Tag Archives: sexual union

The Creator’s Plan for Safe Sex (Moral Crisis #13)

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A Logic Lesson

To define a word, clarify a concept, or articulate a moral principle we must grasp both what it is and what it isn’t, what it includes and what it excludes. Stating what something isn’t without saying what it is gives us no precise idea of what we are talking about. If I tell you, “It’s not a mouse! It’s not a chair! It’s not a star or a glove or a tree” etc., I have not helped you at all to know what it is. However if I tell you what something is, I’ve implicitly let you know what it is not. If I let you know that I am thinking of a coffee cup, you also know that I am not thinking of a horse, a blade of grass, or my best friend in grade school. I don’t have to list all the things of which I am not thinking. You would never dream of complaining that because I did not list my laptop among the things about which I am not thinking, that I left you in the dark on that issue!

Now let’s apply this logic to the question of the biblical understanding of the place and limits on sexual activity. If your approach to this question consists only of discovering and listing every type of sexual activity forbidden in the Bible, you will never get a clear understanding of sexual morality in the Bible. It’s unreasonable to assume that all excluded behaviors must be named—and perhaps described and differentiated—any more than you should expect that I name everything that is not a coffee cup for you to get a clear idea of what I am thinking! It is unreasonable to argue that because a particular sexual behavior or relationship is not listed in a list of forbidden things, that it is therefore permitted.

The Purpose, Place, and Function of Sex

What, then, according the Bible is the purpose of sex? What is its proper place and function? If we get a clear idea of right use of sex, we won’t have to deliberate over an extensive and ever-growing list of misuses of sex. Let me remind you that this question will make no sense to those outside my target audience, those I described earlier in series as thinking about their identities in psychologized, sexualized, and politicized categories. Those who fit this description acknowledge no overarching moral order to which they should conform. So, for them sex has no objective purpose or place or proper function. Purpose, identity, and meaning derive from the inner self and vary from individual to individual.

But for confessing Christians, who take the Bible seriously, the question of the proper place and function and true purpose of sex makes perfect sense. For God is the creator, sustainer, providential guide, and savior of the human person, body and soul. Our true identity is found in Christ. We know there is a meaningful moral order to which we are obligated to submit. What, then, is the proper place and function and true purpose of sex?

In the teaching of Jesus and the New Testament authors,* the proper place and function and true purpose of sex is realized only within life-long, loving marriage, between one man and one woman. All sexual liaisons outside marriage are by definition are forbidden. You don’t have to list these non-conforming sexual acts or agonize in efforts to prove them wrong or justify them as permitted. I will address these futile efforts in upcoming essays. Now I want to remind you of Jesus’s and the apostles’ teaching on marriage.

Jesus deals with marriage on a few occasions. I will quote from his discussion of divorce in Matthew 19:3-9:

3 Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”

4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

7 “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”

8 Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

The subject here is divorce. And Jesus makes it clear that divorce is an evil, an evil that Moses tolerated but that he does not. No no-fault divorce here! Hard hearts, unloving and stubborn, are not allowed. In Jesus’s teaching divorce comes under the same condemnation as adultery. Jesus quotes Genesis 2:24, rooting marriage in the creative purpose of God. But Jesus adds an assertion and a command not found in Genesis: “Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate” (Matt 19:6; also in Mark 10:9). Marriage is not merely a human agreement made for human purposes. The involvement of God makes it part of a sacred order, and no one has the right to dissolve it.

Paul also deals with marriage in several places, but I will limit myself to Ephesians 5:28-33:

28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body. 31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”[c] 32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

In this passage Paul also quotes Genesis 2:24. And he also sees marriage as integrated into the sacred order. He calls it a “profound mystery.” The union between husband and wife spoken of in Genesis images the spiritual union between the risen Christ and his people, who are his body. And for those in Christ, it also participates in that mystery. For this reason the union between husband and wife should be a union of self-sacrificial love.

In Hebrews 13:4, we find a short but clear affirmation that marriage is the proper place for sexual intimacy and a severe condemnation of its violation:

4 Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.

Conclusion

Knowing the clear biblical teaching that life-long, loving marriage between one man and one woman is the proper place for sexual intimacy to achieve its created and redemptive purpose answers a thousand questions about what is forbidden without agonizing, cynical, or sophistical debates.

*Note: We are speaking in these essays of “Christian” sexual ethics, and Christian sexual ethics cannot be derived from Old Testament texts unless they are filtered through the teaching of Jesus and those whom he taught. This is very clear in the text in Matthew 19, which I quoted above. Jesus abrogates Moses’ teaching on divorce and reasserts the creation ideal.

The Spiritual Dimension of Sex: Body, Soul and Sex (#2)

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God created our world. Nothing in it is evil in its sheer existence apart from its use. Rivers, oceans, mountains, sun, moon and stars! From galaxies to fireflies, everything is good. Plants and animals are good. Human beings as God’s creatures are good, body and soul. As Genesis says, human beings are made in the “image and likeness of God.” The image of God refers not simply to the mind or soul alone, nor to the body alone. It refers to the whole human being. Because human beings possess intelligence they can “see” God’s character, perceive his will, and know his truth. And because they possess the ruling power of reason, they can do his will even against resistance.

But because they possess bodies they can make these divine qualities visible and active in the world of creatures. Human beings are meant to be the rulers and caretakers of the created world. As body, we share in the nature of all other creatures, but as soul we are open to the Creator of all things. As the union of body and soul, our God-given task is to reorient the time-bound, circular order of nature to the spiritual order, to integrate it and elevate it into this higher order. Everything praises God by its sheer existence and beauty. But in us creation becomes conscious of itself and God and finds itself praising its Creator. We are called to be the priesthood and choir of creation. What an amazing calling!

In our role as priests of creation, our bodies acquire a sacred meaning. The human body is the first sphere of created nature to be spiritualized and reorient to God. The body, like the rest of creation, is time-bound and circular in its ordinary order. Our task is to break open that futile order and make our bodies holy temples that ring with praise to the Creator and shine with divine light. We serve as priests for the rest of universe by making our own bodies the first fruits of a spiritualized creation, examples in miniature of the destiny of the whole creation. In spiritualizing our bodies—and through our bodies the whole creation—we do not destroy the created order of nature; rather, we direct the natural order to its supernatural destiny.

But what about sex? If God calls us to become priests of creation and to make our bodies into holy temples that anticipate the eternal destiny of the creation, how does sex fit into it?  We have many urges. Some urges move us toward things and some repel us away from things. We want to live, breath, eat and drink, and experience sexual union. We fear pain and death. We usually think of these urges as located primarily in the body because of their instinctual and unthinking nature and because we share them with other animals. Other desires and fears are associated with the soul, for example, desire for approval and fear of rejection.

But the strict division of body and soul is artificial, and this becomes obvious when we consider sex. The desire for sexual union is multidimensional. The obvious natural end of sexual union is reproduction. Though physical pleasure accompanies sexual union, it is clearly not its natural end. It is a means and motive. Higher animals usually take care of their offspring and nurture them until they can fin for themselves, but animal parents cannot understand that their offspring come from sexual union. They cannot consciously decide to mate in order to have offspring. Hence the physical urge for sexual union in animals is purely instinctual and irresistible. The end achieved by nature was not sought by the animals themselves.

Human beings, too, possess the physical urge for sexual union. But the rational and spiritual dimensions of human beings dramatically transform the urge for sexual union by placing it into a radically different context. For human beings, too, the natural end of sexual union is a child, and this end should never be forgotten or rejected. But human beings, in contrast to animals, know about this natural end and, hence, can consciously adopt it as their own personal end. Physical desire precedes union, but for human beings sexual desire is not purely instinctual, and it is not irresistible.

Physical pleasure accompanies sexual union, but the pleasure is not purely physical. Human beings can receive joy from giving pleasure to each other and hence raise physical pleasure, which is limited to each individual’s body, to a spiritual act of love and union. But sexual union in its spiritual dimension cannot be isolated from the whole relationship between the two. In sexual union one enters that most intimate and tender area of human soul where dwell our deepest needs for approval and presence and our equally deep fears of rejection and abandonment. Great care must be taken. For human beings, sexual union is a soul-damaging lie unless it is also a symbol of a life of self-giving.

The idea of reserving sexual union to a man and woman committed to life-long, loving marriage is not an ideological construct of a by-gone era. It is the life form love must take to realize itself fully in this relationship. It’s part of our task of spiritualizing and reorienting creation to its supernatural end. And it is the only way to elevate sexual union to a level worthy of human beings who are made in the image of God, body and soul. Only eternal self-giving love can make sexual union a means of transforming our bodies into temples of the Holy Spirit. Only by treating our bodies and the bodies of others as sacred objects can we fulfill our vocation as priests of creation.

To be continued…