As a postscript to my article about the contemporary debate concerning sin, desire and temptation, here’s a look at Matthew Roberts’ book “Pride”. I have picked up a copy on Kindle since I wrote the first article. Roberts book is primarily focused on the ethical debate around LGBT+/same sex attraction and the Gospel. His starting point is that we have an identity problem. The problem being that humans have an idolatrous concern about identity which means we worship ourselves instead of the living God. The pride motif therefore has a double meaning, both picking up on that sense of love and desire turned inward and the Pride Movement.
I’m not planning a full review here but there are positives and negatives about Matthew’s book. The positives are that Matthew writes well. Unlike some of the quite turgid stuff coming out these days, he offers a book that is engaging and readable. Secondly, his big picture Biblical Theology contribution is strong, I would agree with much that he has to say about idolatry and worship. This is perhaps unsurprising as he draws heavily on people like Beale for his thesis that our identity relates to what we worship. I’m not always so sure about his close exegesis, I would argue that he applies a systematic framework rather than specific texts and I’m also unconvinced by his pastoral advice.
However, my primary concern here is with the chapter where he engages with concupiscence. Intriguingly, like the Gibsons, he chooses John Stevens as one of his primary interlocuters.
Roberts begins chapter 4 by asking the question:
“Is sinful desire itself sinful? Are we guilty before God not only for what we have done, but for what we have wanted to do?”[1]
The first part of the question is a bit of a tautology and invites the American courtroom response “asked and answered, a bit like asking “Are terrorist organisation Hamas, terrorists?” “Or is that far right party far right?” However, it is worth noting that he is framing the question in terms of being guilty for what we want to do rather than just what we actually do. He will answer affirmatively that we are guilty for what we want to do. In other words, Roberts regards concupiscence as sin to be repented of.
He then goes on to argue, focusing specifically on the sexual orientation question that if desire is not sinful in and of itself that “there is no shame in it.”[2] It is worth pausing there and asking whether he has handled the issue well. I would suggest not. He is conflating a number of things and collapsing questions in.
First, there is the question about what we mean by saying that something is “sinful” and whether his interlocuters (potential and actual) would agree with his assertion that they don’t see desires as sinful. Ed Shaw vey clearly doesn’t in his review on the Living Out website. He writes on the statement, “your desires are evil.”
“I am very happy with this statement – if anyone can be! I am an Anglican who regularly prays and means these words – in reference to every area of my life:
Almighty and most merciful Father,
we have wandered and strayed from your ways like lost sheep.
We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts.
We have offended against your holy laws.
We have left undone those things that we ought to have done;
and we have done those things that we ought not to have done;
and there is no health in us.
I believe in original sin, in the total depravity of humanity, because God’s word, my church, human history, and my own life demonstrate it again and again.”[3]
Shaw notes that Roberts himself helpful brings nuance and distinction into the statement that our desires are evil.
“To say our desires are evil is not to say that they are purely evil, for there is no such thing. It is to say that they are at root good desires, implanted in our hearts by the good God as part of his Image in us; yet twisted and misdirected. Every sin can be seen to be this.”[4]
I agree with Ed, that I find this nuance missing in Robert’s specific discussion about concupiscence. Shaw notes that in his own commentary on the question of desire, he is simply attempting to give voice to the very nuance that Roberts initially recognises.
The second area of distinction missing at this stage is between taking about something as sinful and saying that the specific person is in the act of sinning so that they need to repent. This involves some consideration of what exactly that “desire is”. Roberts notes that John Steven’s argues that:
“because Christians are born again, new creations, a Christian’s sinful desires are no longer his desires. ‘My new self is not responsible for them, nor is it morally accountable for them if I resist them and refuse to act on them.’”[5]
Roberts thinks that Stevens is wrong here because the scriptures he use “prove too much.”
“We can therefore respond to Stevens’ arguments as follows. Taking this last point first, there is simply no biblical ground for arguing that our regeneration means that we are not responsible for our sinful lusts. Stevens quotes Galatians 2:20 ‘I no longer live, but Christ lives in me’ in support of his view, taking it to mean that because we are new creations, our sinful lusts are not ours any more.17 But this proves far too much, for Paul’s theology of regeneration understands both the desires and the acts of the flesh to belong to the old man. If Christ in me means that my sinful desires are not mine, and so no longer sin, then it must also mean that my sinful acts are no longer mine and so no longer sin. After all, Paul says quite plainly in Romans 7:20, ‘Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me’. But does Paul, or any New Testament writer, consider that our new creation means that we are not responsible for our sinful acts? Of course not. Rather, the guilt of both sinful desires and sinful acts is real, and the guilt of both is equally taken away in our justification, when we repent of them.[6]
I think that Roberts is right to draw some question marks here. John Steven’s may have overstated the position. However, Stevens does have a point and I don’t think it can be so dismissively written off. Roberts draws our attention to Romans 7 but this does mean we have to pay attention to the distancing language there, even if we find some of the implications a little uncomfortable. Romans 7 draws a strong distinction between the old man and the new man. Paul says:
15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.
Note the explicit statements both that Paul does what he doesn’t want to do but also that he doesn’t do what he wants to do. It is worth noting that whilst the focus of the “concupiscence” debate has been very much on our evil/sinful desires and whether or not it is sin to have them or just to follow through on them, there has been a neglect of what Paul explicitly talks about here. Paul turns the focus onto our good desires and our inability to follow through on them.
The old man/new man language in Romans is important because it gets us talking about sinful nature and the difference that new creation makes. This is crucial because, as Roberts acknowledges, Augustine and Calvin both see a distinction between concupiscence pre conversion and after conversion. There is the reality of ongoing indwelling sin, we live in the now and the not yet. This means that our desires will be affected by that sinful nature. In that respect, yes, there is something sinful to be repented of.
However, I think it is worth noting two things, first that whilst doctrinally, we make those careful distinctions between good desires from our regenerate nature and evil desires from our sinful nature, in practice, everything is mixed in together.
Secondly, if we are talking about the old nature, then yes repentance needs to happen but the whole point of becoming a Christian, of being regenerate is that we have already repented. The big refrain in current reformed arguments is that “we are not sinners because we sin, rather we sin because we are sinners.” True, however, it is the being sinners that Christ died for, he saved us from Sin not just sins. We have already repented, we have already been forgiven. This also raises questions about the extent to which it is appropriate to carry shame as a believer. My take would be that we do not carry shame but not because sinful desire isn’t shameful, rather because Christ has taken away that shame. Indeed, if as I have argued previously, resistance may well in any case be considered an act of repentance as we choose a different mind on the matter, then being ashamed of something probably aligns more with the colloquial understanding of repentance that is being contrasted with resistance.
Of course, and I’m being a little cheeky here, this does presume that your doctrine provides for that moment of clear repentance and regeneration, indeed, more than requires it but provides for it. One of my concerns when reading Presbyterian approaches to paedobaptism is that I’m not sure where that moment is provided for if a believer’s child is automatically in the covenant. I think there is a further problem here and this is that when we write as those who have grown up in Christian homes, it is perhaps easy for us to be blasé when talking about the temptations experienced by others, seeing them in very black and white terms whilst not experiencing them ourselves and with the added risk that we are not alert to our own desires and temptations. Now, I don’t think that the writer needs to be spilling out their confessions unhelpfully but I wonder whether an element of autobiographical self-awareness from all of us might contribute to a healthier conversation.
If I could make a further observation, it would be this. The debate has been framed in terms of repentance v resistance. However, this does not give enough attention to victory and overcoming meaning that we don’t just repent or resist, rather, the fight is taken to the enemy. Sinful desire is not just to be resisted, it is to be mortified, put to death, defeated. Whilst those who have disagreed with John Stevens have focused in on his language of resisting temptation, the key and brilliant message of his book is that of Romans 8 that victory over sin is possible.
What is perhaps disappointing here is that I would hope that there would be consensus on this truth and I suspect that there is. However, this is currently being lost in the technical
[1] Roberts, Matthew. Pride: Identity and the Worship of Self (pp. 73-74). Christian Focus Publications. Kindle Edition.
[2] Roberts, Matthew. Pride: Identity and the Worship of Self (p. 74). Christian Focus Publications. Kindle Edition.
[3] Pride: A Review | Reviews | Living Out
[4] Roberts, Matthew. Pride: Identity and the Worship of Self (p 65). Christian Focus Publications. Kindle Edition.
[5] Roberts, Matthew. Pride: Identity and the Worship of Self (p. 75). Christian Focus Publications. Kindle Edition. Nb there is a typo in the citation, this is actually at page 42 in John’s book.
[6] Roberts, Matthew. Pride: Identity and the Worship of Self (pp. 79-80). Christian Focus Publications. Kindle Edition.
Faithroots 