism of Philo, but is almost identified with it. The Incarnation has taught us the true dignity of the body.

Thus it becomes easy to understand what is meant by “knowing how to gain possession of” such an instrument as the body with its many faculties, rescuing it from its vile prostitution, and wielding it wisely for its proper uses. So the same Greek verb is used, and mistranslated in our version, in Luke 21:19, “In your patience possess ye your souls.”

In sanctification and honor.—The circumstances in which—almost the means by which—the man may acquire and keep this skillful power over his instrument: “in a course of self-purification and of self-reverence.” The reverence due to the instrument is brought out in a passage of St. Peter evidently modeled upon this (1 Peter 3:7). (Compare also 2 Timothy 2:21, “an instrument for honorable purposes, and to be honorably treated, consecrated, and handy for its owner’s use.”)

Not in the lust of concupiscence, for such a method of using one’s faculties, such an attempt to acquire mastery of vital powers, is really to abandon them altogether to others. This notion is involved in the very word here translated “lust,” which is more often rendered “passion,” and implies something which befalls a man, something done to him: “Not in the helpless passivity of concupiscence” or uncontrolled desire.

The Gentiles which know not God.—Note the punctuation. The readers of the letter were “Gentiles who knew God.” Their brother Thessalonians are held up to them as melancholy examples of men who are trying in the wrong way to show their power over themselves. Note that this is not one of the crimes which he alleges against Jews.