1 Thessalonians 5:8

1Th_5:8

But let us, who are of the day, be sober

Good counsel

I.

The condition to be shunned. Christians must keep their natural desires and appetites after the things of this world within due bounds. Let your moderation be known to all men is a Divine injunction. St. Paul enjoins sobriety. Now, sobriety is usually opposed to excess in meats and drinks, and here he particularly opposes it to drunkenness. But it also extends to other temporal things. Hence the Great Teacher warned His disciples to take heed lest their hearts were overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon them unawares. It was a most reproachful state for men to sleep away the daytime, which is specially for work, but, after all, it was not so strange that those who had the benefit of Divine revelation suffered themselves to be lulled by Satan into carnal security, and laid the reins on the neck of their appetites, and indulged themselves in all manner of riot and excess. It was night with them. They were not sensible of their danger, therefore they slept; they were not sensible of their duty, therefore they were drank. But it ill becomes Christians to do thus. What! shall Christians, who have the light of the glorious gospel shining in their faces, be careless about their deathless souls, and mindless of the world to come? They that have so many eyes upon them should carry themselves not only decently, but holily.

II. The equipment to be worn. The whole armour of God. And this is indispensable to be put on and worn, in order to such sobriety as becomes us, and will be a preparation for the day of the Lord, because our spiritual enemies are many, and mighty, and malicious. They draw hosts to their interest, and keeping them in it, by making them careless, and secure, and presumptuous; by making them intoxicated with pride, intoxicated with passion, intoxicated with self-conceit, intoxicated with sinful gratifications; so that we have every need to arm ourselves against their attempts, by putting on the spiritual breastplate to keep the heart, and the spiritual helmet to protect the head. We must live by faith, and that will keep us watchful and sober, and be our best defence against all the assaults of our enemies. We must get a heart inflamed with love; and this also will be our defence. We must make salvation our hope; and this will hinder our being intoxicated with the pleasures of sin, which are but for a season. Having the hope of salvation, we must do nothing to shake our hope or render ourselves unfit for the great salvation we hope for. (D. Mayo.)

Aspects of Christian life

I. The Christian idea of the present life and of the best preparation for getting through it.

1. Life is a battle. There is peril of some sort. Men do not want a breastplate and helmet sitting under their own vine and fig tree in unbroken repose.

2. Life is a great and noble thing, but a wise man, observing the spiritual faculty in man, gets the idea that it is not an ultimate state. It is full of beginnings. Things do not seem completed. Wonderful as the universe is, it does not fill the soul, but leaves a continual yearning for something more. Man is capable of forming an idea of what mind might become, and then he looks abroad and sees himself a little man among little men, being pulled down by the worser part of his nature, and tempted to rest satisfied with the present condition of things.

3. See, says the apostle, that you are not engrossed by the lesser to the neglect of the greater. Guard those sublimer parts of your nature, that head and heart, those thoughts and affections that wander through eternity.

(1) Put on the breastplate of faith and love. Have within you the principle of faith which shall penetrate the material and visible and realize the spiritual, substantial, and eternal, and in the midst of all that greatness and splendour remember that faith will bring before you God, infinitely holy; and along with faith there will be a love which shall bring your moral being into contact with all good; the love of infinite excellence will raise you above the present and bring you into harmony with itself.

(2) But more: You must have a personal interest in the infinite future for a helmet, etc. You must not be satisfied with looking about this universe and thinking that it has been from and will be through eternity, and that you are just come to appear for a little moment, and then pass away, as some philosophers allege; you are yourself to be eternal. A hope of this sort will preserve you from those temptations to grosser forms of folly and sin. You will not be satisfied to associate with them that are drunken, and who enjoy the pleasures of sin, which are but for a season. Combine these, and you have an element of strength which will preserve you amidst all spiritual danger.

II. Whence man is to get this equipment for the battle of life. By the actual revelation and interposition of God. In this dislocated world I want a Divine hand to put it right. If I am to have faith to realize the infinite, love to bring me in harmony with the good, and hope to secure a personal interest in eternity, then I want God to speak, to help. Christianity comes and delivers such a message as we want: God hath not appointed us unto wrath, etc. (1Th_5:9).

1. I could take that the world over, and call to guilty men, Forsake your sins, for God hath not, etc. God hath spoken to you and acted for you. While you belong to the natural system it goes on, and you with it. The law takes its course, and there is nothing but destruction for you, for you have broken it. But God has interfered and enforced a remedy by which you may be saved. If you accept that, then you may escape the result which must otherwise ensue; for Gods design is your salvation.

2. But this is true in a more emphatic sense of those who have received the gospel. In a higher and profounder sense God hath not appointed you, etc.

the very object for which it was offered and by you believed. You have come in contact with this Divine element, and by it you are preparing, while here, for the everlasting blessedness which is the future adornment of saved humanity. Christianity, then, is not merely a system; Christ is more than a perfect Teacher and Example: He has died for us and wrought out for us a redemption. Men may take their stand on the abstract improbability of the thing; but let them reject the Bible also, for if there is one thing clearer in that than another it is that Christ has made an atonement for sin. Christs death is the point upon which the salvation of humanity turns; we may not be able to say how, but the thing is uncontestable.

III. The sort of world to which we are passing and the kind of thing our life is to be (1Th_5:10).

1. Awake or sleep means alive or dead. The great object of the gospel is that as long as you live you should live with Christ, have a Divine life from Him, and walk in harmony with Him, and that when you are dead you shall be with Him also.

2. But Paul meant more than this. He had in his mind 1Th_4:15-17, and his object was to show how the great end of the gospel was to be answered, and that the death of the disciples would not frustrate its accomplishment. When Christ is manifested, whether they are alive or dead the result will be the same: they will all be alive together with Christ.

3. Here, then, is--

(1) Immortal life for man. Though I may die and see corruption, I shall rise up like Christ into a glorious and eternal life. That is something like a consummation. There is something ultimate about that, with which I can be satisfied; so different from this world of beginnings, temptations, warfare and dislocations, where the spiritual is dragged down to the flesh.

(2) Life of the noblest and Divinest sort; life with Christ. You cannot make a man more miserable than to take him out of his own sphere in society and put him in one opposite; but to place a Christian in the immediate presence of Christ is to bestow upon him the highest happiness. His sanctified and glorified nature will find itself at home by the side of Christ.

(3) Life of the highest character in respect to general society. We shall not only live with Him, but together. It will not be a solitary blessedness. A multitude which no man can number made like each other, by Christ having made them like Himself, will live together in harmony, love, and mutual confidence, and their happiness will be complete.

IV. Christian men having this faith, love, and prospect, should--

1. Edify one another, which implies that there is a foundation laid, upon which the edifice is to be built. Christians should help each other to become temples for the Holy Ghost. Now, a glorious thing like that could never have sprung up in a world like this: it must have come from God.

2. Comfort one another with the testimony we have received--under trial, under loss of friends, in the family, and in Christian intercourse. Conclusion:

1. The perfect beauty and harmony of the Christian system as a theory. If one could not believe it true, it would be relinquished with regret. What a glorious thing, then, to feel no such pity, but to be certain of its truth.

2. The strong feelings of gratitude, hope, and determination which ought to inspire us with respect to life. (T. Binney.)

Christian sobriety, or seriousness

The two great elements indispensable for the existence of a really grand character are elasticity and steadfastness--elasticity, without which a man gets crushed by every slight failure; and steadfastness, without which he will be turned aside from his purposes by unworthy motives, and be tempted to forget the end of his efforts in the contemplation of the means whereby they are to be attained. For keeping alive this elasticity, a man must know how to be wisely gay; for keeping up this steadfastness, he must know how to be sober. And so Christian sobriety must be based upon a reasonable estimate of the importance of life and the seriousness of all things here below. The trifler who has no higher ambition than to amuse himself, mistakes the meaning of all things on earth. He sees no further than the outside of things, and treats them as a savage does a toy, which, when it does not frighten him, affords him endless mirth. The man or the boy who has got to feel that Gods eye is on him morning, noon, and night, and who is learning to realize that the smallest incident of every hour has and must have an influence upon all his future prospects for good or evil--the man or the boy who is impressed with the momentous truth that every day as it passes carries with it an imperishable record of his deeds and words and thoughts, and that the time must come when he will stand before the judgment seat of Christ and give an account of the deeds done in the body--he cannot fail to be serious, and will become more and more so in proportion as he realizes these things, and in proportion as he lives in remembrance of them every hour. But as he lays hold of the fact that God loves him and all men, and that, with all his weakness and inconstancy, he is yet not left unsupported by the Spirits grace--though he may be serious, he will not be sad. (A. Jessop, D. D.)

The sober minded children of the day

I. The persons.

1. Their character.

(1) They are in God and Christ (1Th_1:1).

(2) They know their election of God--not in theory, but in fact, in the heart, by virtue of their union to Christ.

2. Their privilege. Of the day.

(1) The day itself is the gospel day (Zec_13:1-9), the day of the fountain opened for sin: the Lords day, well called Sunday because of its brightness; but that brightness shines inward through the indwelling Spirit. I was in the spirit on the Lords day.

(2) Its manifestation (Eph_5:8) revealing sin, salvation (Mal_4:2), progress, Divine supplies, future glory.

II. The duty: Be sober.

1. towards God.

(1) Humble, and not intoxicated with pride.

(2) Believing, and not intoxicated with false doctrine.

(3) Truthful, and not intoxicated with anxiety and fear.

2. In respect of our enemies.

(1) Patient, and not hasty.

(2) Courageous, and not fearful.

(3) Forbearing, and not wrathful

3. As regards ourselves. (A. Triggs.)

The work and armour of the children of the day

I. The central injunction, into which all the moral teaching drawn from the Second Coming is gathered: Be sober.

1. The context shows that we are not to omit a literal reference (1Th_4:7). Temperance is moderation in regard to the swinish sins of drunkenness and gluttony. None need the precept more than we. Any doctor will tell you that the average Englishman eats and drinks a great deal more than is good for him. It is melancholy to think how many professors have the intellectual and spiritual life blunted by senseless table indulgence.

2. The higher meaning.

(1) It is not an unemotional absence of fervour in Christian character. Some are always preaching down enthusiasm, and preaching up a sober standard of feeling, which is nothing more than Laodicean lukewarmness. But the last thing the Church of this century needs is a refrigerator; a poker and pair of bellows are far more needful. The truths we profess are so tremendous that nothing but a continuous glow of enthusiasm will correspond to their majesty and importance. Paul was the very type of an enthusiast. Festus called him mad; so did some at Corinth (2Co_5:13). Oh for more of that insanity which rouses the Pentecostal charge, These men are full of new wine!

(2) It means the prime Christian duty of self-restraint in the use and love of all earthly treasures and pleasures.

(a) It is clear from the make of a mans soul that without self-control he will go all to pieces. Human nature was made not for democracy, but for monarchy. Here are within us many passions, tastes, desires, which ask nothing but Give me my appropriate gratification, though all the laws of God and man be broken to get it. So there has to be an eye given to these blind beasts and a hand laid on these instinctive impulses. The true temple of the spirit has the broad base laid on these instincts; above them and controlling them the will; above it understanding which enlightens it and them; and supreme over all conscience, with nothing between it and heaven. Where that is not the order you will get wild work. The man who lets passion and inclination guide is like a steamboat with all the furnaces banked up, the engines going at full speed, and nobody at the wheel.

(b) That self-control is to be exercised mainly in regard of our use and estimate of the pleasures of life. It is not only mans make that makes it necessary. All about us are hands reaching out drugged cups; and whoever takes Circes cup turns into a swine, and sits there imprisoned at the feet of the sorceress forever. Only one thing can deliver us: Be sober in regard to the world and all it offers. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

II. A motive which buttresses this exhortation. Let us, since we are of the day, be sober.

1. What day? Not exactly the Day of Judgment, although there may be some allusion to that; but the apostle has passed from that to day in general. Christians are the children of that which expresses knowledge, joy, and activity; they should, therefore, be brave, not afraid of light, cheerful, buoyant, hopeful, transparent, and walk in this darkened world, bearing their radiance with them, and making things, else unseen, visible.

2. But while these emblems are gathered into that name there is one direction in which the consideration ought to tell--that of self-restraint. Noblesse oblige; the aristocracy are bound to do nothing dishonourable. Children of the light are not to stain themselves with anything foul. Indulgence may be fitting for the night, but incongruous with the day.

III. The method by which this great precept may be fulfilled.

1. Faith, love, hope, form the defensive armour of the soul, and make self-control possible. Like a diver in his dress, who is let down into the ocean, a man whose heart is girt with faith and charity, and whose head is covered with hope, may be dropped down into the wildest sea of temptation and worldliness, and yet will walk dry and unharmed.

2. The cultivation of these three is the best means for securing self-control. It is an easy thing to say, Govern yourself. The powers that should control are largely gone over to the enemy. Who shall keep the keepers? You can no more erect yourself above yourself than you can lift yourself by your coat collar. But you can cultivate faith, hope, and charity, and these will do the governing. Faith will bring you into communication with all the power of God. Love will lead you into a region where temptations will show their own foulness. Hope will turn away your eyes from looking at the tempting splendour around, and fix them on the glories above. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

The breastplate of faith and love.

I. Faith guards against intellectual temptations.

1. We are surrounded by an all pervasive, subtle, penetrating atmosphere of scepticism. We meet with it in our educational agencies, and drink it in with our learning; in society, and imbibe it with our interchange of thought and conversation; in our ephemeral literature, and take it in in our recreation; in our pulpits, alas I and receive it along with our religious instruction. In these and other ways doubts are insinuated into the heart on the all-important subjects of God, Christ, salvation, duty, destiny. Escape it we cannot. To fight it seems only like combatting the air, so agile is the adversary. Our only safety lies in wearing an insulator. A mariner wrapped in oilskin can defy the elements though he cannot allay them. Such an insulator is faith; not firmly held theological opinions, but practical and realizing trust in God and truth. Faith knows whom and what it has believed, and passes unscathed through the trial.

2. We are surrounded by circumstances which tend to agitate the mind and excite our fears. Our duties, responsibilities, dangers, in business, home, travel, Churches, are calculated to engender anxiety, and when once anxiety gets into the heart it is difficult to dislodge, and, if allowed sway, the citadel is gone and despair enthroned. The only course is to keep anxiety out by the breastplate of faith. Trust in God and in His promise is the sure antidote. No weapon that is formed against them shall prosper, etc. All things work together for good, etc.

II. Love guards against moral temptations. These, too, abound, and to escape them we must needs go out of the world. Some, of course, we must fight, but against each and all we need protection.

1. Love to God is the supreme motive for resistance. No other is sufficiently strong and durable. Prudence, self-respect, consideration for friends, etc., are well as subordinate motives, engravings on the breastplate, but are unavailing by themselves. The true, abiding, invincible motive is How can I do this wickedness and sin against God? What God has done for and to me, and what He is to me and I to Him, are sufficient inspirations when strongly held to resist the most powerful advance.

2. Love to God creates moral habits and tastes which render temptations innocuous. What fellowship has light with darkness? While this Sun rules the children of the day, the night of sin can have no place. (J. W. Burn.)

For an helmet, the hope of salvation.

I. Hope.

1. Subjectively considered hope is the expectation and desire of future good. Christian hope con templates--

(1) The highest exaltation and perfection of our nature. We shall be like God, conformed to the image of His Son in soul and body.

(2) This exaltation arises from the enlargement of all our powers to do and all our capacity to receive.

(3) Dominion or exaltation in dignity as well as in excellence and power.

(4) The presence and vision of God in Christ.

2. Its foundation is--

(1) The promise of God.

(2) The infinite merit of Christ.

(3) The love of God. From what we know of that love we infer that there is no benefit which it is not ready to confer.

(4) The witness of the Spirit that we are the children of God.

II. Hope as a helmet.

1. Protects the believers most vital part. In the old hand to hand conflicts the head was the worst exposed, and its protection of the first importance. Hence the helmet was as necessary as the shield. With the Christians the hope of salvation gives security, and, therefore, confidence, courage, and endurance.

(1) From the assaults of Satan against our faith and confidence in God; and from our proneness to neglect eternal tidings.

(2) From the attractions and allurements of the world.

(3) From the corruptions of our own hearts.

2. Adorns the believer. The helmet is the most attractive part of the warriors equipment. So is hope to the Christian. It enables him to hold his head erect. (C. Hodge, D. D.)

The helmet

I. Its mention serves to remind the Christian that he is a soldier.

1. If you were not soldiers you would not need armour. This idea should govern the whole of life. Too many Christians try to be friends with God and with His enemies. Never take off your armour, or in some unguarded moment you may meet with serious wounds.

2. You are soldiers in the enemies country. The sick are in the trenches, and the active are engaging the enemy. More or less all are exposed and always.

3. You are in the country of an enemy who never gives quarter. If you fall it is death. The world never forgives. What might be done without observation by any one else is noted and misrepresented in you.

4. You fight with an enemy who never made a truce. You may come to terms and parley; forces of evil never do. Dread the Greeks, even when they bring you gifts; and let the Christian dread the world most when it puts on its softest speeches.

5. You have to do with an enemy who cannot make peace with you nor you with him. If you become at peace with sin, it has conquered you.

II. Being a soldier look to your head.

1. A wound in the head is a serious matter. Being a vital part it needs to be well protected. A good many Christians never think of defending the head at all. If they get their hearts warmed by religion, they think that quite enough. But it is not: a hot head and a hot heart may do a good deal of mischief, but a hot heart and cool head will do a world of service for Christ. Have right doctrine in the head, and then set the soul on fire.

2. A helmet is of no use to any part but the head.

(1) The head is peculiarly liable to temptation. It is not easy to stand on a high pinnacle without the brain beginning to reel: and if God puts a man on a high elevation of usefulness he had need to have his head well taken care of. So with wealth, popularity, etc.

(2) The head is liable to attacks from scepticism. He who has a hope of salvation is not afraid of its quibbles. He may hear them all, and be for a moment staggered, as a soldier under a sudden shock, but he recovers himself. A man is not often a very thorough democrat after he gets a little money in the savings bank, and when a man gets a stake in Christianity he gets to be very conservative of old fashioned truth.

(3) The head is in danger from the attacks of personal unbelief. Who of us has not doubted his interest in Christ at times? but the man who has a good hope may be of good cheer. These doubts and fears will pass away.

(4) Some are attacked by threatenings from the world. The world brings down his double-handed sword with a tremendous blow, but it only blunts itself on the helmet.

III. Consider the helmet with which God would have your head protected.

1. Its Giver. The soldier gets his regimentals from Her Majesty, and from the Monarch Himself we must get our helmets. Those of your own construction are of no use in the battle, and the hope of salvation is not purchasable.

2. Its Maker. Weapons are valued according to the maker; the name of the Holy Ghost is on our helmets. The hope of salvation is His work in the soul. Rest satisfied with none that are made in the workshop of nature.

3. The metal of which it is made. Beware of getting a base hope, a helmet of paltry metal, through which the sword will cleave to your skull.

4. Its strength. It renders its wearer invulnerable in all assaults. Recollect David, when pressed with troubles on every side. Why art thou cast down?…Hope thou in God.

5. It will not come off. It is of main importance to have a headgear that cannot be knocked off in the first scrimmage. So ours must not be a commonplace hope that will fail us in extremity.

6. The old helmets were oiled to make them shine. When God anoints His peoples hope, and gives them the oil of joy, it shines bright in the light of the Saviours countenance.

7. The helmet was the place of honour. The plume was placed in it. The Christians hope is his honour and glory: he must not be ashamed of it.

IV. There are some who have not this helmet. Christ only provides for His own soldiers, but Satan also provides for his. His helmets are also potent ones. Nothing but the sword of the Spirit can cleave them. He has given some a thick headpiece of indifference. What do I care!--that is your helmet. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Hope of salvation

Salvation is hoped for because it is already begun. This hope of salvation is a defence--

1. Because that which we hope for is to be free from sin.

2. Because by this hope the heart is set on higher and nobler things.

3. Because, from the experience of salvation which provides our hope, we know the blessed rewards of salvation from sin.

4. Because heavenly life begun gives power to resist and overcome sin.

5. Because the blessings hoped for out dazzle the allurements of sin, and the delights it promises.

6. Because we know that all we hope for is lost if we yield to sin. (Christian Age.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1 Thessalonians

THE WORK AND ARMOUR OF THE CHILDREN OF THE DAY

1Th 5:8.

This letter to the Thessalonians is the oldest book of the New Testament. It was probably written within something like twenty years of the Crucifixion; long, therefore, before any of the Gospels were in existence. It is, therefore, exceedingly interesting and instructive to notice how this whole context is saturated with allusions to our Lord’s teaching, as it is preserved in these Gospels; and how it takes for granted that the Thessalonian Christians were familiar with the very words.

For instance: ‘Yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night’ {ver. 2}. How did these people in Thessalonica know that? They had been Christians for a year or so only; they had been taught by Paul for a few weeks only, or a month or two at the most. How did they know it? Because they had been told what the Master had said: ‘If the goodman of the house had known at what hour the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up.’

And there are other allusions in the context almost as obvious: ‘The children of the light.’ Who said that? Christ, in His words: ‘The children of this world are wiser than the children of light.’ ‘They that sleep, sleep in the night, and if they be drunken, are drunken in the night.’ Where does that metaphor come from? ‘Take heed lest at any time ye be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and the cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares.’ ‘Watch, lest coming suddenly He find you sleeping!’

So you see all the context reposes upon, and presupposes the very words, which you find in our present existing Gospels, as the words of the Lord Jesus. And this is all but contemporaneous, and quite independent, evidence of the existence in the Church, from the beginning, of a traditional teaching which is now preserved for us in that fourfold record of His life.

Take that remark for what it is worth; and now turn to the text itself with which I have to deal in this sermon. The whole of the context may be said to be a little dissertation upon the moral and religious uses of the doctrine of our Lord’s second coming. In my text these are summed up in one central injunction which has preceding it a motive that enforces it, and following it a method that ensures it. ‘Let us be sober’; that is the centre thought; and it is buttressed upon either side by a motive and a means. ‘Let us who are of the day,’ or ‘since we are of the day,--be sober.’ And let us be it by ‘putting on the breastplate and helmet of faith, love, and hope.’ These, then, are the three points which we have to consider.

I. First, this central injunction, into which all the moral teaching drawn from the second coming of Christ is gathered--’Let us be sober.’

Now, I do not suppose we are altogether to omit any reference to the literal meaning of this word. The context seems to show that, by its reference to night as the season for drunken orgies. Temperance is moderation in regard not only to the evil and swinish sin of drunkenness, which is so manifestly contrary to all Christian integrity and nobility of character, but in regard to the far more subtle temptation of another form of sensual indulgence--gluttony. The Christian Church needed to be warned of that, and if these people in Thessalonica needed the warning I am quite sure that we need it. There is not a nation on earth which needs it more than Englishmen. I am no ascetic, I do not want to glorify any outward observance, but any doctor in England will tell you that the average Englishman eats and drinks a great deal more than is good for him. It is melancholy to think how many professing Christians have the edge and keenness of their intellectual and spiritual life blunted by the luxurious and senseless table-abundance in which they habitually indulge. I am quite sure that water from the spring and barley-bread would be a great deal better for their souls, and for their bodies too, in the case of many people who call themselves Christians. Suffer a word of exhortation, and do not let it be neglected because it is brief and general. Sparta, after all, is the best place for a man to live in, next to Jerusalem.

But, passing from that, let us turn to the higher subject with which the Apostle is here evidently mainly concerned. What is the meaning of the exhortation ‘Be sober’? Well, first let me tell you what I think is not the meaning of it. It does not mean an unemotional absence of fervour in your Christian character.

There is a kind of religious teachers who are always preaching down enthusiasm, and preaching up what they call a ‘sober standard of feeling’ in matters of religion. By which, in nine cases out of ten, they mean precisely such a tepid condition as is described in much less polite language, when the voice from heaven says, ‘Because thou art neither cold nor hot I will spue thee out of My mouth.’ That is the real meaning of the ‘sobriety’ that some people are always desiring you to cultivate. I should have thought that the last piece of furniture which any Christian Church in the twentieth century needed was a refrigerator! A poker and a pair of bellows would be very much more needful for them. For, dear brethren, the truths that you and I profess to believe are of such a nature, so tremendous either in their joyfulness and beauty, or in their solemnity and awfulness, that one would think that if they once got into a man’s head and heart, nothing but the most fervid and continuous glow of a radiant enthusiasm would correspond to their majesty and overwhelming importance. I venture to say that the only consistent Christian is the enthusiastic Christian; and that the only man who will ever do anything in this world for God or man worth doing is the man who is not sober , according to that cold-blooded definition which I have been speaking about, but who is all ablaze with an enkindled earnestness that knows no diminution and no cessation.

Paul, the very man that is exhorting here to sobriety, was the very type of an enthusiast all his life. So Festus thought him mad, and even in the Church at Corinth there were some to whom in his fervour, he seemed to be ‘beside himself’ {2Co 5:13}.

Oh! for more of that insanity! You may make up your minds to this; that any men or women that are in thorough earnest, either about Christianity or about any other great, noble, lofty, self-forgetting purpose, will have to be content to have the old Pentecostal charge flung at them:--’These men are full of new wine!’ Well for the Church, and well for the men who deserve the taunt; for it means that they have learned something of the emotion that corresponds to such magnificent and awful verities as Christian faith converses with.

I did not intend to say so much about that; I turn now for a moment to the consideration of what this exhortation really means. It means, as I take it, mainly this: the prime Christian duty of self-restraint in the use and the love of all earthly treasures and pleasures.

I need not do more than remind you how, in the very make of a man’s soul, it is clear that unless there be exercised rigid self-control he will go all to pieces. The make of human nature, if I may say so, shows that it is not meant for a democracy but a monarchy.

Here are within us many passions, tastes, desires, most of them rooted in the flesh, which are as blind as hunger and thirst are. If a man is hungry, the bread will satisfy him all the same whether he steals it or not; and it will not necessarily be distasteful even if it be poisoned. And there are other blind impulses and appetites in our nature which ask nothing except this:--’Give me my appropriate gratification, though all the laws of God and man be broken in order to get it!’

And so there has to be something like an eye given to these blind beasts, and something like a directing hand laid upon these instinctive impulses. The true temple of the human spirit must be built in stages, the broad base laid in these animal instincts; above them, and controlling them, the directing and restraining will; above it the understanding which enlightens it and them; and supreme over all the conscience with nothing between it and heaven. Where that is not the order of the inner man you get wild work. You have set ‘beggars on horseback,’ and we all know where they go! The man who lets passion and inclination guide is like a steam-boat with all the furnaces banked up, with the engines going full speed, and nobody at the wheel. It will drive on to the rocks, or wherever the bow happens to point, no matter though death and destruction lie beyond the next turn of the screw. That is what you will come to unless you live in the habitual exercise of rigid self-control.

And that self-control is to be exercised mainly, or at least as one very important form of it, in regard to our use and estimate of the pleasures of this present life. Yes! it is not only from the study of a man’s make that the necessity for a very rigid self-government appears, but the observation of the conditions and circumstances in which he is placed points the same lesson. All round about him are hands reaching out to him drugged cups. The world with all its fading sweet comes tempting him, and the old fable fulfils itself--Whoever takes that Circe’s cup and puts it to his lips and quaffs deep, turns into a swine, and sits there imprisoned at the feet of the sorceress for evermore!

There is only one thing that will deliver you from that fate, my brother. ‘Be sober,’ and in regard to the world and all that it offers to us--all joy, possession, gratification--’set a knife to thy throat if thou be a man given to appetite.’ There is no noble life possible on any other terms--not to say there is no Christian life possible on any other terms--but suppression and mortification of the desires of the flesh and of the spirit. You cannot look upwards and downwards at the same moment. Your heart is only a tiny room after all, and if you cram it full of the world, you relegate your Master to the stable outside. ‘Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.’ ‘Be sober,’ says Paul, then, and cultivate the habit of rigid self-control in regard to this present. Oh! what a melancholy, solemn thought it is that hundreds of professing Christians in England, like vultures after a full meal, have so gorged themselves with the garbage of this present life that they cannot fly, and have to be content with moving along the ground, heavy and languid. Christian men and women, are you keeping yourselves in spiritual health by a very sparing use of the dainties and delights of earth? Answer the question to your own souls and to your Judge.

II. And now let me turn to the other thoughts that lie here. There is, secondly, a motive which backs up and buttresses this exhortation. ‘Let us who are of the day’--or as the Revised Version has it a little more emphatically and correctly, ‘Let us, since we are of the day, be sober.’

‘The day’; what day? The temptation is to answer the question by saying--’of course the specific day which was spoken about in the beginning of the section, "the day of the Lord," that coming judgment by the coming Christ.’ But I think that although, perhaps, there may be some allusion here to that specific day, still, if you will look at the verses which immediately precede my text, you will see that in them the Apostle has passed from the thought of ‘the day of the Lord’ to that of day in general. That is obvious, I think, from the contrast he draws between the ‘day’ and the ‘night,’ the darkness and the light. If so, then, when he says ‘the children of the day’ he does not so much mean--though that is quite true--that we are, as it were, akin to that day of judgment, and may therefore look forward to it without fear, and in quiet confidence, lifting up our heads because our redemption draws nigh; but rather he means that Christians are the children of that which expresses knowledge, and joy, and activity. Of these things the day is the emblem, in every language and in every poetry. The day is the time when men see and hear, the symbol of gladness and cheer all the world over.

And so, says Paul, you Christian men and women belong to a joyous realm, a realm of light and knowledge, a realm of purity and righteousness. You are children of the light; a glad condition which involves many glad and noble issues. Children of the light should be brave, children of the light should not be afraid of the light, children of the light should be cheerful, children of the light should be buoyant, children of the light should be transparent, children of the light should be hopeful, children of the light should be pure, and children of the light should walk in this darkened world, bearing their radiance with them; and making things, else unseen, visible to many a dim eye.

But while these emblems of cheerfulness, hope, purity, and illumination are gathered together in that grand name--’Ye are the children of the day,’ there is one direction especially in which the Apostle thinks that that consideration ought to tell, and that is the direction of self-restraint. ‘ Noblesse oblige! ‘--the aristocracy are bound to do nothing low or dishonourable. The children of the light are not to stain their hands with anything foul. Chambering and wantonness, slumber and drunkenness, the indulgence in the appetites of the flesh,--all that may be fitting for the night, it is clean incongruous with the day.

Well, if you want that turned into pedestrian prose--which is no more clear, but a little less emotional--it is just this: You Christian men and women belong--if you are Christians--to another state of things from that which is lying round about you; and, therefore, you ought to live in rigid abstinence from these things that are round about you.

That is plain enough surely, nor do I suppose that I need to dwell on that thought at any length. We belong to another order of things, says Paul; we carry a day with us in the midst of the night. What follows from that? Do not let us pursue the wandering lights and treacherous will-o’-the-wisps that lure men into bottomless bogs where they are lost. If we have light in our dwellings whilst Egypt lies in darkness, let it teach us to eat our meat with our loins girded, and our staves in our hands, not without bitter herbs, and ready to go forth into the wilderness. You do not belong to the world in which you live, if you are Christian men and women; you are only camped here. Your purposes, thoughts, hopes, aspirations, treasures, desires, delights, go up higher. And so, if you are children of the day, be self-restrained in your dealings with the darkness.

III. And, last of all, my text points out for us a method by which this great precept may be fulfilled:--’Putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and for an helmet the hope of salvation.’

That, of course, is the first rough draft occurring in Paul’s earliest Epistle, of an image which recurs at intervals, and in more or less expanded form in other of his letters, and is so splendidly worked out in detail in the grand picture of the Christian armour in the Epistle to the Ephesians.

I need not do more than just remind you of the difference between that finished picture and this outline sketch. Here we have only defensive and not offensive armour, here the Christian graces are somewhat differently allocated to the different parts of the armour. Here we have only the great triad of Christian graces, so familiar on our lips--faith, hope, charity. Here we have faith and love in the closest possible juxtaposition, and hope somewhat more apart. The breastplate, like some of the ancient hauberks, made of steel and gold, is framed and forged out of faith and love blended together, and faith and love are more closely identified in fact than faith and hope, or than love and hope. For faith and love have the same object--and are all but contemporaneous. Wherever a man lays hold of Jesus Christ by faith, there cannot but spring up in his heart love to Christ; and there is no love without faith. So that we may almost say that faith and love are but the two throws of the shuttle, the one in the one direction and the other in the other; whereas hope comes somewhat later in a somewhat remoter connection with faith, and has a somewhat different object from these other two. Therefore it is here slightly separated from its sister graces. Faith, love, hope--these three form the defensive armour that guard the soul; and these three make self-control possible. Like a diver in his dress, who is let down to the bottom of the wild, far-weltering ocean, a man whose heart is girt by faith and charity, and whose head is covered with the helmet of hope, may be dropped down into the wildest sea of temptation and of worldliness, and yet will walk dry and unharmed through the midst of its depths, and breathe air that comes from a world above the restless surges.

And in like manner the cultivation of faith, charity, and hope is the best means for securing the exercise of sober self-control.

It is an easy thing to say to a man, ‘Govern yourself!’ It is a very hard thing with the powers that any man has at his disposal to do it. As somebody said about an army joining the rebels, ‘It’s a bad job when the extinguisher catches fire!’ And that is exactly the condition of things in regard to our power of self-government. The powers that should control are largely gone over to the enemy, and become traitors.

‘Who shall keep the very keepers?’ is the old question, and here is the answer:--You cannot execute the gymnastic feat of ‘erecting yourself above yourself’ any more than a man can take himself by his own coat collar and lift himself up from the ground with his own arms. But you can cultivate faith, hope, and charity, and these three, well cultivated and brought to bear upon your daily life, will do the governing for you. Faith will bring you into communication with all the power of God. Love will lead you into a region where all the temptations round you will be touched as by an Ithuriel spear, and will show their foulness. And hope will turn away your eyes from looking at the tempting splendours around, and fix them upon the glories that are above.

And so the reins will come into your hands in an altogether new manner, and you will be able to be king over your own nature in a fashion that you did not dream of before, if only you will trust in Christ, and love Him, and fix your desires on the things above.

Then you will be able to govern yourself when you let Christ govern you. The glories that are to be done away, that gleam round you like foul, flaring tallow-candles, will lose all their fascination and brightness, by reason of the glory that excelleth, the pure starlike splendour of the white inextinguishable lights of heaven.

And when by faith, charity, and hope you have drunk of the new wine of the kingdom, the drugged and opiate cup which a sorceress world presents, jewelled though it be, will lose its charms, and it will not be hard to turn from it and dash it to the ground.

God help you, brother, to be ‘sober,’ for unless you are ‘you cannot see the kingdom of God!’

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

5:8 Armor . . . helmet (Isa 59:17; Eph 6:11-17): The armament is the moral life (Rom 13:12; 2 Cor 6:7; 10:3-5; 2 Tim 2:3-4). The Christian soldier is equipped with the virtues of faith, love, and confidence (see 1 Thes 1:3; 3:6; 1 Cor 13:13; 2 Thes 1:3-4).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

1Th 5:8. Ἐλπίδα σωτηρίας, the hope of salvation) Refer to this the next verse.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Th_5:8. The apostle passes over to a new image, whilst he, as the proper preparation for watchfulness and sobriety, requires the putting on of the Christians spiritual armour, with the help of which they are in a condition victoriously to repel all the assaults of internal and external enemies.[62] The apostle delights to represent the Christian under the image of a warrior; comp. 2Co_10:4 ff.; Rom_6:13; Rom_13:12; and especially Eph_6:11 ff. Here the transition to this new image was very easily occasioned either by the expression ἡμέρα, 1Th_5:5, inasmuch as in the day one is not only watchful, but also completely clothed; or by the idea of γρηγορεῖν, 1Th_5:6, inasmuch as whoever watches must also be provided with weapons. Whilst in Eph_6:11 ff. not only weapons of defence, but also of offence are mentioned, the apostle here names only weapons of the first description. He designates as weapons the three principal parts of the Christian lifefaith, love, and hope; comp. 1Th_1:3 and 1Co_13:13.

πίστεως καὶ ἀγάπης] are genitives of apposition. πίστις and ἀγάπη do not import trust in God and Christ, and in connection with it love to Him and to our fellow-men, and to our fellow-Christians (Flatt); but the first is faith in Christ as the Redeemer, and the latter love to our neighbour. The πίστις and the ἀγάπη are a θώραξ, a coat of mail (comp. Isa_59:17; Wis_5:19), i.e. they protect the Christians heart against the influences of evil, even as a coat of mail protects the breast of the earthly warrior.

καὶ περικεφαλαίαν ἐλπίδα σωτηρίας] and as a helmet the hope of salvation. This hope of eternal salvation is so much the more a powerful protection against all the attacks and allurements to evil, as it by means of a reference to a future better world sustains our courage amidst trial and tribulation, and communicates strength to stedfast endurance.

The helmet is already in Isa_59:17 represented as a symbol of victory.

[62] This design of the armour is evident from the context. Schraders objection to the words, that Paul elsewhere only speaks of an arming against evil in order to overcome it, is therefore without meaning.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Th 5:8 . ἐνδυσάμενοι θώρακα κ . τ . λ ., the thought of 1Th 2:12-13 ; the mutual love of Christians, which forms the practical expression of their faith in God, is their true fitness and equipment for the second advent. Faith and love are a unity; where the one goes the other follows. They are also not merely their own coat of mail, requiring no extraneous protection, but the sole protection of life against indolence, indifference and indulgence. They need simply to be used. If they are not used, they are lost, and with them the Christian himself. The transition to the military metaphor is mediated (as in Rom 13:12-13 ) by the idea of the sentry’s typical vigilance.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

We must fight with faith and hope, much less ought we lie carelessly snorting.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Faith, hope, and love, are the three pre-eminent graces (Th1 1:3; Co1 13:13). We must not only be awake and sober, but also armed; not only watchful, but also guarded. The armor here is only defensive; in Eph 6:13-17, also offensive. Here, therefore, the reference is to the Christian means of being guarded against being surprised by the day of the Lord as a thief in the night. The helmet and breastplate defend the two vital parts, the head and the heart respectively. "With head and heart right, the whole man is right" [EDMUNDS]. The head needs to be kept from error, the heart from sin. For "the breastplate of righteousness," Eph 6:14, we have here "the breastplate of faith and love"; for the righteousness which is imputed to man for justification, is "faith working by love" (Rom 4:3, Rom 4:22-24; Gal 5:6). "Faith," as the motive within, and "love," exhibited in outward acts, constitute the perfection of righteousness. In Eph 6:17 the helmet is "salvation"; here, "the hope of salvation." In one aspect "salvation" is a present possession (Joh 3:36; Joh 5:24; Jo1 5:13); in another, it is a matter of "hope" (Rom 8:24-25). Our Head primarily wore the "breastplate of righteousness" and "helmet of salvation," that we might, by union with Him, receive both.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 8. Putting on the breastplate] We are not only called to WORK, but we are called also to fight; and that we may not be surprised, we must watch; and that we may be in a condition to defend ourselves, we must be sober; and that we may be enabled to conquer, we must be armed: and what the breastplate and helmet are to a soldier's heart and head, such are faith, love, and hope to us. Faith enables us to endure, as seeing him who is invisible; love excites us to diligence and activity, and makes us bear our troubles and difficulties pleasantly; hope helps us to anticipate the great end, the glory that shall be revealed, and which we know we shall in due time obtain, if we faint not. For an explanation of the different parts of the Grecian armour, as illustrating that of the Christian, see the notes on Eph. 6, where the subject is largely explained.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

8 Having put on the breastplate. He adds this, that he may the more effectually shake us out of our stupidity, for he calls us as it were to arms, that he may shew that it is not a time to sleep. It is true that he does not make use of the term war; but when he arms us with a breastplate and a helmet, he admonishes us that we must maintain a warfare. Whoever, therefore, is afraid of being surprised by the enemy, must keep awake, that he may be constantly on watch. As, therefore, he has exhorted to vigilance, on the ground that the doctrine of the gospel is like the light of day, so he now stirs us up by another argument — that we must wage war with our enemy. From this it follows, that idleness is too hazardous a thing. For we see that soldiers, though in other situations they may be intemperate, do nevertheless, when the enemy is near, from fear of destruction, refrain from gluttony and all bodily delights, and are diligently on watch so as to be upon their guard. As, therefore, Satan is on the alert against us, and tries a thousand schemes, we ought at least to be not less diligent and watchful.

It is, however, in vain, that some seek a more refined exposition of the names of the kinds of armor, for Paul speaks here in a different way from what he does in Ephesians 6:14 for there he makes righteousness the breastplate. This, therefore, will suffice for understanding his meaning, that he designs to teach, that the life of Christians is like a perpetual warfare, inasmuch as Satan does not cease to trouble and molest them. He would have us, therefore, be diligently prepared and on the alert for resistance: farther, he admonishes us that we have need of arms, because unless we be well armed we cannot withstand so powerful an enemy. He does not, however, enumerate all the parts of armor, (πανοπλίαν,) but simply makes mention of two, the breastplate and the helmet. In the mean time, he omits nothing of what belongs to spiritual armor, for the man that is provided with faith, love, and hope, will be found in no department unarmed.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(8) Putting on.—A curiously abrupt transition, suggested by the sober vigilance just advocated. The Christian must be careful to watch, not only because the Lord is coming back at some unexpected hour, but also because there are enemies all round. He is not only the porter, sitting up to let his Lord in at any hour when He may return from the wedding (Mar_13:34; Luk_12:36), but the soldier standing sentry, liable to be surprised by the foe.

Breastplate of faith and love.—We have not to do with the Christian soldier as aggressive and going forth to conquer, which idea is developed in Eph_6:11 et seq., but only as defensive, and protected in breast and head against sudden blows. The three “theological virtues” are the Christian’s defence. (Comp. 1Th_1:3; 1Co_13:13.) The “breastplate” is a cuirass fitting close to the body, and in Ephesians this cuirass is composed of righteousness, while faith becomes the shield, and love disappears from the panoply. The “faith” here is a general trust in God’s presence and goodness; the “love” is the love both of God and men. Perhaps it is unnecessary to inquire particularly why faith and love are represented as covering the body, and hope as covering the head. It seems far-fetched to consider the first two as keeping the heart, i.e., the affections, from injury; the third as preserving the brain, i.e., keeping us from miscalculating the dangers and so falling into despair. In the passage of Isaiah which St. Paul here imitates, the “helmet of salvation” appears to mean little more than a helmet which secures safety; but as one of the chief benefits which such armour confers is the confident hope of coming off unhurt, St. Paul fairly describes that hope itself as being a protection. In the forefront of the lost (Rev_21:8) stand those who have had no “hope” or “trust.”

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

8. But let us, who are of the day, be sober] Better, since we are of the day (R. V.); comp. notes on “sober” (1Th_5:6), and “day” (1Th_5:5).

Watchfulness has been sufficiently urged already. The Apostle now reiterates the other half of the appeal made in 1Th_5:6 : “let us be sober.”

putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for a helmet, the hope of salvation] The daylight rouses the soldier to action. If he has slept, with the dawn he is awake and alert; if he has spent the night in carousals, he is instantly sobered. The things of darkness are dismissed and forgotten. At the bugle-call he starts up, he dons his armour and is ready for the field. In Rom_13:12-13 the same figure is still more graphically applied: “Let us put off the works of darkness—revellings, drunkenness, and the like”—loose and shameful garments of the night—“and let us put on the armour of light … Let us walk in the day, becomingly.” Comp., for the military style of the passage, ch. 1Th_4:16, and notes.

In the later passage parallel to this, Eph_6:13-17, the Christian armour, “the panoply of God,” is set forth in greater detail and somewhat differently. “Breastplate” and “helmet” make up this picture, “being the two chief pieces of defensive armour, that protect the two most vital parts of the body. “The breastplate of faith and love” guards the heart, the centre of life and spring of the body’s forces; and to this quarter “faith and love” are naturally assigned. What belongs to “breastplate” here, is virtually divided between “shield” and “breastplate” in Ephesians.—The “helmet” is the same in both Epistles: there consisting of “salvation,” here “the hope of salvation,” in accordance with the fact that Hope is the dominant key-note of this Epistle (see ch. 1Th_1:3, and note). The fitness of this metaphor lies in the place of the helmet as the crown of the soldier’s armour, its brightest and most conspicuous feature, covering the head, the part of his person that most invites attack. The simile, in both Epistles, is based on Isa_59:17, where the Lord appears “putting on righteousness as a breastplate” and “an helmet of salvation upon His head,” as He goes forth to fight for His people.

Observe again the Apostle’s favourite combination, Faith, Love, Hope, in the same order as in ch. 1Th_1:3 (see notes); also in 2Th_1:3-4. As we might expect, “hope the helmet” is that on which he is here most disposed to dwell. Accordingly he continues—

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

But let us, who are of the day, be sober,.... As in body, so in mind; let us cast off the works of darkness, and have no fellowship with them; since the day of grace has passed upon us, the darkness is gone, and the true light shines, let us walk as children of the light, living soberly, righteously, and godly:

putting on the breastplate of faith and love; this is the coat of mail, Sa1 17:5 which was made of iron or brass; and the Ethiopic version here calls it, "the iron coat." The allusion seems to be to the high priest's breastplate of judgment, in which were put the Thummim and Urim, which signify perfections and lights; faith may answer to the former, and love to the latter: these two graces go together, faith works by love, and love always accompanies faith; as there can be no true faith where there is no love, so there is no true love where faith is wanting: "faith" is a considerable part of the Christian soldier's breastplate, and answers the end of a breastplate, it being that grace which preserves the vitals of religion, and keeps all warm and comfortable within; and secures the peace and joy of the saints, as it has to do with Christ and his righteousness; wherefore this breastplate is called "the breastplate of righteousness", Eph 6:14, it fortifies the soul, and preserves it from Satan's temptations, from his fiery darts entering, and doing the mischief they would; it defends the heart against the errors of the wicked, for a man that believes has a witness in himself to the truths of the Gospel, and therefore cannot be easily moved from them; and strengthens a man against the carnal reasonings of the mind, for faith in the promises of God surmounts all the difficulties that reason objects to the fulfilling of them; and secures from the fears of death, the terrors of the law, and dread of the wrath of God: and love is the other part of the breast plate; love to God and Christ is a means of keeping the believer sound both in faith and practice; for a soul that truly loves God and Christ cannot give in to principles that depreciate the grace of God, and derogate from the glory and dignity of the person and office of Christ, or the work of the Spirit; and such love the ordinances and commands of Christ, and hate every false way of worship, or invention of men; and love to the saints is the bond of perfectness, knits them together, preserves unity and peace, and fortifies against the common enemy:

and for an helmet, the hope of salvation; the helmet is that part of armour which covers the head, and was made of brass, Sa1 17:5 and used to be anointed with oil, that it might shine the brighter, last the longer, and more easily repel blows; to which this grace of the Spirit, hope of salvation by Christ, is fitly compared: for by "salvation" is meant salvation by Christ, spiritual salvation, and that as complete in heaven; and hope is a grace wrought in the soul by the spirit of God, which has for its foundation Christ and his righteousness, and for its object the heavenly glory; it covers the head in the day of battle, and preserves from being overcome by sin and Satan, when one that is destitute of it says there is no hope, and we will walk every man after the imagination of his own evil heart; it erects the head in time of difficulty, amidst tribulation and afflictions; it defends it from fears of divine wrath which is revealed from heaven, and sometimes in appearance seems to hang over it; and it preserves from Satan's temptations, and being carried away with the error of the wicked, from the hope of the Gospel: and thus a Christian clothed and armed with these graces, faith, hope, and love, should be so far from indulging himself in sin and sloth, that he ought always to be sober and watchful, and prepared to meet the enemy in the gate; and be ready, always waiting for his Lord's coming.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

8 But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.

Ver. 8. Be sober] Drunkenness misbeseemeth any man, but especially a saint; for it robs him of himself, and lays a beast in his room.

Putting on the breastplate of faith and love] Faith is the forepart of this breastplate, whereby we embrace Christ, and love the hinder part thereof, whereby we embosom the saints.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

But let us, who are of the day, be sober - Temperate, as people usually are in the daytime.

Putting on the breast-plate of faith and love - This is a favorite comparison of the apostle Paul; see it explained at length in the notes on Eph 6:14.

And for an helmet, the hope of salvation - See the notes at Eph 6:17.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The Christian’s panoply is not faith alone, but faith, hope and charity, as we see here.

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

The apostle here commands two spiritual duties, and the former is sobriety; which he mentioned before, 1Th 5:6, as a preparation for Christ’s coming; but here, as that which was suitable to their present state, and as standing opposite to that drunkenness in the foregoing verse. It is not sufficient to abstain from vice, without practising the contrary virtue. The other duty is, putting on their spiritual armour. The former was to secure them against the good things of the world, the latter against the evil of it, that they be not overcome of either. The armour he mentions is spiritual. Soldiers have their breastplate and helmet for their bodies, so hath the Christian these for his soul. As the breastplate and helmet secure the principal seats of the natural life, the head and the heart, so doth the Christian’s armour secure the life of the soul, and therefore these two pieces are only mentioned, as being most necessary. His breastplate is faith and love.

First, faith; in Eph 6:16, it is called a shield; here, a breastplate. Great things are ascribed to faith in Scripture; it is that whereby we are justified, adopted, united to Christ, have our hearts purified, &c.; but here it is to be considered as a defensive grace; and it doth defend as it assents to the doctrine of the gospel as true, particularly the doctrine of the resurrection, and the coming of Christ, with the effects and attendants thereof, before mentioned. And as it doth depend upon God’s faithfulness and all-sufficiency to perform his promises, and applying them to ourselves for our support and comfort, so faith is a breastplate or defence; and as it is a defence against temptations, so particularly against that sudden destruction that will come upon the secure world, before mentioned.

Secondly, love; and love is joined with faith to show it to be a true and lively faith, when it worketh by love, Gal 5:6; and love, when it worketh, produceth many blessed effects, and particularly, as faith it will be a breastplate of defence. It will defend against the persecutions and afflictions of the world: Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it, Son 8:7. Slavish fear will overcome us if we want love to defend against it, when true religion is under disgrace and persecuted in the world: love will defend against apostacy, and so help us to persevere to the coming of Christ, which the apostle had been speaking of; and love being seated in the heart, is well compared to a breastplate that encompasseth the heart.

Thirdly, the other piece of armour is the helmet, so called in the Greek from encompassing the head; and this helmet is here said to be the hope of salvation. In Eph 6:17, we read of the helmet of salvation, but the hope of it is there to be understood, for salvation is no grace of the Spirit, and so, of itself, no part of a Christian’s armour. Hope of salvation is of great use to a Christian many ways: it is a cordial to comfort him, a spur to quicken him, a staff to support him, a bridle to restrain him, and so also a helmet to defend him: and therefore no wonder that the apostle calls true hope a lively hope, 1Pe 1:3. And as itself is lively, so it is a defence to the life of the soul, as a helmet is to the life of the body.

Hope deferred maketh the heart sick, saith Solomon; but if quite disappointed and lost, the heart sinks and dies. Let afflictions and distresses break in like a flood, yet hope will keep the head above water; and if Satan assault the soul to drive it into despair, this hope of salvation will be a defence to it. So that the Christian’s armour mentioned in this verse are faith, love, and hope, which divines call the three theological graces, and placed together by the apostle, 1Co 13:13. And these the saints, who are children of the day, are to put on, whereby they shall be armed for the coming of Christ with this armour of light, Rom 13:12, and against the destruction which will then surprise the children of the night.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

8. Day… sober… breastplate—Not only must the sons of the day be wakeful and sober, but as soldiers or sentinels they must be clad in armour. St. Paul gives an armour in full, a panoply, in Eph_6:11, etc. The armour here is simply defensive.

Breastplate of faith and love—Since faith in Christ, working love in the breast, is truly the best defence against tempting or menacing sin and evil.

A helmet, the hope of salvation—That hope lifts up the head toward heaven, and wards off all the power of the blows inflicted by Satan and this world. Sorrow loses its power to weigh down; anticipations of coming evil are neutralized; infidel despair of immortality is dispersed, when the hope of salvation makes strong our head, as faith and love have confirmed our heart.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

But; contrast to the conduct of those who are of the night: let us not only be watchful, but armed. The apostle now adopts a favorite figure, that of spiritual armor. The arms which he here mentions are only two the breastplate to protect the heart, and the helmet to guard the head; they are both defensive weapons, because the reference here is not so much to the believer"s conflict with evil, as to his defense against surprise. And by these spiritual weapons are denoted the three cardinal graces faith, love, and hope. (1Th_1:3) Let us who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love. By "faith" is here meant faith in Christ; and by "love," not so much love to God as love to man. These preserve the heart of a Christian against the assaults and influences of evil, as the breastplate guards the heart of the earthly warrior. And for a helmet, the hope of salvation. Salvation in its most comprehensive sense. The hope of salvation sustains our courage amid all the trials of life by holding out to us the prospect of eternal blessedness. Vigilance is of no avail unless armed by faith, hope, and love. In the Epistle to the Ephesians there is a still fuller enumeration of the Christian armor; (Eph_6:14-18) and there is a slight difference in the description of the weapons. Here the apostle speaks of the breastplate of faith and love; there of the breastplate of righteousness and of the shield of faith. Here the helmet is called the hope of salvation; there the apostle speaks of the helmet of salvation. And besides these defensive weapons, other weapons of defense and the sword, a weapon of offence, are mentioned. Spiritual armor.

We must not only be watchful, but be armed sentinels. To guard against surprise we must especially provide ourselves with two defensive weapons.

1. The breastplate of faith and love. By faith in Christ and love to man we shall effectually preserve our hearts against evil influences. Faith imparts courage, and love preserves us from selfishness, the great inlet to evil. The stronger and the more living our faith, and the purer and the more active our love, the more completely shall we be guarded against evil.

2. The helmet of the hope of salvation. By "the hope of salvation" we shall preserve our head from being filled with the idle dreams of worldly happiness, whether of power or fame. Hope will defend us from being seduced by the world"s pleasures or allured by the world"s honors.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

salvation

(See Scofield "Rom 1:16").

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

But let us, since we are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for a helmet, the hope of salvation . [The idea that the thief comes in the night as set forth in verse 2 suggests the thought that those that live in the night must find it hard to guard against him. But those who live in a perpetual day are not easily surprised by a thief. Now, the Christians, being enlightened as to the Lord's coming, lived in such a perpetual day; in fact, to use a Hebraism, they were "sons" of the light and of the day; i. e., they belonged to the day. There was no need, therefore, that their spiritual faculties should be asleep. Day is no time for such sleep, and those that dwelt in it should find it easy to watch and be sober and wear their armor as good soldiers, while those who dwelt in the night would find it hard to keep awake, to keep sober, or to wear armor. It was common in the East for people to be drunken in the night-time, as they were ashamed to be seen intoxicated in the daylight ( Act_2:15 ). The nights of the Greeks and Romans were given to revelry, and it was counted an especial mark of profligacy to be drunken in the daytime ( 2Pe_2:13 ). Polybius emphasized the abandoned condition of a drunkard by saying, "Even by day he was often conspicuous to his friends, drunk."]

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

8–11. Putting on the breastplate of faith and love. The exhortation to the soldierly duties of watchfulness and sobriety suggests the thought of a sentinel and his armor. Compare Eph. 6:11–17. There the shield of faith is spoken of; here the breastplate. Both were for the defense of the body. Nothing will better protect the heart from evil thoughts and keep us watching than faith and love. And for an helmet, the hope of salvation. See notes on Eph. 6:17. What a power to protect, a blessed hope of salvation through Christ!

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

General Information:

In verses 8-10 the word "we" refers to all believers. (See: Inclusive "We")

we belong to the day

Paul speaks of knowing the truth about God as belonging to the day. AT: "we know the truth" or "we have received the light of truth" (See: Metaphor)

we must stay sober

Paul compares being sober to exercising self-control. AT: "let us exercise self-control" (See: Metaphor)

put on faith and love as a breastplate

As a soldier would put on a breastplate to protect his body, a believer who lives by faith and love will find protection. AT: "protect ourselves with faith and love" or "protect ourselves by trusting Christ and loving him" (See: Metaphor)

the hope of salvation for our helmet

As a helmet protects a soldier's head, assurance of salvation protects the believer. AT: "protect ourselves by being certain that Christ will save us" (See: Metaphor)

whether we are awake or asleep

These are polite ways of saying alive or dead. AT: "whether we are alive or dead" (See: Euphemism)

build each other up

Here "build" is a metaphor that means encourage. AT: "encourage each other" (See: Metaphor)

translationWords

son

breastplate

faith

love

save

God

destine

wrath

lord

Jesus

comfort

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

8. ἡμεῖς δὲ ἡμέρας ὄντες νήφωμεν: but let us, since we are of the day (not qui diei sumus, Vulg., &c., as if οἱ … ὄντες; but quum diei simus), be sober. The νήφω of 1Th 5:6 is resumed, with the added force gathered from 1Th 5:7, and to be supported by the participial clauses that follow. “As the metaphor of sleep is applied to the careless and indifferent, so that of drunkenness to the reckless and profligate. The one is to the other as positive to negative sin” (Lightfoot): νήφωμεν forbids everything wild or unbridled (cf. ἐκνήψατε in 1Co 15:34). The simile of the sequel identifies the Christian’s “soberness” with that of the soldier under arms and on guard, in whom drunkenness, or sleep, would be a crime. The same association of thought appears in Rom 13:12, and again in 1Pe 1:13,—ἀναζωσάμενοι … νήφοντες τελείως ἐλπίσατε κ.τ.λ.

ἐνδυσάμενοι θώρακα πίστεως καὶ ἀγάπης, καὶ περικεφαλαίαν ἐλπίδα σωτηρίας: putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and (by way of) helmet the hope of salvation. The aorist partic. attached to the cohortative present specifies an act that forms a part of the exhortation: νήφωμεν enjoins a state; ἐνδυσάμενοι an act belonging to the state, and that goes to determine and characterize it. The daylight rouses the soldier: if he has slept, with the dawn he is awake and alert; if he has spent the night in carousals, he is instantly sobered; at the bugle-call he dons his armour, and steps out to his post vigilant and steady. In Rom 13:12 f. the same figure is still more graphically applied. Cf., for the military style of the passage, 1Th 4:16 and notes. The θώραξ κ.τ.λ. form the day-dress of the Christian warrior. Πίστεως καὶ ἀγάπης, genitives of apposition. “Veluti ad arma conclamat, ut ostendat non esse dormiendi tempus. Belli quidem nomen subticet; verum dum nos armat thorace et galea, proeliandum esse admonet” (Calvin). The armour-simile (cf. 2Co 6:7; 2Co 10:4 ff; Rom 6:13; Rom 13:12; Eph 6:11 ff.) is not original in St Paul, but only its application and working out. Its use is based, doubtless, on Isa 59:17 (LXX): ἐνεδύσατο δικαιοσύνην ὡς θώρακα, καὶ περιέθετο περικεφαλαίαν σωτηρίου ἐπὶ τῆς κεφαλῆς; cf. also Wis 5:19; Bar 5:2. In Isaiah God is the warrior, girding Himself to fight for the salvation of His people.

St Paul developes the above image with greater completeness, and somewhat differently, in a much later passage, Eph 6:13-17. He thinks here only of defensive weapons—breastplate and helmet—since the soldier is guarding himself against surprise. “The breastplate of faith and love” protects the heart, the centre of life and spring of the vital forces; to this quarter Faith and Love are assigned. These virtues are divided in Ephesians between “shield” and “breastplate.” The “helmet” is alike in both passages—there styled “salvation,” here the “hope of salvation,” Hope being a key-note of this Epistle. For this last defence the next two verses supply the ground. The correspondence of “hope” with the “helmet” lies in the place of the helmet as the crown of the soldier’s armour, its brightest and most conspicuous piece, covering the head which invites attack; cf. 1Th 2:19, where ἐλπίς is associated with στέφανος καυχήσεως; also Rom 5:2; Heb 3:6. Hope is held high, and shines out.

Σωτηρία (cf. σώζω, 1Th 2:16) embraces, in St Paul and the N.T., the entire well-being that the Gospel brings (2Th 2:13 f.; Eph 1:13), both to the individual man and to the world. It is identified specifically with its two essential elements or moments—of ἄφεσις ἁμαρτιῶν (Luk 1:77, &c.), and of deliverance from the grave and from the condemnation of the Last Day (Php 1:19; 2Ti 2:10; 1Pe 1:5, &c.): in the synonymous ἀπολύτρωσις this double reference is conspicuous; see Eph 1:7; Eph 1:14. Σωτηρία here stands opposed to ὀργή, as in Rom 1:16-18; Rom 5:9, since the present salvation from sin effected in believers by God’s “grace,” and realized in “forgiveness” (Eph 1:7; Eph 1:13; Eph 3:1-8), gives assurance of eventual salvation from sin’s future penalties and fatal consequences in another world (Rom 5:9 f., Rom 6:22 f., &c.).

Faith, love, hope—the Apostle’s triad of graces; see notes on 1Th 1:3. “Faith” is directed especially toward God and Christ (1Th 1:9, 1Th 4:14; 1Jn 5:4 f., &c.), “love” toward one’s neighbour (1Th 4:9 f.; 2Th 1:3, &c.); “hope” concerns oneself. Ἐλπίς seems here to be the μείζων τούτων (cf. 1Co 13:13).

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

8.] Contrast (δέ) of our course, who are of the day. And this not only in being awake and sober, but in being armed—not only watchful, but as sentinels, on our guard, and guarded ourselves. Notice, that these arms are defensive only, as against a sudden attack—and belong therefore not so much to the Christian’s conflict with evil, as (from the context) to his guard against being surprised by the day of the Lord as a thief in the night. The best defences against such a surprise are the three great Christian graces, Faith, Hope, Love,—which are accordingly here enumerated: see ch. 1:3, and 1Co 13:13. In Eph 6:13-17, we have offensive as well as defensive weapons, and the symbolism is somewhat varied, the θώραξ being δικαιοσύνη, πίστις being the θυρεός; while the helmet remains the same. See on the figure, Isa 59:17; Wisd. 5:17 ff. We must not perhaps press minutely the meaning of each part of the armour, in the presence of such variation in the two passages.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

8. ἡμεῖς δὲ ἡμέρας κτλ The emphasis on νυκτό (v. 7), already implied in vv. 2, 4-6, prepares for the contrast here, δε being adversative by context, and for the exhortation. Sleep and drunkenness are the affairs of those who belong to the night; “but let us, since we belong not to night (the realm of evil), but to day (the future glory; cf. v. 5), be sober.”

ἐνδυσάμενοι κτλ “It is not sufficient to watch and be sober, we must also be armed” (Chrys.). “Perhaps the mention of vigilance suggested the idea of a sentry armed and on duty” (Lft. who compares Rom 13:11 ff.). As in 1:3, Paul describes the Christian life on the religious side as faith and on the ethical side as love, and singles out for special remark the moral quality of hope; hence to the breastplate he adds the helmet, the hope for future salvation, thus giving to conduct an eschatological sanction.

One is reminded here and even more strongly in Eph 6:14 of Isa 59:17: καὶ ἐνεδύσατο δικαιοσύνη (cf. Job 29:14) ὡς θώρακ (cf. Sap. 5:18) καὶ περιέθετο περικεφάλαιαν οωτηρίου ἐπὶ τῆ The figure, however, is natural to Paul (cf. Rom 13:12 ἐνδυσώμεθα τὰ ὅπλα τοῦ φωτό and Eph 6:11 ἐνδύσασθε τὴν πανοπλίαν τοῦ θεου). The purpose of the armour, tacit here but expressed in Eph 6:11, is probably: πρὸς τὸ δύνασθαι ὑμᾶς στῆναι πρὸς τὰς μεθοδίας τοῦ διαβόλο, the Satan who, as an angel of darkness, transforms himself into an ἄγγελος φωτό (2Co 11:14). ἐνδύεσθα, a common word in Lxx, is used metaphorically by Paul with various objects (cf. Gal 3:27, 1Co 15:53 ff. Rom 13:14, Col 3:12, Eph 4:24). The aorist part. is of identical action (BMT 139). θώραξ here and Eph 6:14 in Paul, is quite frequent in Gk. Bib. (cf. ἐνδύεσθαι θώρακ 1 Reg. 17:5, Jer 26:4, Eze 38:4, Eze 38:1 Mal 3:3). περικεφάλαι, in N. T. only here and Eph 6:17, is literal in Lxx except Isa 59:17. On the complete armour of the hastati, see Polyb. VI, 23. The gen. πίστεω and ἀγάπη are appositional.

ἐλπίδα σωτηρία. Salvation is both negatively freedom from wrath (cf. 1:10) and positively fellowship with Christ, as vv. 9-10 declare. Since σωτηρί is an eschatological conception (cf. Rom 13:11), something to be acquired (v. 9), Paul says not σωτηρία but ἐλπίδα σωτηρία (objective gen. as 1:3, Rom 5:2, Col 1:27).

The significance of this exhortation to hope lies in the conviction that without blamelessness of life (3:13) even believers cannot escape the judgment (cf. Rom 14:10, 2Co 5:10). To be sure, as Paul forthwith encourages the faint-hearted to remember (vv. 9-10), this hope is virtually certain of realisation.

Here and v. 9, he speaks generally of σωτηπία In Rom 8:23, he singles out the redemption of the body as the object of hope; “for by that hope we have been (proleptically) saved”; and in Php 3:20 f., Jesus Christ as σωτή is to transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformable to the body of his glory (note ἀπεκδεχόμεθ in both passages and cf. Gal 5:5). Though Paul here may have this specific hope also in mind, he contents himself with a general statement, ἐλπὶς σωτηρία (cf. Job 2:9 for the objective gen.: προσδεχόμενοι τὴν ἐλπίδα τῆς σωτηρίας μο).

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Putting on [ενδυσαμενοι] . The son of day clothes himself for the day's work or battle. The same association of ideas as in vv. 6, 8, is found in Rom 13:12 - 14; Rev 16:15; 1Pe 1:13. Comp. LXX, Bar 5:2.

Breastplate - helmet. Comp. Eph 6:14. The figures are not original with Paul. See Isa 59:17; Wisd. 5 18, 19. Notice that only defensive armor is mentioned, in accordance with the darkness and uncertainty of the last time; and that the fundamental elements of Christian character, faith, hope, and love, are brought forward again as in ch. 1 3; 1Co 13:13. For the figure of the armed soldier, comp. also Rom 13:12; 2Co 10:4.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.