1 Thessalonians 4:6

1 Thessalonians 4:6. In this verse Paul continues the same subject, and does not pass to the sin of covetousness. ‘Another aspect is presented to us of sins of the flesh; the wrong done to our neighbour' (Jowett). This is at once manifest when the proper rendering is given to the words ‘in the matter.' It is the matter of which Paul has been speaking, to which he still refers, the matter of unchastity; and as he has said of this, that they are to abstain from fornication, and chastely use its natural remedy, so now he denounces adultery

and this, not on account of its impurity, but because it is a violation of our neighbour's rights. It was in this light also that Nathan presented to David his great sin, selecting a parable which illustrated not its impurity, but the heartless selfishness which could inflict so gross an injury on one who might naturally have looked to the king for protection.

That no man go beyond or defraud. The first of these terms denotes a contemptuous neglect of the rights of other men; the other, a greedy overreaching of others for our own pleasure or advantage, both of which elements enter into the sin of adultery. Let no man thus practise upon his brother and pique himself on befooling a credulous or easy husband, for the adulterer has to do not only with man, but with One who cannot be taken in, and from whom there is no hiding.

The Lord is the avenger of all these things. In all such matters God is the avenger. Men may not be able to vindicate their own rights, or inflict the just and righteous punishment for irreparable injury; but the Lord has an eye on every such case, and will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and cause the offender to feel that it is himself he has befooled. As nothing is more emphatically asserted in the Word of God, nothing is more legibly written on the lives of men, than that sore and sure retribution waits upon sins of the flesh.