Yes, Homosexual Desire is Sinful
One distinction Scripture makes that is sorely needed in our day is that between temptation and sinful desire. The reason this distinction is so necessary for us is that those of us who read our Bibles know that our Lord was tempted, and yet was completely without sin.
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
Hebrews 4:15
Clearly Scripture would have us know that temptation is not inherently or necessarily sin on the part of the one being tempted. And so if we allow ourselves to consider any and all desires for sinful behavior as mere “temptation,” we are making space for the idea that desires for sin may not themselves be sinful.
But sinful desire is not synonymous with temptation. Sinful desire is a lust or longing for something wicked which is, in itself, wicked. There are passions and longings within us which are inherently sinful and which are animated against God and our own eternal souls.
Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.
1 Peter 2:11
His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.
2 Peter 1:3-4
Knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires.
2 Peter 3:3
The thing Peter commands us to abstain from in 1 Peter 2:11 and that he describes and warns against in 2 Peter is not identical to the temptation Jesus experienced which makes Him able sympathize with us. You and I can be tempted towards sin without sinning, but that temptation is not identical to sinful desire or fleshly passion for sin. The word Peter uses for “passions” and “sinful desire” is a frequent one in the New Testament: “epithumea” (ἐπιθυμία ). Paul actually uses it in Romans 7 when he quotes the Old Testament's forbidding of “covetousness”:
What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet (‘epithumea’) if the law had not said, 'You shall not covet' (‘epithumea’). But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness (‘epithumea’).
Romans 7:7-8a
Clearly we couldn't just substitute the word “temptation” in place of “epithumea” here. Paul wouldn't say the 10th commandment was “You shall not be tempted.” Rather, he has something distinct from temptation in mind when he refers to this phenomenon. And the same goes for when he uses “epithumea” in Galatians 5:16:
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires (‘epithumea’) of the flesh.
Like our English word “desire,” “epithumea” certainly can refer to good or neutral desires. But what Peter and Paul are communicating through “epithumea” in these verses is what the old English word “concupiscence” attempted to communicate: A hunger or longing or ache for wickedness which, because it is a desire for something wicked, is wicked in itself. It is not the same thing as “temptation.” And one clue about the distinction between this and the non-sinful temptation Jesus experienced that these verses give us is that they locate the phenomenon much more inside the person as opposed to coming from outside. Paul’s phrasing in Romans 7 is “produced in me all kinds of ‘epithumea.’” Peter writes in 2 Peter 3 that the scoffers are “following their own ‘epithumea.’” Hebrews 4, by contrast, tells us Jesus “has been” tempted, not that the temptation was in Him or was His own.
We must be acquainted with the truth that desires can be evil in and of themselves because in our day many Christians are attempting to classify same-sex desires as non-sinful. Two years ago, Christianity Today published an article by Bekah Mason in which she laments,
Most of the denominational statements mentioned above conclude that using terms such as ‘gay Christian’ range from ‘unwise’ to ‘sinful’ and claim that using these descriptors makes our sexuality of primary importance in our lives. However, Side B Christians are not a threat but an asset to orthodox churches… At the height of the purity culture movement, I was a high school student terrified by my attractions and wondering when God was going to give me a miraculous healing followed by a husband and kids. Same-sex attraction was condemned as something that separated me from God, no matter how much I loved Jesus.
Instead of finding support for a probable lifetime as a single Christian, I consistently faced people who were well intentioned but determined to just find me a husband. Yet I stayed, despite loneliness, misunderstanding, and conversational homophobia. I stuck it out because of my deep conviction that my life as a celibate gay Christian was just as much a walking picture of the gospel as any of the marriages I encountered at church.
The truth is that a woman having sexual desires for another woman is sinful, just as a man having sexual desires for a child or an animal is sinful. These are not morally neutral external phenomena, like a co-worker tempting you by inviting you to a strip club which you immediately refuse. Instead, a woman’s sexual desire for another woman is a fleshly passion she must confess, repent of, and be forgiven for. Sinful desires are little armies of enmity against God raging inside of us.
John Calvin, commenting on 1 Peter 2:11, wrote,
By the lusts or desires of the flesh he means not only those gross concupiscences which we have in common with animals, as the Sophists hold, but also all those sinful passions and affections of the soul, to which we are by nature guided and led. For it is certain that every thought of the flesh, that is, of unrenewed nature, is enmity against God.
Calvin is absolutely right, and is essentially restating what the Bible often teaches us: We have desires which are inherently wicked and which must be dealt with and mortified, not celebrated. Sinful sexual desire should never be made to feel normal, good, or a respectable label for one’s self. Doubtless many of these sinful desires will take years or longer to be put down, but we must never lose heart and we must never act as though those desires aren’t sinful. We should never hold up our evil desires as an acceptable part of our identity or something others should accommodate.
Wesley Hill, an Episcopal priest who identifies as gay though celibate, told Religion News Service in 2015:
I wish more churches would recognize that certain friends are, for gay Christians, our ‘significant others.’ Right now, if you’re gay and celibate in a lot of conservative churches, you’re probably going to feel under suspicion–or worse. If you sit with your best friend in church, if you go on vacation with your friend, or if you spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with her and her family, you may get raised eyebrows or else just blinking incomprehension. I’d like that to change.
I’d like to see close, committed, promise-sealed friendships become normalized in churches that continue to teach the historic, traditional Christian sexual ethic. What if we treated it as important, honorable, and godly for a celibate gay Christian to commit to a close friend precisely as a way of growing in Christian love? That would make a big difference in how we currently think about homosexuality.
But Scripture would not have us baptize sinful sexual desires so as to make them permissible if pursued in a non-sexual way or assumed as an appropriate descriptor of one’s self. We would all recognize that a man’s sinful sexual longing for children should not be redirected towards supposedly non-sexual relationships with children intended to help him live with that desire. Rather, he should be lovingly, frankly, graciously be called to confess and turn from that longing, to receive Christ’s blood-purchased forgiveness for it, and helped in a lifelong repentance of it. Similarly, a man’s sinful sexual desires towards men should not be repackaged or diverted; they should be confessed and repented of. They are dangerous to him and hostile towards God. Praise be to Christ that He is our faithful intercessor and not only purchased the forgiveness of each of His sheep but will guide them in their repentance, even of their most deep-seated sins.
Sinful desires, no matter how long they linger or inescapable they feel, remain sinful. We are refusing to see sin the way God does if we pretend otherwise.