Warning Against Sexual Immorality

Josheb said:

Commendable, but I disagree. The connection between sexual immorality and idolatry is best understood via Ecclesiastes 4:7-12.

Ecclesiastes 4:7-12
"Then I looked again at vanity under the sun. There was a certain man without a dependent, having neither a son nor a brother, yet there was no end to all his labor. Indeed, his eyes were not satisfied with riches and he never asked, 'And for whom am I laboring and depriving myself of pleasure?' This too is vanity and it is a grievous task. Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor. For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up. Furthermore, if two lie down together they keep warm, but how can one be warm alone? And if one can overpower him who is alone, two can resist him. A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart."​

People who marry not realizing they are making a covenant with God also, and not only their spouse do not adequately understand the marriage covenant or the reality of marriage as a temporal expression of a divine relationship. The word "marry" simply means "to join." The triune God is joined; what the NT calls the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one God. He is the infinite personal triune God who exists inherently already in-relationship. In marriage the two become one and it is not that they merely become one with each other. Each partner makes vows to each other and to the representative of God standing there administrating the ceremony on God's behalf!

So any infidelity is a betrayal of both spouse and God with whom the betrayer previously covenanted.

Since idolatry is simply the placing of anything in the place of God, a lack of faithfulness in which God is not valued above all else, and all forms of extra-marital sexual immorality are adulterous, they do not value the spouse above all else but God, the connection between idolatry and sexual immorality is rather blunt.

Remember, marriage is the standard. The very first command ever uttered by God was, "Be fruitful and multiply..." and in the context of scripture and biology that is firmly couched in the marital relationship. It is not that being single is disobedience (God calls some to be single), but it is the exception to the rule, not the rule. Furthermore, in Christ there are no single people! The Church is the bride of Christ. It is through that relationship that 1 Cor. 6:18 has its meaning.

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Gregorikos said:

Sexual immorality is a defining characteristic of the lost. It's a deal breaker to our faith. That's why it is mentioned in over half of the NT books, most often with the gravest warnings:

For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from fornication; For God did not call us to impurity but in holiness. Therefore whoever rejects this rejects not human authority but God, who also gives his Holy Spirit to you. 1 Thessalonians 4:3, 7-8 (NRSV)

However, I don't think 1 Cor 6:12-20 is a good connection to idolatry. (As Josheb also said while I was writing this)

It would seem to me that if a person engages in idolatry by joining to a prostitute, then by the same basis he also engages in idolatry by joining with his spouse. And we know that cannot be.

Paul was simply reminding the Corinthians that theirs was a holy and dignified calling, and that their bodies were a temple of the Holy Spirit. The point being: How could we ever think of taking a body in which the Holy Spirit dwells and using it for vile purposes?

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Josheb said:

Yes, and all lusts (not just sexual ones) are idolatrous. Lust is simply the desire for more. Back in the day of my addictions we addicts used to have a joke that went, "What is the one and only things addicts put on their Christmas wish list?"

MORE!​

It doesn't matter what it is, we simply want more of it. Lusts are always insatiable. Only in Christ is peace, contentment, satisfaction, and rest found. We are estranged from God, self, others and creation by our own disobedience and apart from Christ we can do nothing about it but we strive in all ways to fill the void and kill the pain.

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Josheb said:

1 John 2:16 is certainly relevant or applicable but I'm talking about more foundational verses like Genesis 2:25 and 3:6. If we measure anything in the NT by our current already-sinful experience then we're not getting a true picture. The same holds true with our understanding of Christ. To truly understand sexual immorality we must understand sexual morality, or more pervasively all morality or more fundamentally purity, sinlessness, the unadulterated stated. We were once naked and unashamed. Any hypothetical individual born after Genesis 3:7 could in theory live a sexually moral life but he'd still be in the clothed and ashamed state, not the naked and unashamed state in which God first created us.

Remember Jesus is fully God and fully human. This is important to fully understanding what we read in the gospels. Jesus commands wind and sea and disease and demons because he is the Son of God, the logos of God who is fully God. By, for, and through him were all things created. But there is also his full unadulterated humanity that empowers him to command all that is of the earth. The pre-disobedient Adam and Eve (A&E) were given divine over all the plants and animals and charged with subduing and ruling over the entire earth, to expand Eden. The serpent was an animal in Eden! A&E had complete authority over him. The reason the broke the second command (do not eat...) is because they first broke the first command (Rule!)! Had Eve or Adam ruled they would never have disobeyed the second command.

Jesus rules. Jesus is a sinless man, privileged to all the power and authority God gives humanity. He has authority over the earth and all the plants and animals because He has not surrendered his faculties to disobedience.

That too is the measure of sexual morality. We must consider what 1 Cor. 6's admonition looks like from the pre-disobedient or pre-sin state because Paul is separating sexual sins from other types of sin but fundamentally all sin is alike in that all violations of the law of sin and death bring death. Remember 1 Corinthians 6:18 was written by a believer to believers about believers. The body to which Paul is referring I the body that has been purchased, regenerate, and is being sanctified. Different conditions apply for the unregenerate and unsanctified.

And as to Gen. 3:6, realize that Eve's observations were true and correct; the fruit was pleasing to the eye and desirable for wisdom. Many incorrectly construe her perceptions skewed prior to disobedience but that's not the actual report of scripture. All that God made was very good and that included the forbidden kiwi. After disobedience though a different form of lust appears.

Can you name the lusts of Christ scripture ascribes him?

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Josheb said:

This is very important, Walter (or Deborah). This is tied to the impeccability of Christ. This is also a place some believers get confused. James tells us that we are tempted by our own desires that drag us away and entice us. The NIV uses the phrase "evil desires," but the Greek does not have the word "evil." It simply states we are tempted by our desires or lusts. Conceptually I believe the NIV is correct because good desires don't drag us away to sin. Bad ones do.

This is important because Hebrews tells us Jesus was tempted in all ways common to humanity and suffered when tempted but if we use James' definition of temptation then we must ask, "What evil desires does Jesus have by which he might feel tempted, dragged away and enticed?" And, of course, the answer is "Jesus has no such desires!" Therefore Jesus' experience of temptation was fundamentally different than our own because he is a good and sinless man who never knew sin, and we are the exact opposite. We are not-good sinful people who know only sin (dispositionally, not that we never do good).

So the answer to the question, "What lusts does scripture ascribe Jesus?" begins with, "None that are evil or sinful." Jesus has only good lusts, or Jesus has only good desires. We read of this every time Jesus states, "I say only what my Father in heaven tells me to say," or "I do only what my Father in heaven tells me to do." John reports Jesus saying this several times throughout his gospel.

Jesus' lust is to do his Father's will!

We struggle with that if we're saved and we have absolutely no regard for that if we're sinfully dead and enslaved non-believers.

That is the standard against which 1 Cor. 12:18 is measured. That is the standard against which all of scripture's direction to use is measured. The measure isn't sinful-but-redeemed, the measure is never-having-sinned and every single member of the Corinthian congregations fell short of that measure. We're no different.

So let me bring this back to the op and the matter of sexual immorality as idolatry. All sin is idolatry. At the core of all sin is some rebellion by which we place our desires above God's. The difference between us and the pre-disobedient Adam is important for understanding all the rest of scripture because it is at Gen. 3:7 that all idolatry begins, sexual or otherwise. Christ simply ups the ante because he's not only a perfect sinless, blemish-free human, but he is God incarnate, wholly holy and wholly righteous. None of us think of sex as Adam or Jesus did, even those of us who are faithfully married, because we've never known the unadulterated state.

So I'm gonna stop here but I also think it important to note verse 19's declaration our body is the temple of the HS! Remember: the temple was an idol for the Jews. See also 1 Cor. 3:16 and chapter 12's commentary about the body. There is a larger local context by which verse 12:18 should be understood and a much, much larger global context of whole scripture by which the matter of sexual immorality and idolatry can/should be understood. Let me again commend the op for what it states but there's much more to be understood when whole scripture is applied. It's truly an amazing thing that God has done for us and in us through His Son. The sinner houses God!

A stumbling block for the Jew and foolishness for the Gentile.

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Josheb said:

Walter and Deborah, was the op edited to remove the statement about sexual immorality and idolatry (or have I got some OPs confused)?

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Josheb said:

So what? This has nothing to do with English translations of the Greek and Hebrew manuscripts. The Greek and Hebrew trump English every word in every sentence every day of every week, month, year, decade, and millennia.

The Greek states we are tempted by our own lusts. What lusts does Jesus have by which he might be dragged away and enticed to sin? By your own admission you know of none. By your own admission you know of no lusts in Jesus the scripture label.

And yet, somehow, you think commentary about the KJV versus other English translations bears some veracity in this conversation.

It does not.


The lusts Scripture reports Jesus having is the desire to say and do only that which his Father told him to say and do.

Why would you dispute that?

Why would you imagine your personal preference for the KJV has anything to do with the salient point about Jesus' lusts?

Romans 13:14 does not identify a lust in Jesus.

Romans 13:14 KJV
"But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts."​

Where specifically, does that verse identify a lust in Jesus? Please don't dally any further; plainly state what lust Romans 13:14 identifies in Christ?

Do you understand Romans 13:14 was written by a sinful but regenerate believer to sinful but regenerate believers about sinful but regenerate believers? Do you understand Jesus was not a sinful but regenerate believer?

Why would you waste both our time on such a non sequitur and then make the matter about the KJV?

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