by R. Douglas Williams

Created on: December 14, 2008

There is no reason given in the Bible to suggest that, as a human man, Jesus did not struggle with sexual feelings or entertain a physical attraction toward someone of the opposite sex. Many claim that Jesus did not possess the ability to sin and that the temptation he submitted himself to in the wilderness for 40 days and nights was only a means of expressing his superior ability to witstand moral pressure. His mission of becoming human and living among us would have been incomplete had he reserved the right to bypass all temptations.

As I was going through the rigors of puberty and at the same time throwing around my teenage angst, a Savior who could not sin would not have been much help to me. Through the difficulties I faced when pursuing the call to pastoral ministry as a young man, trying to hold my tongue in the face of irrational behavior, I didn't call out to someone who could not relate. During the times when I felt not even my own family could understand where I was coming from, Jesus was not a God who listened but felt detached.

Jesus was wholly God, but also wholly man. So I have no trouble thinking that Jesus would have had a young girl or grown woman flirt with him or make an advance at him. Even if he was grossly unattractive in appearance, he possessed the total package inside. The substance that a woman needs from a man.

But succumbing to the advances, or pursuing a woman for physical pleasure is a different story. Jesus did not allow himself to enter the realm of romantic relationships. Though surrounded by women who supported his ministry, he remained a Savior to them. By his romantic distance, Jesus was able to redeem these women.

The superiority of Jesus comes not in his inability to sin, but his ability to choose against sin. He was hardwired like any man, any human, with feelings and nerves and imagination. The difference was he was the only one who ever lived that could decide not to be run by these things.

I have had rare conversations with men who had no romantic feelings for someone of the opposite sex and I marvelled at their love of being single. We should marvel much more at Jesus, the one who surpassed the human, imperfect form of romance to provide a far greater, more divine sense of romance.

This helps me to identify with im on a far deeper level than hero-worship. I can, as a man who experiences the onslaught of sexual temptations, call out to someone who has felt the way I do but had the ability to overcome it.

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