1 Thessalonians 5:8

But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(8) Putting on.—A curiously abrupt transition, suggested by the sober vigilance just advocated. The Christian must be careful to watch, not only because the Lord is coming back at some unexpected hour, but also because there are enemies all round. He is not only the porter, sitting up to let his Lord in at any hour when He may return from the wedding (Mark 13:34; Luke 12:36), but the soldier standing sentry, liable to be surprised by the foe.

Breastplate of faith and love.—We have not to do with the Christian soldier as aggressive and going forth to conquer, which idea is developed in Ephesians 6:11 et seq., but only as defensive, and protected in breast and head against sudden blows. The three “theological virtues” are the Christian’s defence. (Comp. 1Thessalonians 1:3; 1Corinthians 13:13.) The “breastplate” is a cuirass fitting close to the body, and in Ephesians this cuirass is composed of righteousness, while faith becomes the shield, and love disappears from the panoply. The “faith” here is a general trust in God’s presence and goodness; the “love” is the love both of God and men. Perhaps it is unnecessary to inquire particularly why faith and love are represented as covering the body, and hope as covering the head. It seems far-fetched to consider the first two as keeping the heart, i.e., the affections, from injury; the third as preserving the brain, i.e., keeping us from miscalculating the dangers and so falling into despair. In the passage of Isaiah which St. Paul here imitates, the “helmet of salvation” appears to mean little more than a helmet which secures safety; but as one of the chief benefits which such armour confers is the confident hope of coming off unhurt, St. Paul fairly describes that hope itself as being a protection. In the forefront of the lost (Revelation 21:8) stand those who have had no “hope” or “trust.”

MacLaren's Expositions

1 Thessalonians

THE WORK AND ARMOUR OF THE CHILDREN OF THE DAY

1 Thessalonians 5:8.

This letter to the Thessalonians is the oldest book of the New Testament. It was probably written within something like twenty years of the Crucifixion; long, therefore, before any of the Gospels were in existence. It is, therefore, exceedingly interesting and instructive to notice how this whole context is saturated with allusions to our Lord’s teaching, as it is preserved in these Gospels; and how it takes for granted that the Thessalonian Christians were familiar with the very words.

For instance: ‘Yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night’ {ver. 2}. How did these people in Thessalonica know that? They had been Christians for a year or so only; they had been taught by Paul for a few weeks only, or a month or two at the most. How did they know it? Because they had been told what the Master had said: ‘If the goodman of the house had known at what hour the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up.’

And there are other allusions in the context almost as obvious: ‘The children of the light.’ Who said that? Christ, in His words: ‘The children of this world are wiser than the children of light.’ ‘They that sleep, sleep in the night, and if they be drunken, are drunken in the night.’ Where does that metaphor come from? ‘Take heed lest at any time ye be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and the cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares.’ ‘Watch, lest coming suddenly He find you sleeping!’

So you see all the context reposes upon, and presupposes the very words, which you find in our present existing Gospels, as the words of the Lord Jesus. And this is all but contemporaneous, and quite independent, evidence of the existence in the Church, from the beginning, of a traditional teaching which is now preserved for us in that fourfold record of His life.

Take that remark for what it is worth; and now turn to the text itself with which I have to deal in this sermon. The whole of the context may be said to be a little dissertation upon the moral and religious uses of the doctrine of our Lord’s second coming. In my text these are summed up in one central injunction which has preceding it a motive that enforces it, and following it a method that ensures it. ‘Let us be sober’; that is the centre thought; and it is buttressed upon either side by a motive and a means. ‘Let us who are of the day,’ or ‘since we are of the day,--be sober.’ And let us be it by ‘putting on the breastplate and helmet of faith, love, and hope.’ These, then, are the three points which we have to consider.



I. First, this central injunction, into which all the moral teaching drawn from the second coming of Christ is gathered--’Let us be sober.’

Now, I do not suppose we are altogether to omit any reference to the literal meaning of this word. The context seems to show that, by its reference to night as the season for drunken orgies. Temperance is moderation in regard not only to the evil and swinish sin of drunkenness, which is so manifestly contrary to all Christian integrity and nobility of character, but in regard to the far more subtle temptation of another form of sensual indulgence--gluttony. The Christian Church needed to be warned of that, and if these people in Thessalonica needed the warning I am quite sure that we need it. There is not a nation on earth which needs it more than Englishmen. I am no ascetic, I do not want to glorify any outward observance, but any doctor in England will tell you that the average Englishman eats and drinks a great deal more than is good for him. It is melancholy to think how many professing Christians have the edge and keenness of their intellectual and spiritual life blunted by the luxurious and senseless table-abundance in which they habitually indulge. I am quite sure that water from the spring and barley-bread would be a great deal better for their souls, and for their bodies too, in the case of many people who call themselves Christians. Suffer a word of exhortation, and do not let it be neglected because it is brief and general. Sparta, after all, is the best place for a man to live in, next to Jerusalem.

But, passing from that, let us turn to the higher subject with which the Apostle is here evidently mainly concerned. What is the meaning of the exhortation ‘Be sober’? Well, first let me tell you what I think is not the meaning of it. It does not mean an unemotional absence of fervour in your Christian character.

There is a kind of religious teachers who are always preaching down enthusiasm, and preaching up what they call a ‘sober standard of feeling’ in matters of religion. By which, in nine cases out of ten, they mean precisely such a tepid condition as is described in much less polite language, when the voice from heaven says, ‘Because thou art neither cold nor hot I will spue thee out of My mouth.’ That is the real meaning of the ‘sobriety’ that some people are always desiring you to cultivate. I should have thought that the last piece of furniture which any Christian Church in the twentieth century needed was a refrigerator! A poker and a pair of bellows would be very much more needful for them. For, dear brethren, the truths that you and I profess to believe are of such a nature, so tremendous either in their joyfulness and beauty, or in their solemnity and awfulness, that one would think that if they once got into a man’s head and heart, nothing but the most fervid and continuous glow of a radiant enthusiasm would correspond to their majesty and overwhelming importance. I venture to say that the only consistent Christian is the enthusiastic Christian; and that the only man who will ever do anything in this world for God or man worth doing is the man who is not sober , according to that cold-blooded definition which I have been speaking about, but who is all ablaze with an enkindled earnestness that knows no diminution and no cessation.

Paul, the very man that is exhorting here to sobriety, was the very type of an enthusiast all his life. So Festus thought him mad, and even in the Church at Corinth there were some to whom in his fervour, he seemed to be ‘beside himself’ {2 Corinthians 5:13}.

Oh! for more of that insanity! You may make up your minds to this; that any men or women that are in thorough earnest, either about Christianity or about any other great, noble, lofty, self-forgetting purpose, will have to be content to have the old Pentecostal charge flung at them:--’These men are full of new wine!’ Well for the Church, and well for the men who deserve the taunt; for it means that they have learned something of the emotion that corresponds to such magnificent and awful verities as Christian faith converses with.

I did not intend to say so much about that; I turn now for a moment to the consideration of what this exhortation really means. It means, as I take it, mainly this: the prime Christian duty of self-restraint in the use and the love of all earthly treasures and pleasures.

I need not do more than remind you how, in the very make of a man’s soul, it is clear that unless there be exercised rigid self-control he will go all to pieces. The make of human nature, if I may say so, shows that it is not meant for a democracy but a monarchy.

Here are within us many passions, tastes, desires, most of them rooted in the flesh, which are as blind as hunger and thirst are. If a man is hungry, the bread will satisfy him all the same whether he steals it or not; and it will not necessarily be distasteful even if it be poisoned. And there are other blind impulses and appetites in our nature which ask nothing except this:--’Give me my appropriate gratification, though all the laws of God and man be broken in order to get it!’

And so there has to be something like an eye given to these blind beasts, and something like a directing hand laid upon these instinctive impulses. The true temple of the human spirit must be built in stages, the broad base laid in these animal instincts; above them, and controlling them, the directing and restraining will; above it the understanding which enlightens it and them; and supreme over all the conscience with nothing between it and heaven. Where that is not the order of the inner man you get wild work. You have set ‘beggars on horseback,’ and we all know where they go! The man who lets passion and inclination guide is like a steam-boat with all the furnaces banked up, with the engines going full speed, and nobody at the wheel. It will drive on to the rocks, or wherever the bow happens to point, no matter though death and destruction lie beyond the next turn of the screw. That is what you will come to unless you live in the habitual exercise of rigid self-control.

And that self-control is to be exercised mainly, or at least as one very important form of it, in regard to our use and estimate of the pleasures of this present life. Yes! it is not only from the study of a man’s make that the necessity for a very rigid self-government appears, but the observation of the conditions and circumstances in which he is placed points the same lesson. All round about him are hands reaching out to him drugged cups. The world with all its fading sweet comes tempting him, and the old fable fulfils itself--Whoever takes that Circe’s cup and puts it to his lips and quaffs deep, turns into a swine, and sits there imprisoned at the feet of the sorceress for evermore!

There is only one thing that will deliver you from that fate, my brother. ‘Be sober,’ and in regard to the world and all that it offers to us--all joy, possession, gratification--’set a knife to thy throat if thou be a man given to appetite.’ There is no noble life possible on any other terms--not to say there is no Christian life possible on any other terms--but suppression and mortification of the desires of the flesh and of the spirit. You cannot look upwards and downwards at the same moment. Your heart is only a tiny room after all, and if you cram it full of the world, you relegate your Master to the stable outside. ‘Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.’ ‘Be sober,’ says Paul, then, and cultivate the habit of rigid self-control in regard to this present. Oh! what a melancholy, solemn thought it is that hundreds of professing Christians in England, like vultures after a full meal, have so gorged themselves with the garbage of this present life that they cannot fly, and have to be content with moving along the ground, heavy and languid. Christian men and women, are you keeping yourselves in spiritual health by a very sparing use of the dainties and delights of earth? Answer the question to your own souls and to your Judge.

II. And now let me turn to the other thoughts that lie here. There is, secondly, a motive which backs up and buttresses this exhortation. ‘Let us who are of the day’--or as the Revised Version has it a little more emphatically and correctly, ‘Let us, since we are of the day, be sober.’

‘The day’; what day? The temptation is to answer the question by saying--’of course the specific day which was spoken about in the beginning of the section, "the day of the Lord," that coming judgment by the coming Christ.’ But I think that although, perhaps, there may be some allusion here to that specific day, still, if you will look at the verses which immediately precede my text, you will see that in them the Apostle has passed from the thought of ‘the day of the Lord’ to that of day in general. That is obvious, I think, from the contrast he draws between the ‘day’ and the ‘night,’ the darkness and the light. If so, then, when he says ‘the children of the day’ he does not so much mean--though that is quite true--that we are, as it were, akin to that day of judgment, and may therefore look forward to it without fear, and in quiet confidence, lifting up our heads because our redemption draws nigh; but rather he means that Christians are the children of that which expresses knowledge, and joy, and activity. Of these things the day is the emblem, in every language and in every poetry. The day is the time when men see and hear, the symbol of gladness and cheer all the world over.

And so, says Paul, you Christian men and women belong to a joyous realm, a realm of light and knowledge, a realm of purity and righteousness. You are children of the light; a glad condition which involves many glad and noble issues. Children of the light should be brave, children of the light should not be afraid of the light, children of the light should be cheerful, children of the light should be buoyant, children of the light should be transparent, children of the light should be hopeful, children of the light should be pure, and children of the light should walk in this darkened world, bearing their radiance with them; and making things, else unseen, visible to many a dim eye.

But while these emblems of cheerfulness, hope, purity, and illumination are gathered together in that grand name--’Ye are the children of the day,’ there is one direction especially in which the Apostle thinks that that consideration ought to tell, and that is the direction of self-restraint. ‘ Noblesse oblige! ‘--the aristocracy are bound to do nothing low or dishonourable. The children of the light are not to stain their hands with anything foul. Chambering and wantonness, slumber and drunkenness, the indulgence in the appetites of the flesh,--all that may be fitting for the night, it is clean incongruous with the day.

Well, if you want that turned into pedestrian prose--which is no more clear, but a little less emotional--it is just this: You Christian men and women belong--if you are Christians--to another state of things from that which is lying round about you; and, therefore, you ought to live in rigid abstinence from these things that are round about you.

That is plain enough surely, nor do I suppose that I need to dwell on that thought at any length. We belong to another order of things, says Paul; we carry a day with us in the midst of the night. What follows from that? Do not let us pursue the wandering lights and treacherous will-o’-the-wisps that lure men into bottomless bogs where they are lost. If we have light in our dwellings whilst Egypt lies in darkness, let it teach us to eat our meat with our loins girded, and our staves in our hands, not without bitter herbs, and ready to go forth into the wilderness. You do not belong to the world in which you live, if you are Christian men and women; you are only camped here. Your purposes, thoughts, hopes, aspirations, treasures, desires, delights, go up higher. And so, if you are children of the day, be self-restrained in your dealings with the darkness.

III. And, last of all, my text points out for us a method by which this great precept may be fulfilled:--’Putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and for an helmet the hope of salvation.’

That, of course, is the first rough draft occurring in Paul’s earliest Epistle, of an image which recurs at intervals, and in more or less expanded form in other of his letters, and is so splendidly worked out in detail in the grand picture of the Christian armour in the Epistle to the Ephesians.

I need not do more than just remind you of the difference between that finished picture and this outline sketch. Here we have only defensive and not offensive armour, here the Christian graces are somewhat differently allocated to the different parts of the armour. Here we have only the great triad of Christian graces, so familiar on our lips--faith, hope, charity. Here we have faith and love in the closest possible juxtaposition, and hope somewhat more apart. The breastplate, like some of the ancient hauberks, made of steel and gold, is framed and forged out of faith and love blended together, and faith and love are more closely identified in fact than faith and hope, or than love and hope. For faith and love have the same object--and are all but contemporaneous. Wherever a man lays hold of Jesus Christ by faith, there cannot but spring up in his heart love to Christ; and there is no love without faith. So that we may almost say that faith and love are but the two throws of the shuttle, the one in the one direction and the other in the other; whereas hope comes somewhat later in a somewhat remoter connection with faith, and has a somewhat different object from these other two. Therefore it is here slightly separated from its sister graces. Faith, love, hope--these three form the defensive armour that guard the soul; and these three make self-control possible. Like a diver in his dress, who is let down to the bottom of the wild, far-weltering ocean, a man whose heart is girt by faith and charity, and whose head is covered with the helmet of hope, may be dropped down into the wildest sea of temptation and of worldliness, and yet will walk dry and unharmed through the midst of its depths, and breathe air that comes from a world above the restless surges.

And in like manner the cultivation of faith, charity, and hope is the best means for securing the exercise of sober self-control.

It is an easy thing to say to a man, ‘Govern yourself!’ It is a very hard thing with the powers that any man has at his disposal to do it. As somebody said about an army joining the rebels, ‘It’s a bad job when the extinguisher catches fire!’ And that is exactly the condition of things in regard to our power of self-government. The powers that should control are largely gone over to the enemy, and become traitors.

‘Who shall keep the very keepers?’ is the old question, and here is the answer:--You cannot execute the gymnastic feat of ‘erecting yourself above yourself’ any more than a man can take himself by his own coat collar and lift himself up from the ground with his own arms. But you can cultivate faith, hope, and charity, and these three, well cultivated and brought to bear upon your daily life, will do the governing for you. Faith will bring you into communication with all the power of God. Love will lead you into a region where all the temptations round you will be touched as by an Ithuriel spear, and will show their foulness. And hope will turn away your eyes from looking at the tempting splendours around, and fix them upon the glories that are above.

And so the reins will come into your hands in an altogether new manner, and you will be able to be king over your own nature in a fashion that you did not dream of before, if only you will trust in Christ, and love Him, and fix your desires on the things above.

Then you will be able to govern yourself when you let Christ govern you. The glories that are to be done away, that gleam round you like foul, flaring tallow-candles, will lose all their fascination and brightness, by reason of the glory that excelleth, the pure starlike splendour of the white inextinguishable lights of heaven.

And when by faith, charity, and hope you have drunk of the new wine of the kingdom, the drugged and opiate cup which a sorceress world presents, jewelled though it be, will lose its charms, and it will not be hard to turn from it and dash it to the ground.

God help you, brother, to be ‘sober,’ for unless you are ‘you cannot see the kingdom of God!’

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

5:6-11 Most of mankind do not consider the things of another world at all, because they are asleep; or they do not consider them aright, because they sleep and dream. Our moderation as to all earthly things should be known to all men. Shall Christians, who have the light of the blessed gospel shining in their faces, be careless about their souls, and unmindful of another world? We need the spiritual armour, or the three Christian graces, faith, love, and hope. Faith; if we believe that the eye of God is always upon us, that there is another world to prepare for, we shall see reason to watch and be sober. True and fervent love to God, and the things of God, will keep us watchful and sober. If we have hope of salvation, let us take heed of any thing that would shake our trust in the Lord. We have ground on which to build unshaken hope, when we consider, that salvation is by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, to atone for our sins and to ransom our souls. We should join in prayer and praise one with another. We should set a good example one before another, and this is the best means to answer the end of society. Thus we shall learn how to live to Him, with whom we hope to live for ever.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

But let us, who are of the day, be sober - Temperate, as people usually are in the daytime.

Putting on the breast-plate of faith and love - This is a favorite comparison of the apostle Paul; see it explained at length in the notes on Ephesians 6:14.

And for an helmet, the hope of salvation - See the notes at Ephesians 6:17.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

8. Faith, hope, and love, are the three pre-eminent graces (1Th 1:3; 1Co 13:13). We must not only be awake and sober, but also armed; not only watchful, but also guarded. The armor here is only defensive; in Eph 6:13-17, also offensive. Here, therefore, the reference is to the Christian means of being guarded against being surprised by the day of the Lord as a thief in the night. The helmet and breastplate defend the two vital parts, the head and the heart respectively. "With head and heart right, the whole man is right" [Edmunds]. The head needs to be kept from error, the heart from sin. For "the breastplate of righteousness," Eph 6:14, we have here "the breastplate of faith and love"; for the righteousness which is imputed to man for justification, is "faith working by love" (Ro 4:3, 22-24; Ga 5:6). "Faith," as the motive within, and "love," exhibited in outward acts, constitute the perfection of righteousness. In Eph 6:17 the helmet is "salvation"; here, "the hope of salvation." In one aspect "salvation" is a present possession (Joh 3:36; 5:24; 1Jo 5:13); in another, it is a matter of "hope" (Ro 8:24, 25). Our Head primarily wore the "breastplate of righteousness" and "helmet of salvation," that we might, by union with Him, receive both.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The apostle here commands two spiritual duties, and the former is sobriety; which he mentioned before, 1 Thessalonians 5:6, as a preparation for Christ’s coming; but here, as that which was suitable to their present state, and as standing opposite to that drunkenness in the foregoing verse. It is not sufficient to abstain from vice, without practising the contrary virtue. The other duty is, putting on their spiritual armour. The former was to secure them against the good things of the world, the latter against the evil of it, that they be not overcome of either. The armour he mentions is spiritual. Soldiers have their breastplate and helmet for their bodies, so hath the Christian these for his soul. As the breastplate and helmet secure the principal seats of the natural life, the head and the heart, so doth the Christian’s armour secure the life of the soul, and therefore these two pieces are only mentioned, as being most necessary. His breastplate is faith and love.

First, faith; in Ephesians 6:16, it is called a shield; here, a breastplate. Great things are ascribed to faith in Scripture; it is that whereby we are justified, adopted, united to Christ, have our hearts purified, &c.; but here it is to be considered as a defensive grace; and it doth defend as it assents to the doctrine of the gospel as true, particularly the doctrine of the resurrection, and the coming of Christ, with the effects and attendants thereof, before mentioned. And as it doth depend upon God’s faithfulness and all-sufficiency to perform his promises, and applying them to ourselves for our support and comfort, so faith is a breastplate or defence; and as it is a defence against temptations, so particularly against that sudden destruction that will come upon the secure world, before mentioned.

Secondly, love; and love is joined with faith to show it to be a true and lively faith, when it worketh by love, Galatians 5:6; and love, when it worketh, produceth many blessed effects, and particularly, as faith it will be a breastplate of defence. It will defend against the persecutions and afflictions of the world: Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it, Song of Solomon 8:7. Slavish fear will overcome us if we want love to defend against it, when true religion is under disgrace and persecuted in the world: love will defend against apostacy, and so help us to persevere to the coming of Christ, which the apostle had been speaking of; and love being seated in the heart, is well compared to a breastplate that encompasseth the heart.

Thirdly, the other piece of armour is the helmet, so called in the Greek from encompassing the head; and this helmet is here said to be the hope of salvation. In Ephesians 6:17, we read of the helmet of salvation, but the hope of it is there to be understood, for salvation is no grace of the Spirit, and so, of itself, no part of a Christian’s armour. Hope of salvation is of great use to a Christian many ways: it is a cordial to comfort him, a spur to quicken him, a staff to support him, a bridle to restrain him, and so also a helmet to defend him: and therefore no wonder that the apostle calls true hope a lively hope, 1 Peter 1:3. And as itself is lively, so it is a defence to the life of the soul, as a helmet is to the life of the body.

Hope deferred maketh the heart sick, saith Solomon; but if quite disappointed and lost, the heart sinks and dies. Let afflictions and distresses break in like a flood, yet hope will keep the head above water; and if Satan assault the soul to drive it into despair, this hope of salvation will be a defence to it. So that the Christian’s armour mentioned in this verse are faith, love, and hope, which divines call the three theological graces, and placed together by the apostle, 1 Corinthians 13:13. And these the saints, who are children of the day, are to put on, whereby they shall be armed for the coming of Christ with this armour of light, Romans 13:12, and against the destruction which will then surprise the children of the night.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

But let us, who are of the day, be sober,.... As in body, so in mind; let us cast off the works of darkness, and have no fellowship with them; since the day of grace has passed upon us, the darkness is gone, and the true light shines, let us walk as children of the light, living soberly, righteously, and godly:

putting on the breastplate of faith and love; this is the coat of mail, 1 Samuel 17:5 which was made of iron or brass; and the Ethiopic version here calls it, "the iron coat." The allusion seems to be to the high priest's breastplate of judgment, in which were put the Thummim and Urim, which signify perfections and lights; faith may answer to the former, and love to the latter: these two graces go together, faith works by love, and love always accompanies faith; as there can be no true faith where there is no love, so there is no true love where faith is wanting: "faith" is a considerable part of the Christian soldier's breastplate, and answers the end of a breastplate, it being that grace which preserves the vitals of religion, and keeps all warm and comfortable within; and secures the peace and joy of the saints, as it has to do with Christ and his righteousness; wherefore this breastplate is called "the breastplate of righteousness", Ephesians 6:14, it fortifies the soul, and preserves it from Satan's temptations, from his fiery darts entering, and doing the mischief they would; it defends the heart against the errors of the wicked, for a man that believes has a witness in himself to the truths of the Gospel, and therefore cannot be easily moved from them; and strengthens a man against the carnal reasonings of the mind, for faith in the promises of God surmounts all the difficulties that reason objects to the fulfilling of them; and secures from the fears of death, the terrors of the law, and dread of the wrath of God: and love is the other part of the breast plate; love to God and Christ is a means of keeping the believer sound both in faith and practice; for a soul that truly loves God and Christ cannot give in to principles that depreciate the grace of God, and derogate from the glory and dignity of the person and office of Christ, or the work of the Spirit; and such love the ordinances and commands of Christ, and hate every false way of worship, or invention of men; and love to the saints is the bond of perfectness, knits them together, preserves unity and peace, and fortifies against the common enemy:

and for an helmet, the hope of salvation; the helmet is that part of armour which covers the head, and was made of brass, 1 Samuel 17:5 and used to be anointed with oil, that it might shine the brighter, last the longer, and more easily repel blows; to which this grace of the Spirit, hope of salvation by Christ, is fitly compared: for by "salvation" is meant salvation by Christ, spiritual salvation, and that as complete in heaven; and hope is a grace wrought in the soul by the spirit of God, which has for its foundation Christ and his righteousness, and for its object the heavenly glory; it covers the head in the day of battle, and preserves from being overcome by sin and Satan, when one that is destitute of it says there is no hope, and we will walk every man after the imagination of his own evil heart; it erects the head in time of difficulty, amidst tribulation and afflictions; it defends it from fears of divine wrath which is revealed from heaven, and sometimes in appearance seems to hang over it; and it preserves from Satan's temptations, and being carried away with the error of the wicked, from the hope of the Gospel: and thus a Christian clothed and armed with these graces, faith, hope, and love, should be so far from indulging himself in sin and sloth, that he ought always to be sober and watchful, and prepared to meet the enemy in the gate; and be ready, always waiting for his Lord's coming.

Geneva Study Bible

{3} But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.

(3) We must fight with faith and hope, and therefore we should certainly not lie snoring.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

1 Thessalonians 5:8. The apostle passes over to a new image, whilst he, as the proper preparation for watchfulness and sobriety, requires the putting on of the Christians’ spiritual armour, with the help of which they are in a condition victoriously to repel all the assaults of internal and external enemies.[62] The apostle delights to represent the Christian under the image of a warrior; comp. 2 Corinthians 10:4 ff.; Romans 6:13; Romans 13:12; and especially Ephesians 6:11 ff. Here the transition to this new image was very easily occasioned either by the expression ἡμέρα, 1 Thessalonians 5:5, inasmuch as in the day one is not only watchful, but also completely clothed; or by the idea of γρηγορεῖν, 1 Thessalonians 5:6, inasmuch as whoever watches must also be provided with weapons. Whilst in Ephesians 6:11 ff. not only weapons of defence, but also of offence are mentioned, the apostle here names only weapons of the first description. He designates as weapons the three principal parts of the Christian life—faith, love, and hope; comp. 1 Thessalonians 1:3 and 1 Corinthians 13:13.

πίστεως καὶ ἀγάπης] are genitives of apposition. πίστις and ἀγάπη do not import “trust in God and Christ, and in connection with it love to Him and to our fellow-men, and to our fellow-Christians” (Flatt); but the first is faith in Christ as the Redeemer, and the latter love to our neighbour. The πίστις and the ἀγάπη are a θώραξ, a coat of mail (comp. Isaiah 59:17; Wis 5:19), i.e. they protect the Christian’s heart against the influences of evil, even as a coat of mail protects the breast of the earthly warrior.

καὶ περικεφαλαίαν ἐλπίδα σωτηρίας] and as a helmet the hope of salvation. This hope of eternal salvation is so much the more a powerful protection against all the attacks and allurements to evil, as it by means of a reference to a future better world sustains our courage amidst trial and tribulation, and communicates strength to stedfast endurance.

The helmet is already in Isaiah 59:17 represented as a symbol of victory.

[62] This design of the armour is evident from the context. Schrader’s objection to the words, that “Paul elsewhere only speaks of an arming against evil in order to overcome it,” is therefore without meaning.

Expositor's Greek Testament

1 Thessalonians 5:8. ἐνδυσάμενοι θώρακα κ.τ.λ., the thought of 1 Thessalonians 2:12-13; the mutual love of Christians, which forms the practical expression of their faith in God, is their true fitness and equipment for the second advent. Faith and love are a unity; where the one goes the other follows. They are also not merely their own coat of mail, requiring no extraneous protection, but the sole protection of life against indolence, indifference and indulgence. They need simply to be used. If they are not used, they are lost, and with them the Christian himself. The transition to the military metaphor is mediated (as in Romans 13:12-13) by the idea of the sentry’s typical vigilance.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

8. But let us, who are of the day, be sober] Better, since we are of the day (R. V.); comp. notes on “sober” (1 Thessalonians 5:6), and “day” (1 Thessalonians 5:5).

Watchfulness has been sufficiently urged already. The Apostle now reiterates the other half of the appeal made in 1 Thessalonians 5:6 : “let us be sober.”

putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for a helmet, the hope of salvation] The daylight rouses the soldier to action. If he has slept, with the dawn he is awake and alert; if he has spent the night in carousals, he is instantly sobered. The things of darkness are dismissed and forgotten. At the bugle-call he starts up, he dons his armour and is ready for the field. In Romans 13:12-13 the same figure is still more graphically applied: “Let us put off the works of darkness—revellings, drunkenness, and the like”—loose and shameful garments of the night—“and let us put on the armour of light … Let us walk in the day, becomingly.” Comp., for the military style of the passage, ch. 1 Thessalonians 4:16, and notes.

In the later passage parallel to this, Ephesians 6:13-17, the Christian armour, “the panoply of God,” is set forth in greater detail and somewhat differently. “Breastplate” and “helmet” make up this picture, “being the two chief pieces of defensive armour, that protect the two most vital parts of the body. “The breastplate of faith and love” guards the heart, the centre of life and spring of the body’s forces; and to this quarter “faith and love” are naturally assigned. What belongs to “breastplate” here, is virtually divided between “shield” and “breastplate” in Ephesians.—The “helmet” is the same in both Epistles: there consisting of “salvation,” here “the hope of salvation,” in accordance with the fact that Hope is the dominant key-note of this Epistle (see ch. 1 Thessalonians 1:3, and note). The fitness of this metaphor lies in the place of the helmet as the crown of the soldier’s armour, its brightest and most conspicuous feature, covering the head, the part of his person that most invites attack. The simile, in both Epistles, is based on Isaiah 59:17, where the Lord appears “putting on righteousness as a breastplate” and “an helmet of salvation upon His head,” as He goes forth to fight for His people.

Observe again the Apostle’s favourite combination, Faith, Love, Hope, in the same order as in ch. 1 Thessalonians 1:3 (see notes); also in 2 Thessalonians 1:3-4. As we might expect, “hope the helmet” is that on which he is here most disposed to dwell. Accordingly he continues—

Bengel's Gnomen

1 Thessalonians 5:8. Ἐλπίδα σωτηρίας, the hope of salvation) Refer to this the next verse.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 8. - But; contrast to the conduct of those who are of the night: let us not only be watchful, but armed. The apostle now adopts a favorite figure, that of spiritual armor. The arms which he here mentions are only two - the breastplate to protect the heart, and the helmet to guard the head; they are both defensive weapons, because the reference here is not so much to the believer's conflict with evil, as to his defense against surprise. And by these spiritual weapons are denoted the three cardinal graces - faith, love, and hope (1 Thessalonians 1:3). Let us who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love. By "faith" is here meant faith in Christ; and by "love," not so much love to God as love to man. These preserve the heart of a Christian against the assaults and influences of evil, as the breastplate guards the heart of the earthly warrior. And for a helmet, the hope of salvation. Salvation in its most comprehensive sense. The hope of salvation sustains our courage amid all the trials of life by holding out to us the prospect of eternal blessedness. Vigilance is of no avail unless armed by faith, hope, and love. In the Epistle to the Ephesians there is a still fuller enumeration of the Christian armor (Ephesians 6:14-18); and there is a slight difference in the description of the weapons. Here the apostle speaks of the breastplate of faith and love; there of the breastplate of righteousness and of the shield of faith. Here the helmet is called the hope of salvation; there the apostle speaks of the helmet of salvation. And besides these defensive weapons, other weapons of defense and the sword, a weapon of offence, are mentioned. 1 Thessalonians 5:8

Vincent's Word Studies

Putting on (ἐνδυσάμενοι)

The son of day clothes himself for the day's work or battle. The same association of ideas as in 1 Thessalonians 5:6, 1 Thessalonians 5:8, is found in Romans 13:12-14; Revelation 16:15; 1 Peter 1:13. Comp. lxx, Bar. 5:2.

Breastplate - helmet

Comp. Ephesians 6:14. The figures are not original with Paul. See Isaiah 59:17; Wisd. 5:18, 19. Notice that only defensive armor is mentioned, in accordance with the darkness and uncertainty of the last time; and that the fundamental elements of Christian character, faith, hope, and love, are brought forward again as in 1 Thessalonians 1:3; 1 Corinthians 13:13. For the figure of the armed soldier, comp. also Romans 13:12; 2 Corinthians 10:4.