1 Thessalonians 4:3
3 For [gar] this [touto] is [esti] the will [thelema] of God, [theos]
even your [humon] sanctification, [hagiasmos] that ye [humas] should abstain [apechomai] from [apo] fornication: [porneia] KJV-Interlinear
3 For
this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from
sexual immorality; NASB
Sanctification means to
make holy, to become separated from the world.
The world is a reference to that (sin, evil, untruths) which is
separated from God.
Holiness is the result
of the work of righteousness and justice.
Righteousness is the
absolute unblemished perfection of God.
In Gods righteousness there is no sin, no evil, no
filth of any kind.
Justice is the process of
cleansing.The washing away of sin, of
evil, of filth from ones life.
When Christ went to the
Cross, He accomplished these things for each one of us. He paid the price of sin. Sin is the wrong doing of every type which demands
punishment for such wrong doing.
Punishment is the penalty process whereby the wrongs of the world (sin)
are washed away as though they were never there in the first place.
By paying that price,
Christ opened up the door for each one of us. That door, which we call
salvation, is accessed by means of believing in Him, in what He accomplished,
in who He is and so forth.We simplify
this by saying believe in Christ, which commands the entire concept of who He
is, and what He did.
When we believe in
Christ, we become sanctified, set apart, cleansed, separated from the world and
consecrated (made holy) such that we can have a relationship with God, who is
perfection and pure.
That which is impure
cannot have a relationship with that which is pure. When something impure is mixed with something
that is pure, then the pure becomes contaminated, therefore God cannot have a relationship
with something that would contaminate.
Likewise, if we are impure, then we cannot have a relationship with that
which is pure, until we are made pure.
We cannot purify ourselves.
Someone else with greater power and ability, has to do that.
We are commanded to be
sanctified, believe in Christ.And
maintain our sanctification, live in fellowship. We live in fellowship by confessing our sins
on a regular basis, in which case God recognizes our confession
(acknowledgement) of our sins, to Him and places us in a fellowship
(relationship status) with Him.
Our spiritual life functions
only while we are in fellowship (abiding within our sanctified sphere).
We are to avoid
fornication, or the flirting or participation in all that is unholy. All sin, all human good, all untruths, etc.
are unholy.The word porneia, is a broad term for all desires, all lusts, all
sins, and so forth.Things that are
vices to which one can easily become addicted.
In ancient times, these
vices, were typical of things that the pagans (a general term for those who
were unbelievers) were addicted to, and as such they were consumed by their
addictive habits, to the destruction of their lives.
Today we have many
types of things that people can become addicted to, such as alcohol, drugs,
prescriptions and so forth.These things
are obvious.
But the most dangerous addiction
is that of indifference toward truth, or the pattern of life that you follow as
an unbeliever (absent salvation), or the indifferent believer (absent
functioning doctrine in the soul).
The unbeliever is
separated from God, and the believer who is indifferent is simply dysfunctional
in their spiritual life.
Therefore, in order to
have a functional life, a complete life, a meaningful life, you must, repeat,
must function day in and day out, in life, from within the sphere of a
sanctified state (in fellowship), and avoid living outside of that state.
To live out of
fellowship you risk being caught up in the addictive habits and lures of the
world.Once addicted, that type of life
is difficult to break.Once addicted,
then your views and thinking, are clouded and skewed.
The only way to have a
complete and meaningful life, and to be able to see and understand life
completely and correctly, you must live within the fellowship sphere, and
advance within that sphere, in your spiritual life.