for all *ye* are sons of light and sons of day; we are not of night nor of darkness.
Paul has just described the day of the Lord falling on a sleeping world like a thief in the night. Now he tells the believers why that day holds no dread for them, and the reason is not what they do but what they are.
Safety from that day comes down to who a person belongs to.
That day will not overtake the children of the day — the children of light — as a thief does. And that is exactly because they are children of the day. They have been taught in advance about the judgments of God. They belong to Him who is to be the Judge, not to the world those judgments will fall on. They wait for Him from heaven, who has saved them by His grace, who delivers them from the wrath to come.
"Sons of" is a way of speaking about nature rather than rank. Scripture uses it elsewhere in the same way.
The title 'son' implies 'likeness.' Scripture uses it this way to mark moral likeness, as of a son to a father — so 'a son of Belial' (a worthless man), 1 Sam. 25:17; 'you son of the devil,' Acts 13:10; 'sons of disobedience,' Eph. 5:6; Col. 3:6; also 'sons of light' and 'sons of day.' 1 Thess. 5:5.
So the phrase points back to a beginning.
The believer is not in darkness, nor is he of the darkness. He is a child of light and of the day. He has been born, so to speak, of the light that reached him in the gospel, and he shares the character of what gave him birth. So he lives in a world of darkness, but he is not in darkness himself. Divine light surrounds his path. He is a child of the coming day, and so he knows where he is going and what is coming.
The two titles are not a repetition. Each one points in a different direction.
It seems that "children of light" means the truth has already taken hold of the heart, even though darkness may be all around. "Children of day" connects us with the future day of glory. In that day we will stand shown and blessed in the place that is truly ours. We are not part of the present state of things at all. The night and the darkness are foreign to our nature; we look for the day, because it is where we truly belong.
The opposite words have a meaning too. Night and darkness are not vague gloom — they mark something missing.
Believers are marked out by having the knowledge of God, and by being in the light of the day that is coming. The world is marked by "night" and "darkness". It is the absence of Christ that makes the night, and ignorance of God that makes up the darkness.
The word "all" matters. These were new believers, yet Paul makes the distinction plainly. Then he includes himself by switching to "we".
He sees no risk in letting the young believers in Thessalonica, or anyone else, know this. Grace had marked them off from the rest of the world. His whole aim here, as elsewhere, is to press this distinction on them so it can never be erased. He says two things. First, they were not in darkness, so the day would not surprise them like a thief. Second, they were all sons of light and sons of day. They were not only unlike the world, which lies in darkness and faces the Lord's judgment. They also had a real share in the divine nature and its blessing.
The verse hands the believer two things at once, and the second is not optional.
So we are given both a privilege and a character. The privilege is that the day will not overtake us, as it will overtake those who live in darkness. The character is that of children of light. There are no bare doctrines in the word. The truth always gives a character to the people it puts in a place of privilege.
That character is meant to be visible now, while the night still lasts.
On the outside it may be night, with darkness all around us. Yet our hearts are in the light of the coming day. So, as sons of the day, we show in the middle of the world's night "the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light" (1 Peter 2:9).
- Origin. The believer is born of the light that reached him in the gospel and carries the character of what gave him birth.
- Nature. "Son of" marks likeness, not rank — the same idiom that calls others sons of disobedience.
- Position. Sons of light have the truth in the heart now. Sons of day belong to the glory still coming, so night is foreign ground.
- Reach. It is all of them, young converts included, with Paul standing inside the "we" — no advanced class exists.
- Result. Privilege always brings character with it. The result is a life lit up in the world's night, and a day that can never arrive as a thief.
So then do not let us sleep as the rest do, but let us watch and be sober;
Paul has just called the Thessalonians children of light and children of the day. So what sleep is he warning against, and how does staying awake differ from staying sober? (Older translations say "let us watch" here, and the writers quoted below use that wording.)
The command rests on what the believer already has and enjoys.
Privilege that the believer knows and enjoys is the very hinge and motive of responsibility, and so the apostle goes on to urge them. If we are children of God, that is a deep spring of joy in Christ and of thanksgiving to our Father — but how immediate and unbreakable is the call to walk in keeping with that relationship! So here, if we are sons of light and of day, sleep — indifference to the will of the Lord — does not suit us. Watchfulness and sobriety do, as those who draw their life from Him Who is the one true light.
The first command is negative, and it turns on what sleep does to a man.
First, he says, "Let us not sleep, as others do." A sleeping man is untouched by everything around him, and unaware of it. The world has no idea where it is drifting, how useless all its efforts are, or that its doom is coming. Believers must beware of falling into a spiritual apathy that drifts on, like the world, indifferent to the day of the Lord.
Religious activity is no proof that a person is awake. Witherby warns of spiritual sleepwalking.
Sleeping and walking do not go together. Where divine things are real, the mechanical motion of sleepwalking is unknown. We are not saying that the children of God never sleepwalk. Sadly, there is a great deal of formalism and going through religious motions that fits that description, and any religious observance can turn into formalism. Let us make sure we are real. Because we do not belong to the night, let us not sleep as others do.
One word lies behind "watch" here and "wake" in verse 10, but the sense is not the same in both.
It is translated "watch" in verse 6 and "wake" in verse 10, but it is really the same word… In this passage what is commanded is watching in a moral sense. Verse 8 shows it clearly: conduct that suits the Christian as belonging to the day, and not to the night. They were to be marked morally by watching rather than sleeping, and by sobriety… In verse 10 "watching" and "sleeping" mean being alive at the Lord's return, or having fallen asleep before it.
Watching and sobriety are not the same duty said twice. Each answers something different.
Third, we are told to be sober. This stands in contrast to the state that drunkenness pictures, where a man comes under an evil influence. We are to beware of coming under the intoxicating influences of the world. In relation to Christ, and His day, we are to watch; in relation to the world we are to be sober.
A clear head is what makes watching possible. This writer also turns the verse back on the reader.
We are to watch, as in the parable, because we do not know the day or the hour. So we are always expecting the Bridegroom. While we watch — and in fact so that we can watch — we are to keep "that sober clearness of mind which comes from being free of false influences." We are not intoxicated with "wine," but governed and shaped by the truth in the power of the Holy Spirit. You may well ask whether these marks are found in many Christians. That is why it is such an advantage to judge ourselves in the light of this exhortation.
- Day — The command starts from a fact. Believers already belong to the day, and the call is to walk in keeping with it.
- Sleep — Sleep is indifference to the Lord's will. The sleeper is untouched by everything around him, drifting like a world that does not know where it is heading.
- Sleepwalking — Religious routine can be sleep in motion. The test is whether we are real.
- Watch — The watching commanded is moral. It shows in conduct that suits the day, and it looks for Christ.
- Sober — Sobriety faces the other way, toward a world that intoxicates. A clear head makes watching possible, and it is a fair test of where we stand.
for they that sleep sleep by night, and they that drink drink by night;
Paul has just urged the Thessalonians to stay awake and sober, unlike the rest of the world. Here he gives his reason — and it raises two questions: what is this "night," and can people who belong to the day still live as if they belonged to the dark?
One reference work defines this night in a single line:
The moral darkness of the world, in which people sleep and get drunk.
Paul is not making a rule. He is pointing at something everyone has already noticed about human behaviour.
Sleep suits the night, and so does excess: people naturally do in the dark what they would not like to do in the light. This verse sets before our minds the common and undeniable practice of people.
The believer lives in the same world as everyone else. But he belongs to a different time of day, and his life follows from that.
We belong to the day, and so that day cannot come upon us like a thief. The apostle applies this difference of position to the character and walk of the Christian. He is a child of the light, so he is to walk as one. He lives in the day, though all is night and darkness around him. Nobody sleeps in the day. Those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. These are the works of darkness.
Drunkenness here goes wider than wine. One writer applies it to the ideas and influences an age pours into people's minds.
The world is in darkness. The world is asleep. The world is even drunk, intoxicated with influences that come from below. This has never been more obvious than it is today, when countless means of communication spread new ideas and influences at great speed.
Drunkenness pictures a person under an outside power. Sobriety is the freedom from it. That gives watching and sobriety two different directions.
Thirdly, we are exhorted to be sober, in contrast to a condition set forth by drunkenness which brings a man under an evil influence. We are to beware lest we come under the intoxicating influences of the world. In relation to Christ, and His day, we are to watch; in relation to the world we are to be sober.
Kelly spells out how far that sobriety reaches:
The picture is drawn, as everyone admits, from keeping clear of all drunkenness. For the Christian that means avoiding everything likely to excite the flesh or the spirit.
The warning is aimed at believers as well. One writer points to the parable of the virgins, where the wise slept just as the foolish did:
There we see the wise and the foolish alike forget the blessed hope that first filled their souls when they went out to meet the Bridegroom. They came under the influence of passing things, and they all slumbered and slept. That is, they lost the expectation of their returning Lord. They settled down among the things around them, carelessly forgetting the hope they once treasured, and forgetting their own character as virgins. And what about us? Are we asleep, even with the truth on our lips?
The whole argument rests on a coming morning. That is what makes the world's drinking so short-sighted.
In every age the enemy has managed to attract and intoxicate crowds with the perishing joys of a world that lies under the curse of God and waits for the fire of His judgement. "Those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night." But the morning is at hand, and then the wine — a fitting symbol of this world's joy — will have completely evaporated.
One writer finds a picture of this in Daniel, who stayed away from a king's feast that stood under God's judgement:
Sudden destruction, like a thief in the night, does not come upon him... The judgement on the feast held no terror for them, because they were not at the feast. They had already judged it. Their separation was not sleep. But they were not indifferent to it, any more than they were enjoying it.
- Night. The darkness here is moral, not the hour on a clock. It is the world's condition: people do in the dark what they would not do in the light.
- Sleep. Night dulls people. The sleeper drifts, and believers can drift the same way, even with the truth on their lips.
- Drunkenness. The night also intoxicates. It brings people under an influence: wine, or the ideas an age pours into their minds.
- Day. The Christian belongs to a different time of day. He walks as a child of light while darkness is all around him.
- Sober. Sobriety is freedom from the night's influences. Watch for Christ, stay clear-headed toward the world — the morning is at hand, and the wine will have evaporated.
but *we* being of [the] day, let us be sober, putting on [the] breastplate of faith and love, and as helmet [the] hope of salvation;
Paul has just split people into two groups: those who belong to the night, and those who belong to the day. This verse tells the day group how to live now — awake, self-controlled, and wearing three things that work as armour.
The command rests on something that was already true of these readers.
As sons of day, they already belonged to the day of glory, and its light filled their hearts with radiant hope… They were told to be clear and open in motive and in movement, alert, and marked by self-control and wakeful activity.
Paul sets the call to be sober against the two things that belong to the night: sleep and drunkenness. One writer separates watching from sobriety by what each one looks at.
Third, we are urged to be sober. The opposite is the state pictured by drunkenness, which brings a man under an evil influence. We must take care that we never come under the intoxicating influences of the world. Toward Christ and His day, we are to watch. Toward the world, we are to be sober.
Paul does not just tell the believer to stay awake. He tells him to dress for danger. Notice what is missing from the list: there is no sword, no weapon for attack.
So the believer is called to be armed as well as watchful and sober. But the weapons here are not for attack. They are for defence only, since it was young Christians who were being addressed. They are the three marks of their life here below: faith, love, and hope.
Each piece covers a particular part of a soldier. The Greek word behind "helmet" says so in its very form.
The breastplate covered and protected the vital organs. It covered the heart, the centre of life and the seat of the affections. It also covered the breathing organs, which supply the breath the life of faith needs… The helmet, peri-kephale, means literally "round the head," not just "on" it. It is the hope of salvation. It covers and protects the mind from the wanderings of human wisdom and from the dark, subtle suggestions of Satan.
Faith, love and hope are not three interchangeable virtues here. Each answers a different pull of the world around us.
To escape the world of sight we need faith, for faith is not ruled by sight. It lives in the light of what is unseen. To escape the lust of the world, love must rule us. To escape the world's empty plans for the future, with their trapping prospects and empty hopes, we need "the hope of salvation".
Some readers take "hope" to mean an unsure wish to be saved in the end. One writer answers that head-on.
But have you thought it through, my soul? Our "helmet" is a salvation we know we have. It is much more than merely hoping to be saved at last. The enemy would soon knock a helmet like that off your head. Is it not right, then, to hope for salvation? True — but in 1 Thessalonians 5 the apostle is speaking of the hope of the Lord's coming, not of our forgiveness and acceptance.
So the salvation still ahead is salvation in its widest sense. And the armour goes on inside, not outside.
Two things can be seen here. The "putting on" means clothing ourselves inwardly, so faith, love, and hope are to be the marks of our spiritual life… Salvation is used here in its full and complete sense. It includes the resurrection of the body, and being for ever with the Lord… That assurance makes us fearless, whatever dangers we have to meet, for this is a helmet no weapon of the enemy can pierce.
Paul elsewhere describes a breastplate of righteousness and a helmet of salvation. The pieces carry the same names there, but they serve a different purpose. The two passages are not saying the same thing.
In Ephesians we are in conflict with enemies… So there the breastplate is practical righteousness, which we must have if we are to fight Satan successfully… In Thessalonians the armour is one part of our life with God, seen in its final result as a matter of hope. It is the active energy of that life with God in faith, love and hope, lived out in a sober walk among the dangers and enemies down here.
- Sober — watching looks toward Christ. Being sober looks at the world and refuses its intoxicating pull.
- Armed — the pieces named are defensive only: faith, love and hope, the three marks of Christian life now.
- Heart — the breastplate covers the affections, so the world's sights and desires cannot reach them.
- Head — the helmet wraps right around the mind. It guards it from human wisdom and the enemy's suggestions.
- Home — the hope is not doubt about forgiveness. It is the certainty of the Lord's coming, the body raised, and being for ever with Him.