The gene of desire

The law says do not covet your neighbor’s wife, because our tendency is toward discontentment. Joseph resisted temptation by running away from the evil women. Paul says ‘flee immorality.’

Your article leaves me with the question, What does he believe about the doctrine of sin? Has not sin perverted every thing good that God has given to man, including the intimacy of married love? Redeeming grace becomes precious only when sin is understood.

Valiant, your comment reminds me of Paul's argument in Romans 7. He was forced to admit that, regardless of his desire to do good according to the law, he had no ability to do what he desired. The law is spiritual, he said; "but I am carnal, sold under sin".

As you say, we only understand how valuable God's help is, when we understand that we are completely lost without it.

But what about the very first temptation? Desire preceded sin. Every 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 (as James says, 1:14-15)

Our good was never meant to be found from within ourselves. "Do not be deceived", James says, everything good is from above, not from within. Who you are, and who you are meant to be can only be explained by knowing God who made you, not by following your lusts and imaginations wherever they take you.

The unregenerate man is at peace with sin and at war with God, while the regenerate man is at peace with God and at war with sin.

Thank you for going to Romans 7. Paul makes it clear that there is a ‘law of sin’ even within the regenerate man that is at war with the ‘law of his mind’ which agrees with the righteous law of God.

What is this ‘law of sin’? By your use of the word ‘gene’ do you mean our inherited nature from Adam?

VFT, I meant to refer to those arguments that begin with one's own desires and imaginations as giving the best idea of what God wants.

The argument is typical that, because these passions are 'genetic' in some sense, they are an indication of what God has made us to be.

But on the contrary, even if these obsessions are hard-wired into us, even if we were to find a "gene of desire", this was never meant to tell us who we are. Even before there was any sin, passions did not direct man toward the fulfillment of his purpose.

The explanation of who we are is found in God, not in our lusts.