Do you need to repent?

Each spring, the TFT staff team sits down to take stock of all that has happened over the last twelve months, and prepare our annual report for the Charity Commission. It’s a great opportunity to reflect on where we’ve seen God moving over the last year, and discern what plans He might have for TFT in the months and years ahead. As I look back and think about the evolving challenges of our speaking ministry, many of our engagements in 2023 saw us being asked the same questions: “Aren’t your same-sex desires sinful? Don’t you need to repent?” How would you answer that first question? You might find yourself instinctively reaching for either a ‘yes’ or ‘ no’ answer. But this question actually relates to a doctrinal debate that has been taking place in the church for centuries. Because of this, it’s worth us being aware of some of that history so that we can give a fuller response. Let me (attempt to) explain.

Original Sin

Concupiscence is the doctrinal term used to describe the disordered desires all humans experience for things that God has forbidden. In modern times, the term has often been used to talk about illicit sexual desire but, over the centuries, the term has also been used to refer to other sinful desires such as envy, malice, or greed. Our word concupiscence comes from the Latin word concupiscentia, and is most often associated with Augustine of Hippo, a North African Bishop who lived in the fourth and fifth centuries. Augustine is easily one of the most important Christian thinkers of his period, and has had huge influence over Christianity in the Western world. For him, concupiscence was linked to his doctrine of Original Sin.

Augustine found himself the opponent of another theologian named Pelagius, who taught that humans are untainted, and able to follow God’s law of their own volition. Augustine’s fear was that saying humans have this ability to please God within themselves diminishes the need for God’s grace toward us. His response was to say that humans not only have an inner proclivity towards sin but are sinful in their very nature. This sinful nature is something that is inherited by/imputed to (there’s some debate about the mechanics) all descendants of the first humans, owing to the sin of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3. The effects that we experience because of Adam’s fall are what the term ‘original sin’ refers to.

Original sin is commonly thought to comprise two aspects. The first is guilt. This pertains to both our legal status before God (as wrongdoers), and our deservedness of punishment or wrath. Again, there’s a lot of debate, even among evangelical theologians, as to whether or not we are counted guilty purely because of Adam’s sin. It is definitely not TFT’s place to make a ruling on that, and there are likely to be different views held within TFT’s membership. The second aspect is corruption. It is this aspect that refers to the pollution of our souls that gives rise to our inclination towards sin and our desires for those things that God forbids.

Types of Desire

How then are we to understand desire? Scripture broadly speaks of two types. One is seen in the Greek word thelo (hafetz in Hebrew). This word usually carries a sense of the things we find delight in / the things we find pleasing. The second type is often expressed using the Greek word epithumia (hamad/avah in Hebrew). These words are often translated as covet/desire. What’s interesting about this second (epithumia) group of words, is that scripture speaks of them both positively and negatively dependent on the context and target. They may be ordered towards godliness or towards sin.

James 1:13-15 is a passage I’ve been asked about at speaking engagements several times, as it deals with the relationship between desire and sin. The passage might seem to suggest that experiencing temptation inevitably leads to sin. Those asking about this passage usually point to same-sex sexual behaviour being contrary to God’s created order (while opposite-sex sexual behaviour can be directed towards God’s purposes). If then, our desire for sexual intimacy with someone of the same-sex can only ever be contrary to created order, and experiencing those temptations inevitably leads towards sin, why don’t we pursue a change in our sexual orientation? Here, it’s helpful to square this passage with 1 Corinthians 10:13, which reveals that temptation is resistible. James speaks of temptation as the consummation of our own fallen desires being lured and enticed. You might express it as a formula. Temptation = Desire + Enticement. In this age, the effects of original sin ensure I am unable to rid myself of fallen desires completely. But, mercifully, an age is coming where Jesus will heal them, and I won't experience fallen desire at all. Changing my same-sex sexual orientation to an opposite-sex one won’t change the fact that I have fallen desires. What I can do something about, in this age, is I can resist enticement in order to resist temptation. I can resist giving temptation what it needs in order to eventually give birth to sin.

Pastorally, it’s important we avoid falling into a trap where we only ever speak of opposite-sex desire as being benign, while only ever speak of same-sex desires as being sinful. The human experience of desire is far more complicated than that. Even a husband's sexual desire for his wife could be sinful if the sexual thing he wants to do degrades her or causes her harm as a person fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God. Likewise, not all the desires arising from a person finding delight in someone of the same-sex may lead toward sin. Enjoying a deeper level of emotional intimacy and fellowship with a person of the same-sex can be a wonderful thing.

Demystifying the debate

So, with the historical and Biblical background covered, what then of the two questions our speaking engagement audience member was asking in my introductory paragraph? Here is my attempt at nuanced answers:

• Isn’t experiencing same-sex attraction sinful? Well, that depends on what you mean by sinful. I can definitely affirm that God did not give me these same-sex desires, but I didn’t choose them either. I think the Bible is really clear that the desires we all experience for things that God forbids are a result of a fallen human nature because of the sin of Adam and Eve. So, I might be comfortable with you saying they are ‘of sin’ in the sense that I believe I have them because of original sin. The problem with the word sinful is that I think most people in our churches only think of ‘actual sin’ when they hear that word. This means they’re thinking about some kind of sinful action. My desires could definitely lead to me actually sinning, but I’m not actually sinning in my ongoing involuntary experience of them, so long as I’m resisting temptation and directing myself toward godliness.
• Don’t you need to repent of your desires? I want to do anything that is in my power in order to love and serve the Lord as I believe I should in the light of what I read in scripture. The question is, how do I do that? It is a fact of the time in which we live (before Jesus comes again) that everyone has a fallen human nature, and that fallen nature causes us all to desire things that God doesn’t want for us. I can’t change that reality, though I have assurance that Jesus has and will change it. And the emphasis of scripture doesn’t seem to be one of swapping the sexual desires we have for different ones, it seems to be resisting the ones that don’t correspond to God’s purposes. So, I can take wise steps in order to resist being tempted by the set of desires that I have. I can also exercise a degree of lament over the fallen state of God’s world. And I often do in moments where resisting my desires in order to follow Christ feels particularly costly. But doing that should never lead to feeling personal shame. We must always have both the present day and the day of Christ’s return in view - lamenting the state of the world in this age can’t be divorced from the joy found in Jesus breaking through into it.
   

I’m always grateful for those we meet at our speaking engagements who put the time and effort into wrestling with this subject, so that our churches communicate biblical truth in a loving and compassionate way. As always, whenever we’re speaking about topics as sensitive as this one, there’s a need for real care and precision to be taken in our use of language. We need to be clear about what we mean and what we don’t mean. Recent church discussions about concupiscence ought to remind all people of their need for Christ, for it is only in Him that all evil desires will be conquered. Praise God that, in Christ, he has broken into this age and is leading us to a greater one.

This article was originally published in the Summer 2024 edition of the TFT magazine, Ascend. Click the button below to download your copy.