The Marriage Act: what sex is trying to teach us about our faith
I grew up as a part of the church through an era that is now referred to as “purity culture”. I don’t have any particular horror stories to share—unless you can count how horrified I felt when I’d be riding in the car with my family and the DC Talk song “I Don’t Want It” would come on, and my parents would not flinch or make a big deal about it, and just let it play. Or perhaps worse for me in my awkward early teen years, they’d actually strike up conversation about it (for which I am now grateful).
Undeniably, purity culture caused damage by the messages brought forth through the 1990’s and early 2000’s. There may have been many well-meaning voices on the topic, trying to emphasize the sacredness of our bodies and of sexual expression, encouraging young people to wait until they “take the vow”—but the conversation was at best, incomplete.
There was great emphasis on what Christians should not do with their bodies (“Don’t have sex until marriage.”) but not very much on why we should not do that said thing, other than because the Bible said so. Maybe I was just too young—it’s also possible that I wasn’t paying attention very well—but I don’t remember hearing about the emotional dynamics of sex or the great fulfillment and potential for mutual pleasure that God has woven into it. And it wasn’t until I was nineteen or twenty that I began to see how sex was actually intended to be something of a shadow of a divine truth—like a great, metaphorical object lesson for humanity.
If you’ve heard that Christians aren’t supposed to have sex outside of marriage, well…you’ve heard correct. The Bible does make God’s boundary clear: any sexual encounters outside of the marriage covenant are forbidden, whether that is before marriage (“fornication”) or beyond your marriage (“adultery”). But if you’ve never really understood why, maybe this can help.
God designed humanity for pleasure
Let’s begin here. Often God is cast as the Cosmic Kill-Joy, the Micro-Manager in heaven, making up hard rules to follow, so He can catch us and shame us for it. But this could not be further from the truth. Certainly the Christian must wrestle with reality of suffering in this journey of life, but the Christian must also wrestle with the fact that Scripture continually emphasizes and affirms our desire for happiness. God knows our ultimate joy is not found at the end of the path that we tend to choose for ourselves.
God knows our ultimate joy is not found at the end of the path that we tend to choose for ourselves.
A while ago I was describing this idea to our boys, that humans cannot experience life apart from Jesus Christ, and that any eternal judgment of separation from God would be the continuation of what they chose during their time on earth.
One of our sons boldly pointed out that this sounds like God is self-centred, as though He was saying: “You can’t live without Me. And if you try to, I’ll punish you.” In response I asked him a question,
“Can we live without the sun?”
He knew the answer, “No, of course not.”
“Would it be self-centred of the sun to acknowledge or even announce that? No! It is just a fact. It’s not narrow-minded to say we need the sun in order to live and it wouldn’t be self-serving of the sun, because it is freely giving itself for our good.”
I explained that in the same way, God created us to live dependently upon Himself as our spiritual life source, and freely offers Himself to us. Remember that Jesus taught, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.” But when we seek out a way to life, happiness and fulfillment separate from God’s design (as Genesis 3 tells us that the first man and woman did) we find ourselves cut off from Life itself. God is not trying to ruin our fun; He is directing us to a source of happiness that will last.
As C.S. Lewis famously put it, ““It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
The problem is not that our desire for pleasure is too great, but rather that we settle for too little. We crave cheap dopamine, sugar-highs and the flattery of fools instead of governing ourselves intentionally in order to discover the rewards of greater substance.
The problem is not that our desire for pleasure is too great, but rather that we settle for too little. We crave cheap dopamine, sugar-highs and the flattery of fools instead of governing ourselves intentionally in order to discover the rewards of greater substance.
When it comes to matters of sex, remember that God designed it. It was His great wisdom that involved the nervous system and the euphoric release of hormones that can bring pleasure to both the wife and the husband—and remember the statistical reality that it is the faithful husband and wife who most report highest levels of fulfillment in their sex life in contrast to the sporadic, emotionally wrought sex lives of those who jump from partner to partner or who live wondering how long the relationship will last.
Even beyond the topic of sex, but certainly not excluding it, the pathway to deep, lasting pleasure is a narrow one, riddled with obstacles of our own making, but it is the pathway that God is nudging us forward on, by His Spirit.
God designed humanity for relational intimacy
Often the word intimacy is considered synonymous with having a sexual experience with someone, and though that can certainly be an intimate experience, a more complete understanding of the word intimacy comes from the Latin word “intimus”, which means “inmost” or “deepest within”. As you can see, it carries an emotional component as well. We too quickly forget that we were made in the image of God; because God is a trinitarian being, we find intrinsically within ourselves the desire to be together.
Kiri Ebb writes in her book Love, War and the Mess In-between,
“God really is a committed community of self-giving love that radiates outwards. This delighting-in and upholding each person—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is so deeply connected that God can be called one. We’re made to share in this nourishing love. It’s what we were designed for and who we flourish in.”
“God really is a committed community of self-giving love that radiates outwards. This delighting-in and upholding each person—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is so deeply connected that God can be called one. We’re made to share in this nourishing love. It’s what we were designed for and who we flourish in.”
There is a place for this relational fulfillment within a general community, but in many people there is also a longing to be so close with another being that—even for a little while—the two can be one.
Genesis 2 explains the origin of humanity, the origin of our maleness and femaleness, this way:
“Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
for she was taken out of man.”That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.
Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.”
I find it fascinating that God reached within Adam’s body, took a piece of him and then used that piece to fashion Eve. The one man became two, but then the two parts were reunited to become one again in marriage covenant and sexual union. How beautiful that the culture of the garden, still untouched by sin’s corrupting force, allowed this first man and woman to stand before one another naked and unashamed.
Humanity has been searching for a way to feel naked and unashamed ever since. It is not just a longing for sex (though many have reduced their desire to this physical expression). It is a longing to be fully seen, fully known andfully accepted. I’m realizing more and more that this longing exists within marriage relationships, but also in all of our close relationships. Metaphorically speaking, we hope that we could be naked but not ashamed. That is the quest for intimacy.
1 Peter 4:8 says,
“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins."
While we dwell on this broken planet, with mortal, flawed bodies, longing for the redemption of all things that is promised at Christ’s return, we are in great need of the kind of love that will cover over us. It is a covenant-kind of love that says, “I know you are weak. I see the wear-and-tear that life has caused. I know you are flawed, but I choose you anyway. I will not leave you. I will cover you, and I delight in you.”
The pleasure and intimacy of sex are not ultimate
There is nothing that can compare to the steadfastness of the covenant love of God, but in Ephesians chapter 5 we read about a “profound mystery”: the love and intimacy of a husband and wife—as weak as it may be—is the yearning shadow that reminds us of the love of Christ for his bride, the church.
When some religious teachers asked Jesus if there would be marriage in heaven (which would have obviously included the sexual union between them), Jesus was clear—heaven’s system of relating is different than earth’s. I remember being taken aback when I heard the title of John Piper’s book, “This Momentary Marriage”. The concept is provocative, resisting the cultural ideologies of marriage where we say “together forever” or “you complete me”. The reality is that even the strongest, healthiest marriages will come to an end, either at the point of death or when Christ returns. Though Scriptures emphatically encourage husbands and wives to find pleasure and intimacy in relationship with one another—to freely drink the wine of their love together—we must remember that this wine will eventually run out.
Lately I’ve been reflecting on the first miracle that Jesus ever performed, at a wedding in Cana where he was just an unassuming guest at first. Until the wine ran out. I find it amusing the way his mother cornered him; Mary knew that Jesus had the ability to save the wedding day and she asked him to do so. Sure enough, Jesus transformed the gallons of water contained in those giant jars into new wine. And the master of the banquet was amazed, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”
What a powerful reflection on the nature of Christ. Jesus saves the best for last. He pours out his glory on married couples to help them renew their unity and passion, but in the ultimate display of glory, he will one day welcome the church—his bride—into a heavenly kingdom where we will celebrate with the ultimate wedding feast. Do you remember what it says in Ephesians 5? That desire we have for pleasure, that desire we have for intimacy…they have been set into our souls by God himself. Like pilgrims on a journey with a compass in hand that keeps pointing north, we are merely traversing earth for a time, longing for something that even the most fulfilling marriage cannot give us.
Like pilgrims on a journey with a compass in hand that keeps pointing north, we are merely traversing earth for a time, longing for something that even the most fulfilling marriage cannot give us.
We were designed to be united with God himself, though not at all in a sexual way. Unfortunately because sex has been thoroughly desecrated in our minds, even this idea can seem dishonourable. But, sex and marriage are just the shadow on earth cast by a more true, more solid reality in the unseen realm. We are the Beloved of God; the church is his precious bride that he willingly gave himself up for and is faithfully committed to. I long for the day when Christ will return and all things will be made right, when he will wipe every tear from our eyes and banish all darkness, when the waters of joy will flow steadily from his throne and we will finally be at rest. Striving will cease. We will be together, face to face.
Sex is an act of marriage itself
Now, back to the opening question: why do Christians say that we should not have sex outside of marriage? I think a simplified answer would be because sexual union is literally an act of marriage. God has designed it to be the physical embodiment of the marriage covenant, and every time a husband and wife engage sexually it’s an opportunity for the renewing of their vows. “I give you all of me, and I receive all of you.” Even the physiological impact of sexual encounters proves the design—sex binds us together. To have marriage without sex or sex without marriage is to degrade the relationship. The two are meant to go together.
To have marriage without sex or sex without marriage is to degrade the intended glory of the relationship. The two are meant to go together.
The reality is that because of the presence of sin in this world and in our hearts, not one of us have understood or honoured God’s design for sex in a complete way. We stumble like a blind man, trying to find our way. This is where the good news of Jesus—his perfect life, his sacrificial death and his victorious resurrection—offers us more than we deserve. He offers to cover our shame with his love, to clean our dirty conscience, to heal our traumas, and to walk with us on a journey in holiness.
Remember that God designed you for pleasure and for intimacy, and that He is present to help you learn to find the more true fulfillment for those longings. Yes, in the joy of human relationship, but also in the connection with God himself. This is what sex might be trying to teach you about your faith.