The Sexuality & Chastity of Jesus and What it Means for Us

A Response to Mere Sexuality by Todd Wilson

The Sexuality & Chastity of Jesus

In Mere Sexuality, Todd Wilson lays out a thorough treatment of the basic sexual convictions of the Christian Church and how we might cling to that core. I believe his most significant contribution to this conversation, in which I have spent some reasonable amount of time, was his discussion around Jesus as a sexual being. Wilson explores how, in the incarnation, Jesus became a sexual being, specifically with a Y chromosome, and how his life of chastity ought to not only inform but form our view of Christian sexuality. This essay will address the sexuality of Jesus, the corresponding chastity of Jesus, and the implications for the contemporary church. In his section titled “God Chose a Y Chromosome”, Wilson says, “Jesus became like us, not only in our humanity but also in our sexuality—that is, his body is a biologically sexed body just like ours.”¹ Even though the New Testament says, “Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brothers” (Hebrews 2:17), I had never considered how that applied to sexuality. Wilson goes on to explore the implications that Jesus was a biological male whose sexuality shaped his entire human experience.² This should not have been surprising to me in any way as someone who has been around the doctrine of the incarnation my entire life and yet in some way it was. I have only ever felt like Jesus’ sexuality was simply an inconsequential implication of the incarnation rather than a significant element of his humanity. Yet it was not an inconsequential part of Adam and Eve’s creation based on the way the author of Genesis highlights their sex difference in Genesis 2:27 so why should it be any less significant for the second Adam, Jesus? This feels especially relevant to consider as the Church seeks to engage with  our culture’s views that treat biological sex as interchangeable or socially constructed because Jesus’ own embodiment confirms that our physical identities are integral to who we are before God. Much that is said of the incarnation as a whole therefore is significant for sexuality. Jesus dignifies embodied sexuality since as God, he did not consider sexed existence beneath him. Wilson goes on to contrast how Jesus did not come as an intersex person who was biologically ambiguous nor as a creature lacking sex altogether but instead took on a male human body.³ By so doing, Jesus dignified sexuality and its male and female expression in humanity. Wilson goes on to explore how Jesus’ sexuality does not simply bolster the sexuality of men but also of women by examining the significance of Jesus’ conception, birth, and dependence on a particular human female, namely Mary (Matthew 1:23). Because of this, “Sexual differentiation is not simply a feature of creation that God blesses and declares to be good; it is an essential part of our creaturely existence and one that the Son himself willingly embraced.”⁴ Equally noteworthy was Wilson’s reflection on how the resurrection of Jesus permanently solidifies the things established in the incarnation because Jesus remains what He was on earth both fully God and fully man (Luke 24:39). In other words, “Our humanity, including our sexual difference, has become an intrinsic part of who God the Son is—and who God the Son will be forever.”⁵ Wilson continued to convince of the significance of this single explores the idea that “No one was more fully human or sexually contented than Jesus, yet Jesus never engaged in a single sexual act.”⁶ This means that the sexuality of Jesus has implications not only for our experience of sexuality but for our expression of sexuality. Somehow, Jesus as an unmarried man who upheld the Torah was “tempted in all things just as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:17). This means that Jesus reveals a way of being a sexual creature without sexual activity. ““From the story of his life, we learn that sexual activity isn’t essential to human flourishing or personal fulfillment.”⁷ Jesus modeled what it looked like to live a human life surrendered to the Holy Spirit and that life was sexed but not sexually active. If the originator of the New Humanity, could live a fulfilled life this way then that requires consideration for the rest of Jesus’s New Humanity and how we understand sexual fulfillment. I do not know how this idea is not more central to conversations with youth who are pursuing sexual purity or with adults who are unmarried since we are followers of Jesus. I found Wilson’s articulations to powerfully synthesize biblical truth about the person of Jesus and how that must affect our understanding of our own sexuality. The sexuality of Jesus in the incarnation and resurrection and his sexuality in life have profound implications for the way Christians think about being human and discipling our people. 

Application to the Contemporary Church

Unfortunately, it is the tendency of the church and Christians in general to be rather truncated in their approach to conversations around sex and sexuality. Wilson discusses this idea that the Church must recover a vision of sexuality that is not just reactionary but deeply theological. In all of the Church’s focus around the incarnation and Jesus taking on humanity, it seems to be neglectful to not also include a conversation around the kind of humanity that Jesus took only. What if the Church began with all ages to simply include mention of how the sexuality of Jesus is essential to understanding His birth, life, and resurrection? Rather than simply policing sexual behavior, a deep understanding of the sexuality of Jesus both in his experience and actions seems to lay the groundwork for a robust theology of the body and sexuality as a whole. I know from my own experience in the church that people are longing for significance and if we do not give it to them through an intentional exploration of their humanity, that is not just incidentally but intentionally sexed, they will seek it elsewhere. I long to bring these ideas to bear in my teaching, small group conversations, and one-on-one conversations with students in my local church.

Here is the link to Wilson’s work if you are interested in reading it yourself

1.  Todd A. Wilson, Mere Sexuality (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2017), 13. 

2.  Todd A. Wilson, 13. 

3.  Todd A. Wilson, 14. 

4. Todd A. Wilson, 14.

5. Todd A. Wilson, 14.

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7. Todd A. Wilson, 14.