Jesus & Sexual Desire

Modern western culture has a permissive attitude towards living out sexual desire between adults: if you are an adult who wants to have sex, and one’s adult partner is willing, then western society generally says you can, and even should, without further constraint (lest it become repression). But Christianity has a word for unconstrained acting on sexual desire: licentiousness. To be licentious is to lack moral restraint in sexual conduct, it is to behave sexually in a way that is not moral, not in accord with standards of right or good conduct. For a Christian, sexual desire needs to be governed, not recklessly indulged,

The importance of avoiding licentiousness is emphasized frequently in the New Testament. Romans 13:13 advises, “let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy.” Mark 7:21-22 calls licentiousness an “evil intention” that comes from within, from the human heart, along with things like fornication, adultery, wickedness, theft and murder. 2 Corinthians 12:21 describes “impurity, sexual immorality and licentiousness” as something which needs to be repented from. Galatians 5:19 calls fornication, impurity and licentiousness some of the “works of the flesh” that should be avoided. Ephesians 4:19 negatively describes people who have “lost all sensitivity and have abandoned themselves to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of impurity” and advises Christians to behave differently. 1 Peter 4:3 similarly warns against “living in licentiousness, passions, drunkenness, revels, carousing” and so on. These are strong words of criticism for unrestrained sexual practice.

What, then, to do with sexual desire? It is an almost universal aspect of being a mature human being: most if not every adult person will experience it. When is the physical expression of sexual desire good, and when is it unrestrained: when is it licentiousness?

In the Gospels, Jesus answers the question of when it is good:

Some Pharisees came to him, and to test him they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause?” He answered, “Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” They said to him, “Why then did Moses command us to give a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her?” He said to them, “It was because you were so hard-hearted that Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another commits adultery.” [Matthew 19:3-9]

Jesus here describes married couples, a man and a woman joined together by God, who should not be separated. That he includes sexual activity in this is made clear by his description of their joining by becoming “one flesh”, i.e. one body. This language describes not merely an emotional or psychological joining, it is physical: he is talking about bodies, about sex. Jesus is pointing out where God has created a proper place for the physical expression of sexual desire.

This, then, outlines the right and good conduct, the moral restraint, within which physical expressions of sexual desire should be lived. It is lived within a marriage of two people, male and female, whom God has joined together. It is when sexual desire is physically expressed outside of this, outside of its proper place, that it becomes licentiousness, or more simply put, sin. Jesus advocates more than moderation here; he advocates a complete rejection of sin:

“Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the man by whom the temptation comes! And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it from you; it is better for you to enter life maimed or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it from you; it is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire. [Matthew 18:7-9]

There is no wiggle room. A fling here and there is not OK, even if it “doesn’t mean anything”. Porn is not OK, because Jesus points out that you can sin in your heart even if the only physical action is looking:

You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.” But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. [Matthew 5:27-28]

There is no room here for licentiousness at all, not even a little hidden habit to relieve tension. Even for married couples, there is no guarantee that a couple will legitimately be able to express their sexual desire for each other whenever and however they wish: marriage is not an unlimited sexual license, it is a relationship within which legitimate sexual intimacy can occur, but not without restraint. Sexual intimacy still requires love, respect and consideration. Sometimes respectful and considerate love for the other will mean that sexual intimacy may not be able to occur at all. That is not repression, it is the simple reality of living out a loving and respectful relationship. Moreover, if sexual desire between the wife and husband should wane, or even vanish entirely, this does not allow the marriage to be discarded and another be set up with someone else: Jesus calls this a sin of adultery [Matthew 19:9].

One might argue that a bit of self-indulgence on the side here and there seems not to be always harmful: surely it can sometimes be tolerated? But Jesus does not see it that way. One reason Jesus takes a “no licentiousness” approach is that there is no room for it: the pursuit of God and his kingdom is worth everything that we have. Jesus explains:

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it. [Matthew 13:44-45]

This is also Jesus’ answer for dealing with the challenges and difficulties of restraining our sexual desires. Here he is telling us to want something else more, to want the kingdom of heaven. He is telling us to want God more than anything, to want God’s values and God’s way of living.

Sadly, we all know that even if we set off to give all we have for the kingdom of heaven, things do not go always according to plan: sometimes we still fall into sin. When we do sin, Jesus does not use it as an excuse to condemn us. Instead, he calls us to repentance, to stop sinning and instead to do what is right. For instance, when a woman caught in adultery is brought to him for condemnation, he persuades her accusers to abandon their condemnation of her. When they leave, leaving her alone with Jesus, he says to her, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.”[John 8:11] This does not mean Jesus is OK with sexual sin, it means that he wants us to do what is right in the future, even if we have done wrong in the past.

What are we to make of all this? Clearly, Jesus’ view is not compatible with the modern western view that it is difficult or impossible to control acting on our sexual desires. Jesus says it is right to try: in fact, it is vital that we do so. We know from experience that restraining desire is not impossible: on the contrary, it is often expected. Even modern western society, for all its licentiousness, does not expect people to act on their sexual desires when those desires are towards unwilling or underage partners: these are serious crimes. Moreover, the expectation to resist rather than act on desires, even if difficult, is there for all sorts of desires, not just sexual ones. For example, we desire money, or possessions, yet we are expected not to steal: we can walk through stores full of attractive things far beyond our ability to buy, and yet most people do not steal: it is a crime. Similarly, it may be difficult to control our actions when we experience strong feelings of anger or envy, but it is expected that no matter how intensely we feel these things, we will always refrain from vicious slander, or from assault, or from murder, all of which are crimes. Restraining our desires and acting properly when we might want to act improperly is not unusual: it is what it means to be of good character, and it is expected of everyone. So it is not unreasonable to expect us to exercise good character in the realm of sexual desire, too.

This does not mean that it is easy. A great many people, almost everyone, are sometimes, perhaps often, maybe even always, attracted to people they cannot or should not marry. The other person may be unsuitable: they may be married to someone else, or be of the wrong gender. The person experiencing the attraction may themselves not be free to marry, for example if they are already married. Even when the desire is within a marriage, towards one’s own spouse, there are many circumstances where it is not right to act on it. Resisting desire requires genuine character, commitment and resolve. But character, commitment and resolve is not a rare and unreasonable thing: it is a key aspect of what it takes to be a decent human being.

This is quite counter-cultural, yes, but it is the modern culture that is wrong, for embracing licentiousness and thus broadly abandoning the exercise of good character for sexual desires. Jesus advocates zero tolerance for licentiousness: secret habits are not OK. Instead, they must be resisted always. The truth is, indulging licentiousness is like scratching a mosquito bite. The scratching will not relieve the itch for long: the more you scratch, the more it will itch, and the more difficult it will be not to scratch some more. Don’t feed licentiousness; starve it instead. Most of all, go to Jesus, who never asks something of us without also offering us help to do it. The more licentiousness attracts, the more we should run to Jesus for his help. He will help us with what we need to do, how we need to live, and his mercy, if we fail, will help us repent and try again.