Lust and Instinct

JESUS' USE OF EXTREMES

Most Christians today know that Jesus equated lust with adultery (Matthew 5:27-30), saying that if you look on a woman (or a man) with lust, you have commited adultery in your heart.  This passage is followed up by a simple and easy solution - if your eye causes you to sin, cut it out. 

As he did with the subject of anger, Jesus used extremes to emphasize the importance of this topic.  These extremes got people's attention and shook them up.  People in Jesus' day (as in ours) became easily calloused to anger, name calling and lust.  Jesus was getting their attention and alerting them to the fact that this was serious business.

WHAT IS LUST?

The Greek word for lust (epithymeo) is also translated "desire, covet, or want".  Epithymeo is not defined as an evil and powerfully uncontrolled passion that rarely if ever overtakes a good Christian, rather it is a natural and common feeling that every Christian and unbeliever faces regularly.  We are created to desire people (more than one) for sexual and emotional intimacy.  The purpose of this desire is ultimately the survival of humanity. 

Because survival leads us to desire more than one person, I believe that the concept of a "soul mate" is a romantic fantasy many people want to believe.  The idea that there is only one person for you belongs in romantic novels and not in real life.  Too many people believe that they married the wrong person and that their one true love is out there somewhere or is the person with whom they want to have an affair (and of course, once the affair turns into a second or third marriage - shock of discovery! - he or she wasn't the one true love after all). 

This internal feeling that there is just one person out there who can fulfil all your emotional needs is destructive to marriages and relationships.  This does not mean that there aren't people who would be better connections than others, some relationships are much better than others.

HOW ARE WE LIKE ANIMALS?

Before I talk about how we differ from the animal, I would like to mention how we are similar if not the same.  We are very similar in that we desire / lust after others in our own species.  We follow up on that desire by sending out physical and verbal signals called flirting, then with foreplay, and finally the act of sex itself.  Ultimately the unstated goal of all this excitement is producing a member for next generation.  Courtship and consumation is part of God's creation; it is designed for good...all of it, from the first moment of desire to the final act of sex. 

Even though we are attracted to many different members of our species, we are most like the kinds of animals that mate for life.  Most humans in every society I know believe that marriage should be for life, even if we don't often live up to that standard.

The Bible celebrates the romantic journey of desire and foreplay in the Song of Songs, thus giving it the blessing of God and bringing romance into the holiness of God. 
HOW ARE WE DIFFERENT THAN ANIMALS?

When God created us, He breathed His breath / Spirit into us, thus seperating us from the animal.  Some have concluded that what seperates us from the animals is reason, and this may be a big part of what does separate us from the animals.  Some have also argued that we have a soul, whereas an animal does not.  But a soul is not easily defined.

I am not going to get into this debate, because to be honest, I have yet to put my finger on what seperates us from the rest of creation, except this one thing - God breathed into Adam (Adam is both the name of a man in Genesis and also is the generic name for all of humankind) seperating Adam from the rest of creation, and thus making Adam in His image.  I will also add that the knowledge of good and evil also separtes us from ther rest of creation, but the knowledge of good and evil may be just another way of defining logic.

Animals act on impulses that come from instinct.  Likewise there is a part of us that acts on instinctual impulses.  But because God put within us the breath of God, there is something in us that transcends the impulses derived from instinct.  The breath of God / image of God is an added gift for us which gives us the ability to control or even even to deny our motives and desires that come from instinct.  The knowledge of good and evil helps us to discern what needs to be controlled.

Our instinct and the impulses that come from it are designed for survival of the individual and the group.  Our instinct will lead us to permiscuous sex, competing, fighting and arguing with others, killing, genocide, rape, hatred and so on.  Given the right circumstances, our instinct will do all sorts of evil we would not dare to contimplate.  But remember this: our instinct is always seeking to protect self and the group to which self belongs.   All of these sins I have mentioned are self-serving and self-protecting by nature.

Despite the fact that instinct is survival / self focused, this does not necessarily mean that instinct is always what is best for self.  Instinct does not reason or judge.  Although instinct learns like an animal, through experience, it does not consider long term consequences or advice outside of its own immediate and self serving existence.

Instinct is like a target with concentric circles.  The closer the circles get to one's self, the more important that people or groups of people are, and the more likely it is that we will act in the behalf of others.

When the Apostle Peter confessed that Jesus was the messiah (in Mark 8), Jesus commended him claiming this insight was from God.  Seconds later, Peter was rebuked by Jesus for a demonic influence involved with the revelation.   Peter's world view of the kingdom was intimately influenced by his instincual passion to see his own group (the Jews) survive and raise itself above the rest of humanity.  Peter's instinct also saw his relationship to the messiah as an opportunity not only for his nation's interest, but for his own self interest and self-promotion as well.

Although there is a time and place for our instinctual guidance, it can and does conflict with God's interests from time to time.