There’s a catchy definition sometimes offered for the biblical term justified. What does justified mean? It means “just as if I’d never sinned.” It leaves too much unexplained, but in essence it’s true. Being justified through faith in Christ we are considered in the courtroom of heaven to be as one who never sinned. However, we have sinned. And though our sins will not be held against us, they too often continue to define us. The apostle Paul understood this and sought to encourage a practical righteousness in the newly declared righteous Thessalonians. In particular, he was concerned with how they exercised their sexual capacities (1 Thessalonians 4:1-8).
The prevailing norm for these former pagans was far from the biblical norm (the norm that Paul would have instructed them in), but not all that far from the prevailing norm of our day. As such, the baggage they carried into their walk of discipleship is carried by many coming into the church today. This will likely require a complete overhaul of their presuppositions about engaging in sex, and Paul’s instructions to the Thessalonians is as good a place as any to start. Taking control of one’s body (“vessel” in the Greek, which some scholars take to mean not the body in general but genitalia), having regard for how one’s actions affect others, and understanding that “whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit” to his children for the purpose of transforming them, will set new Christians on the road to realizing the divinely expected holiness in their lives.
We all struggle with the “old self,” which, in the words of the apostle, “belongs to [our] former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires.” The call is to “be renewed in the spirit of [our] minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:22-24). While this is so in every aspect of our thinking and doing, of particular prominence is understanding how and why God has made us sexual beings. Misuse of this capacity has caused a great deal of harm. Out of love for God and neighbor we want to get it right.
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