What does the Bible say about lust?

c. 386–398 · John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Epistle to the Romans 24

For that he does bid make provision for it, hear from what he says to Timothy, “Use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake, and thine often infirmities.” (1 Tim. v. 23.) So here too he is for taking care of it, but for health, and not wantonness. For this would cease to be making provision for it, when you were lighting up the flame, when you were making the furnace powerful. But that you may form a clearer notion what “making provision” for it “to fulfil the lusts thereof” is, and may shun such a provision, just call to mind the drunken, the gluttonous, those that pride themselves in dress, those that are effeminate, them that live a soft and relaxed life, and you will see what is meant. For they do everything not that they may be healthy, but that they may be wanton and kindle desire.

c. 386–398 · John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Epistle to the Romans 24

And His garments were cheap; and often He stayed alone, with no train after Him. And what He did on the Cross, and what amidst the insults, and all, in a word, that He did, do thou learn by heart (καταμαθὼν) and imitate. And so wilt thou have put on Christ, if thou “make no provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof.” For the thing has no real pleasure, since these lusts gender again others more keen, and thou wilt never find satisfaction, but wilt only make thee one great torment. For as one who is in a continual thirst, even if he have ten thousand fountains hard by him, gets no good from this, as he is not able to extinguish the disorder, so is he that liveth continually in lusts.

391–430 · Augustine of Hippo, Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament (Sermones 51-147) 78.8

See what kind of war, what kind of battle, what kind of strife he hath set forth, within, within thine own self. “The flesh lusteth against the Spirit.” If the Spirit lust not also against the flesh, commit adultery. But if the Spirit lust against the flesh, I see a struggle, I do not see a victory, it is a contest.

391–430 · Augustine of Hippo, Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament (Sermones 51-147) 78.13

Let us then return to the words, which I had set forth out of the Apostle as obscure, and we shall now see them to be plain. For this I had set forth, that the Apostle did not say, “Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not have the lusts of the flesh;” because we must necessarily have them. Why then did he not say, “Ye shall not do the lusts of the flesh”? Because we do them; for we do lust. The very lusting, is doing.

c. 396–397 · Augustine of Hippo, On Christian Doctrine 1.24.25

Those, on the other hand, who do this in a perverse spirit, make war upon their own body as if it were a natural enemy. And in this matter they are led astray by a mistaken interpretation of what they read: “The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the other.” For this is said of the carnal habit yet unsubdued, against which the spirit lusteth, not to destroy the body, but to eradicate the lust of the body—i.e., its evil habit—and thus to make it subject to the spirit, which is what the order of nature demands. For as, after the resurrection, the body, having become wholly subject to the spirit, will live in perfect peace to all eternity; even in this life we must make it an object to have the carnal habit changed for the better, so that its inordinate affections may not war against the soul. And until this shall take place, “the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh;” the spirit struggling, not in hatred, but for the mastery, because it desires that what it loves should be subject to the higher principle; and the flesh struggling, not in hatred, but because of the bondage of habit which it has derived from its parent stock, and which has grown in upon it by a law of nature till it has become inveterate.

c. 426–429 · John Cassian, Conferences (Conlationes) 4.11

Wherefore in this passage we ought to take “flesh” as meaning not man, i.e., his material substance, but the carnal will and evil desires, just as “spirit” does not mean anything material, but the good and spiritual desires of the soul: a meaning which the blessed Apostle has clearly given just before, where he begins: “But I say, walk in the spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the desires of the flesh; for the flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh: but these are contrary the one to the other, that ye may not do what ye would.” And since these two; viz., the desires of the flesh and of the spirit co-exist in one and the same man, there arises an internal warfare daily carried on within us, while the lust of the flesh which rushes blindly towards sin, revels in those delights which are connected with present ease.

1531 · Martin Luther, Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (abridged) 5

When Paul declares that “the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh,” he means to say that we are not to think, speak or do the things to which the flesh incites us. “I know,” he says, “that the flesh courts sin. The thing for you to do is to resist the flesh by the Spirit. But if you abandon the leadership of the Spirit for that of the flesh, you are going to fulfill the lust of the flesh and die in your sins.”

1548 · John Calvin, Commentary on Colossians 3.5

After fornication he adds uncleanness, by which term he expresses all kinds of wantonness, by which lascivious persons pollute themselves. To these is added, πάθος that is, lust, which includes all the allurements of unhallowed desire. This term, it is true, denotes mental perturbations of other kinds, and disorderly motions contrary to reason; but lust is not an unsuitable rendering of this passage.

1548 · John Calvin, Commentary on Galatians 5.16

We ought to mark the word fulfill; by which he means, that, though the sons of God, so long as they groan under the burden of the flesh, are liable to commit sin, they are not its subjects or slaves, but make habitual opposition to its power. The spiritual man may be frequently assaulted by the lusts of the flesh, but fulfill them, — he does not permit them to reign over him. — On this subject, it will be proper to consult the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans

1656 · John Owen, Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers 2

Why, “The Spirit also lusteth against the flesh,” Gal. v. 17. There is a propensity in the Spirit, or spiritual new nature, to be acting against the flesh, as well as in the flesh to be acting against the Spirit: so 2 Pet. i. 4, 5. It is our participation of the divine nature that gives us an escape from the pollutions that are in the world through lust; and, Rom. vii. 23, there is a law of the mind, as well as a law of the members.

1660 · Thomas Watson, The Beatitudes 16

‘Make not provision for the flesh’ (Romans 13:14). Sinners are caterers for their lusts. It is a metaphor taken from such as make provision for a family, or victual a garrison. The Greek word here signifies a projecting and forecasting in the mind how to bring a thing about. This is to make provision for the flesh when one studies to satisfy the flesh and lay in fuel for lust.

1668 · John Owen, The Nature, Power, Deceit, and Prevalency of the Remainders of Indwelling Sin in Believers 6

First, In general it is said to lust: Gal. v. 17, “The flesh lusteth against the Spirit.” This word expresseth the general nature of that opposition which the law of sin maketh against God and the rule of his Spirit or grace in them that believe; and, therefore, the least degree of that opposition is expressed hereby. When it doth any thing, it lusteth; as, because burning is the general acting of fire, whatever it doth else, it doth also burn. When fire doth any thing it burns; and when the law of sin doth any thing it lusts. Hence, all the actings of this law of sin are called “The lusts of the flesh:” Gal. v. 16, “Ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh;” Rom. xiii. 14, “Make no provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.” Nor are these lusts of the flesh those only whereby men act their sensuality in riot, drunkenness, uncleanness, and the like; but they comprehend all the actings of the law of sin whatever, in all the faculties and affections of the soul.

1675–1680 · Stephen Charnock, Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God 4

The flesh will be lusting; that cannot be hindered; yet if we do not fulfil the lusts of it, rise up at its command, and go about its work, we may be said to walk in the Spirit (Gal. v. 16, 17): we “walk in the Spirit,” if we “fulfil not the lusts of the flesh,” though there be a lusting of the flesh against the Spirit; so we worship in the Spirit, though there be carnal thoughts arising if we do not fulfil them; though the stirring of them discovers some contrariety in us to God, yet the resistance manifests that there is a principle of contrariety in us to them; that as there is something of flesh that lusts against the spirit, so there is something of spirit in worship which lusts against the flesh: we must take heed of omitting worship, because of such inroads, and lying down in the mire of a total neglect.

1684 · John Owen, Meditations and Discourses on the Glory of Christ 3

Some by them “make provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof;” as Rom. xiii. 14. They search about continually in their thoughts for objects suited unto their lusts and carnal affections, coining, framing, and stamping of them in their imaginations. They fix their eyes with delight on toads and serpents, with all noisome, filthy objects, — refusing, in the meantime, to behold the beauty and glory of the light of the sun. So is it with all that spend their thoughts about the objects of their sinful pleasures, — refusing to look up after one view of this glory of Christ.

c. 1714 · Joshua Bayes, Commentary on Galatians 5.13-26

That there is in every one a struggle between the flesh and the spirit (v. 17): The flesh (the corrupt and carnal part of us) lusts (strives and struggles with strength and vigour) against the spirit: it opposes all the motions of the Spirit, and resists every thing that is spiritual. On the other hand, the spirit (the renewed part of us) strives against the flesh, and opposes the will and desire of it: and hence it comes to pass that we cannot do the things that we would. As the principle of grace in us will not suffer us to do all the evil which our corrupt nature would prompt us to, so neither can we do all the good that we would, by reason of the oppositions we meet with from that corrupt and carnal principle. Even as in a natural man there is something of this struggle (the convictions of his conscience and the corruption of his own heart strive with one another; his convictions would suppress his corruptions, and his corruptions silence his convictions), so in a renewed man, where there is something of a good principle, there is a struggle between the old nature and the new nature, the remainders of sin and the beginnings of grace; and this Christians must expect will be their exercise as long as they continue in this world.

c. 1714 · Samuel Rosewell, Commentary on Ephesians 2.1-3

By fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, men contract that filthiness of flesh and spirit from which the apostle exhorts Christians to cleanse themselves, 2 Cor. vii. 1. The fulfilling of the desires of the flesh and of the mind includes all the sin and wickedness that are acted in and by both the inferior and the higher or nobler powers of the soul. We lived in the actual commission of all those sins to which corrupt nature inclined us. The carnal mind makes a man a perfect slave to his vicious appetite.—The fulfilling of the wills of the flesh, so the words may be rendered, denoting the efficacy of these lusts, and what power they have over those who yield themselves up unto them.

c. 1714 · John Evans, Commentary on Romans 13.11-14

We are not forbidden barely to provide for the body (it is a lamp that must be supplied with oil), but we are forbidden to fulfil the lusts thereof. The necessities of the body must be considered, but the lusts of it must not be gratified. Natural desires must be answered, but wanton appetites must be checked and denied. To ask meat for our necessities is duty: we are taught to pray for daily bread; but to ask meat for our lusts is provoking, Ps. lxxviii. 18. Those who profess to walk in the spirit must not fulfil the lusts of the flesh, Gal. v. 16.

c. 1714 · Zech. Merrill, Commentary on 1 Peter 4.1-3

Negatively, a Christian ought no longer to live the rest of his time in the flesh, to the sinful lusts and corrupt desires of carnal wicked men; but, positively, he ought to conform himself to the revealed will of the holy God. Learn, 1. The lusts of men are the springs of all their wickedness, Jam. i. 13, 14. Let occasional temptations be what they will, they could not prevail, were it not for men's own corruptions.

c. 1714 · John Evans, Commentary on Romans 13.11-14

Christians must not overcharge their hearts with surfeiting and drunkenness, Luke xxi. 34. This is not walking as in the day; for those that are drunk are drunk in the night, 1 Thess. v. 7. 2. Not in chambering and wantonness; not in any of those lusts of the flesh, those works of darkness, which are forbidden in the seventh commandment. Downright adultery and fornication are the chambering forbidden. Lascivious thoughts and affections, lascivious looks, words, books, songs, gestures, dances, dalliances, which lead to, and are degrees of, that uncleanness, are the wantonness here forbidden—whatsoever transgresseth the pure and sacred law of chastity and modesty.

1820 · John Tillotson, Works, Volume 4: Sermons LV-LXXXIV 68

Let us entangle and incumber ourselves as little as we can in this our pilgrimage: let us not engage our affections too far in the pleasures and advantages of this world, because we are not to stay in it, but to pass through it. Upon this consideration, the apostle St. Peter doth so earnestly exhort Christians to preserve themselves from fleshly lusts: (I Pet. ii. 11.) “Dearly beloved, I beseech you, as strangers and pilgrims, to abstain from fleshly lusts: which war against the soul.” The gratifying of our inordinate lusts, and our carnal and sensual inclinations, is directly opposite both to the nature of our immortal spirits, and to their great design and business in this world. Fleshly lusts do not only pollute and defile, but even quench and extinguish our diviner part, and do work the ruin and destruction of it: they sink our affections into the mud and filth of this world, and do entangle and detain them there: in a word, they do wholly indispose and unfit us for that pure, and spiritual, and Divine life, which alone can qualify us for our heavenly country and inheritance. And, therefore, while our souls are sojourning in this world, we should abstain from them, and preserve ourselves unspotted and untainted by them, as being altogether unuseful, and perfectly contrary to the laws and manners of our heavenly country.

1834 · Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible: 2 Peter 2.14

In the passion here referred to, the "eye" is usually the first offender, the inlet to corrupt desires, and the medium by which they are expressed. Compare the notes at Mat 5:28. The wanton glance is a principal occasion of exciting the sin; and there is much often in dress, and mien, and gesture, to charm the eye and to deepen the debasing passion. And that cannot cease from sin - They cannot look on the females who may be present without sinning. Compare Mat 5:28. There are many men in whom the presence of the most virtuous woman only excites impure and corrupt desires.

1871 · A. R. Fausset, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on Galatians 5.16

The spirit and the flesh mutually exclude one another. It is promised, not that we should have no evil lusts, but that we should "not fulfil" them.

1871 · A. R. Fausset, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on 1 Peter 1.14

"Lusts" flow from the original birth-sin (inherited from our first parents, who by self-willed desire brought sin into the world), the lust which, ever since man has been alienated from God, seeks to fill up with earthly things the emptiness of his being; the manifold forms which the mother-lust assumes are called in the plural lusts.

1908 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 54 (1908) 3109

First, Paul mentions sins of lust—adultery, which violates the most sacred ties—fornication, which defiles the body. Uncleanness, which is secret, not known to others, but which is fully known to God. Fleshly thoughts, fleshly words and fleshly acts—lasciviousness, the outward uncleanness which "society" condemns, yet often practices.

c. 395 · Augustine of Hippo, On Continence (De continentia) 7

This conflict none experience in themselves, save such as war on the side of the virtues, and war down the vices: nor doth any thing storm the evil of lust, save the good of Continence. But there are, who, being utterly ignorant of the law of God, account not evil lusts among their enemies, and through wretched blindness being slaves to them, over and above think themselves also blessed, by satisfying them rather than taming them. But whoso through the Law have come to know them, (“For through the Law is the knowledge of sin,” and, “Lust,” saith he, “I knew not, unless the Law should say, Thou shalt not lust after,” and yet are overcome by their assault, because they live under the Law, whereby what is good is commanded, but not also given: they live not under Grace, which gives through the Holy Spirit what is commanded through the Law: unto these the Law therefore entered, that in them the offense might abound. The prohibition increased the lust, and made it unconquered: that there might be transgression also, which without the Law was not, although there was sin, “For where there is not Law, neither is there transgression.”

1540 · John Calvin, Commentary on Romans 7.7

But civil laws do indeed declare, that intentions and not issues are to be punished. Philosophers also, with greater refinement, place vices as well as virtues in the soul. But God, by this precept, goes deeper and notices coveting, which is more hidden than the will; and this is not deemed a vice. It was pardoned not only by philosophers, but at this day the Papists fiercely contend, that it is no sin in the regenerate. But Paul says, that he had found out his guilt from this hidden disease: it hence follows, that all those who labor under it, are by no means free from guilt, except God pardons their sin. We ought, at the same time, to remember the difference between evil lustings or covetings which gain consent, and the lusting which tempts and moves our hearts, but stops in the midst of its course.

1667 · John Flavel, A Saint Indeed (The Great Work of a Christian in Keeping the Heart) 1

When the eye of our faith is fixed upon the eye of God's omniscience, we dare not let out our thoughts and affections to vanity: holy Job durst not suffer his heart to yield to an impure, vain thought; and what was it that moved him to so great circumspection? Why, he tells you, doth he not see my ways, and count all my steps? Job xxxi. 4. Walk before me (saith God to Abraham) and be thou perfect, Gen. xvii. 1. Even as parents use to set their children in the congregation before them, knowing that else they will be toying and playing; so would the heart of the best man too, were it not for the eye of God.

1706–1708 · Matthew Henry, Commentary on Exodus 20.12-17

The seventh commandment concerns our own and our neighbour's chastity: Thou shalt not commit adultery, v. 14. This is put before the sixth by our Saviour (Mark. x. 19): Do not commit adultery, do not kill; for our chastity should be as dear to us as our lives, and we should be as much afraid of that which defiles the body as of that which destroys it. This commandment forbids all acts of uncleanness, with all those fleshly lusts which produce those acts and war against the soul, and all those practices which cherish and excite those fleshly lusts, as looking, in order to lust, which, Christ tells us, is forbidden in this commandment, Matt. v. 28.

1710 · Matthew Henry, Commentary on Job 31.1-8

He would not so much as allow a wanton thought: "Why then should I think upon a maid with any unchaste fancy or desire towards her?" Shame and sense of honour might restrain him from soliciting the chastity of a beautiful virgin, but only grace and the fear of God would restrain him from so much as thinking of it. Those are not chaste that are not so in spirit as well as body, 1 Cor. vii. 34. See how Christ's exposition of the seventh commandment agrees with the ancient sense of it, and how much better Job understood it than the Pharisees, though they sat in Moses's chair.

1710 · Matthew Henry, Commentary on Proverbs 6.20-35

Talk not of the charms in her face, neither be thou smitten with her amorous glances; they are all snares and nets; let her not take thee with her eye-lids. Her looks are arrows and fiery darts; they wound, they kill, in another sense than what lovers mean; they call it a pleasing captivity, but it is a destroying one, it is worse than Egyptian slavery."

1710 · Matthew Henry, Commentary on Job 31.9-15

He did not so much as covet his neighbour's wife; for even his heart was not deceived by a woman. The beauty of another man's wife did not kindle in him any unchaste desires, nor was he ever moved by the allurements of an adulterous woman, such as is described, Prov. vii. 6, &c. See the original of all the defilements of the life; they come from a deceived heart. Every sin is deceitful, and none more so than the sin of uncleanness. (2.) He never compassed or imagined any unchaste design. He never laid wait at his neighbour's door, to get an opportunity to debauch his wife in his absence, when the good man was not at home, Prov. vii. 19. See ch. xxiv. 15. 2. What a dread he had of this sin, and what frightful apprehensions he had concerning the malignity of it—that it was a heinous crime (v. 11), one of the greatest vilest sins a man can be guilty of, highly provoking to God, and destructive to the prosperity of the soul.

1710 · Matthew Henry, Commentary on Proverbs 5.1-14

The lusts of uncleanness not only war against the soul, which the sinner neglects and is in no care about, but they war against the body too, which he is so indulgent of and is in such care to please and pamper, such deceitful, such foolish, such hurtful lusts are they. Those that give themselves to work uncleanness with greediness waste their strength, throw themselves into weakness, and often have their bodies filled with loathsome distempers, by which the number of their months is cut off in the midst and they fall unpitied sacrifices to a cruel lust.

1710 · Matthew Henry, Commentary on Job 31.1-8

What the reasons were which, in this matter, he was governed by. It was not for fear of reproach among men, though that is to be considered (Prov. vi. 33), but for fear of the wrath and curse of God. He knew very well, (1.) That uncleanness is a sin that forfeits all good, and shuts us out from the hope of it (v. 2): What portion of God is there from above? What blessing can such impure sinners expect from the pure and holy God, or what token of his favour? What inheritance of the Almighty can they look for from on high? There is no portion, no inheritance, no true happiness, for a soul, but what is in God, in the Almighty, and what comes from above, from on high. Those that wallow in uncleanness render themselves utterly unfit for communion with God, either in grace here or in glory hereafter, and become allied to unclean spirits, which are for ever separated from him; and then what portion, what inheritance, can they have with God? No unclean thing shall enter into the New Jerusalem, that holy city.

1765 · John Wesley, Explanatory Notes on Job 31.12

Destruction - Lust is a fire in the soul; it consumes all that is good there, the convictions, the comforts; and lays the conscience waste. It consumes the body, consumes the substance, roots out all the increase. It kindles the fire of God's wrath, which if not quenched by the blood of Christ, will burn to the lowest hell.

1820 · John Tillotson, Works, Volume 9 212

Under the name of fornication the apostle comprehends all the sins of uncleanness, of which any member of the body is an instrument: so that the lasciviousness of the eye, or ear, or tongue, is a polluting and profaning this temple of God, and drives the Holy Spirit of God out of his possession.

1834 · Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible: Job 31.1

I made a covenant with mine eyes - The first virtue of his private life to which Job refers is chastity. Such was his sense of the importance of this, and of the danger to which man was exposed, that he had solemnly resolved not to think upon a young female. The phrase here, "I made a covenant with mine eyes," is poetical, meaning that he solemnly resolved. A covenant is of a sacred and binding nature; and the strength of his resolution was as great as if he had made a solemn compact. A covenant or compact was usually made by slaying an animal in sacrifice, and the compact was ratified over the animal that was slain, by a kind of imprecation that if the compact was violated the same destruction might fall on the violators which fell on the head of the victim. This idea of cutting up a victim on occasion of making a covenant, is retained in most languages. So the Greek ὅρκια τέμνειν, πέμνἔιν σπονδάς horkia temnein, temnein spondas, and the Latin icere foedus - to strike a league, in allusion to the striking down, or slaying of an animal on the occasion. And so the Hebrew, as in the place before us, כרת ברית berı̂yth kârath - to cut a covenant, from cutting down, or cutting in pieces the victim over which the covenant was made; see this explained at length in the notes at Heb 9:16. By the language here, Job means that he had resolved, in the most solemn manner, that he would not allow his eyes or thoughts to endanger him by improperly contemplating a woman.

598–599 · Gregory the Great, Register of Letters (Registrum epistularum), Book IX (selected) 122

Cleanness also of body is to be guarded in our strivings after well-doing, since, according to the voice of the apostolic preacher, The temple of God is holy, which temple ye are (1 Cor. iii. 17). And again he says, For this is the will of God, even your sanctification (1 Thess. iv. 3). As to which sanctification, what he means by it he shews by straightway adding, That ye should abstain from fornication, that every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour, not in the lusts of concupiscence.

c. 1714 · Daniel Mayo, Commentary on 1 Thessalonians 4.1-8

What can be more dishonourable than for a rational soul to be enslaved by bodily affections and brutal appetites? (3.) To indulge the lust of concupiscence is to live and act like heathens? Even as the Gentiles who know not God, v. 5. The Gentiles, and especially the Grecians, were commonly guilty of some sins of uncleanness which were not so evidently forbidden by the light of nature. But they did not know God, nor his mind and will, so well as Christians know, and should know, this his will, namely our sanctification in this branch of it. It is not so much to be wondered at, therefore, if the Gentiles indulge their fleshly appetites and lusts; but Christians should not walk as unconverted Gentiles, in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, &c. (1 Pet. iv. 3), because those who are in Christ have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts.

1871 · A. R. Fausset, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on 1 Thessalonians 4.5

in the lust—Greek, "passion"; which implies that such a one is unconsciously the passive slave of lust. which know not God—and so know no better. Ignorance of true religion is the parent of unchastity (Eph 4:18, 19).