Dear Mike,

The other day I came across a video that I thought by the title was some sort of joke, but the speaker in the video said he was serious, so I will give him the benefit of the doubt. Anyway, he was dealing with the passage in the bible where Jesus tells his audience that if a man even looks upon a woman to lust after her he has commited adultery with her in his heart.

I always figured that Jesus was only speaking of married women, but you get a lot of people saying that Jesus was speaking of women in general. They imply that we actually sin if we lust after the opposite sex, married or not. This sounds pretty ridiculous to me.

First of all I know God spoke to people in the Old Testament and told them to be fruitful and multiply. Their is no doubt going to be lust involved when people are being fruitful and multiplying.

I know a lot of Christians who are married. No doubt there was probably lust involved during the dating/courtship process.

I want your opinion on this matter, if you will give it.

Was Jesus only speaking of married women when he said you have commited adultery with them in your heart when you lust after them? Or was he speaking of all women married or not?

If the latter is true, then is everyone, including Christians, commiting adultery by dating the opposite sex?

I am going to paste the link to the video that I spoke of earlier to watch if you will. Tell me what you make of this man’s teaching on this subject if you don’t mind. I don’t think the video is too very long.

R____

Hi R____,

Thank you for your question.

You ask:

Was Jesus only speaking of married women when he said you have committed adultery with them in your heart when you lust after them? Or was he speaking of all women married or not?

If the latter is true, then is everyone, including Christians, committing adultery by dating the opposite sex?

I watched the video, and the answer to your question is that he is right when he simply believes these words of Christ:

Mat 5:28  But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

The word ‘whosoever’ is a very all-inclusive word, and the fact that Christ is speaking of adultery does not mean that he is excluding single men. Sex outside of marriage is a sin. The form of the relationship it takes does not change the fact that it is a physically and spiritually ‘adulterous’ relationship.

The fact that men lust after their future wives before they are married does not mean that it is just fine to do so. Most of us have been taught that God created Adam and Eve in a perfected state while the scriptures teach the exact opposite.

I think we can all agree that God made Adam out of the dust of the ground:

Gen 2:7  And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

When Christ finished His creation, he said it was “very good”:

Gen 1:31  And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

But for what purpose was it all “very good”? Was mankind created as “very good” flesh and blood for the purpose of inheriting the kingdom of God in that condition? The Biblical answer to that question is absolutely not! God created mankind in “corruption… marred in the Potter’s hand”. Adam was created for the very purpose of disobeying God, lusting after the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and that is exactly what Adam and Eve did. They were both created in “corruption… marred in the Potter’s hand” for the express purpose of coming to see their own spiritual nakedness into which they were created, and to come to realize that they needed a savior to deliver them from the law of sin which the “one lawgiver” placed within their marred bodies of corruption.

Jas 4:12  There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?

We know from the scriptures that “the first man Adam” was created to be destroyed because we are told:

1Co 15:50  Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.

For those who are given eyes to see it and ears to hear it, 1Co 15:50 informs us that flesh and blood are corruption, and that is what this verse also tells us:

Jer 18:4 And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.

Adam and all who are in him are “marred in the hand of the Potter”. So it follows that Adam and all who are in him have within their members what the scriptures call “the law of sin and death”, and that is exactly what we are told is the case:

Rom 7:17 Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
Rom 7:18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
Rom 7:19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
Rom 7:20 Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
Rom 7:21 I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
Rom 7:22 For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
Rom 7:23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

There is no man on earth who can, of himself, resist lusting after women. So how then can any man be saved?

Rom 7:24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
Rom 7:25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

The man making that video relates in another video that he had a near-death experience in which he went to hell and came back a changed man who no longer lusts after women in his heart.

I rejoice with him that the Lord has delivered him from lusting after women, but of course I cannot agree with the lie that he went to hell and came back a changed man. I have no doubt he is sincere in saying that, but the Lord is answering him with the idol of his heart, because “the dead know not anything”, including the pain of literal flames of fire.

Ecc 9:5 For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.

The parable of Lazarus and the rich man is just that, a parable, simply because this is the fact of that matter:

Mat 13:34 All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake he not unto them:

Moses and Elijah are not in heaven in spite of the fact Peter, James and John saw them on the mount of transfiguration for this simple reason:

Mat 17:9 And as they came down from the mountain, Jesus charged them, saying, Tell the vision to no man, until the Son of man be risen again from the dead.

A vision, like a dream, seems very real, but the fact is there was no one on the mountain with Christ but Peter, James and John.

I hope all of this helps you to see that Christ was right when He said:

Mat 5:28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

He is including all women, and not just married women. Certainly single Christian men commit adultery in their hearts while dating their future wives. Many a child is conceived before a couple is married, and yes, that is a sin. But it is not a sin to date a woman who is in Christ and who you intend to marry. The sin is not the dating, the sin is lusting after her before you are married. While it is ideal not to lust after your fiancée, yet sin is integral to “the wonderful work’ God is working and doing ‘to the children of men’ (Psa 107:21-31). God created us as sinning machines who are in need of dying to that law of sin He has placed within us before we have any hope of being saved from that sinful condition.

Joh 12:24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.

Your brother who knows that we can do all things, including no longer lusting after women, through Christ who dwells within us:

Php 4:13 I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.

Mike