For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that you should abstain from fornication:
All Commentaries on 1 Thessalonians 4:3 Go To 1 Thessalonians 4
Clement Of Alexandria
AD 215
For the devil tempts us. He knows what we are but does not know if we will hold out. Wishing to dislodge us from the faith, he also attempts to bring us into subjection to himself. This tempting is all that God has allowed him to do, partly because it is God’s will to save us from ourselves. For indeed, by the opportunity afforded by the commandment we are truly sinners. But the other reason God so limits the devil is to disgrace him and show him up as a failure, thereby strengthening the church and the conscience of those who are awed at such constancy…. The Lord did not suffer by the will of the Father, nor are those who are persecuted persecuted by the will of God. Indeed, either of two things is the case: persecution in consequence of the will of God is a good thing, or, those who decree and inflict suffering are guiltless. But nothing is without the will of the Lord of the universe. It remains to say that such things happen without the prevention of God. Only this way of thinking about suffering saves both the providence and the goodness of God. We must not think therefore that he actively produces afflictions (far be it that we should think this!) … Providence is a disciplinary art—in the case of others for each individual’s sins, and in the case of the Lord and his apostles for ours. To this point the divine apostle prays: “For this is the will of God, even your sanctification.”
