Believers, unlike others, know the true and living God. Paul contrasts us with Gentiles who do not know God (1 Thessalonians 4:5). Gene L. Green comments,
What determines the sexual conduct of the pagans is their desire to satisfy their sexual passions.But the guide to Christian sensuality is not that. It is rather that we know God, and we long to serve him. We long to glorify him. We long to please him in our sexual conduct.Now, one of the passages that most strongly links this idea of idolatry with sensual sin, the ignorance of God with sexual immorality, is Romans 1. And there Paul argues that there is really no such thing as an atheist. Everybody knows God. You live in his world. You are bombarded with the knowledge of God. What unbelievers do is to suppress the knowledge of God in unrighteousness. Romans 1:21 says,
they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him.And then look what happens:Therefore, they become futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts are darkened.Well, what happens next? People have the knowledge of God through creation. They probably have the witness of the Word as well. They reject it. As a result, they become debased in their thinking and feelings.Well, here is what it leads to:
God gave them up to the lust of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonouring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth of God for a lie(Romans 1:24–25). And so, according to Paul, sexual impurity in society is a sign of God’s judgment on those who have rejected the knowledge of God that has been given to them. Now, people say to me all the time,Pastor, do you think that God is ever going to judge America?And I go,Look, I do not have the authority to tell you what he is doing here or there, but I look at my Bible, and I say, how can that not be the best explanation for what has been going on this entire generation?And if that is true—that ignorance of God, willful as it is, leads to sexual impurity and God’s judgment—then the last thing that ought to be true of the people of God, who know him and live in the light of his truth and glory, the last thing that ought to be true is that we are sexually indecent. According to the Bible, wherever the knowledge of God flourishes, there is a flowering of purity, holiness, and honour.1
Richard D. Phillips
5 not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God;