Did Jesus have a sex drive?

This post, along with at least one more to come, will be about widespread error derived from a hyperliteral interpretation of some of Jesus’ hyperbole in Matthew 5, which He used throughout the “Sermon on the Mount”.(Matthew chapters 5-7) In this post I will primarily try to focus on making fitting sense of the part mentioning lust and adultery.

Hyperbole – is a rhetorical device that uses exaggeration to emphasize a point.

First, I’ll give some obvious examples of Jesus’ hyperbole from chapters 6 & 7 which I won’t actually be covering in these posts. In 6:2 Jesus speaks of hypocrites having trumpets sounded preceding whenever they gave their offerings in the synagogues, which were solemn places for prayer and worship. There is nothing to indicate that was the literal custom and not just hyperbole indicating that the pompous ones wanted to be noticed giving their offerings. Jesus told them instead, when they gave, “do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.” Which was also clearly hyperbole. Then in 6:28-29 Jesus says that the wildflowers don’t do exhausting work or spin fabric but that Solomon, in all his glory, was not clothed as finely as any one of them. Clearly that’s also more hyperbole. And Chapter 6 ends with “tomorrow worrying about itself”. Clearly that is more idiomatic humor that was probably far better caught when Jesus delivered it verbally. I suspect that when I read in English, I’m likely missing even more non-literal idioms due to English paraphrasing or dynamic-equivalence translation.

In Matthew 7:3-5 Jesus speaks of trying to remove the speck from your brother’s eye while having a literal architectural building beam stuck in your own eye. Clearly that’s hyperbole. In 7:6, who would give holy things to dogs or throw pearls before pigs? In 7:15, did false teachers really dress up in sheep’s clothing while actually being wolves? No, clearly Jesus was using a lot of hyperbole, sarcasm, and humorous idioms throughout that sermon.

Now also to set the stage for the misunderstanding we will discuss, I’d like to point out that the early church was surrounded by Gnosticism, Stoicism, and Asceticism, and they all treated the physical world, and our fleshly desires, such as one’s sex drive, as things that are inherently evil and need to be suppressed. And the church didn’t want to get outdone by their religious competition. So, the early church took a basically Gnostic idea, that all sex is inherently evil, and ran with it.

While the Bible teaches that a man having sex with a virgin creates a “one flesh” marital union with her which is thereafter to be protected through the enforcing of God’s lawful penalty of death for adultery, yet the Bible is not anti-sex, and does not recommend celibacy within marriage. (e.g. 1 Corinthians 7:2-5) However, many early church fathers did try to reduce sex within marriage, seemingly under the influence of their Gnostic culture. So, it should not surprise us that the early church was eager to find ways to render all our fleshly desires to be immoral, like the Gnostics viewed them.

Matthew Chapter 5

In Matthew 5:17 Jesus says that he did not come to abolish His Father’s law but to accomplish or fulfill it. In 5:18 He says that not a single dot of God’s law will pass away before heaven and earth pass away. So, Jesus is making it clear that He is not going to revoke or invalidate God’s laws that apply, neither God’s Mosaic laws for Judaism, nor God’s seven Noahic laws for all people, which were each reissued to the church within the New Testament.

In 5:21-22 Jesus references His Father’s Noahic and Mosaic laws against murder, and then He makes a connection between unrighteous anger, or hatred, with the guilt for murder. Jesus wasn’t saying that the unjustly angry or hateful should actually be put to death as murderers, nor was He altering His Father’s good and perfect law, He was only illustrating that even those who thought themselves to be innocent of murder, were still unholy before God having the hatred that is the very root of murder already existing in their hearts. And they all stood in need of a cleansing sacrifice.

The Pharisees considered themselves to be keepers of all the law, and blameless before the law. Jesus was humorously explaining to them that they would all still fall far short of the unapproachable glory and holiness of God, and they would all need a perfect sacrifice to pay for their falling short of the holiness of God.

In Matthew 5:22 Jesus wasn’t literally saying that any critic who calls me a “fool” is guilty of murder. He was saying that to speak that way unjustly would be sinful, and that the same unjust hatred that is already in the heart, is also the root of murder, and that even for unjustly calling me a “fool”, they’d be guilty enough to be sent into the fires of hell. That section on hatred and murder is set forth in very much the same pattern as the verses we are now finally going to examine regarding lust and adultery.

Matthew 5:27(NMB) You have heard how it was said to the people of the old time, You shall not commit adultery. 28 But I say to you that whosoever looks on a wife, lusting after her, has committed adultery with her already in his heart. 29 Therefore, if your right eye causes you to offend, tear it out and cast it from you. It is better for you that one of your members perish than that your whole body should be cast into hell. 30 Also, if your right hand causes you to offend, cut it off and cast it from you. Better it is that one of your members perish, than that all your body should be cast into hell.

My viewpoint after studying the Greek words in this passage is this: Jesus is not saying that lusting for another man’s wife is literally adultery and should be punished by stoning to death, and that His omniscient Father’s law somehow forgot to ever mention it. Jesus was saying that, exactly like how hatred exists in all men’s hearts, the root of adultery, illicit desire, already preexists in the hearts of all men. And that is why you could even be tempted to look lustfully at another man’s wife in the first place, because, the root of all adultery, illicit desire, is preexistent in your heart. This isn’t a new commandment. God issued no additional stone tablets of law that day. Jesus was just pointing out that lust, the root of adultery, is already preexistent in your heart, and even the hearts of the most legalistic Pharisees who tried to live according to all the law. And so consequently every man will need Him as their sacrificial Savior. No man will be made holy solely by keeping all the law, as the Pharisees were attempting.

However, the church, having syncretized Gnostic doctrines, wants to make all of men’s fleshly sex drive entirely illicit, since it involves a satisfying of our physical being, not our supposedly “higher” mental faculties. Even though as Jesus pointed out, exactly contrary to Gnosticism, it truly is the heart/mind where the wickedness resides. And our physical flesh is innocent of the actual abstract coveting of another man’s wife.

The truth is the church folks, who want you to interpret this passage literally, are hypocrites. They don’t literally tear out their own right eye to prevent inciting their lust, nor cut off their right hand to thereby prevent them from masturbating with it. Tacitly they acknowledge that self-amputating all of your fleshly organs, which might facilitate sinful thoughts, will still never successfully remove all the hate and lust from your heart and mind. And the disciples who were there and heard Jesus deliver the “Sermon on the Mount” certainly didn’t follow that part literally either. There is no record of any disciple’s amputations or eye removals after that message was preached. Jesus wasn’t literally asking us to deface the temple of the Holy Spirit. Jesus’ point was just to make the Pharisees and us all aware of our inherent and humanly inescapable sinfulness and our need for His cleansing and salvation.

Additional thoughts:

Hebrews 4:15(AMP) For we do not have a High Priest who is unable to sympathize and understand our weaknesses and temptations, but One who has been tempted [knowing exactly how it feels to be human] in every respect as we are, yet without [committing any] sin.

Hebrews 4:14 Therefore since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest incapable of sympathizing with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way just as we are, yet without sin. 16 Therefore let us confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and find grace whenever we need help.

Jesus our Savior was a man, tempted in every respect as is common to men, yet without ever falling into sin. So, yes, Jesus had a healthy sex drive. According to Hebrews 4:15 Jesus would have found attractive women to be a source of temptation the same as we might, but He never would have sinned against His father’s law, not even by coveting another man’s wife in His mind.

So, what is the issue?

The problem is that our churches teach a Gnostic/Feminist doctrine that demonizes healthy male sex drives. And they want to extend that demonization far beyond just condemning illicit sex acts, to include any evidence of masculine sex drive or desire to reproduce which they might disapprove of in any given situation. Of course they’re also going to be hypocritical about that too. If the hottest young single man in church indicates a desire for their daughter, they might giggle and smile, but if some neckbeard indicates a desire for their daughter, they’ll call in a mob of cock-blockers to condemn him to hell as an “adulterer” for such “lustful” thoughts.

The Greek word γυναῖκα (gynaika) is most usually translated as “wife”, as it was in the NMB version that I quoted Matthew 5:27-30 from up above, yet most English Bible translations will translate that word as “woman” in that particular verse. They really seem to want to make the sin of adultery apply, contrary to God’s law, to women who are not other men’s wives. That’s just the church’s Gnostic/Feminist cock-blocking showing up again via their anti-hermeneutical attempt to demonize all male sexual attraction into somehow becoming the marriage-destroying sin of adultery.

If you go to a large church with lots of groups, you’ll likely discover that passage getting applied the most in their “Singles ministry”. They really seem immune to just applying it how Jesus used it, as a blanket proof that all men are sinful, no matter how law abiding we appear on the outside. They much prefer to act as if Jesus was literally issuing a new law to plug a gaping hole in His Father’s presumedly faulty and insufficient collection of laws. But not the statement about hatred being murder, of course, that’s just common sense that bad feelings aren’t equivalent to literal murder.

So, how do these whore serving churches operate? Well, if a woman is caught in the literal act of adultery, they quote a known-apocryphal passage claiming that only the sinless can “cast a stone” at her. But if a man naturally wants to be fruitful and multiply with a heathy young woman, he is the one condemned as an adulterer, unlawfully. If you don’t see the satanic inversion of God’s laws there, then you’re most likely in on it.

Bonus – application instruction for ministers:

So, if you’re a pastor or priest now wondering, how should I apply Matthew 5:27-28 to others, since you’re telling me that I shouldn’t use it as my best cock-blocker verses to demonize men’s natural sex drive, the answer is that you don’t apply it to others. You cannot really see their sins of the heart and mind. Jesus said that poorly translated hyperbole to show repentant men how to spot their own ongoing need for God’s cleansing and forgiveness. Not to teach Pharisees how to permanently cleanse themselves of all lust according to some new law. Jesus came not to condemn men for their humanity, by issuing new laws, but to turn them to repentance and eventually to acceptance of His substitutionary sacrifice, in our place, for our sins. That’s His Gospel.