An interesting thing structurally about this passage is that it begins and ends with a pair of Janus verses. Janus was the Roman god of doorways and transitions, beginnings and endings, boundaries and time and all things in between. He presided over the moment of birth and the moment of death, as well as declarations of war and treaties of peace; the gates of his temple in Rome were opened when war began and closed when peace arrived. He was understood to live where the ends of the earth and the farthest reaches of heaven met, on the threshold between the two, belonging to both and neither. The month of January was named for him, and he had two faces, one looking forward, one looking back.
As such, as you can probably guess, Janus verses are transitional verses which belong to both the passage which precedes them and the passage which follows. So it is here. Verses 1-2 are both the concluding application of the text we considered last week and the beginning of our section this morning. To those purposes, Paul makes three points here. First, because we put away the old self and put on the new self, we are to model our way of life on God’s way of life. This is obviously not something we can do by our own strength, but only by the power of God, but equally obviously we won’t find ourselves being made more like Christ while we’re wandering around indulging our sinful desires. We aren’t Janus, we can’t look forward and backward at the same time—and even Janus couldn’t walk in both directions at the same time.
This is a daunting standard, but we’re called to imitate God not as his equals but as his beloved children. Even if you’re not a parent yourself, if you had loving parents, you know the difference. Some of you have met our third child, our daughter Bronwyn, when she was visiting here. Sara loves to tell about the time when Bronwyn, just a little squiffet, was helping her fold laundry. My wife would take a towel, or a washcloth, or something of that sort, hold it up, shake it out, fold it, and lay it on the stack; and so our daughter would grab a washcloth, hold it up, shake it a couple times, wad it up, and set it triumphantly on the table. Was she “doing it right”? No, Sara had to actually fold all those washcloths. Was that the point? Also no. She was with my wife in what she was doing, watching her mommy and doing what Mommy did, as best as she could understand it; and so it is for us. God is inviting us to be close to him, to learn his ways—especially as he revealed themself in Jesus—and try to walk in them, to become like him. We won’t “do it right” much of the time, but you know what? He’s big enough, he can take care of that. He delights in us standing there doing it with him anyway.
Second, to walk in God’s way is to walk in love, because—as 1 John 4 tells us—God is love. That’s actually a much more profound statement than you would think at first glance, because John doesn’t say God is loving, or that God loves, which are things you could say of any individual. John says God is love. How can that be, when love is relational? The answer is, this is one of the reasons we believe in the Trinity, that God exists eternally as three in one. Father, Son, and Spirit exist of their very nature and essence in a mutual relationship of love for one another, and he created us to be gathered into the whirling circle dance of their love. That’s the life offered us, the life to which we’re invited. That love is to be the whole pattern of our lives—our thinking, our attitudes, and the behavior which flows from them, and our day-by-day approach to life. Third, our earthly model and standard for that love is the way Christ loved us: namely, all the way to the cross, and beyond. He voluntarily offered his life for us. That’s the love in which we’re invited to walk; that’s the offering God desires from us.
Another way to put this, as Paul moves to unpack what he’s saying, is to say we’re called to walk out of the darkness into the light, and so to be people of light walking through a dark world. And make no mistake, it’s a dark world indeed and always has been, even in the best times we remember; it’s a world of darkness, of ignorance, error, and willful evil. At the center is the idolatry of desire, on which Paul focuses in a couple different ways—a bit more sharply than we might realize from our English translations. F. F. Bruce amuses me here in his commentary, writing, “The injunction ‘let such things not even be named among you’ does not imply a mealy-mouthed refusal to call a spade a spade, after the fashion of some modern Bible versions”; in the footnote, he adds, “Those, for example, which persist in rendering the quite explicit term πορνεία vaguely as ‘immorality’ or ‘unchastity.’”
“Sexual immorality” is a little better; it’s still vague enough people can choose not to find themselves in it, but I’m not sure what would be an improvement. πορνεία and its family of words originally referred to prostitution—interestingly, both to the prostitute and to the customer. The translators of the Septuagint, the main Greek translation of the Old Testament, didn’t use it for adultery—they used a different Greek word for that—but they did for all other forms of sexual activity outside of marriage. Paul uses the πορνεία family for all of it. A term like “fornication” is more vivid and explicit, but it can be understood much more narrowly.
Given that, this is a word where we need to do the work our translations can’t. We need to remember what it means: any indulgence of sexual desire of any kind which isn’t restrained and disciplined by and submitted to the desire for God and his holiness. We’re back to what theologian R. R. Reno dubbed the “Empire of Desire,” that desire is one’s god (or one of them) and so the mere fact of desire justifies action. “I want to do this, I am able to do this, therefore I am right to do this,” is all that needs to be said. You’ll note, by the way, from verse 4 that πορνεία doesn’t only corrupt action, it also corrupts speech, which connects us back to chapter 4.
The next word, “impurity,” is a wide-ranging word for moral evil; to give you an idea, F. F. Bruce says the philosopher Demosthenes used this word to describe a person “who, pretending to be a man’s friend, commits perjury to do him an injury.” Then we have a third sin listed, and this one is a two-fer. It means greed, the desire to have more than is right for us to have; but it also means covetousness, which is the desire to have a specific thing someone else has—and not merely something just like it, but that exact thing, so I have it and that person doesn’t. Country music isn’t my thing on the whole, but for those of you who know Dolly Parton’s song “Jolene,” the title character to whom that song is addressed gives us a picture of what Paul has in mind: “You could have your choice of men . . . please don’t take him just because you can.”
This, then, is another form of indulgence: the desire for more, and specifically to have more than those around us in every way that matters to us. As I illustrated a moment ago, this desire goes beyond merely stuff. Sexual greed is absolutely part of the picture, while the desire for power is almost intrinsically a part of it: even one who doesn’t desire power purely for its own sake desires power because it’s necessary for the full expression of covetous greed.
As I’ve said before, and will say many times again, one of the problems with idolatry is that our idols will always fail us. They will inevitably let us down. One of the ways in which idolatry of desire fails us is captured in a story told of the oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller. As the story goes, someone asked him, “How much is enough?” and he replied, “One dollar more.” There’s also, if you prefer, the VeggieTales version, in which Bob asks Larry, “How much is enough?” and Larry replies, “I don’t know. How much is there?” There’s a reason for this, which psychologists have dubbed “hedonistic adaptation”: after any major shift in our fortunes, the mind is wired to redefine the baseline to the “new normal.” This is a blessing when the major shift is negative. After a positive shift, however, it means the satisfaction we get is only temporary and then, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, we’re right back where we were.
There’s an antidote to this, however, and Paul gives it to us in verse 4: thanksgiving. If we make a point of recognizing and acknowledging and reminding ourselves that God is the source of every blessing, that reorients us and changes our relationship to our possessions and our circumstances. Focusing on God’s generosity moves us away from self-centered desire, and it changes where and how we find satisfaction in life. Giving thanks to God for all he’s given us and done for us reminds us of all that’s good in our lives, and it focuses our attention on what we have instead of what we don’t have. More than that, it teaches us to find our satisfaction not in the gifts we’ve received but in the one who gives them. This steers us out of walking in darkness into the light of God; and despite what the world keeps trying to tell us, those who walk in darkness have no part in the kingdom of God, now or in the future.
God has given us a better way, not by changing our circumstances but by changing our hearts. He shines his light into our hearts, the light of truth and understanding, wisdom and holiness, and he shines through us; that’s why Paul can say, “Once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.” We don’t need to generate light or make his light shine, we just need to let it shine. Instead of seeking to please ourselves by satisfying the desires of the moment, we’re called to live our lives in a way that pleases God. In his light, we can see the works of darkness as the empty, futile, profitless things they ultimately are; instead of turning back to them, we can shine the light of truth on them so others can also see them as they are.
Now, when we resolve to shine God’s light into this world’s darkness, that doesn’t mean the Enemy is just going to concede defeat and go play Yahtzee. No, he’s going to do everything he can to twist and undermine our resolution. Since we don’t want to fall for his efforts, there are a couple things we need to understand going in. First, the point is to expose the character of the works of darkness, of such actions, not to judge people. All of us as sinners are victims of the Enemy; apart from the grace of God, we suffer from a sort of overarching spiritual Stockholm syndrome that makes us love our chains and crave the poison that’s killing us. As children of the light, we’re learning to speak the truth in love, and we’re invited to walk in the light of God so his light shining through us shows the world the better way to live. None of this is about telling people they’re bad and we’re better than they are. Are they bad? Yes. So are we, apart from the redeeming love and grace of God. Until Christ returns and all is made new, being bad is an occupational hazard of breathing. It’s the only starting option we get, and it’s only by his mercy and the power of his Spirit that we rise above it.
That said, second, we shouldn’t expect everyone to be grateful and happy to have the light shining in their eyes. When things in darkness are revealed by the light, the results often aren’t pretty, and people whose actions are exposed usually aren’t pleased about it. There will be resistance, as John 3:19 tells us: “This is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.” Note that: the judgment on people isn’t for doing the works of darkness. Those are important, they’re part of the picture, but what matters at the root is this: when the light shines and the darkness of your actions is clearly seen, do you turn to the light or try to turn it off? There are many who try to turn it off—which means, if the light which offends them is shining through you, means they’re going to try to turn you off. If we’re truly walking in the light, we will be attacked for it. That’s just how it goes. All we can do is keep opening ourselves to God to let his light shine through us, trusting if we hold on to him, his light will bring transformation.
Verses 15-16 are the second set of Janus verses, a warning and command which summarizes this section and begins the argument of the next one. Live carefully, Paul tells us. Watch the pattern of your life carefully so you walk in a way which is wise, not foolish. There are two reasons for this, one implicit in the passage to this point and one which Paul introduces here. First, the world is watching, and unwise conduct harms the cause of the gospel. You don’t need me to tell you that, you just need to look around. Those who hate the light can point to plenty of people in the church and say, “These Christians say they’re the light, but they’re as dark as anybody.” I think we’re seeing 1 Peter 4:17 in action: “It is time for judgment to begin with the house of God”; when the Son of Man returns, whenever that will be, may he find us faithful.
Second, not only does foolishness harm the witness of the church, we don’t have time for it. As Paul says, the days are evil, and we don’t know when our windows of opportunity will close. It’s a silly analogy, but take the house we’re working on buying. It went on the market a week ago last Thursday, and I walked through it that Saturday morning—and would have even earlier if I’d had the chance. I used Marco Polo to send Sara videos of everything and relayed her questions to the agent with me, and we made an offer before I stepped off the front porch. This summer, the houses we’ve had any interest in have been going off the market in a matter of days; we couldn’t count on having time to make up our minds at leisure, so we had resolved to buy up the present opportunity. So it should be for us, far more significantly, with the chance we have now to shine the light of Christ. If we say we’ll do it tomorrow, we have to recognize tomorrow isn’t promised. It’s only if you’re James Bond that tomorrow never dies. Let us walk as children of the light while it’s still called Today, because this moment is the last one we can be sure we’re going to have. May we make the most of it.
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