[stextbox id=”custom”]This is the 2nd article in the “Where in the Bible does it say” series. Here’s the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th.[/stextbox]
Sex. Almost everyone thinks about it, has questions about it, talks about it, and reads about it. But when it comes to many contemporary American Christian circles, too often we pretend like sex is bad, scandalous, and even taboo. Oh, maybe not entirely sinful, per se, but certainly not something we can openly discuss. Especially with teenagers in the room. Or is it?
Question: Where in the Bible does it say that sex is a good thing?
God made sex. He created it, formed our bodies to make it possible, and designed it so that it would be both pleasurable and lead to procreation. And with all that in mind, He designed it to be a holy act. Yes, a holy act. A very, very holy act.
Sex wasn’t created Hollywood, or Bollywood, and it certainly wasn’t designed by Mr. Hefner, either. One of the first things God did after creating the light and the trees and humanity, was to issue the decree that sex is not only an option, but a command.
That’s right, you heard me correctly. Sex was commanded by God. He told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply. But it was also to be an act between one man and one woman, within the boundaries of holy matrimony. God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.
Before God ever told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply, He said that it is not good that man should be alone. After God made woman from the man’s rib, God then joined them together in a holy covenant by performing the first marriage ceremony (if you will), saying,
Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed (Genesis 2:24-25).
Immediately after the first sin was ever committed in Eden’s garden, and God’s grace being showered upon His first two human creatures, the Scripture then tells us,
Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain (Genesis 4:1).
So what’s the problem then? Sex is a good thing, so says the Bible. Why is the topic of sex off-limits, taboo, and often swept under the rug? If God created it, commanded it, established the boundaries of its exercise, and sanctified it, why are so many around the circles of Christianity ashamed to even discuss it?
Answer: Because—for the most part—our culture has made the holy act into something that is perverse, adulterous, incestuous, and altogether defiling. In other words, those who are created in the image of God have thrown off the cloak of God’s protection, indulging in the passing pleasures of sin for the moment, rather than obeying God in the details of the consecrated marriage bed.
I mean, just look around you. The damaged, perverted image of lustful sex is everywhere. It permeates our culture, our workplace, and even our homes. It is legion.
Personally, I can’t even watch the sports channel without keeping the remote control within arms reach. The commercials are over the top, often designed to inspire lust and sinful desire. Frankly, they do a thorough job at their wicked craft.
Mothers often have to shield their children’s eyes while in the grocery check out line. Billboards hug the highways, shoving their scandalous computer-generated images down our throats. Television sitcoms bow down at the altar of doing whatever they can to get away with as much as they can.
Have you been to the shopping mall lately? Um, I wouldn’t really suggest it. Seen the clothes hanging on the racks lately? It seems that most of the fashion empires out there are hurting for some coin, because they don’t even have enough fabric to make a proper shirt, dress, shorts, etc, etc, etc, etc. When God gave Adam and Eve clothes to cover their sin, it was to cover their shamefulness. Today, however, teenagers claw over the latest designer fig leaves. Rather than covering their shame, they flaunt it.
And don’t even get me started with the problem of pornography. Porn is abundant and overly problematic, both inside and outside the church. Sad, but true.
But you know all that already, don’t you? Sure you do. We all do. But does anyone really care? Does anyone care about what God thinks about all this? Where in the Bible does it say that sex is good, and not evil?
Glad you asked. Here are a few of the boundaries (and warnings) God has provided for our (between a married man and woman, that is) enjoyment of sex. Think on these and act accordingly. Your family, your children, our culture, and even your own soul is at stake here.
Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge (Hebrews 13:4).
For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor (1 Thessalonians 4:3-4).
abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well (Acts 15:29).
I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people (1 Corinthians 5:9).
But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner—not even to eat with such a person (1 Corinthians 5:11).
Now the body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body (1 Corinthians 6:13).
Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body (1 Corinthians 6:18).
Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband (1 Corinthians 7:2).
But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death (Revelation 21:8).
The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does (1 Corinthians 7:4).
QUESTION: WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT SEX? WHAT ABOUT SEX BEFORE MARRIAGE? WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Comment below with your answer.
* Image credit: John Emery (Creation Swap)
Charles Specht says
QUESTION: WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT SEX? WHAT ABOUT SEX BEFORE MARRIAGE? WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Mt Nebo-Fred, Texas says
I think you hit the nail on the head – God designed sex as a way of bringing us pleasure but also as a picture of the pleasure we receive from God when we seek to become one with Him. Many times throughout Scripture, worshipping things/people other than God is described as adultery and in many respects this is exactly what it is.
Sex before marriage is never a good thing. Even if it is between a couple who do marry each other and are the only partner they’ve ever had, this sin WILL come back to haunt them throughout there marriage and the statistics bear this out.
Charles Specht says
Thanks for the comment. I appreciate it, and I couldn’t agree more!
Chuck Spencer says
Great article, powerful Scriptures! GOD BLESS!
Kimberly Seaton says
I agree with everything that God has said in His word about it. Since being saved, I have yet to meet a professing Christian man who is intetested in me once he finds out I won’t have sex.before marriage.
Sean Brantley says
Kimberly,
You haven’t found the right “Christian” man – at least the one that God has in-store for you. Don’t waiver on your convictions! The Lord WILL reward you for your faithfulness! God Bless, my friend.