Sinful Desires

By Alan P. Medinger

When it comes to dealing with sin, it seems to me there are two kinds of Christians: those who are too permissive, and those who are too legalistic. Somewhere in the world there may be the one individual who has the perfect understanding of grace and law, but I don't think I have ever met him.

In regards to our struggles with sexual sin, both legalism and permissiveness can cause us problems. The risk of being too permissive is obvious. By allowing too much leeway in the face of sexual temptations, the permissive person can soon find himself going beyond the point of no return. He can put physical, psychological and spiritual processes in motion that will make sinful sexual behavior almost inevitable.

For the legalist, the risks are more subtle, but they are just as real. By zealously trying to avoid anything that could lead to sexual sin, the legalist may end up with either an unhealthy focus on anything that might sexually stimulate him or an unhealthy aversion to those things. Perhaps more insidious, the legalist is likely to tear himself down at any sign of continuing sexual attractions. We meet legalistic people regularly in our ministry and find that their perfectionism keeps them from recognizing the healing work that God has already done.

In this legalism-permissiveness struggle, the matter of "sinful desires" often comes to the forefront, and that is what I want to discuss in this month's article.

When Sins Begin

Are sinful desires sin? Worded differently, is the desire to sin, in and of itself, sinful? Do we need to confess such desires to the Lord?

Most of us would agree that we have sinful desires because we are fallen creatures. For the believer in Jesus Christ the spiritual consequences of the fall have been cancelled out, but as we all experience, other consequences of the fall have not been eliminated. Disease came into the world with the fall, but even today born again believers die of heart disease, cancer and a myriad of other things that would not be present with us had it not been for the fall.

The question of sinful desires becomes especially intriguing when we consider Adam and Eve before the fall. God had instructed them to eat from any tree they wished within the Garden but to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But it looked good to them, and with Satan's prompting, they had a desire-a sinful desire-to eat it. Did sin enter the world with the desire to eat of the tree, with the decision to eat of it, or with the actual eating of the fruit?

Moving from the Garden of Eden to our grubby world today, suppose you have the desire to engage in lustful fantasies-is that a sin? It certainly is a sinful desire, but is the desire itself a sin? I believe God has given us an answer to these questions in the following passage of Scripture, which describes the process of moving from desire to sin to death:

But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire, when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.
James 1:14-15

The definitive word in this passage is conceived. Just as a mother must conceive before she gives birth to a baby, so desire must conceive before a sin is committed. How does this happen? A woman alone will not become pregnant; another element is necessary-the sperm of a man. What is it that makes desire conceive? It is a person's will.

The word conceived comes from a Greek word that means not only to become pregnant, but also to grasp, seize, arrest or capture. Notice the action inherent in these definitions. They imply something more than passively accepting or receiving. They have a much stronger sense, even a degree of violence.

With respect to sexual sin, the scripture passage above does not appear to be saying that desire conceives (and therefore sin begins) when a sexual act is undertaken. Rather, it says that sin begins even before the sexual act is undertaken in any overt way. Desire conceives (sin begins) when the will gives assent and we seize the tempting image. Recognizing this can be terribly important for the man or woman struggling with sexual temptations. Let me illustrate.

Tom and Tony

Like all of us, Tom has sinful desires. He longs for a sexual encounter with another man. But Tom has moved far enough along in his healing and growth that he no longer ever seriously considers acting out on this desire. Furthermore, he hasn't looked at pornography for over three years, and he is seldom tempted by it anymore. One evening, however, he is watching a movie on television-a fairly legitimate one for a Christian to watch-and in one scene two men enter a room together under circumstances that make it quite clear that they have gone into the room to have sex. Tom feels a tremendous desire to start imagining what they are doing behind the door of that room, and possibly even to imagine that he is one of them.

There is a split second in which Tom faces the decision to either pursue these thoughts or dismiss them. Being the permissive type, Tom decides to allow himself "just a little" pleasure by letting the images of the two men work in his mind. It is at that point that Tom grasps, seizes, arrests, captures the images-and he is in sin. Most likely, once he had made this decision, he will soon start to manipulate the images to enhance his feelings of sexual pleasure, and eventually he'll end up masturbating. But remember, masturbation is not where the sin began. He was already in sin when his will gave assent to the temptation; at that moment, desire conceived and sin began.

Tony has a similar background to Tom's. He, too, has sinful desires and longs for a sexual encounter with another man. Likewise, he's made a good deal of progress, no longer seriously considers acting out on this desire, and hasn't looked at pornography for a few years. Tony watched the same movie on television. When the two men in the movie shut the door to the room, Tony's heart started racing and he felt his blood pressure go up. Oh how he wanted to imagine what was going to happen between those two men! In contrast to Tom, however, Tony tends towards legalism. So when the desire to entertain sexual thoughts raced through him he immediately condemned himself, believing that he had already sinned. He felt hopeless and cut off from God because of his "sin." And as we might guess, in his state of self-loathing and supposed separation from God, Tony grasped out for something to ease that pain, and seized the sexual images, allowing them to work in his mind just like Tom did.

Tom and Tony are at opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to how they try to deal with sin, and yet both of them ended up in the same place. They both need a clearer understanding of where sin begins. Tom needs to realize that when he makes the decision to engage in "just a little" pleasure he is already entering into sin, which will, in turn, seize him just as he has seized the sexual images. Tony, on the other hand, will benefit greatly to remember that desire is not the same as sin. Though he may feel enticed, he has not sinned unless he has grasped the tempting image.

First Response

Let me refine my point yet a little more. In our struggles with sin, we often go through a very brief period of warfare as the Spirit battles the flesh. In the moment when we are first tempted, our heart may waver between "I will, I won't, I will, I won't." Even this may not be the point of entering into sin. Conception does not occur until the "I will" prevails and we actually grasp or capture the image in our mind.

It must be said, however, that in my experience once the "I will, I won't" struggle starts, "I will" wins out as many times as not, and the battle is lost. For this reason, most of the time a person's first response is the critical one. Conception is something that happens in an instant. A sperm penetrates an egg and a new life is formed just like that. Our desire conceives sin in an instant, too. The critical point for any man or woman struggling with sexual desire is that first moment when he or she chooses to grasp the tempting image and hold onto it or to turn away from the image and grasp onto God.

Whether you tend towards permissiveness or towards legalism, remember that desire is not sin until it has conceived, so be alert to those moments when your desire can conceive. They are the key moments for entering into sin, or conversely, they are the key moments when you will have the kind of victory that moves you forward in your healing.