What is lasciviousness?

Lasciviousness. The indulgence of impure subjects in the imagination promotes the performance of corresponding acts of impurity.

b) They turned the grace of God into lasciviousness (licentiousness). Their behaviour was outrageous; wholly shocking to public decency. Their shameless deeds were marked by wanton violence and unrestrained vice. This, in spite of their pretence to be using Christian liberty, only demonstrated that they were lewd fellows of the baser sort.

First they turned the grace of God into lasciviousness. In the Epistle to Titus we learn that grace is the principle on which God is saving men, and by which He teaches the believer to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world (Titus 2:11-12). The great principle by which God is saving men from sin, and teaching them to live soberly, is made the occasion by these ungodly men to gratify the flesh and indulge their lust, at the same time keeping up a fair profession and moving in the Christian circle.

(Vv. 19-21.) In the remaining verses of the chapter the Apostle contrasts the works of the flesh with the fruit of the Spirit. It would appear that he sums up the works of the flesh under seven heads: Firstly, he refers to the lusts of the flesh, "fornication, uncleanness, licentiousness" (N.Tn.) Secondly, the superstition of the flesh, "idolatry" and "sorcery": Thirdly, the malice of the flesh, "hatred," leading to "strifes": Fourthly, the jealousy of the flesh, "jealousies," leading to "angers" and "contentions" Fifthly, the reasoning of the flesh, leading to "contentions, disputes" and "schools of opinion": Sixthly, the self-love of the flesh, leading to "envyings" and "murders" Seventhly, the worldly indulgence of the flesh, leading to "drunkenness, revellings, and such like."

Licentiousness. Rom. 13:13.

Undue and unlawful lust. Rom. 7:8; Col. 3:5; 1 Thess. 4:5.

There are quite a few words in the Greek New Testament with the thought of luxury in them: streniao (Rev. 18:7, 9) tells of 'insolent luxury: ' luxuriated is the way the new Interlinear Greek Testament translates it. Truphao (James 5:5) tells of the effeminacy of luxury: 'lived daintily'. Spatalao (1 Tim. 5:6; James 5:5) tells of 'the wastefulness of luxury:' lived riotously. Aselgeia is 'the wantonness of luxury' (translated 'luxury' by Ronald Knox in Gal. 5:19: one of the works of the flesh). We find it four times in Peter's Epistles. The New Testament utterly condemns all this sort of thing. There we often read of 'prayer and fasting: ' what do we know of it today?

(3) Sins named by Mark only. These six offences covetousness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, pride, foolishness are intimately associated with the inward workings of man's heart. If the others previously named may be described as the lusts of the flesh, these are the desires of the mind (Eph. 2:3); if they illustrated the filthiness of the flesh, these show the filthiness of the spirit (2 Cor. 7:1). These inward propensities are the dead bones, the uncleanness of the hypocrisy and iniquity within the whited sepulchres, of which the Lord spoke in another place (Matt. 23:27-28).

Covetousness. — This is the selfish greed within a man's heart which desires to appropriate other things than those God has given him and are therefore his legitimate possession. The Gentiles fell into this snare no less than the Jews (Rom. 1:29). The covetous man is called an idolater (Eph. 5:5; Col. 3:5), for he sets up another god within himself whom he serves with his whole heart. Hence the apostle John exhorted the followers of Christ, "Little children, keep yourselves from idols" (1 John 5:21)

(Vv. 17-19). The Apostle has exhorted us to a walk that becomes believers in relation to the assembly. He now exhorts us to the individual walk that is becoming to those who confess the Lord in an evil world. He testifies to us in the Lord, whose Name we have professed, that henceforth we should no longer walk as other Gentiles. This leads the Apostle to give a brief but vivid picture of the condition of the unconverted Gentile world. Such walk in a vain show and follow vain things. Their minds are darkened, being wholly ignorant of God and of the life that is according to God. They are ignorant of God because their hearts are hardened by the evil lives they live, for such have given themselves over to lasciviousness. We thus learn that it is the evil lives men live that hardens the heart; that the hardened heart darkens the understanding; and that the darkened understanding leaves men a prey to every vanity.

But in the Epistle to the Ephesians we get not merely the church but saints individually. (Eph. 5 and Eph. 6.) We do not lose our personality. This is said to be the meaning of Ephesians 4:12. That is an individual thing. The business of gifts is with you individually: "He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints." There is a deep intimacy and personality between me and Christ that nothing can ever touch. So the first business of gifts was with each individually, "For the perfecting of the saints." Then, let the perfected saints set themselves to the work of the ministry, and to the edifying of the body. Consequently, in Corinthians, when he had the mystery to bring out, he says, "We speak wisdom among them that are perfect." So, when we come to practical details in our chapter, we are addressed individually, "That ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk" (ver. 17), and so on; "Who being past feeling" (ver. 19), that is, a seared and hardened conscience, with no sense of their own lasciviousness. "But ye have not so learned Christ; if so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus."