Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Thessalonians 5:23

"And the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved entire, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." — 1 Thessalonians 5:23 (ASV)

And.—The logic of an expression like, “Do this, and may you be happy,” lies in the writer’s own connection with both the command and the prayer: “I command you to abstain from every evil kind of thing, and I pray that God Himself may enable you to keep the commandment.”

The very God of peace.—In more common English, “the God of peace Himself.” The contrast is between the futile efforts toward holiness of which they themselves were capable, and the almighty power of sanctification exercised by God. This sanctification (which is the special work of the Third Person) is here ascribed to the First Person of the Holy Trinity, from whom the Holy Ghost proceeds. He is called the “God of peace,” not in reference to any dissensions between the Thessalonians (1 Thessalonians 5:13), but because of the peace which His sanctification brings into the soul, so that it fears neither temptation’s power nor persecution’s rage. (Compare to the Second Collect for Evensong).

Sanctify you wholly.—Rather, sanctify you whole. The idea is more that of leaving no part unsanctified, than that of doing the work completely as far as it goes; thus, it serves to introduce the next sentence, which explains it.

And I pray God.—If there were a need for any insertion, it should have been “We pray God;” Silas and Timothy are never forgotten throughout.

Spirit and soul and body.—This is St. Paul’s fullest and most scientific psychology, not merely a rhetorical piling up of words without any particular meaning being assigned to them. Elsewhere, he merely divides man according to popular language into two parts, visible and invisible, “body and spirit” (1 Corinthians 6:20; 1 Corinthians 7:34, and elsewhere); the division into “body and soul” he never uses. (Compare to the Note on 1 Corinthians 2:14).

The “spirit” (pneuma) is the part by which we apprehend realities intuitively—that is, without reasoning upon them; with it we touch, see, serve, worship God (John 4:23–24; Romans 1:9; 1 Corinthians 6:17; Revelation 1:10, and elsewhere); it is the very inmost consciousness of the man (see, for example, 1 Corinthians 2:11); it is the part of him which survives death (Hebrews 12:23; 1 Peter 3:19; Acts 7:59).

The “soul” (psyche) includes the intellect, the affections, and the will; and it is of the very essence of the gospel to force sharply upon men the distinction between it and the spirit (Hebrews 4:12). Low-living men may have soul (that is, intellect, affection, will) in abundance, but their spirit falls into complete abeyance (Jude 1:19). The soul belongs altogether to the lower nature, so that when St. Paul uses the two-fold division, “body and spirit,” the soul is reckoned (not, probably, as Bishop Ellicott says on our present passage, as part of the spirit, but) as part of the body; and when St. Paul describes the “works of the flesh,” he includes among them such distinctly soul-sins as “heresies” (Galatians 5:20).

Sanctification preserves all these three divisions entire, and in their due relation to each other. Without sanctification, the spirit might be overwhelmed by the other parts gaining predominance, which would, of course, eventually be the ruin both of “soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28). Note well, that our Lord says nothing of the destruction of the “spirit” in hell: the question is whether He there definitely meant to exclude “spirit,” or used “soul” popularly as including it.

Where the New Testament writers acquired such a psychology cannot be determined, but it was probably derived from experimental knowledge of life, not from books, and all experience confirms its accuracy. Modern science tends more and more to show that “soul” is a function of “body.”

Unto the coming.—This is a mistranslation for “at the coming,” caused by the slight difficulty in understanding the true version. The idea is not so much that of their preservation from sin during the interval, but rather the writers hasten in eager anticipation to the Coming itself, and hope that the Thessalonians at the Coming will be found to have been preserved. “Blameless” should have been “blamelessly.”