Even after sin, sex can still be a sin. The ACT is a sin if and only if attached to a selfish MOTIVE. And selfishness can exist after marriage. Just ask any married person.

What I don't understand is what this discussion about sinful thoughts has to do with original sin. You believe that sinful thoughts and desires aren't sin just to be coherent with your view that Christ was born with sinful tendencies and that He had sinful thoughts and desires generated by these tendencies. I don't believe that sinful thoughts and desires are a sin because of the concept of original sin, but because I consider they constitute violations of the law of God.

The law penetrates to the thoughts and intents of the heart {ST, November 3, 1890 par. 6}

The law of Jehovah is exceedingly broad. Jesus . . . plainly declared to His disciples that this holy law of God may be violated in even the thoughts and feelings and desires, as well as in the word and deed. {OHC 140.2}

I know I’m being tempted to be unlike Jesus as soon as I become consciously aware of it, that is, an unholy thought and feeling is present. If I’m not aware of it, I’m unconscious of it, that is, the unholy thought and feeling is absent. No unholy thought and feeling = no temptation. Or, vice versa: the presence of an unholy thought and feeling = the presence of a temptation. In this way, all temptations begin as an unholy thought and feeling.

The instant I become consciously aware of the presence of an unholy thought and feeling is the instant I realize I am being tempted to be unlike Jesus. I am not guilty at this point. I must make decision. If I cherish it, or speak or act out the unholy thought and feeling, I am guilty of sin. But if I focus on Jesus and resist owning the unholy thought and feeling I am innocent. It is not a sin to be tempted to be unlike Jesus.


What happens when you’re tempted to watch an episode? Does someone invite you? How are you tempted? What constitutes victory?


If you're saying believers gradually outgrow known sins through a process of sinning and repenting less and less intensely until they eventually cease repeating that particular sin - then, yes, I do not agree. I believe absolute and unbroken victory over a particular sin is available to us from the moment we confess and crucify it in light of the cross.

"He knew that truth would finally triumph in the contest with evil, and to His disciples He said: "These things I have spoken unto you, that in Me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." John 16:33. The life of Christ's disciples is to be like His, a series of uninterrupted victories, not seen to be such here, but recognized as such in the great hereafter. {6T 307.1}


This is the part I’m unclear about what you believe. Are you suggesting we continue to be guilty of sin until our “old habits” totally die, until the temptations associated with them cease to tempt us? If so, how do you explain the fact Ellen repeatedly wrote that we shall have to combat inward corruption until the day Jesus arrives? See quotes below.

I said nothing about fantasizing. It's a natural thing to desire to have sex with a person one is intending to marry. It's not a sin. It strikes me as very odd that one would think so. This is what I was saying.



It's possible to lust after one's own spouse. The purpose of sex is not to simply or primarily to gratify one's own desires. Again, I was not speaking about fantasizing about gratifying one's own desires, but simply saying that having a desire for sex with one which one intends to marry is a normal thing and not condemned by God.

Pardon? I never said sinful thoughts and desires aren't sin.



Me too.

Despite that I'm not a man, I still hear what you're saying. I know that God made man differently and we shouldn't go to the other extreme and ignore this part of the design. Yes, the desire to have sex is normal today. I don't know if it's not condemned by God. I know we're not condemn on any offence if we're in Christ.

However, what you're saying is what you think is normal with a body subject to inheritence for 6000 years. I'm sure you won't dispute that because of sin, the sensitivity, the weakness is even greater.

If you had the body and mind of Adam before sin, what type of thoughts do you think would be generated having woman walking around with perfect beauty inside and out with no clothes on. I know they will have the light of God covering their body, so maybe you wouldn't even see their body. I don't know.

But regardless, do you think thoughts of having sex would ever come up? Maybe in heaven, sex is more like the dessert portion of a meal. You are hungry but come to the table, not to really satisfy your hunger, nor focussing of the dessert, but to have some time with your wife sharing and enjoying each others presence while eating. Dessert is not the essencial of the meal. Sometimes there is desert sometime there's none. How about this one, maybe in heaven there's no sex? Maybe sex is only an act in the intend to pro-create? How much do we know about this. Not very much.

Elle,

I know this disappoints some folks, but here is the word of God on this issue:



Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

Green, I never knew what to think about Mk12:25, however, I never read that quote. Well, it almost imply that there won't be any desert in heaven. Oh, no, it will probably dissappoint a lot of men.

As a man, it won't disappoint me. I will feel relieved.

I have always despised having such "time wasters" in my life as eating and sleeping. There's simply too much else I'd rather be doing! There are those who "eat to live" and those who "live to eat," and I've always been in the former group.

I guess I view any of my "physical needs" in a similar light. They all seem to hinder me. It's not that I do not find satisfaction in seeing these needs filled. It's just that I would find even greater satisfaction in not feeling bound to them. In this life, these are requirements--addictions, if you will. I fancy a time when all such requirements are no more, and I can have time and liberty to do other things.

Besides, Heaven will be better than a dream come true. I am certain that we will not miss any of the so-called "pleasures" which we had on earth. They will all appear as worthless in comparison to the joys of Heaven. No one in Heaven will miss them.

To use your analogy of the "dessert," I can imagine that, just like a taste of good, sweet, grapefruit juice tastes bitter after eating a bunch of fresh, frost-ripened grapes; so also will the "desserts" of Heaven make our former "desserts" seem bitter by comparison.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

Elle, my point regarding sex is that it is a desire of the flesh which requires the mind to regulate. One can be sexually aroused by some external stimulus, without having sinned. However, when the mind becomes aware of what is happening, then the will springs into action, and a decision is made. Will the stimulus be encouraged in the form of fantasy or some other action? Or, once the mind has perceived the temptation, will the action be taken to reject the temptation.

Christ was tempted as we are. However, unlike us, He always rejected the temptation.

The sin is not in the temptation, but in not rejecting it.