According to Augustine, only the Pelagians taught that “a desire for sins is not a sin and is not something evil, though one does an evil action if one consents to its persuasion.”[1] Philip Melanchthon, Martin Luther’s successor, argued that all the Church Fathers agreed with Augustine, teaching that evil in one’s heart is sin, not a neutral reality.[2] The Protestant confessions agreed that original sin and all that it produces is morally culpable sin: Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican, and Baptists.[3]
But today, some prominent evangelicals use empty rhetoric to teach contrary to Scripture.
Empty Rhetoric
In 2011, Tim Keller taught, “Heterosexuality does not get you to Heaven, so how in the world can homosexuality send you to hell?”[4]
[Editor’s Note: Tim Keller’s public comments on homosexuality are problematic; in some instances (here and here), he downplays the sinfulness of homosexuality, and in other places, he is more clear. This comment by Keller is a rhetorical move that does not clearly show what 1 Corinthians 6:9–11 teaches, namely, that those who practice homosexuality will not inherit the kingdom of God (along with everyone who unrepentantly pursues the other categories of unrighteousness listed). However, as a member of the seven-person Presbyterian Church in America Ad-Interim Committee on Human Sexuality, Keller did clearly affirm the sinfulness of homosexual desire in the committee’s final report. We are grateful for his clear statements on this issue in the context of that report, and we wish that Keller had a clearer track record in his public comments on that issue.]
Then, in 2014, Preston Sprinkle taught that same-sex attraction “includes a virtuous desire to be intimate—in the David and Jonathan, or Jesus and John sense of the phrase—with people of the same sex.”[5] Today, he teaches that there is a pre-lust evil desire that is not even sin, and same-sex attraction falls in this category.[6]
In 2015, Wesley Hill taught that same-sex attraction can be separated from same-sex sexual attraction. Same-sex attraction can be sanctified if turned toward godly same-sex friendship, but same-sex sexual attraction should be repented of.[7] He also argued that same-sex attraction is the pursuit of same-sex beauty.[8]
In 2015, Sam Alberry taught that he “experiences same-sex attraction,” an unwanted, unchosen, mere temptation that is not sin.[9] And in 2019, he taught that same-sex attraction is “the capacity to be attracted to people of the same-sex,” which is not sin.[10]
Exposing Empty Rhetoric with Empty Rhetoric
Each of these men utilize the same tactic to teach falsely: empty rhetoric, an eisegetical sleight of hand. It’s easy to expose them if you use their rhetoric while substituting other sins that are less acceptable today:
To Keller, one could say, “Being male or female does not get you to Heaven, so how in the world can transgenderism send you to hell?” Or, “Heterosexuality does not get you to Heaven, so how in the world can ‘pedophilic sexual interest’ send you to hell?”[11]
To Sprinkle, “‘Pedophilic sexual interest’ includes a virtuous desire to be intimate in the Jesus and children sense” (Matt 19:14). Or, “Every abusive act begins with a pre-abuse orientation or pre-abuse impulse that is not sin.”
To Hill, “Racism can be separated into love for your own race and hatred for other races. Love for your own race can be sanctified if turned toward loving your neighbor, but hatred for other races should be repented of.” Or, “Pedophilia can be separated into pedophilic attraction and ‘pedophilic sexual interest.’ Pedophilic attraction can be sanctified if turned to mentoring or helping children, but ‘pedophilic sexual interest’ must be repented of.”
To Allberry, “I experience murderous attraction and it’s not sin if I don’t submit to it.” Or, “Having the capacity to be tempted to abuse someone is not sin.”
Each of these men taught or teach that, in our hearts, there is a pre-lust or neutral inclination that is aimed at sin, but is not itself sin. Thus, instead of sending sinners to Christ to repent of sin at the root, they use rhetoric to take guilt away, which of course doesn’t really take anyone’s guilt away. Those who adopt such rhetoric never repent of sin at the root, which continually ensnares them in sin.
The remedy for this false teaching is the same as it’s been since the devil used empty rhetoric in the Garden, saying, “Did God actually say?”(Gen 3:1–6): hear God’s word, believe it, receive it, and do what it says from our hearts, by the Holy Spirit through the Son to the Father.
To rebut Keller, Sprinkle, Hill, and Allberry, consider Jesus’s words in Matthew 5:27–30 and James’s words in James 1:13–15:
Exposing Empty Rhetoric With Scripture: Matthew 5:27–30
Exegesis: Context
In Matthew 5:27–30, Jesus preached,
You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.
The context for Matthew 5:27–30 is Jesus’s “Sermon on the Mount” where he corrected the teachings of the Pharisees. His goal was not to abolish or correct the law, but to fulfill it (Matt. 5:17–20). None of the law will pass away until “all is accomplished” (Matt 5:18).[12]
Jesus fulfills the law through His correct teaching and perfect obedience from His heart. He is the goal of the law.[13] Thus, for Jesus’ hearers to follow His teachings, they must uphold the law perfectly, every “jot and tittle,” exceeding the righteousness of the Pharisees (Matt. 5:19–20).[14] But only Jesus exceeds their righteousness; therefore, they must trust in Him alone to save them.
Exegesis: Comments
Matthew 5:27. In Matthew 5:27, Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’” He quoted the Seventh Commandment to rebuke a Pharisaical teaching that only the outward action of adultery is sin, not the inward lust. The purpose of the law was not only to forbid the act of sin but also the inward desire to sin as is evident from the Tenth Commandment, “You shall not covet” (Exod. 20:17).
Matthew 5:28a. Then Jesus said, “But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent.” He claimed greater authority than the Pharisees by rebuking any form of lustful intent, including one’s thoughts.[15] His words must be understood on the backdrop of Him being the goal of the law. Jesus’s standard is not the false teaching of the Pharisees, but perfect obedience to God’s law from one’s heart. He did not rebuke only mindful lust, but any form of lust, giving a standard that only He could fulfill in both teaching and obedient inclination, thought, and deed.
Matthew 5:28b. Next, Jesus contended that a man with lustful intent toward a woman “has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Obviously, looking at a woman is not sin. But, to look at a woman who is not one’s wife with sexual desire in one’s heart is morally culpable sin. Using the same Greek words as the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, Jesus interpreted the Seventh Commandment against adultery by the Tenth Commandment against coveting your neighbor’s wife.[16]
He exposed the condition of His hearers’ hearts. They cannot fulfill the law because their hearts are evil. Only the pure in heart shall see God (Matt. 5:8). Even if they rebuke the lustful intent in their hearts, the fact that it sprang up from their hearts reveals that they are not pure and cannot fulfill the law. Only Christ can, and only by God’s grace through Christ can His disciples be morally pure in Him.[17]
Matthew 5:29–30. Finally, Jesus emphasized His point by arguing, “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.” Christ exaggeratingly referred to eliminating the flesh that tempts: cutting out one’s best eye, the source of an evil lustful gaze, and cutting off one’s best hand.[18]
Jesus was even clearer in a similar passage in Matthew 18:7–9, when He tied the command against tempting to sin directly to tempting oneself. He said to cut off the flesh that tempts—but that is no more radical than His warning to the man that tempts His disciples: drowning in the sea would be better for him (Matt. 18:6).[19] Whether temptation comes from within or without, Christ’s followers must reject it in a radical way for the sake of rejecting hell as well.
To summarize, Christ rebuked His hearers’ passive justification of the sin in their hearts.[20] By only declaring the outward act as adulterous, the Pharisees were passively declaring that lust in their hearts fulfills the law. Similarly, those who argue that only chosen lustful thoughts are adulterous, are passively declaring that “unchosen” lustful thoughts fulfill the law, exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees, and imitate Christ, since He is the goal of the law.
James 1:13–15
Exegesis: Context
Another passage that teaches lawless inclination is morally culpable sin is James 1:13–15: “Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.” To understand the context of James 1:13–15, one must understand James 1:2–12, that trials and tests come from God for our good.
Exegesis: Comments
James 1:13a. James began his discussion of temptation with, “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God.”’ Although God tests His people throughout Scripture, bringing them various trials (Abraham and Isaac in Gen. 22:1; Israel in Judg. 2:22), He does not give them the sinful temptations that come from their hearts during these trials. God’s purpose for trials is always to strengthen their faith (Jas. 1:2–4); however, the purpose of inward temptation is always to kill the tempted.[21]
James 1:13b. Then, James further explained why God does not tempt: “For God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.” Since God is perfectly good and holy, He cannot desire anything contrary to His nature. If being tempted by evil would compromise God’s holy nature, then being tempted by evil would compromise Christ’s nature and all humanity’s natures as well.
James 1:14. Next, to further clarify the difference between God and sinful man, James wrote, “But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.” Mankind cannot blame God when they are tempted by sin because they tempt themselves. It is their fault alone. The word translated “desire” by the ESV, epithymias,[22] can have a neutral meaning, but when the context is negative, it refers to lust or “fleshly, illicit desire.” The context is clearly negative.[23]
James wanted his readers to know that God is not the source of their temptations, but their own lust lures and entices them. Tests and trials may be welcomed as joyous occasions since they produce “steadfastness” and eventual perfection (Jas. 1:2–4), but inward temptations only come from a sinful heart and end in death; they must be rejected as an enemy.[24]
James 1:15. Finally, James likened human development to the growth of sin from beginning to end: “Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.” James’ point is not that sin only leads to death when “full grown” or that temptation only leads to sin when it “conceives.” Sin always leads to death.[25] And sin, or self-tempting, starts in an individual’s heart.[26]
James argued that individuals, not God, are responsible for sinful lust, thoughts and actions that end in death.[27] He wrote something similar in James 4:1–2: “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel.” The word “desire” (epithymeite) in James 4:2 is similar to the word “desire” (epithymias) in James 1:14.[28] There was a war raging within his hearers, and their sinful desires were enemies of themselves and the rest of the church as well.[29]
Returning to James 1:15, if one argues James implied that sinful desire is not sin, one must also argue he implied that sin only leads to death when it is “full grown.”[30] But James’ point was that inner temptation always leads to death if it is not repented from.[31] The picture is that of three persons, for temptation “lures and entices,” “conceives,” “grows and dies.”[32] He described the life cycle of sin where lust can only produce according to its nature: sin and death. Therefore, James’ point is to encourage his hearers to repent of the source of sin and death in their lives, their lusts. If Christians stop the sinful desires before they can conceive, they stop sin from harming them and others.
James concludes this section with James 1:16–18, reiterating his point from James 1:2–13 that only good and perfect gifts come from God to man, not inward temptations to sin. Lust is not God’s gift to man; rather, tempting oneself is solely the work of sinful man. Inner temptation is always lust, and is therefore, always sin.
Conclusion
Jesus in Matthew 5:27–30 taught us that any sexual impulse towards another man’s wife is adultery. God not only requires holy actions but holy hearts as well (Matt. 5:8). Jesus taught us to respond drastically to inner temptations (Matt. 18:7–9), not to label them as “pre-lust,” “neutral,” or “not sin.” They are lust from root to fruit, seed to deed, according to Jesus.
Similarly, James taught us that though trials come from God for our good, our hearts produce lawless desires that lure and entice us to mindful sin and death. The beginning of sin is not pre-lust, but lust. And these lusts can only produce what is according to their nature: sin and death. They are not neutral, and they cannot produce holiness or anything that pleases God.
Contrary to the empty rhetoric of Keller, Hill, Allberry, and Sprinkle, any lawless inclination in our hearts is lust, we are responsible for it, and only Christ can save us from it. But the first step in repenting of these lusts is to agree with God that they are sin. We must call the seed of sin “sin,” like Jesus and James do. Only then will we begin to turn from and starve the lust in our hearts until it is put to death (Rom. 8:13; Col. 1:12–17).
Empty rhetoric cannot take your sin away, but Christ can. Will you repent and believe in Him? Or will you trust in empty rhetoric to take your sin away?
Augustine, “Unfinished Work in Answer to Julian,” in Answer to the Pelagians, 3, part 1 – Books, vol. 25 of The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, ed. John E. Rotelle, trans. Roland J. Teske (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 1999), 427. ↑
Philip Melanchthon, “The Apology of the Augsburg Confession,” in The Book of Concord: or, The Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, ed. Henry Eyster Jacobs (Philadelphia: General Council Publication Board, 1916), 81–82. ↑
See Jared Heath Moore, “On Concupiscence, The Roman Catholics Rejected Augustine and The Reformed Tradition Followed Augustine,” in A Biblical and Historical Appraisal of Concupiscence With Special Attention to Same-Sex Attraction (PhD dissertation, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2019), 77–129. ↑
Robert A. J. Gagnon, “Rev. Tim Keller’s Disappointing Comments on Homosexuality (with Postscript),” September 14, 2012. ↑
Preston Sprinkle, “Is Same-Sex Attraction Sinful?” December 1, 2014. ↑
Preston Sprinkle, “Sexuality,” in Upside-Down Kingdom Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2024), 31. ↑
Wesley Hill, Spiritual Friendship: Finding Love in the Church as a Celibate Gay Christian (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2015), 80–81. ↑
Hill, Spiritual Friendship, 80–81. ↑
Sam Allberry, “Our Desires, Our Selves: An Interview with Sam Allberry,” Modern Reformation, August 21, 2015. ↑
Sam Allberry, “Is Same Sex Attraction a Sin?” RZIM HQ, April 18, 2019. ↑
The current American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Disorders refers to pedophilia at its root as “pedophilic sexual interest,” and it says that it’s not a disorder. American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Disorders, 5th ed., (DSM-5) (Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association, 2022), 793. ↑
Donald A. Hagner, Matthew 1–13, Word Biblical Commentary 33A, ed. Bruce M. Metzger, David A. Hubbard, Glenn W. Barker (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 106. ↑
David L. Turner, Matthew, of Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, ed. Robert W. Yarbrough and Robert H. Stein (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 164. ↑
Hagner, Matthew 1–13, 106. ↑
William Perkins, The Workes of that Famovs and Worthy Ministry of Christ in the Univerfitie of Cambridge, M. W. Perkins, the third and last volume (London: John Haviland, 1631), 54. Also, see John Calvin, Commentary on the Harmony of the Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, vol. 1 of Calvin’s Commentaries, trans. William Pringle (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1996), 290–91. ↑
Turner, Matthew, 170. ↑
R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. Matthew’s Gospel (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1964), 226. Also see Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer, Critical and Exegetical Hand-Book to the Gospel of Matthew, ed. Frederick Crombie and William Stewart, trans. Peter Christie (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1884), 130. ↑
Hagner, Matthew 1–13, 120–21. ↑
Turner, Matthew, 438. ↑
Hagner, Matthew 1–13, 121. ↑
Douglas J. Moo, The Letter of James, of The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 72–73. ↑
Barbara Aland et. al., eds., Novum Testamentum Graece, 28th rev. ed. (Stuttgart, Germany: Deutsche Biblegesellschaft, 2012), 686. ↑
Moo, The Letter of James, 74. ↑
Craig L. Blomberg and Mariam J. Kamell, James, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008), 67. ↑
Ralph P. Martin, James, Word Biblical Commentary 48 (Waco, TX: Word Books Publisher, 1988), 36–37. ↑
Dan McCartney, James, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009), 106. ↑
Moo, The Letter of James, 75. Moo writes, “The most we can say is that James, like other Jewish and Christian authors, wants to place the responsibility for temptation and sin squarely on the shoulders of each human being.” ↑
Aland et. al., eds., Novum Testamentum Graece, 691. ↑
Moo, The Letter of James, 181. ↑
Aland et. al., eds., Novum Testamentum Graece, 686. ↑
Martin, James, 37. ↑
Martin Dibelius, A Commentary on James, ed. Helmut Koester, trans. Michael A. Williams (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975), 92–93. ↑
