Sexual temptation is not primarily about the body. It does concern our bodies: “The sexually immoral person sins against his own body” (1 Corinthians 7:18). Yet sexual temptation—whether it be to physically engage with another or to lust individually—is not primarily a bodily temptation.
Rather, sexual temptation and sexual sin are primarily about our hearts.
Some might say this is obvious, but I think it’s a helpful distinction to dwell on. For almost everyone acknowledges that sins such as pride, bitterness, gossip, slander, malice, unrighteous anger, and jealousy all stem from our hearts. We recognize that they are realities which begin in our hearts, and only then have outward effects. For example, being prone to unrighteous anger is primarily a heart issue, and only because of this do we then lash out in unkind words to our spouses.
But what about sexual sin? Here, especially because of how we’ve been trained by our sexual-revolution-influenced culture, we tend to think that it’s mainly an issue of our bodies. We presume it’s bodily urges that lead to our bodily temptations. We find ourselves believing that it’s primarily because we’re fallen and our bodies are broken that we face sexual temptation.
Jesus, however, wouldn’t agree with such logic. Sexual temptation and sin surely is bodily. But it’s not primarily so. Jesus twice pointed this out:
- “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander” (Matthew 15:19)
- “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person” (Mark 7:20-23)
“All these things”—including sexual immorality and adultery—“come from within.” These temptations are not primarily bodily, they come “out of the heart.”
Practically, this is very helpful to realize. For if we think sexual temptation is primarily bodily, we’ll misdiagnose the problem and so set ourselves up to be more easily attacked by sexual temptation. But if we recognize what Jesus teaches, we’ll be more fit to identify and resist.
Think about how this works for many of us: When we catch ourselves struggling with unrighteous anger or untrusting anxiety or jealousy or pride, we often know the solution to such struggles is internal. We understand we must replace them with an internal superior trust and joy in Christ. Of course they may coincide with some external circumstance, or something bodily (such as not eating or exercising right, or a hormonal imbalance), but we properly look for solutions internally in our hearts, trying to fight such temptations by faith and joy in Jesus.
With sexual temptations, however, we often think differently. The bodily temptation comes, and because we place the temptation primarily in the sphere of the body, we think that the answer also is bodily. If we’re married, we can fall into thinking that if only we had more sexual activity with our spouses then the temptations wouldn’t so frequently come. If we’re not married, we can think that if we can just physically remove ourselves from temptation’s way then we’ll be okay. Yet in both these situations, we misdiagnose the problem and so prescribe a poor solution. Such sexual temptation is not primarily bodily. It’s a matter of the heart.
This means the fight against sexual temptation must be a matter of the heart as well—both in the moments of battle and in the preparation for battle. To beat sexual temptation we don’t primarily focus on how we can bodily avoid temptation or bodily beat temptation (primarily being an important word; setting up bodily sexual boundaries is extremely needed and wise). We rather focus on our hearts. We strive to be properly focused and fascinated by Jesus inwardly, so that when bodily sexual temptation comes externally, we can 1) recognize it’s a heart issue, and then 2) replace that heart-temptation with a heart-satisfaction in Christ—a satisfaction that is better than the bodily-satisfaction we’d get by giving into sexual temptation.
Jesus explained it clearly: “Out of the heart comes sexual immorality.” Let’s agree with him and so fight against sexual sin.
