Christ’s Answer to the Devil: The Kingdoms, The Body, and The Truth About Pleasure by Lika Self

Writer: Lika Self

Subject: Christ’s Answer to the Devil: The Kingdoms, The Body, and The Truth About Pleasure

Link: LS666 Email / 01.09.2026

Note from XP: Thank you, Lika, for sharing with us your views on sexuality. To give this post context, Lika has been studying this subject for a while. She is obviously a Christian but does not reflect the traditional Christian and Biblical view on porn, sex, and masturbation — like Genesis 38:9 – 10, in which Onan was punished by God as he “spilt his seed upon the ground”.

Christ’s Answer to the Devil: The Kingdoms, The Body, and The Truth About Pleasure

“And the Devil, taking him up into a high mountain, showed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the Devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it. If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine.” — Luke 4:5-7

Thus begins the most infamous transaction never made. The Devil stands before Christ offering the world for a simple bow, a momentary bending of the knee. But the lie embedded in this offer — the fundamental deception that has echoed through millennia—is that these things belong to Satan at all. The devil claims ownership of earthly kingdoms, of bodily pleasure, of sexuality, of solo intimacy, of erotic art. He demands worship as the price of admission. This is the great swindle of human history — It is time to call the bluff.

The Usurper’s Empty Claim

The devil’s authority, such as it is, exists only as a parasite upon creation. When he declares that the kingdoms of the world are “delivered unto me,” he speaks a half-truth. They were delivered—not by God’s design, but by human failure. In the Garden, humanity handed over its stewardship not to another creator, but to a destroyer. Satan rules by deception, not by right. He is “the god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4) only in the sense that a squatter occupies a house abandoned by its owners.

Christ’s response in the wilderness was not merely a refusal — it was a reclamation. Quoting Deuteronomy, He declared: “It is written: Thou shalt adore the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve” (Luke 4:8, Douay-Rheims). By refusing, Jesus rejected the path of compromised power. Instead, he chose to win the kingdoms through suffering, obedience, and resurrection. His rejection of the devil’s offer affirmed that true kingship cannot be gained through evil means, and it marked the beginning of the end for Satan’s reign.

The Theology of Pleasure: God’s Design, Not Satan’s Trap.

Christian theology has too often collaborated with the Devil’s deception by teaching that pleasure itself is suspect, that the body is an enemy of the spirit, and that sexual desire is inherently fallen. This gnostic heresy — disguised as purity — has handed the Devil victories he never earned. If he cannot convince us to worship him through debauchery, he will settle for convincing us that our own bodies are shameful.

But Scripture presents a different vision. The Song of Solomon stands in the canon as an unapologetic celebration of erotic love, sensual pleasure, and bodily desire. “My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him” (Song of Solomon 5:4). This is not the Devil’s poetry. It is God’s. The Psalmist writes of the Creator who “Satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s” (Psalm 103:5). The God who created nerve endings, orgasm, and the capacity for sexual ecstasy did not do so as a trap. He declared it “very good” (Genesis 1:31).

Many who have examined Christian sexuality with fresh eyes discover that those in the church have often been misguided or deliberately misinterpreted Scripture to create a puritanical framework that denies God’s gifts. The Song of Solomon is practically a love poem bursting with sensual imagery. David’s Psalms are full of raw, human emotion, including desire. There is no sin in exploring these God-given aspects of human experience. The early ascetics, despite their extreme practices, demonstrated an awareness of the body’s power that modern Christianity has often suppressed. Psychologically, suppressing natural urges creates only repression and anxiety — a recipe for dysfunction, not holiness.

Those who have discovered the joy in sexual freedom when love is present often find that pornography, like any tool, can serve connection rather than isolation. Viewing moral, ethical erotic material with a spouse can open communication, foster intimacy, and expand sexual vocabulary. The devil did not create this experience. God did — through the natural goodness of human sexuality and the capacity for married love to incorporate diverse expressions of desire.

Masturbation: Reclaiming Solo Intimacy from False Condemnation

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (2352) declares masturbation “intrinsically and gravely disordered,” claiming this teaching represents a “constant tradition.” But this claim collapses under historical scrutiny. There is no mention of masturbation in the first millennium of Church teaching. Augustine does not address it. Aquinas does not condemn it. The first papal reference appears in 1054 — over a thousand years after the resurrection.

What the “constant tradition” actually reveals is evolving understanding, not eternal condemnation. Gregory the Great acknowledged sexual pleasure within marriage as natural and good. Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor of the Church, recognised that sexual activity to relieve concupiscence was not sinful when approached with moderation. Hildegard of Bingen viewed sexual excitement and release as natural physiological processes — necessary purifications rather than moral failures.

The Song of Solomon 5:5 describes a woman rising from bed with hands “dripping with myrrh” — an image that biblical scholars increasingly recognise as a metaphor for the self-pleasure of masturbation. If this interpretation holds, then Scripture itself contains a poetic affirmation of solo sexual experience within the context of sacred love.

Natural law arguments against masturbation fail upon examination. If the procreative purpose of sex is the standard, then masturbation no more violates this purpose than does a kiss, a caress, or marital sex during infertile periods. The act is natural by reason — it requires no artificial devices, no violation of bodily integrity, no harm to others. It is, in fact, the most natural of human sexual expressions, practised universally across cultures and eras.

The “grave disorder” attributed to masturbation by modern Catholic teaching places it in the same moral category as rape — a comparison that reveals the distortion more than the truth. Rape violates another person. Masturbation violates no one. To equate them is to lose all moral proportion.

Pornography: From Shame to Integration

The historical record reveals that before 1900, explicit discussions of pornography were rare in Church documents — not because the material didn’t exist, but because the Church’s approach to sexual imagery was more nuanced than modern fundamentalism suggests. Medieval moral theologians condemned “obscene writings or images” that incited lust, but they also recognised that human sexual response was natural and that visual stimulation was part of that response.

The modern Christian who discovers that much pornography is terrible — poor acting, exploitative scenarios, degrading content — but also finds in moral, ethical erotica a tool to create intimacy and foster communication has arrived at a mature moral discernment. It is not about being depraved; it is about understanding and celebrating God-given desires. Many types of pornography can be incredibly educational and arousing. Well-made, artistic erotica that focuses on connection and intimacy, or educational content that explores different facets of pleasure, serves human flourishing. What we should avoid are the exploitative, violent, or dehumanising kinds.

This is not the Devil’s bargain. It is human wisdom applied to human desire.

The medieval world understood something modern puritanism forgets: children once learned about sexuality organically, witnessing the natural expressions of adult life without the shame imposed by Victorian and modern fundamentalist distortions. People lived in close quarters. Children saw their parents expressing physical love. They learned about sex organically, without shame. Recognising pornography and masturbation as natural aspects of sexuality can be a way to reclaim that natural, uninhibited understanding.

Age-appropriate sexual education honours this organic learning. For toddlers, it is about talking about their bodies, about consent, about “private parts” being private, but not shameful. As they grow older, around puberty, open conversations about sexual feelings become appropriate. Twelve-year-olds can understand the naturalness of arousal and how masturbation is a healthy way to explore their own bodies and understand what feels good — a private act of self-discovery.

For teenagers, the conversation can expand to include pornography as a tool for exploration, but with important caveats. Healthy Christian sexuality involves respect, consent, and cherishing one’s partner and the sacredness of marriage. Pornography can be a way to learn about different kinds of intimacy, different desires, and to understand what one finds arousing. But it is crucial to emphasise that it is not a substitute for real relationships, and that exploitative content is harmful. The goal is to build a foundation of healthy curiosity and self-awareness, free from the guilt and shame that the church has so often imposed. It is about reclaiming our bodies and our pleasure as gifts from God.

The Devil’s victory is not in the existence of sexual knowledge, but in its corruption through shame and secrecy.

The True Kingdom

The Devil’s offer in the wilderness was a counterfeit because the kingdoms were already Christ’s. “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein” (Psalm 24:1). Every pleasure, every desire, every capacity for human connection belongs to the Creator, not the destroyer.

When we reject the Devil’s false ownership of sexuality, we do not descend into libertinism. We ascend to integration. A healthy Christian sexuality looks like:

• Acknowledging that pleasure is God’s gift, not Satan’s bait.
• Discerning between exploitative and ethical sexual media, rejecting the former while embracing the latter
• Understanding masturbation as a natural, morally neutral expression of bodily self-knowledge.
• Teaching children about sexuality without shame, providing age-appropriate information that fosters healthy development.
• Recognising that married love can incorporate diverse expressions of desire, including the use of erotic materials that enhance rather than replace connection.

Those who discover that there is joy, not shame, in sexual freedom when love is present testify to the liberation that comes when we stop believing the devil’s lies about ownership. They find that the joy they experience is not purchased with worship of Satan, but was always theirs by right as children of God.

Conclusion: The Coming Kingdom

Revelation promises that “the kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever” (Revelation 11:15). This includes all the kingdoms the devil falsely claimed. It includes every aspect of human experience he tried to corrupt and control.

The Devil’s reign is temporary, parasitic, and doomed. He owns nothing. He creates nothing. He can only twist what God has made and then demand worship for the twisted version. But Christ has already defeated him — not by rejecting creation, but by redeeming it. Not by condemning the body, but by resurrecting it. Not by shaming sexuality, but by sanctifying it.

You do not need to worship the devil to experience sexual pleasure. You do not need to abandon God to enjoy pornography ethically. You do not need to choose between faith and masturbation. These are God’s gifts, delivered freely to his children. The devil’s price is a lie, his ownership is a fraud, and his days are numbered.

Take the kingdoms. Take the pleasures. They were always yours in Christ.