teachers among the Pharisees. Jesus rebuked any form of lustful intent here. William Perkins, a Puritan whom Joel Beeke, President and Professor of Systematic Theology and Homiletics at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan, calls the “principle architect of the Puritan movement,”23 argued that in this statement Jesus
22 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.
23 Joel R. Beeke and Randall J. Pederson, Meet the Puritans: With a Guide to Modern Reprints (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2006), 473.
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forbade the “motion and inward inclination of the heart unto this sin.”24 Sexual attraction for someone other than one’s wife is rebuked here. Sexual attraction’s telos is sexual activity; that is the goal of the attraction, as is evident from God’s original design of heterosexual attraction in Adam and Eve before the fall (Gen 2:20-25). Sexual attraction was designed by God in the Garden to be person-specific, for spouses, and relationship- specific, for marriage. Any sexual attraction outside of attraction for one’s spouse is
“lustful intent.” After all, what is the intent of sexual attraction for one’s wife? Sex. What is the intention of sexual attraction to any person? Sex. One cannot be sexually attracted to a person and not have intent for sex with that person; that is what sexual attraction is,
“sexual” “attraction.” Calvin noted,
The design of Christ was to condemn generally the lust of the flesh. He says, that not only those who have seduced their neighbors’ wives, but those who have polluted their eyes by an immodest look, are adulterers before God. This is a
synecdoche: for not only the eyes, but even the concealed flames of the heart, render men guilty of adultery. Accordingly, Paul makes chastity (1 Corinthians 7:34) to consist both in body and in mind. But Christ reckoned it enough to refute the gross mistake which was prevalent: for they thought that it was only necessary to guard against outward adultery. As it is generally by the wantonness of the eyes that temptations are presented to the mind, and as lust enters, as it were, by that door, Christ used this mode of speaking, when he wished to condemn lust: which is evident from the expression, to lust after her. This teaches us also, that not only those who form a deliberate purpose of fornication, but those who admit any
polluted thoughts, are reckoned adulterers before God. The hypocrisy of the Papists, therefore, is too gross and stupid, when they affirm that lust is not a sin, until it gain the full consent of the heart. But we need not wonder, that they make sin to be so small a matter: for those who ascribe righteousness to the merit of works must be very dull and stupid in judging of their sins.25
Calvin pitted the Papists against the Protestants in his interpretation of Christ’s words in Matthew 5:27-28. Not mere outward lust is condemned, but lust of the heart and all that it entails, including any “polluted thoughts.” Jesus claimed to fulfill the law, and implied
24 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.
25 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.
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that his righteousness exceeded the righteousness of the Pharisees, in both heart and deed.
With no sinful inclination, Christ fulfilled the law even in his inclinations.
At this point, some may reply, “Surely Jesus was sexually attracted to women.”
Yet, one must understand that in the Garden of Eden, Adam was not attracted to women, only to Eve, and vice versa concerning Eve’s attraction to Adam. And Jesus was created holy and sinless like Adam (2 Cor 5:21; Heb 4:15; 1 Pet 1:18-19, 2:22; 1 John 3:5). There was only one woman formed from Adam’s side, and that was who he was sexually
attracted to (Gen 2:20-25). Concerning Eve, her original human source for life was Adam alone, not men plural. Her sexual attraction followed God’s design of her from Adam, for Adam. God brought Eve to Adam for marriage; God did not bring any other woman to Adam. In a similar manner, there is only one bride of Christ that the Father has brought to the Son. The Son has no sexual desire for this bride since sexual attraction served to point to the greater fulfillment of the Son’s eternal marriage to his bride, the church (Eph 5:22- 33). It is not that Jesus is without the capacity for heterosexual attraction, but rather, that the Father did not bring the Son a female bride for marriage, like he did for Adam.
Instead, in order to fulfill his original design for marriage, the Father brought the Son a perfect, holy bride who was born out of his Son’s bloody side, and he united her to him eternally. Interestingly, the Greek word used for Adam’s “rib” in the Septuagint,
“πλευρών” (Gen 2:21),26 is the same word used for Christ’s “side” in the Greek New Testament, “πλευρὰν” (John 19:34).27 Christ’s side was pierced with a spear to make sure he was dead on the cross, and blood and water, two of the most essential elements needed
26 Alan England Brooke and Norman McLean, eds., The Old Testament in Greek: According to the Text of Codex Vaticanus, Supplemented from Other Uncial Manuscripts, with a Critical Apparatus Containing the Variants of the Chief Ancient Authorities for the Text of the Septuagint, vol. 1 (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2009), 5.
27 Aland et. al., eds., Novum Testamentum Graece, 370.
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to bring life, flowed from the wound. Temporal life came from Adam’s side to his bride, and eternal life flowed from Christ’s side to his bride.
Returning to the words “with lustful intent,” they must be understood on the backdrop of Christ being the goal of the law. His standard is not the false teaching of the Pharisees but perfect obedience to God’s law. Christ did not rebuke the Pharisees by saying that only volitional lust is adultery. Rather, he said that any form of lust is
adultery. Is a lustful look, whether of inclination or volition, ever obedient to the law? If the answer is “yes,” then Jesus over-fulfilled the law, or he experienced lustful
inclinations. The first assumption goes against Jesus’ own statements that he came, not to add to the law, but to fulfill the law, and the latter is blasphemy. Jesus is the standard of perfection for how one defines “fulfilling the law,” not man’s discernment of whether he has “chosen” or “unchosen” desires that are contrary to the law. In other words, Jesus gave a standard that only he could fulfill in both teaching and obedient inclination, thought, and deed.
Matthew 5:28b. Then, Jesus contended that a man with lustful intent toward a