Introduction
Recently, through counselling and conversation, I have come across a large number of situations of Christians committing sexual sin. (What happens amongst unbelievers may be reprehensible but it is not a matter for our judgement[1].) Since I believe God has been drawing my attention to this problem I have prayed about its root. Here are a few reflections that hopefully will be useful in reversing the tide of immorality that diminishes the testimony of Jesus in the church.
Sex and Death
Years ago I was struck by a quote from a secular psychotherapist that intuitively seemed right, “The clamour of sex drowns out the ever-waiting presence of death…Death is the symbol of ultimate impotence and finiteness. What would we see if we cut though our obsession with sex? That we must die.” (Rollo May).
May’s psychodynamic observation can be supported from Romans one, the classic scriptural text on the wrath of God. Paul begins with a statement he takes to be self – evident, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.” (v.18). He considers that God’s judgement lies open before our eyes, but inside of expounding on natural disasters[2] he focuses on human moral behaviour. According to Paul idolatry (vv.22 – 23) draws a divine judgement whose content includes sexual uncleanness, “the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonouring of their bodies among themselves” (v.24), and male and female homosexuality, “God gave them up to dishonourable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise” (vv. 26 – 27).
Sexual sin is itself a punishment from God, “receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error” (v.27). A society obsessed with sex is, according to Paul, visibly under the wrath of God – sexual promiscuity is itself a manifestation of divine anger.
Paul goes on to connect wilful sinning with the recognition of death as a judgement. “Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.” (v.32). The creation of a climate in which sexual sin is encouraged is a deliberate act of rebellion against the justice of God. Sexually driven cultures manifest a wilful choice for death rather than life. Such a choice is sustained by an obsession with pleasures that momentarily cloak the knowledge that we deserve to die[3]. This dynamic is at the root of sexual addiction.
Shame and the Knowledge of Death
Non-believers know they deserve God’s judgement of death through the state of the fallen conscience. Shame is the first sign that we have lost the glory of God (Rom 3:23) and so cannot live forever (Rom 6:23). Shame cascades down through the generations from Adam and Eve (Gen 3:7) as a universal manifestation of original sin.
Shame is experienced in all cultures, and spiritually it signals we deserve to die. Apart from Christ, shame is inescapable. Peer group pressure – amongst teenagers, sporting teams, business success, family rules etc. operates through shame. At the root of all sexual bondage is a state of shame[4]. Shame leads to an attempt to cloak shame by various pleasures which leads to more shame and more addictive behaviour and so the cycle continues.
Shame is a sense of the deprivation of glory, and it witnesses to the conscience of the final deprivation that is death[5]. All unwilled deprivation in a fallen world signals the reality of death as a divine punishment, “in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”” (Gen 2:17). There are many involuntary experiences of deprivation, such as hunger, thirst and the lack of shelter. In the West most of these basic needs are of no conscious concern. The one form of deprivation that can torment us is the desire for sexual gratification. It remains, in a Christless culture, a constant reminder of the inevitability of death. As such it must by all means be eradicated!
God however has a strategy to break the power of such felt needs. It is a way of life much neglected in our time.
The Power of a Fasted Life
“the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” (Gen 2:9). Like all the other trees in Eden the tree of knowledge was beautiful and delicious, but Adam and Eve were commanded by God to fast from this tree. If by faith they had abstained from the tree they would have been satisfied forever. Sadly they broke their fast and died.
Whilst fasting for the purpose of receiving divine power is prevalent in the Old Testament[6] it comes to its climax in Jesus. “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.” (2 Cor 8:9). Jesus’ life as a human being is in itself a voluntary fast from the glory he enjoyed with the Father before the foundation of the world[7]. The whole incarnate life of Jesus is a voluntary deprivation for our sake.
Christ’s fast climaxes in the cross where he surrender to God’s will to immersion in humanity’s shame of godlessness. Stripped of all experience of the glory of God, Jesus cries out, ““My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”” (Mark 15:34). Despite a total fast from the divine splendour, Jesus maintained faith that the Father would rescue him from the depths of death (Heb 12:1 – 2). Such faith sees the release for the first time in human experience of resurrection power[8]. As the recipient of death conquering power[9] Jesus alone dwells in immortality (2 Tim 1:10). In willingly embracing death for us[10], Jesus has destroyed our shame and any need for us to fear death[11].
The resurrection power that conquers death is always released where the saints voluntarily embrace deprivation for the sake of the kingdom of God. This may involve fasting from food (Acts 13:2), sleep (Acts 16:25), personal ambition (Phil 3:7 – 8), prosperity (Heb 10:34), comfort (2 Cor 4:10), or sexual satisfaction (1 Cor 7:5). Voluntary fasting is the secret of overcoming sexual temptation in the power of God because is a shares by faith in the victory of the cross.
Feasting without Fasting
Feast (wealth, health, success, style) without fast describes the dominant mood in the Western church today[12]. A church that feasts without fasting lacks holiness, first in the primary sense of separation to God[13], then in the moral sense of purity. A great deal of what passes as intimacy with God is the spiritual equivalent of “faking it”. Such a church cannot visibly live out the hope of eternal life. Unknowingly, it has embraced a mode of living that cannot conquer the fear of death. Our celebratory songs and upbeat motivational preaching are cloaking rather than conquering the shame that is in our midst.
Tithing may seem to be a counter example to my assertion that the modern Western church has abandoned a fasting lifestyle? As long as tithing is presented as a divine law that must be obeyed in order to please God it too sustains the fear of divine wrath. As scripture says, “through the law comes the knowledge of sin” (Rom 3:20). Teaching tithing as a law keeps congregations under the shadow of the divine displeasure, whose ultimate end is death.
Conclusion
Given the prevailing spiritual mood in many churches, it should not surprise us that sexual sin is so common. Focusing on this sin will NOT bring healing. Only the gracious power of the gospel can destroy the sinful nature with its complex of shame and fear. “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Rom 1:16). Only through a restoration of the gospel that elevates the superlative excellence of the fast of Christ will we be moved to join him in creating a culture of voluntary abstinence where the power of the Spirit is pleased to dwell and break our many addictions. There is no other way.
[1] “I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— 10 not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, 12 For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? 13 God judges those outside.” (1 Cor 5:9, 10, 12,13)
[2] These function as God’s anger at humanity’s sin elsewhere in scripture e.g.Rev 6:12- 17.
[3] I think it was Paul Tillich who said that our fear of death is not due to the knowledge that we must die, but that we deserve to die!
[4] In the case of abuse victims that become sex addicts the initial shame may be merely subjective, something they feel because they hold themselves responsible for their abuse. When however this shame leads to a cheapening of moral behaviour, it becomes objective.
[5] Primarily, if not immediately, of “the second death” (Rev 2:11; 20:6, 14; 21:8).
[6] Examples include Moses, David, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah.
[7] “The Word became flesh” (John 1:14); “flesh” means human weakness. He “made himself nothing” (Phil 2:7).
[8] Enoch and Elijah passed into heaven without death, those restored to life by miracle e.g. Lazarus would die again.
[9] ““Death is swallowed up in victory.”” (1 Cor 15:54)
[10] “Yet not what I will, but what you will.” (Mark 14:36)
[11] “By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.” (1 John 4:17-18)
[12] It replicates the triumphant mood of prosperous self-centred Israel that refused to live humbly in order to bless the poor. This brought God’s words of rebuke, ““I hate, I despise your feasts, ….Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. 24 But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” (Amos 5:21, 23 – 24).
[13] This is the fundamental meaning of the relevant biblical words to do with holiness.