Could Christ be Tempted to Lust? | A Reflection and a Retraction
No matter what liturgical year we are in, the Gospel for the First Sunday of Lent tells the story of Christ as He is led by the Spirit into the desert, where He fasted for forty days and underwent temptation from the devil. This event—along with His baptism that comes right before—raises big questions about who Christ is and how He relates to us as sinners. What is the meaning of Christ’s baptism if He is the sinless Son of God? How is it possible for the Son of God to undergo temptation in the desert? How are we to understand that temptation?
These questions surrounding Christ’s temptation have a real bearing on the work and mission of Magdala. During a Q&A panel for Magdala patrons last summer, one participant asked,
How can Jesus understand what it is like to struggle with a compulsion for sexually acting out with pornography?
It’s a really good question. At the moment, I thought of Christ’s temptation in the desert and my mind immediately went to Hebrews 4:15:
For we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sinning.
Trying to apply this passage to the question at hand, I said something to the effect of: “Well, if Christ was tempted in every respect as we are, then there must have been times when He was tempted to lust. In His masculinity, it makes sense that He would have seen women as attractive and experienced the first movements of temptation, and yet, He would never have delighted in these temptations and certainly would never have consented to them.”
Simple enough, right? This thought made logical sense to me at the moment, but something didn’t feel right. Indeed, as I have done my research and reflected more on this question, I’ve found something wasn’t right. So here I am writing this article, with a bit of a retraction to make…
yet without sin
I think we (myself included) often want to understand Christ through the lens of our own experience—which makes sense. We first come to know the world through our own experience, and we want a Redeemer who can sympathize with us—who experiences all the things we do. Nevertheless, there is an important qualification in the Letter to the Hebrews. Christ “in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sinning.”
The way we use the word “sin” in modern English is very specific. By “sin,” we usually mean a free act of the will that violates God’s Law. In the older usage of English however—as well as in the original Hebrew and Greek of the Bible— sin could mean such a willful act, but more broadly it could also mean “missing the mark.” For instance, an archer was said to have “sinned” if his arrow hit the target but missed the bullseye.
Since Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is holy and without sin in every way, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church have understood the exception of sin in the Letter to the Hebrews to mean something more than I originally had in mind. When treating the temptations of Christ in the Summa Theologiae, St. Thomas touches on this very question:
As the Apostle says (Hebrews 4:15), Christ wished to be "tempted in all things, without sin." Now temptation which comes from an enemy can be without sin: because it comes about by merely outward suggestion. But temptation which comes from the flesh cannot be without sin, because such a temptation is caused by pleasure and concupiscence; and, as Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xix), "it is not without sin that 'the flesh desireth against the spirit.'" And hence Christ wished to be tempted by an enemy, but not by the flesh. (Summa Theologiae, III, q. 41, a. 1., ad 3)
St. Thomas—following Augustine here—says Christ could not have experienced temptation from the flesh because such a temptation is caused by “pleasure and concupiscence.” Concupiscence is an effect of original sin. It brings about a disintegration within the person such that our passions are not in perfect harmony with our reason. As fallen human beings, we often experience a real struggle between desires of the flesh and desires of the spirit. “I do the very thing I hate,” St. Paul laments in Romans 7:15. In Christ, however, the flesh did not desire against the spirit as it does in us. Yes, He was susceptible to physical harm, and He chose to experience other effects of the fall that do not imply any moral imperfection, but in Christ there was perfect harmony between reason and the passions. This harmony—referred to by theologians as the “gift of integrity”—was given to Adam and Eve over and above human nature. Nevertheless—through original sin—our first parents forfeited this gift God had once intended for all of us.
Of course, it’s not sinful in itself for a man to desire a woman or a woman to desire a man. On the contrary, this desire is a great gift that finds its fulfillment in the life-giving love of husband and wife! Yet, there is disorder in the desire to possess—in a spousal way—a person who is not one’s spouse. Christ was committed to the celibate state, which allows Him to belong to all of us. Therefore, in keeping with His celibate state, we must conclude that Christ could not be inclined even in the first movements of the passions to possess any woman in a spousal way. Contrary to my original claim during the Magdala Q&A (mea culpa!) I would now have to conclude that Christ in no way experienced the temptation of lust.
Does this mean Christ was blind to the beauty of woman? Far from it! More than anyone else, when Christ walked on earth He would have recognized the goodness and beauty of each woman. He would have loved each woman (as He continues to love women now!) in her unique expression of femininity, body and soul, as God created her. The purity of His gaze penetrates where eyes that are susceptible to lust cannot. Yet, because His human passions were integrated with right reason, He would not have inclined towards her as an end for Himself. Here the distinction between a good and an end becomes very important. Every end is a good, but not every good is an end. Christ can see the goodness of each woman—in her femininity, in her sexuality—and yet not be inclined towards her sexuality as an end for Himself.
Better this way
Let’s conclude by going back to the original question:
How can Jesus understand what it is like to struggle with a compulsion for sexually acting out with pornography?
Jesus knows us better than we know ourselves. He made us after all! And yet, there are some instances where it actually turns out better for us that Christ does not experientially know a particular weakness of the human race. The obvious example is actual sin. “For our sake [God] made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Cor 5:21)
But what about the disordered movements of the passions that incline us towards sin? Would it have been better if Christ had experienced this disorder and the subsequent temptations so He could better understand our weakness? I answer in the negative; Far better for us that Christ has perfect integration in His passions!
In our world, fallen and broken as it is, many are wounded by the sins of others. This happens in different ways, but it is all too common to hear the stories of women who have been hurt by men in their lives. At various moments in the journey of healing, some women report they find it difficult to relate to Jesus in prayer. After all, He is a man, and the notion of His masculinity may serve as an obstacle if a woman has been hurt by a man in her past. I intend to speak with reverence here because we are on holy ground, but perhaps there can be the unconscious question, “Will He hurt me too? Would He be tempted to use me too?” What a blessing it is for her to know firmly that this would never and could never happen. Christ is integrated with His humanity and His passions. He never experiences even the first movements of temptation to lust. Part of the healing journey is for this knowledge to seep down from the intellect into the heart, but He looks upon each of us with a love that is altogether holy and pure. He looks at us with a love that heals.
The Second Vatican Council famously taught that “only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light.” (Gaudium et Spes, 22) Far better for us, then, that Christ’s passions be perfectly integrated because this fits with the economy of salvation. Christ chooses to redeem and heal us above all by uniting our broken humanity to His perfect humanity. Grace flows out to us as members of Christ’s body through our configuration to Him, who in His humanity is the Head of the Church. “But put on the Lord Jesus Christ,” says St. Paul, “and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” (Rom 13:14)
The battle between flesh and spirit (and here “flesh” should be understood as desires of the flesh that are not in harmony with the spirit) is ultimately won not by a greater exercise of willpower but through an encounter with the peace of Christ, which conquers all things. Gradually and over time—as Jesus draws close to us in prayer—our thoughts, feelings, and desires are united to His. They are realigned and “tuned” through contact with the harmony that exists in the humanity of Christ. For this reason, the primary goal of Magdala has always been for women to grow in intimacy with Christ. Sobriety is important, but true healing and lasting sobriety only come through intimacy with Christ.
And so, there we have it. We began with the temptations of Christ in the desert, but by examining what these temptations are not, I hope we have come to a better understanding of how Christ desires to heal us. In our natural tendency to understand Christ through the lens of our own experience of fallen humanity, we need to have caution to avoid the mistake I made during the Q&A last summer. In the end, far better for us that Christ does not experience the temptation to lust, because it is through being united to Him in His integrated and perfect humanity that our broken humanity is ultimately redeemed.