In this day and age, our society has a warped mindset concerning relationships and sex. Sex is a blessing from God but has been corrupted and become filthy in the eyes of the world.
Marriage and sex
Marriage is not just purely on a ceremonial level like what we usually witness, it is when flesh joins flesh and is sacred in the eyes of God. This is why God despises sin like adultery and fornication.
Genesis 24:67: “And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her: and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.”
Notice that the sexual act is where God defines it to be a marriage.
This is why the Church has zero-tolerance towards pre-marital sex, as it already considered fornication. However, our society nowadays takes sex before marriage as a joke, leading to uncommitted relationships, and eventually divorces.
Ephesians 5:31: “For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.”
That very act where we leave our family and join together with our wife is already considered a marriage. As mentioned above, most people nowadays do not have developed a wretched mind of not setting any boundary when it comes to sexual conduct. Therefore, their flesh desires more excitement, which explains the increase in group sex and homosexual relationships.
Romans 1:24-26: “Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:”
When people keep following their hearts instead of God’s instructions, God will eventually give them up to unrighteousness. Many people now, including some Christians may want to justify homosexual relationship also as a form of love and should be openly accepted, but we see in the verse it says ‘vile affection’, God clearly sees it as something abnormal and not according to His design for us in a relationship.
Sex is not wrong, it is natural as God created it for us to enjoy. However, God did not intend for us to abuse this gift He has given us.
Genesis 2:23: “And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”
This was the first sexual action mentioned in the Bible and was considered pure in the eyes of God.
How to marry
The following verses from the scriptures explain how to do a marriage.
Even though sex is considered marriage in God’s eyes, but He still wants us to go through legal procedures to legitimize marriage itself. This applies to every culture, which has its own rules and customs on how a marriage is carried out.
1 Corinthians 7:39: “The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord.”
God does not like it when a marriage violates the law. He wants things to be done legally to consider it as official.
Who to marry
Moreover, God is also particular with who we marry, not just how we get married. This is because our spouse will be our partner for life. So it should be considered ideal or righteous from the very beginning, a saved believer at least, and a testimony that is not against Christ.
1 Timothy 5:11-12: “But the younger widows refuse: for when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ, they will marry; Having damnation, because they have cast off their first faith.”
Our partner’s testimony should not give Satan any opportunity to attack us or our faith. It should not be justified with our own perceived ability to change our partner and make him/her grow spiritually after we marry him/her.
Sex and violence
Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud once argued that sex and violence stem is our innate drive, and all our actions and our sins stem from this inclination. Even though his perspectives are nothing biblical, but there is an element of truth in it, in the sense that Freud knew it was a natural drive to have sexual urges and violence. If we do not carefully assess our sexual desire, it will lead to a lot of sins, including violence.
We know what Jesus did for us through on the cross is through the act of love and death so that we can have eternal life, but the devil wants to corrupt things and hence uses the entertainment industry like Hollywood to pervert the true meaning of love and death. This is why we usually see love in the form of sex or violence that leads to death as attention-catching plots or climaxes of movies.
Besides Hollywood, we also notice why pagan idolatry is associated with sex, another way of corrupting God’s gift.
Numbers 33:52: “Then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their pictures, and destroy all their molten images, and quite pluck down all their high places:”
During the timeline of the pagan culture, they used pictures in the form of visuals to portray sexual perversion. In our modern society, the devil has already placed all kinds of sexual content in every possible media, making it unavoidable for children and young adults to be exposed to them uncontrollably.
So we may think as long as we abstain from the technology, and these social media platforms, we should be safe from Satan’s corruption?
Matthew 5:28: “But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.”
According to biblical standards, when there’s a sexual activity that takes place in our hearts, that is a sin.
2 Corinthians 10:5: “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;”
This implies that even without the physical existence of visuals right in front of our eyes, our imagination can still cause us to sin against God. God wants our mind to be held captive, and not go astray into wickedness.
Abstain from all appearance of evil
This comes back to why we are constantly reminded not to have pre-marital sexual contact with our partners because appearances are usually cues to our imaginations.
Ephesians 5:3: “But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints;”
Do not take it lightly on how we appear in the eyes of both God and men, we are supposed to behave like saints.
1 Thessalonians 5:22: “Abstain from all appearance of evil.”
God says abstain from all appearance of evil. He is not being selective when it comes to this matter, so should we.
Jude 1:18: “How that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts.”
This explains why we should limit our physical contact with our relationship partner before marriage, setting rules and regulations when we date. This is because, without these boundaries, we cannot avoid a sensual atmosphere that will yield us to temptation.
2 Corinthians 11:2-3: “For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.”
This passage could be associated with Satan’s first sexual corruption first in the garden of Eden with mankind. The word ‘beguile’ can mean seduce, as Satan’s goal is for men to fall short and follow along with his lust with him. This is supported in the following verse.
John 8:44 “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.”
Genesis 6:2,7,11 cf Daniel 2
We know from Genesis 6 that at one time, the sons of God came down to earth and mingled with the women on earth, and made them conceive their children, which is also known as the Nephilim. Not only that, even sex with animals was also involved. This shows how Satan was trying to mess up God’s design and purpose of sex, thus leading to all kinds of violence.
For future tribulation timeline, Daniel 2 shows that non-human beings will also mingle with humans. This is repeating the event in Genesis 2.
In 2 Corinthians 11:2, Satan tries to use different means of sexual corruption to drive us away from God, which involves our act, thought pattern, appearance, even our spiritual walk with Jesus Christ. Sex is deemed innocent and designed with simplicity by God, which involves only a man and a woman, but look at how Satan just corrupts everything.
Single
So if God sees adultery, fornication, and even divorce as sins, what about being single?
1 Corinthians 7:7-9: “For I would that all men were even as I myself. But every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that. I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I. But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn.”
God considers it as a gift, as God may call some of us to serve God as unmarried Christians. God’s purpose for everyone is different. That being said, if we cannot control our sexual urges and inclination, then it is better to get married than to sin against God.
1 Timothy 4:1-3: “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.”
God does not forbid people to be single, but He despises people or false teachers that enforce the prohibition against marriage.
Not to defraud one another
1 Corinthians 7:5: “Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency.”
God commands lovers not to defraud one another, which means married couples should have sex and not sleep in separate rooms. God has a reason for this, as couples who do not share sexual intimacy are prone to Satan’s temptation to commit adultery and fornication towards one another.
Hebrews 13:4: “Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.”
In terms of what sexual acts are deemed appropriate in bed, it is in between the couple and God and should not be disclosed publicly, even to pastors and church members. Hebrews 13:4 serves as a basic guideline, as long as the acts do not defile the word of God.
Marrying an unbeliever
1 Corinthians 7:14: “For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy.”
We see that God forbids marriage with an unbeliever. Still, if we are already married to an unbeliever, God does not call for us to divorce because our sexual act can sanctify the unbelieving partner.
Summary
1 Corinthians 7:3-4: “Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife.”
This reminds us that when we become Christians, our bodies become the temples of the Holy Ghosts, which belong to God. When we get married, our bodies belong to our marriage partners under the authority of God, so we have to think about what respects the spouse when we are having sex.
2 Corinthians 7:1” “Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”
Ephesians 5:4 tells us that God allows sexual details which derive from pureness because even in the Book of Solomon we can see the context is filled with romance. Nonetheless, God forbids our filthy interpretation of His pureness and His words, so in the end, it is still best to avoid sexual details as we know that our flesh is weak in resisting temptation.
Colossians 3:8: “But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth.”
We can never be pure and holy like God, so in our attempt to portray His language like in the Song of Solomon, or to convey sexual details, it will most likely come across as filthy. This tells us to keep our details private in between partners, and with God.