Will you commit adultery today? The thought may shock you, but only because you haven’t thought hard enough about what Jesus teaches about looking at women and lusting after them. Or because you have thought about what Jesus says, but think he means something else.
I am referring, of course, to the teaching that Jesus gives on a hillside in Galilee, a teaching that we know as The Sermon on the Mount. This is what Jesus teaches:
“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
Matthew 5:27-28
If you are like many of your brothers in Christ, you think that Jesus is teaching that looking at a woman to lust for her means you commit adultery only in your heart, that you don’t actually commit adultery. You think that looking at a woman with lust is not the same as jumping into bed with her and having sex. You think that sex equals adultery, not merely looking. You think that, for you to commit adultery today, you must have intercourse with a woman who is not your wife. No physical act, no big deal.
And this is precisely where you go wrong. The entire point that Jesus is making is that looking lustfully is adultery. Not like adultery. Not approximating adultery. Not equivalent to adultery. Not as bad as adultery. But actual adultery. When you look lustfully at a woman, you commit adultery.
You likely miss the weight of what Jesus says because you focus on the where of the act and not on the who. You misread this teaching of Jesus. You think He says, “Whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery in his heart.” You misunderstand this to mean that when you look lustfully, you commit adultery in your heart, not in a bed, and so your sin is not as grievous. You think that what you do in your imagination is not as serious as what you do in a motel room with a woman who is not your wife, and so your sin of lust is less severe. You think you can look at porn today and not commit adultery. But you are wrong.
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