Doug Wilson and Jared Moore Discuss Concupiscence and Same Sex Attraction

Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast, I'm your host John Harris. We have a unique opportunity to navigate a tricky but important topic today with two esteemed guests.

Our goal is to help you answer the question, when do we become culpable and therefore in need of confession and repentance for our sinful desires?

Is it at the point of temptation? Is it when we internally entertain our temptation or when this sin is manifested and we are overcome by an external act of sin?

Currently the surrounding world is running blindly toward the view that sexual preferences do not intrinsically possess a moral component.

Advocates of side B revoiced theology maintain that Christians do not experience homosexual desires as a result of sin and should include their attractions as part of their identity.

Both of today's guests oppose these positions, but there is disagreement over whether being tempted by inner temptation or inner sinful desires is a sin to be confessed.

Can the position that it's not a sin to be confessed serve as an initial step to rationalize revoiced or is it simply what the

Bible teaches? In the spirit of healthy Christian discussion as iron sharpens iron, I'd like to welcome pastors

Doug Wilson and Jared Moore. And thank you guys, both of you. Welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having us.

Yeah, thank you for letting me participate. Well, for those who don't know, I think a lot of people probably do, but Doug Wilson, Pastor Doug Wilson serves as the pastor of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho.

And he's a faculty member at New St. Andrews College, author and speaker. And I believe you're the founder of Canon Press as well.

Is that correct? Yeah. Okay. And Pastor Jared Moore is the author of The Pulp Culture Parent.

He's written for founders and monergism on the topic we're going to discuss today. And he graduated from the

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. So I want to start off just with asking a basic question for both of you.

Maybe, you know, Jared, you could start and then Pastor Wilson, you could follow up and then we'll start the discussion this way.

But the question that I have for you, Jared, is, is being tempted without indulging in temptation a sin?

Well, it depends on what kind of temptation it is. If you're tempted with an inherently good thing, but it's offered through an evil means and you reject the evil means, then you're being tempted like Jesus.

And then you haven't sinned. But if you're attempting yourself from within, meaning the lust of the flesh has started in your heart, an evil desire, an evil inclination, an evil motion of original sin, then you've already begun to sin in your heart.

And the question is, will you let it permit to go further, to mature and grow and harm you even more?

Or will you reject it, confess it, and seek to put your hand to something good, something obedient to the

Lord? The ultimate issue concerning this question is, am I being obedient to God from my heart?

And so if you're eternally tempted, internally tempting yourself, then that is obviously not obedience from the heart.

That is the beginning of disobedience. But when you're saved, Holy Spirit is producing desires within you as well.

And so now your will is free due to the Holy Spirit. So you can either submit to the flesh or submit to the

Spirit. And so both of those desires are being produced in you. It's just one of them is sinful, evil, culpable, but they're both from within you.

And so when you resist that internal temptation, it is a victory as far as action, but it is not a victory concerning your heart.

The goal is to be sinless in heart like Jesus is. So, Pastor Wilson, how would you answer that question?

And would your answer differ from Pastor Moore's about being tempted without indulging in that temptation?

Let me begin by saying that I don't think there's a difference between us when it comes to what should be the outcome practically in terms of action.

I think the difference between us has to do with how we frame what's going on theologically.

And what I'm saying is that I want to make a distinction between what

I am, fallen, corrupted, busted in certain respects, what

I am and what I do. So there's a point and there's a threshold where our corruption of nature, which the

Westminster Confession says is truly and properly sinful, right? It's no bueno, it's no good.

I should be in a position to lament that fact, long for the day of resurrection when

I'm not going to be afflicted by these things anymore. But there I am acknowledging what I am. That's different from what

I do. So when Peter tells us, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul, okay, there are these fleshly lusts within that are at war with me.

I've got a traitor within the ranks, okay? So if I'm an army wanting to do battle for righteousness,

I know that I've got a Judas inside. I've got a traitor in there.

And that is a lamentable and sinful situation. But it's not what I'm doing. Because it's possible,

I believe, for us to obey what Peter says to do when he says abstain.

So abstain from fleshly lusts. And I think that if I don't abstain, if there's any kind of dalliance, or even if it's 15 seconds of, man,

I really ought to go that way, and you give way, then that's 15 seconds of sin that you should confess.

But I don't think you need to confess as a particular sin, the fact that this situation arose.

You do need to confess that you're sinful, you're corrupt and sinful. But that's an acknowledgment of what you are, not a confession of what you did.

You didn't do anything wrong. Okay, Jared, any thoughts?

I don't hear you guys interact on it. Do you disagree with anything? Or are you guys in agreement on that?

What Wilson just described is a particular instance of emotion of original sin.

Pastor Wilson, you say you're describing what you are, fallen, but then you describe it as a particular instance of fleshly lust.

And then say you don't have to confess that particular instance. And so I'm...

You don't have to confess it, if you do what Peter says to do, and abstain. But it's emotion of original sin.

Would you identify it as emotion of original sin as the Westminster does? Well, I don't think we can be that particular of about a specific situation, because we're up against the world, the flesh and the devil, all three.

All right. And there are times, there are times when the only one responsible for the temptation is me.

You know, the devil's leaving me alone, and the world isn't doing anything, and it's just me.

Now, I believe that that would be emotion of... When original sin starts to move and make suggestions, then

I think confession would be appropriate. But when I'm driving down the highway, minding my own business, singing songs, and then there's a billboard with some lady with not very many clothes on, and it hits me, that's the world.

And then the devil's on my right shoulder saying, hey, look at her, okay, well, I'm not in a position to parse out how much of that was world, how much of that was devil, how much of that was the flesh.

All I'm responsible for is to abstain. Okay. Now, when I don't have any external temptation from the world, and let's say, hypothetically, there's no demonic or diabolical presence there,

Colossians 3, 5 says, mortify your members which are on the earth.

All right. So, I've got members which are on the earth, and you rightly said our duty is obedience. Well, I believe

I'm being obedient if I'm mortifying them. Well, but they've got to be there in order to mortify.

And so, I don't want to be saying that someone can be simultaneously obedient and disobedient.

He's disobedient because he's got these things to mortify, and he's obedient because he's mortifying them.

Which is he? Is he obedient or disobedient? So, I think it's better to parse it out and say, when

I'm praying to the Lord, when I'm thanking God for my justification, when I'm confessing sin in the church service, we have a time of confession,

I think it's fully appropriate for me to confess my sinfulness. I think it's appropriate to confess original sin, but I want to confess it as original sin and not as something

I'm doing. Because as soon as I confess it as something I'm doing, I'm driven into a law of non -contradiction situation where I'm obedient because I'm confessing it, and I'm disobedient because I'm doing it.

Well, I'm trying to occupy the same space at the same time with opposite actions.

So if it's reducible to actions, then I can't push and pull at the same time.

If it's my simple state and condition, I can acknowledge that. And if I'm the driver, if I'm tempting myself, right?

James talks about that, every man's tempted when he's lured and enticed by his own desire. When that's happening, then yeah,

I should confess the stirrings of original sin. But if it appears in my thought life or it appears in my mind, and within a second,

I say no, I say no, then I'm being obedient, I'm doing what

Peter said to do, I'm abstaining from fleshly lusts. But the fact that I have them there, that the material is there, is a corrupt nature, but I'm not responsible to confess them when they're in a quiescent state.

Jared, any thoughts on that? It still sounds like,

Pastor Wilson, you're saying you don't have to confess a motion of original sin.

We're talking about inclinations. We're talking about fleshly lusts. You would say you don't have to confess fleshly lusts?

Well, I don't have to confess fleshly lusts that are not active.

But they are active if they are pricking your heart. It's an inclination, it's a motion.

It's not, my thing is, if you can name it, it's active. Like, original sin as a state of corruption, it's not particular.

You don't know, you couldn't name the sin. But we're talking about, go ahead.

But what I don't know, this is drilling down even deeper into my lack of knowledge of how much of this is the devil, how much of this is the world, and how much of this is me, right?

And then I've got to drill down further and say, of the part that's me, how much of it is simply biological desire that's creational and God -given, just a state of wanting to have sexual release somehow, some way?

That's just part of our creational nature. That's a biological thing, right? But then there is the fleshly lust that wants to transgress the law of God, that wants it because it's forbidden.

There's something twisted and bent in it, okay? Now, I don't have the luxury of parsing out how much of it was culpable from me because I have no way of telling.

So when Jesus was tempted, it was not like, if someone offered me a bowl of cockroaches, here, eat a bowl of cockroaches,

I'm not going to be tempted, right? There's nothing in me that resonates to that.

The devil's pitching his temptation poorly at that point. But if he offers me a bowl of ice cream, and I've already had two bowls of ice cream, if he's pitching something to me, and there's something in me that says, well, maybe

I could go for that, there is a place where my sensation of wanting to do something that violates the law of God maps onto what

Jesus went through. When Jesus was tempted to turn stones into bread, he was hungry.

That temptation came to him at that point in time for a reason, okay?

Now, the fact that Jesus was hungry, and a suggestion was made to satisfy that hunger in a way that transgressed the law of God, the fact that there's a tug doesn't mean you're in sin.

Because if there's no tug at all, there's no temptation, and Jesus doesn't know what it's like to be a high priest, contrary to Hebrews.

But if there's a tug, then that doesn't necessitate sin because Jesus never sinned.

So is there any area where there's a tug or an allure for a sinful person like me to do something that would violate the law of God, it's enough of a tug that I recognize it and realize it, and in that moment say, no, can

I walk away without confessing a particular sin, a sin that I committed?

Now, I also recognize that some of the tug has its force for me in ways that it didn't have for Jesus, because Jesus never had antecedent sin or experience with sin at all.

So in some ways, the tug is worse for me. But in other ways, the tug was worse for Christ, because he's the one, you know, we're all standing at 100 mile an hour winds, and Jesus is the one not blowing over.

And that means he knows more about the wind than we do. Jesus knows more about temptation than we do, because sin doesn't qualify me to understand.

But it does, it opens me up in some ways. And I think that there are times when that happens, and I can walk away, lament my corrupt nature, lament the fact that I'm in a world where this sort of thing happens to me, and thank

God for the imputation of Christ's righteousness, and thank God for the deliverance from I didn't go look at that porn site, or I didn't go do whatever it was.

So there's a lot to unpack there. In talking about Jesus's temptation, do you believe that he desired to disobey

God? No, he desired to not. Okay, so when you say he was tugged toward the devil's offerings, what do you mean?

So John tells us to love not the world or the things in the world, the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.

I think that that maps onto the temptation in the garden. Lust of the eyes,

Eve saw that the fruit was good to look at. It was lust of the flesh. It was good to eat.

Pride of life, able to make one wise. So I think worldliness was the temptation that Eve fell to at that moment.

And there's a mystery in temptation. If all Christ's temptations were just technically temptations, but all the devil was doing was offering him bowls of cockroaches, right?

Where there was absolutely nothing in him that wanted to have anything to do with it.

Then it's hard to see how we have a high priest who knows what it's like to go through what we're going through.

There has to be some element where Christ felt the pressure. And we know that he felt the pressure.

It says in Luke, I think it's in Luke, when the devil left him after the temptation, it says he left him for a season.

He left him for a time. So I don't think Jesus was tempted at the beginning of his ministry. And then it was all plain sailing after that.

I think he was tempted later. And we knew, I would surmise that one of the great temptations was in Gethsemane, right?

We have the father's will and his own will. And he subordinates his own will to the father's will.

And he says to his disciples that he is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death.

He felt it, right? What I'm saying is that to feel the pressure while you're in a battle, resisting that pressure is not a sin.

That's what I'm maintaining. As soon as I give way, as soon as I tell the devil, man, you've got a point there.

And maybe I can just dally with this a little bit longer. Maybe I can prolong the battle so I can enjoy the temptation.

There's all sorts of rationalizations that, yeah, I should confess my sin as soon as I catch myself doing any of that stuff.

But I don't think I need to confess being in the battle itself. I don't think I need to confess feeling the force of it because Jesus felt the force of it.

But Jesus, so in the blog article that you wrote in response to me, you mentioned a fellow who is having same -sex attraction, and he's on a computer, and a pop -up pops up.

And it is of homosexual pornography, and his heart says it's good to him, but then he resists it.

And so that example, that doesn't sound like, are you comparing that example to Jesus' experience in the

Garden of Gethsemane as far as feeling the force of it? No, I think they're not exactly comparable, because as I also noted in the article, there are certain sins that have prerequisites.

Jesus was never tempted to shoot somebody for drug money.

There are certain sins that you can't get to without a long trail of antecedent sin.

And homosexual temptation is, Paul describes in Romans 1 as sort of the end of the road, right?

So I don't believe that Jesus was ever tempted to molest little boys or was ever tempted in a homosexual way.

But I do think that all the common human temptations of preserving his life, vindicating himself, if you throw yourself down from the temple to bypass the cross, there are a number of temptations that you might describe as standard issue human temptations.

Christ felt the force of it. So the comparison with the guy with same -sex temptations and the pop -up ad and Christ's temptations, they're only comparable in this one sense.

That Christian resisting same -sex temptation can draw solace and strength from the fact that Jesus knows what it's like to say no to a sin, even if it costs you.

Jesus knows what it's like to feel pressure. Not pressure of the sort that I'm feeling, but pressure to do wrong.

Now, there's one other thing, and this is important to acknowledge. I think this is a point you could make.

There's a difference between someone who is tempted to have a third bowl of ice cream, but there's nothing wrong with ice cream, and someone who's tempted to eat a bowl of dirt.

Something is deranged or off in that desire, in the nature of the desire.

So eating a bowl of dirt is not the same thing as eating a second piece of cake. So there are heterosexual temptations that are the equivalent of the second and third piece of cake, right?

And there are certain sadomasochistic or pedophile temptations or things like that that are more comparable to eating a bowl of dirt.

And when the Christian who's alert by that recognizes he's alert by that, he confesses the sin, or what he does is he resists the temptation.

He abstains from fleshly lust. He thanks God for keeping him out of sin, and then if he's wise, he's going to lament the fact that he's still busted up in this way.

He's still fallen in this way. He acknowledges the corruption of his nature, because only a corrupt nature would find something like that attractive.

Jared, if you don't have anything, I'd love to go off script a little and ask a personal question to both of you, if that's okay, because as you're talking,

Pastor Wilson, I'm thinking through the last, well, since I went through puberty, really, and women became more interesting after that point.

I - Are you serious? They did. I don't know what happened to me, but yeah. So I remember at first thinking like something was wrong with me, like a lot of young men do, and you kind of enter as a

Christian, a state of lust management, I suppose, right? Like I know not to walk over there.

I know to put the security blockers on my computer and all of this. But I've been confessing for years, and hopefully making progress in this area, if my heart skips a beat, right, if there's something that I see on a commercial, let's say

I walk into a restaurant and something flashes before me, my gut instinct that I've cultivated over time is to just immediately apologize to the

Lord. And it's not like a drawn out thing. It's just, you know, it's quick. And I turn from that, right?

I don't want to, I'm not going to look at that. But I know that there's something in me that Jesus didn't have, because I know he would not have, maybe he could have recognized beauty.

Maybe he could have recognized some of the non -erotic attraction kind of things.

But I've always held the belief, at least by default, that Jesus wouldn't have felt that.

So I just apologize, Lord, I'm far from being perfect. And I'm sorry that that still can allure me.

As I've been married, as I've grown, I think it's gotten progressively better in a way. I'm more resistant to that.

The inclinations aren't as much. But, you know, if what you're saying is true,

I'm wondering if you would think that that was, I don't think you're against what I described, but if you would advise me if I was in your office in pastoral counseling to confess that.

It sounds like you're saying that that initial look or that that heart jump that wants to go further in a way that Jesus wasn't technically a sin.

Am I tracking right or am I off? Right. But I would not encourage you pastorally.

I would not encourage you to stop doing that. I would encourage you when it's within a second.

I would encourage you to change what you say. Right. So I think that when when you hit wham and you respond rightly in within a second in a way that you're the most jealous wife could not object to.

Right. So, in other words, you behaved. You said, well, better not better not have the seat on that side of the restaurant because that that waitress is dressed in a not good way.

Right. And you just immediately say that I think it's fully appropriate in the in the prayer, the instantaneous prayer that you offer up to say,

Lord, I confess that I'm a fallen creature. Thank you for your grace.

I think that so I think it's fully appropriate to address this brokenness, this fallenness, this corruption.

I just want to I just want to reserve confession of sin to sins we actually committed.

So there's a point there's a point where when Peter says abstain from fleshly lusts, there's a point at which

I didn't obey him. There's a point at which I'm not abstaining from fleshly.

But I don't think that that point is when the starting pistol goes off, when the when the bell rings, when the when the temptation starts,

I don't think I'm instantaneously defeated because I'm in a battle. OK, yeah,

I can see where you're coming from there. Pastor Moore, do you agree with that or would you say that I should be confessing that should be confessing it because it's a motion of original sin, as the

Westminster confession says, as the Heidelberg Catechism says? That's why

I mean, that's why you should confess that if you can name it. So we're again, original sin, fallenness.

We're not talking about original sin or fallenness. We're talking about a particular instance of emotion of original sin that can be named.

It's not like you don't know what this corruption is. It's a very particular thing, like what you just described.

It has a beginning. Right, I mean, it started when you saw something.

So absolutely, it's a particular instance of sin in your heart. Now, though you have not failed outwardly, you have failed inwardly because you wanted something disobedient to God.

But I would interject there the instance, the particular instance that the restaurant or wherever it happens, that particular instance, the entire time the sinner involved was saying no.

Not going to do it. Not going to go there. And I think that there's a dramatic difference between someone saying no the whole time and someone saying, let me think about it.

Maybe, maybe just this once or any kind, any kind. I'm with you, Jared, on any kind of dalliance, any kind of OK.

But as the illustration I've used is that this is playing tennis with the devil. And you don't lose a point when the ball comes on your side of the net.

You lose a point when you own it. Now, because of our corrupt nature, there are tennis games that we shouldn't be in.

We shouldn't be in the. That's all true. But I just want to divide up what we confess.

We confess our corruption of nature as sinful and we confess our sins as sinning.

So I'm sinning as soon as I say I can do it just this once or I'm going to taper off or I'm it's not really that bad because, you know, whenever you're rationalizing that way, it's sinning and it's the motions of it's the motions of original sin with me pushing them along.

But if I'm resisting the entire time, if I'm saying, no, no, no, let's not do this, then

I don't think that's the motions of the pot that got stirred in my corrupt nature.

That is sinful. Right. And and and that is enough to damn me, apart from the justification of imputed righteousness of Christ, that boiling pot is enough to damn me because of what

I am. But it's not what I did because I I'm I'm saying, no,

I'm yelling and hollering the whole time. Pastor Wilson.

So correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you're saying that original sin is culpable sin.

But then it produces something that's not culpable unless your will agrees with it.

Is that what you're saying? Yeah, that's there might be some nuances in there, but that's basically it.

So how can how can original sin produce anything other than sin? Well, because we're complex beings.

We're not it's not just it's not that any part of me is all of me. All right.

So my members, which are on the earth, so Paul talks to the Colossians as dearly loved saints to the saints and Colossus and your members, which are on the earth.

So I've got members which are on the earth, which is and then he gives a pretty gnarly list of sins.

And those sins are part of me, but they are not me. And this is this is one of the reasons why

I want to tell homosexual. Let's put it as a homosexually tempted believers not to identify themselves by their temptations or by their sins.

And let me someone just wrote me in my letter section this morning that I thought it'd be good to insert here.

The the Bloomington Q &A back and forth was in 2012.

It was a decade ago. It was before all the revoice stuff. It was before the side

B stuff. It was before the big rhetorical push came in the church that said you can be you can be have your flame on and be a gay

Christian and bring those gay treasures into the New Jerusalem. My answer to the lady in the

Q &A was speaking in an old era. I was simply talking about the people in our church who when they're going to be who when they're tempted are going to be tempted in this direction, at least for the time being.

I wasn't going in for any kind of orientation such that if that Q &A happened today post revoice,

I would say that I would hope I'm holding the same doctrine that I held back then, but I think I would certainly phrase it differently.

I would phrase it differently because now after in post the push to make our identity all wrapped up in our sin, what

I said in 2012, I think is really going to be susceptible to misunderstanding in 2023.

I am saying that the part of me can make a suggestion to me and that's not all of me.

My will, my choices, the new man, all of that is

I'm a unit responsible before God as an individual and the decision -making process when

I pursue righteousness or when I get into sin, that decision -making process is complicated.

So the flesh in Galatians 5, the flesh wars against the spirit, the spirit against the flesh, the fact of that battle does not mean that I'm sinning all the time.

That's what I'm resisting. What I'm wanting to say is that it's possible for us to walk with God despite the corruption of our nature.

Yeah. Oh, go ahead, Jared. Did you say something? I didn't. Go ahead, bro. Okay. So I was thinking of an analogy.

By the way, I just want to say, I was going to bring up whether or not you would, if you had a redo on those

Q &As, whether you'd say something different. So I appreciate you addressing that. And that's, I'm glad you said that because I definitely, when

I first heard it, I know what that communicated to me, or at least what I thought I was hearing was that in a room of people who believe in sexual orientation ingrained, right, like we don't agree with should be part of your identity.

Like they're going to hear that and think, oh, I can have people who identify as that who don't need to confess that.

They just don't act on it. And so, yeah, so we wouldn't let, we would, if we had someone whose temptations when they occur are homosexual.

If I'm pastoring people in that situation, and I have and do, and they started identifying themselves as a gay

Christian, we would say none of that. No, you're just a

Christian. You're a member here. You don't get to identify with that sin.

In fact, there was at one time, some time ago, someone who in that situation who came from another church background, and he had sort of been a spokesman against the gay agenda, the gay jihad where he was because he had this idea.

He had the, he had the moral authority to speak to it because these are my temptations. And, and that was one of the first things

I talked to him about dropping. You can't do that. You can't do that here. You don't have, you don't have the identity as a homosexual, but as his pastor,

I know that he's not likely to be tempted in certain ways and is likely to be tempted in other ways.

The next go round. Okay. Yeah. No, I understand for the pastoral counseling side of this, which

I know Pastor Moore, we weren't really talking about. I mean, that's, I had a lot of people reacting because they, everyone's in a unique, different spot on this when they experience these desires.

And they, it's just interesting because some, some of them want to, to hear what you're saying about, you know, resist.

And it seems discouraging, which is a question I was going to ask you, Pastor Moore, out of the gate to feel like they're, they're failing already.

But I wanted to just say, if I can, I'm going off script again. I'm sorry, guys. Here's one analogy though. I just came to my head and I'm wondering,

I don't know if this will build a bridge or not, but maybe it'd be interesting to talk about this. So if I had a car that let's just say, cause

I do actually, it's shocks need to be replaced. I go over bumps and I feel it right. And I know there's a road that's a dirt road and I'm going to feel it a lot.

And so I know there's this capacity to damage my car. I'm not going to go on that road. I'm going to, so I avoid the billboard when

I'm, you know, a different route to work, whatever it may be. But as soon as I feel a bump on the shocks,

I know I'm doing damage and and that's a failure. That's, you know, the result of, you know, what we'll say a sin nature equivalent here, but there's, there's a, there's a flaw in my car.

And Jesus wouldn't have had a car like that. His car would have had, you know, the best shocks. It would have been a perfect car.

And and so it's not like, I guess I wouldn't be apologizing for, for the car.

I have the, that, that nature all the time. Like, like you gave in your blog example, pastor

Wilson, like 24, seven apologizing for your sin nature. But the moment I do go on a bump though, and right.

And the shocks are tested and they're failing. And this is, you know, even if I turn away from that bump, that's, that's where I've always thought that's where the sin is.

So, so the difference I'm, I guess I'm drawing is recognizing the capacity for temptation that we have versus actually being internally tempted, like James talks about.

So, yeah, I know what you're describing here is some, I think it's Thomas Watson says some

Christians tempt the devil to tempt them. Right. Yes. A lot of Christians do that, unfortunately.

And, and driving on the wrong road, not, not taking precautions, things like that, that would be a separate temptation.

It's not, it's not the temptation of sinning that way. It's the temptation of tempting the devil to tempt them that way to, to doubt.

And I've done that. Yes. Right. And I think we all, I think we all have. And we ought to be all over it and be resisting anything that is going to,

I think John Owen said, be killing sin or sin will be killing you. And that is very true.

So it's, you can't play with baby vipers and say, well, I don't,

I don't want to be in a debate with Jared over when the baby viper becomes dangerous. You know, when, when

I'm nursing this little baby viper, no, it's a viper be done with, you know, no, you know, when you see the nature of it, you say no right away.

I just want to say that it's possible for a Christian to say no to something immediately.

As soon as it, as soon as it hits him, he can say no. And if the reflex action be no, and have it be something that some part of his being would find attractive.

If he said yes. Yeah, I gotcha. Jared, since we have limited time left,

I mean, what do you, what's your reaction to this? I particularly, if you want to go down this path, be interested in whether or not the position that Pastor Wilson's advocating, if you think that that dovetails with the reform tradition and with what the

Bible teaches with, you know, specific passages and stuff. I don't know if you have that at the tip of your tongue, but because, because I'd like to see the scripture back and forth.

We've talked about what Peter said and a little bit about James. Paul, Paul says in Romans 7 that he lusts with his flesh.

It is his flesh that is lusting. It's sinning. Even when he's not consenting with his mind.

I mean, that's how Paul describes it in Romans 7. Um, you know, the

Westminster Confession says that, um, you know, this, um, this corruption of nature during this life doth remain in those that are regenerated and although it be through Christ pardoned and mortified, yet both itself and all the motions thereof are truly improperly sin.

Pastor Wilson is saying that somewhere between original sin and motions, he has come up with something else that is not sin.

No, it's sin. It's truly improperly sin, but there's, I'm making a distinction between what is sinful by its nature, original sin, and all its motions are truly improperly sin.

And, and I could be damned on the basis of it plus nothing. But you're saying only, only to confess the corruption, not the motions.

No, I think you should confess the corruption and the motions as sinful. I think that you should only confess the sinning as sinning.

That's the distinction I'm making. That there are actions that I take, decisions that I make that are discrete sins that I must confess as a sin that I committed.

And I committed that sin because it, because I gave way to my corrupt nature that is truly properly sinful, but I'm making a distinction between what

I am in this part of me, in my nature, and what I do. That's, that's the distinction

I'm, I'm making. The one, the one thing I did want to have a chance to ask you,

Jared, is, and this is a very practical question, pastoral question. What do pastors do with people in this position?

All right, let's, let's say I've got someone who comes to join my church. He is committed.

He's not a side B guy. He's not a revoiced guy. But his temptations are homosexual.

When he's tempted, it's homosexual temptation. And let's say that I believe that there's hope for him where he can eventually repudiate that and get married.

You know, I, I don't believe once homosexual, always homosexual, you know, but let's say during the next three years that he's going to be in grad school here in my church.

What do I do with him? What do I, if he sins homosexually, if he gives way to this and confesses it, do

I excommunicate him for having this orientation?

For having this orientation? Yes. It's truly improperly, it's truly improperly sin. He's sinning all the time.

We're all sinning all the time. Well, then why don't we excommunicate everybody?

Well, if we could see our hearts, we would excommunicate everybody. I mean, that's, that's for real.

That's the issue. Like if we could see what God sees, but we are supposed to excommunicate based on what we see, not based on what's going on in people's hearts.

But what if I'm seeing this, I'm counseling him weekly. And after 10 weeks of this, where every, every week he's saying, yeah,

I struggled again this week. At what point do I bring charges?

Anyone who's repentant, it's not the time, the amount of time between each desire that equals true repentance.

Because then you would, you would end up being sinless in this world. Right. But true repentance, if I'm dealing with a guy who's living with his girlfriend or keeps going over every weekend, he goes over to see his girlfriend, sleeps with her after he, it doesn't matter how repentant he talks.

You're talking about outward actions again. I mean, if this guy's having homosexual relations outwardly, um, again, but hasn't, hasn't your approach flattened all that?

That's my, my point. If he acknowledges to me, yeah, I, I didn't act on it.

I don't have a boyfriend. I didn't go cruising the bars, but yeah, I gave, I gave way to lustful thoughts for a half an hour on Tuesday and then again for an hour and a half on Thursday.

And now I'm back in your office on Monday. How do you pastor someone like that?

You encourage them to continue the fight because you as a pastor are having the same battle with other sins.

Um, man, if you're not, then you have to teach Christian perfectionism.

Right. And thank you. Thank you. Because that's something I also wanted to mention, uh, because in your original, uh, take in your, in your appearance on, on John's show here, um, one of the things you talked about was a deficient hermit, hermitology.

And, uh, I can, I grew up in a, uh, perfectionistic, uh,

I won't say a theological tradition, but I, I, my father, who I respect very, very highly was a very, very godly man, but he had, he had a perfectionist street in him in terms of Bible says to be perfect and you can be perfect.

And here's the verse and what's your problem. So I, I grew up, uh, with that.

And when I became reformed, uh, that was one of the limited atonement was a big thing for me, but the reform doctrine of sin was also a big hurdle for me to, and so, uh,

I wanted to sort of go on the record and say, I know, and understand the reform doctrine of sin and corruption, and I embrace it.

I embrace it fully. So I'm not being perfectionistic here. What I'm saying is that I want certain confessions to go in box a, and I want other confessions to go in box

B. And I think that it is pastorally helpful to people to be able to say, this is under the blood.

This is, this is dealt with by the imputed righteousness of Christ, the corruption of your nature.

You are responsible for what you do, right? You're responsible for what you do.

So everything boils down to, do I categorize this as a manifestation of some, what

I am in some part of me and what do I categorize as actions for which

I take individual responsibility? Because yeah, I did that. Okay.

So in Romans seven, Paul takes individual responsibility for his flesh lusting, and you're saying that you shouldn't do that.

I mean, so Peter, when he says not to, you know, don't give into the fleshly loss, they're still called fleshly loss.

Like, yeah, here's the thing. First, I don't want to go down a wormhole here, but what

I've got a different take on Romans seven, but everything that reformed theologians say is happening in Romans seven,

I affirm is happening, is happening in Galatians five. So in Galatians five, the battle between the flesh and the spirit, what you're claiming out of Romans seven,

I think is actually happening in Galatians five. So it's not, it's a, it's a difference over where does the

Bible teach this, not does the Bible teach this, but I make a distinction between when

I take responsibility, I can take responsibility for two things. I can take responsibility for what

I am. I can also take responsibility for what I do. I'm just saying that those are two different things.

I am responsible for, for being a sinner. So Adam sinned and Adam sinned representatively.

He represented us well, and that's why I'm entailed in original sin.

That's why I'm, I have this corrupt nature and I am responsible and I can take responsibility for that.

But what I'm taking responsibility for is what I am. And then in another venue, in another area,

I also take responsibility for the things that I do or think or say, or play with.

I don't know if you have any things. Oh, go ahead. I under, I understand the distinctions you're making, but I don't think that that is the reformed position.

I think it deals with what we're talking about is you're saying that your fallenness produces things that you're not culpable for until you submit to them.

I'm not culpable for them as a sin. I am culpable for them as, as my nature.

But you're saying you don't have to confess them whenever they come from your heart.

You're saying you don't have to confess. Like when a particular fleshly lust springs up, you're saying you don't have to confess it.

You're saying you have to confess your fallenness. But when that fallenness actually moves, you don't have to confess the motion.

Now, when the, when that fallenness moves and runs into the brick wall of my know, right?

So moves where that's the, that's the point. So when, when there's a, when there's a stir in my fleshly corrupt nature, if it runs into a no from me immediately, that's when

I say, you've got nothing to confess. If it moves and is moving around the room freely, you know, if, if I'm, if it's stirring the pot and I'm just going,

I'm just not paying attention, then yeah, I should confess that as a sin. Motions, motions of sin, unrebuked motions of sin, not resisted should absolutely be confessed.

But that motion came from your heart. Yeah. Like it's disobedient to God. It is a motion towards sin before your mind submits to it before your will submits to it.

It is still an action from you. Even though you rebuke it.

Because my rebuke also comes from my heart. Right. But it is still like that, that should not even be there.

It wasn't in Jesus. It's not in Jesus. It will not be in us in eternity. It wasn't in sinless

Adam, right? That's why I meet, I need the justification in Christ. All right.

It's, it is one Oh four. And I know I told you guys that I wanted to end at one. If that's possible.

Is it all right? Could you give me five more minutes? Cause I just want to, there there's, I want to say one thing if that's okay.

Five more minutes is fine with me. Okay. All right. So I was reading John Calvin's commentary on this.

I know I haven't read as much as probably either of you on this issue, but I was reading his commentary on James and it was interesting to me.

He talks about I'll just, I'll just jump to the one section. I'd love to read the whole thing to you, but we don't have time for that.

He says the papists, and this is on verse 15 is what he's commenting on. The papists ignorantly lay hold on this passage and seek to prove from it that vicious, yay, filthy, wicked, and the most abominable lusts are not sins provided there is no ascent.

And so there's a contrast in his commentary. And I know people have been sending me who have also been looking into this since Jared brought it up quotes from other reformed theologians.

And it seems to be that Luther also shared a similar view. And so did

John Owen. And so this is my second to last question that I wanted to bring up, but is, do you have a pastor

Wilson, like a, a disagreement in your mind with any elements of like, like, would you be at odds with Calvin on this question?

You think, and more because you're saying sounds a little bit more like the papists he's describing, or is that, am

I misreading it? I think, I think that I would collide with the papists when, by saying these vicious motions and stuff are,

I would say they are sinful and they are truly improperly sin. So I'm, I think that they are, they would be urging as acting as though all of these temptations are coming from outside the walls, right?

It's like some stranger walked up to you on the street and said, Hey, let's go get drunk. And you said, no, that's, that's not what

I'm talking about. When I abstain from fleshly lusts, it's my fleshly lust that I'm abstaining from.

So I'm saying there has to be a sense in which it's mine. It also has to be a sense in which

I, it's possible for me to abstain. So I think, I think

I would be closer to the reformed on this. And I, and I don't think I would disagree in principle.

I think I'm simply making an additional distinction that I think fits with their basic paradigm.

So, so you do make that distinction between the inner and outer lusts that John Calvin does.

Yeah. Oh, you do. Okay. The other thing is, since I know I only asked for five minutes and we have two left, you did mention earlier,

Pastor Wilson, someone in your church who might have that orientation and, and I, and I know what you meant.

I think they, they experience temptations in this area. Have you considered maybe using or trying to implement a

Rosario Butterfield, by the way, corrected me on this, or she approached me in a similar fashion and said,

John, have you thought of using different language here? And just saying people who experience these attractions or sin sinful desires because of the way orientation is taken.

Yes. That's one of the things that I, I was referring to when I said that the

Bloomington thing was pretty, so orientation is now been used to be a useful word.

I don't think it's useful anymore. Okay. So it's just part of that, that the habits we've cultivated and using the term that it comes up sometimes, but I just wanted to make sure everyone understood clearly what you were saying.

All right. Well, I agree. Okay. So we only have like 30 seconds.

So I just want to say thank you to both of you for participating in this. And even though I sense an impasse between Pastor Moore and Pastor Wilson, I do think this is helpful for us to think biblically on and we're being challenged.

We're really going back and forth and that's what we're supposed to do as Bereans. And so you both being busy pastors have given me your time, which is so precious.

I know. And so once again, thank you so much. Thank you. And thanks for having us. And Jared, thank you for the cordial interaction.

Oh yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Pastor Wilson. And John, thank you for having us, man. I appreciate your time. My pleasure.