Welcome to answers from an apostolic faith.
In name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, One God. Amen.
What is lust? Today we continue our series on the passions and today we attempt to answer the question of what is lust or what is the understanding of the passion of lust within the Coptic Orthodox faith. First let's begin with the meaning of the word itself. Originally in Greek, lust translates into the word πορνεία (porneía). Now porneía, many of you might immediately realize that it is from this word that we get the word pornography for instance. But the original word porneía, what it meant was not necessarily lust as we translate it today; it actually meant the word prostitution. So immediately, let's just clarify... When we speak of lust, we don't necessarily limit it to just prostitution, but the fact that in the root of this original word porneía we have this understanding of prostitution, we will later discover within this conversation that prostitution has quite a bit to do with the conversation we will have today.
Today's understanding of lust to the modern thinker, all it means is this appetite or this excessive appetite for sexual desire, where in reality, what we will discover today is that there is a lot more to understanding this. First, let's make a small disclaimer before we continue moving forward... When we speak of lust, immediately we speak also of sexuality. That is very very clear: lust is not synonymous with sexuality. Sexuality, we will discover, is something wonderful and is something beautiful and a gift from God. It is one of the ways that the human being expresses the love that is found inside them. Lust, therefore, is not synonymous with something that is good; on the contrary, when sexuality is improperly expressed, when it is devoid and taken away from the presence of God, this is where we see lust come in.
We will not take too much time to explain the proper understanding of sexuality in this video. In another video, we will evaluate this and see what the proper understanding is. For now, let us understand the following. Sexuality is meant to be something that is selfless, where a person offers who it is that they are for the purpose of being able to please another that is before them; it is something that is sacrificial. A person pours themself out for the sake of the love that they have for another. Lust is the complete opposite of this. A person becomes so selfish that what they do is that they want to use and abuse people who are around them at whatever expense for the sake of being able to please themselves. In the process, what happens is the person is separating themselves from God.
And remember, we said previously in a previous video explaining what the passions are, that what a passion does is that it takes the faculties that God has given us and it takes us away
from God. Instead of being oriented towards Him, we become oriented toward things that are temporal. In this case, lust has its focus solely on our self. Instead of being selfless and expressing love outwardly, what we end up doing is that we show this love ─ or God forbid call it love at all ─ we show this desire to please another only towards ourselves; we become the number one goal; we become the number one person who has to be pleased. It betakes away entirely the spiritual aspect of love and it renders love something that is simply sensual and focused only on the pleasure. By doing so, we are completely destroying the meaning of what it is a person is supposed to do when expressing this love. In the process, a person declares war against themselves by giving in to the passion of lust. We see this perfectly expressed in first Corinthians by the Apostle Paul, chapter 6, verses 18 to 20. Let us read it together. St. Paul says:
'' 18 Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside [of] the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. 19 Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? 20 For you were bought at a price; therefore [he says] glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.'' (1 Corinthians, 6:18-20)
We have seen how lust leads us to commit sin or commit violence against ourselves. Now this brings us back full circle to the meaning of the word. Like we said, the original meaning in Greek is prostitution. But now realize why it is that the word lust still applies within that definition. Just like prostitution, the main goal becomes to please yourself for the sake of personal gain and what ends up happening is that we use this sexuality, this improper understanding of sexuality in order for us to gain, whether it be pleasure or anything else. Do you now see the correlation with the understanding of the word prostitution?
You see, my beloved, all of our senses in the entire human being goes into a dramatic war when they take upon themselves this passion of lust. When lust lingers inside us, what ends up happening is that all of our senses become deviated and they do no longer are oriented towards God. The greatest example of this is the sense of sight. We know how the eyes are very heavily involved when it comes to the passion of lust. And instead of using our eyes that are a gift from God for us to be able to see the beauty of God in creation and to see the beauty of the image of God in another person, rather, what we do here is use our sight to take in violence against ourselves. This improper use of the senses ends us hurting us more than anything else.
And this remakes us realize why it is that Christ in the Gospel of St. Matthew makes the bold declaration that he who looks at a woman and desires her in his heart has committed adultery. You see, St. John Chrysostom explains why it is that Christ would use such an aggressive perspective when explaining what adultery is. Let's read together the commentary of St. John Chrysostom on this passage in the Gospel of St. Matthew. St. John begins by
questioning... What if a person were to say: what if I only look but I do not touch or I do not act? Listen to what St. John says:
''What then, one may say, if I should look [at a woman], and desire her indeed, but do no evil? Even so [he says] you are set among the adulterers! For the Lawgiver [who is Jesus Christ] has pronounced it, and you must not ask any more questions. For by looking once, [or] twice, or three times, you will perhaps have power to refrain [yourself]; but if you are continually doing this, and kindling the furnace, you will assuredly be taken; for your station is not beyond [the] nature which is common to men.'' (St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew, Homily 17-2)
He explains that maybe you will get away with only looking once, twice or three times, but eventually, if you keep lusting over another human being, eventually it will overtake you and you will act. St. John continues and says:
''As we then, if we see a child holding a knife, though we do not see him hurt, [we discipline] him, and [we] forbid his ever holding it; so God likewise takes away the unchaste look even before the act, lest at any time you should fall in act also. For he who has once kindled the flame, even when the woman whom he has beheld is absent, is forming by himself continually images of shameful things, and from them often goes on even to the deed. For this cause [he says] Christ takes away even [the] embrace which is in the heart only.'' (St John Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew. Homily17-2)
St. John touches beautifully on this idea of how it's not only the eyes... the eyes are only the window. Once the image is taken in, lust begins to use that image to haunt us and the person begins to live in a very morbid state where everything becomes phantasmal; nothing is real. They live in their thoughts; they live in their fantasies and they seek opportunities to grow this database of awful images inside them because lust has overtaken.
So now that we understand what lust is, we pray that now, we understand what we are warring against in order for us to be able to pray that the Lord grant us repentance from it and save us from this evil passion that can dwell inside us.
Remember, my beloved: Know your faith, live your faith, and teach your faith. And to God be the glory now and forever unto the ages of all ages. Amen.