These comments from a well know Christian author and scholar, Dallas Willard, may help you to clarify your thoughts.
John
NZ
On the other hand, we must be careful to recognise that sexual desire is not wrong as a natural, uncultivated response, any more than anger is, or pain. It has a vital function in life, and as long as it performs that function it is a good and proper thing.
Moreover, when we only think of sex with someone we see, or simply find him or her attractive, that is not wrong, and certainly is not what Jesus calls "adultery in the heart." Merely to be tempted sexually requires that we think of sex with someone we are not married to, and that we desire the other person-usually, of course, someone we see. But temptation also is not wrong, though it should not be wilfully entered. Jesus himself came under it, experienced it, and understood it.
Therefore those translations of Matt. 5:28 that say, "Everyone who looks at a woman and desires her," or "everyone who looks at a woman with desire," are terribly mistaken. They do much harm, especially to young people. For they totally change the meaning of the text and present" adultery in the heart" as something one cannot avoid, as something that just happens to people with no collusion of their will.
That on this reading to be tempted would be to sin should have been enough, by itself, to show that such translations are mistaken. No translation of scripture can be correct that contradicts basic principles of biblical teaching as a whole
The terminology of 5:28 is quite clear if we will but attend to it, and many translations do get it right. The Greek preposition pros and the dative case are used here. The wording refers to looking at a woman with the purpose of desiring her. That is, we desire to desire. We indulge and cultivate desiring because we enjoy fantasizing about sex with the one seen. Desiring sex is the purpose for which we are looking.
Another New Testament passage very graphically speaks of those who have "eyes full of adultery" (2 Pet. 2:14). These are people who, when they see a sexually attractive person, do not see the person but see themselves sexually engaging him or her. They see adultery occurring in their imagination. Such a condition is one we can and should avoid. It is a choice. For many people, unfortunately, it has become a chosen habit.
But it still is not something that merely happens to them. These are not unwilling victims without any choice in the matter. It isn't like the law of gravity. The desire is desired, embraced, indulged: elaborated, fantasized. It is the purposeful entertaining and stimulation of desire that Jesus marks as the manifestation of a sexually improper condition of the soul. No one has to do this or be this, unless perhaps he or she has already advanced to a stage of compulsive disorder or possession. In that case, of course, the person needs help that goes beyond instruction and advice.
