For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality (1 Thess. 4:3)

Notice how tightly the will of God and your sanctification are tied. God’s will is that we be transformed into the image of his Son. His eschatological promise is that we will we transformed finally into his image at glorification, but until the eschaton we are (read: should be) continually receiving how we “ought to walk and to please God” (4:1), that is sanctification. Your sanctification is God’s will for you and as Calvary demonstrates God takes great interest in and has paid a great price for that sanctification.

Fronting the list of God’s will and our sanctification is abstaining from sexual immorality (each item on the list starting with the word “that,” listing control of the body [v4] and not wronging our brother in the process [v5]). “Sexual immorality” is quite a general way of speaking about sexual sins, but that term serves to throw a general prohibition over all extra-biblical sexual activity that falls outside of God’s predetermined confines for sexual expression. A general term is needed because the ever-wayward wandering heart of man is possible of contriving innumerable sins, especially sexual sins. Sexual expression is only out of bounds when it is out of God’s bounds and therefore it should not be confused with sexual immorality. Within his bounds sexual love is the very flame of Yahweh (Song of Solomon 8:6).

If abstaining from sexual immorality is God’s will and my sanctification then I can expect that it will be in this very area that I will struggle. Sanctification is not a passive activity but an active mortification of sin, fighting towards the end goal of being like Christ. Know how to control your body in holiness and honor, not acting in the passion of lust like those who do not know God who ignore his bounds and further wrong their brother also in the process (vv4-5). We’ve been called to holiness, brothers, not impurity (v7). If we ignore his will and our sanctification, we are ultimately and immediately ignoring God who gives his Holy Spirit for our sanctification (v8).

So, what then is a man to do with low-cut blouses to which innocent eyes are automatically and consistently drawn? Why must v-shaped tops slavishly direct the eyes downward to where they point? Why must long necklaces be placed betwixt to further ensnare the eyes? All of fashion seems to love the center of the upper torso of the female body. Without fail if cloth is omitted on any portion of a woman’s garment, it will be the chest. That they project additionally draws. The trap is inevitable. Perhaps it’s because one doesn’t really expect to see cleavage and so when it’s there it makes you do somewhat of a double take. I would say–would say–that for the most part men are just admiring something that they find beautiful or well-designed, much like one could admire a painting, a new car, a photo, or something in nature like a sunset. But the difference, however, is that breasts are decidedly more sexual (for whatever reason; many speculate) than paintings of sunsets and butterflies though arguably similar in beauty.

Sanctification points toward controlling the body of which the eyes are tiny members, controlling the body in holiness and honor. It most likely is not holy for me nor honorable to a woman or to myself to be inbreastigating even if fashion continually ensnares the eyes with its deictic prods. How do you fight something which happens by accident? (1) Be forewarned, (2) self-aware, (3) self-controlled, (4) quick to look away, and (5) evolving.