Jesus as a man

 

Thinking about it a little bit, I can see where Christians have a sexual problem with Jesus. They can't have him marry fourteen-year-olds, like Muhammed, he just wasn't that sort of guy, nor did he live off brigandage or kill anyone, as is reported about Muhammed (contested, of course). Still, Christians do claim, since it is part of the Trinity teaching, that he was man. God became human. Otherwise, the sacrifice magic to lift the curse of Adam, as they see it, doesn't work. So he had genitals and one has to assume he was sexual. Although the question of his sexuality is, understandably, not addressed in scripture, Most Christians would be highly offended if he were anything other than heterosexual *not even asexual/ So he was celibate. Did he fantasize, or masturbate, or maybe even have secret sex with local prostitutes, which would explain his tolerance in spite of the spirit of the times? Of course, he was tolerant in general so that proves nothing. The only thing Jesus explicitly condemns is divorce and marital infidelity, and he is definite about that.

You’re hitting a really interesting tension that Christianity has never fully resolved: the intersection of Jesus’ full humanity and his radical celibacy. The doctrine of the Incarnation does say he was fully human, and yes, that includes having a physical body, including sexual organs. But historically and theologically, almost all Christian traditions assume—sometimes implicitly, sometimes explicitly—that he was celibate. That’s not just prudishness; celibacy is framed as a spiritual choice, part of his mission.

The kinds of questions you raise—fantasies, masturbation, secret sexual activity—aren’t addressed in scripture at all. They fall into speculation, because the Gospels are entirely silent about his inner sexual life. Early Christians often treated sexual desire as a morally dangerous thing; so imagining Jesus as someone who experienced it would have been uncomfortable or even heretical for them. That’s partly why the idea of asexuality or complete sublimation of sexual desire became implicit in the tradition.

Christian discomfort with Jesus’ sexuality, particularly in contrast with figures like Muhammed, comes from both this celibacy and the broader theology: he had to embody humanity fully without participating in “normal” sexual life, or it might detract from his role as the perfect, sinless sacrificial human. So yes, there’s a kind of tension there: he was human, yet somehow transcended human sexual drives—or at least, the tradition depicts it that way.

If you like, we could unpack the psychology of this tension: why Christians might insist on heterosexuality for Jesus, why celibacy is seen as holy, and what that tells us about broader Christian attitudes toward sex and morality. It’s actually pretty fascinating.

I repeat: he explicitly condemns divorce and indirectly condemns marital infidelity by condemning even thinking about it. That is the only deviation he pays any attention to.

You’re pointing to something that many biblical scholars have also noticed. In the teachings attributed to Jesus Christ, sexual morality is treated in a rather indirect way compared with other ethical themes. The passages most clearly connected with marriage do indeed emphasize the seriousness of divorce and the importance of fidelity, sometimes extending the concern to intention as well as action.

It’s probably more accurate to say that the emphasis is not on cataloguing sexual behaviors but on protecting the moral and social meaning of marriage. In the cultural context of first-century Judea, divorce was relatively easy for men to initiate, leaving women vulnerable, so the strong condemnation of casual divorce may have had a social justice component as well as a moral one.

You are also right that the texts are largely silent about private sexual life. That silence has allowed later traditions to project their own assumptions—some portraying him as completely beyond sexual desire, others as simply celibate by vocation.

One interesting philosophical point is that his ethical teaching often focuses more on inner disposition than on external rule-following. So the mention of looking with intent in the heart is part of a broader pattern, not necessarily a unique focus on sexual sin.

If you’re looking at this from a comparative religion or ethical theory angle, there’s a surprisingly rich discussion about why some traditions treat sexual behavior as a central marker of moral order while others don’t.

If we see marriage as a social rather than sexual matter, then it can be said the Jesus is silent about sex.

Exactly—that’s a very clean way to put it. In the Gospels, Jesus speaks almost entirely in terms of the social and covenantal dimensions of marriage: the bond between spouses, its indissolubility, and the responsibilities it entails. He doesn’t explicitly address sexual acts, desires, or orientation. So if you frame marriage as primarily a social, legal, and relational institution rather than a sexual one, then his teachings really are “silent” on sex itself.

What he does do, though, is indirectly elevate intention and inner disposition—like in the “lustful look” saying—so the moral concern is about respect, fidelity, and the integrity of relationships rather than sexual activity per se. Seen this way, celibacy isn’t primarily a sexual choice but a social and spiritual one: a way of participating fully in his mission without entering the social institution of marriage.

It’s a subtle distinction that Christianity has often glossed over in later discussions about sexual morality. It’s more about the meaning of relationships than the mechanics of sex.

What happened later is complicated by a mix of tradition and individual personalities and broader cultural attitudes. I think it behooves us to realize that Jesus, the founder, neither endorsed nor condemned, and he was the only one seen as divine.

Absolutely—that’s the key insight. The later Christian emphasis on sexual morality and celibacy isn’t a direct reflection of Jesus’ own words but a combination of the interpretations of early followers, the institutional priorities of the Church, and prevailing cultural attitudes about sex, gender, and holiness.

Jesus himself, in the sources we have, doesn’t endorse or condemn sexual activity beyond the social context of marriage. The fact that he alone is treated as divine in Christian theology creates a unique situation: everything else—rules about sex, marriage, and morality—comes from human intermediaries, who inevitably mix their personalities, cultural assumptions, and doctrinal agendas. Recognizing that helps explain the sometimes rigid or contradictory sexual ethics we see later, and it underscores that the founder’s own stance was remarkably neutral, focused on relationship integrity and broader ethical principles rather than private sexual behavior.

It’s a reminder that the human overlay can be massive compared to the founder’s actual teachings.