A Theology of Sex: Sex and the Marriage Bed (Part 1)

Sex and marriage: the two go together like…well, like sex and marriage. What analogy could be more clarifying? Of course, as we’ve intimated in other posts in this series, in our culture the one isn’t necessarily dependent upon the other. That is to say, in our cultural context sex may have nothing at all to do with marriage. And in fact some men complain (whether in jest or not I can’t say) that it is after marriage that sex seems to decline. So, in some cases, marriage and sex don’t really go together at all. But that is not the way God set up the sexual relationship to work. As we’ve talked about the ontological and sociological dimensions of sex we must remember that these two aspects of our sexuality are dependent upon a first primary principle: sex is ultimately about the glory of God. So how we have sex will directly affect whether or not we are honoring the Creator of sex. God established sex to be a unifying act within the bonds of covenant marriage. Sex outside of his design, then, is sin.

Let’s unpack this first by exploring the Scriptural testimony to this principle. Does God really assert that sex is only to be found within the confines of marriage? Let’s start in Genesis and work our way through the Scriptures trying to capture a Biblical theology of sexual intimacy.

Sex in the Old Testament

The dominate sexual ethic found in the Old Testament begins in Genesis 2, where God establishes that a man and woman will become one-flesh. The act of consummation makes two people into one unit. The picture painted for us in this passage suggests that sex is a very powerful tool. We’ve seen how our sexuality is part of who we are and how it was created to help individuals realize relational community. The highest expression of this is the act of sexual intercourse, and the Bible here is suggestive of our need to take that act very seriously.

There is an understood permanence associated with this act of sexual intercourse. Jesus understood that when he reiterated this passage with the additional interpretation: what God has joined together, let no man separate (Matthew 19:6). Even while the Bible makes allowances for divorce (Deuteronomy 24:1) it must be understood that this is not the ideal (Matthew 5:31-32). Marriage is for permanence and sex acts as a major part of creating that permanent bond.

Throughout the Old Testament a number of sexual acts committed outside of marital commitment are condemned. It condemns adultery, where at least one person in a sexual encounter is married to someone else (Exodus 20:14; Leviticus 20:10; Deuteronomy 5:18; Proverbs 6:32; Jeremiah 29:23). It also condemns acts such as rape (Deuteronomy 22:25-27) and prostitution (Leviticus 19:29).

The most prominent way in which this subject is discussed, however, is by means of an analogy. Israel’s frequent idolatry is cast in terms of physical adultery, prostitution, and fornication. She is often portrayed as lying with men who are not her husband, exposing herself to passers-by, and selling her body to vile men. Ezekiel and Hosea are two books in particular which develop this theme.

¹² My people inquire of a piece of wood, and their walking staff gives them oracles. For a spirit of whoredom has led them astray, and they have left their God to play the whore.  ¹³ They sacrifice on the tops of the mountains and burn offerings on the hills, under oak, poplar, and terebinth, because their shade is good. Therefore your daughters play the whore, and your brides commit adultery.  ¹⁴ I will not punish your daughters when they play the whore, nor your brides when they commit adultery; for the men themselves go aside with prostitutes and sacrifice with cult prostitutes, and a people without understanding shall come to ruin.  ¹⁵ Though you play the whore, O Israel, let not Judah become guilty. Enter not into Gilgal, nor go up to Beth-aven, and swear not, “As the LORD lives.” (Hosea 4:12-15)

This strong sexual ethic present in the Old Testament receives even further treatment and development in the New Testament.

Sex in the New Testament

We’ve already seen how Jesus assumes the original intent of the sexual relationship is within the confines of the permanent union of marriage (Matthew 19:6), but this ethic receives even further development among his disciples. Paul especially touches on the fact that fornication, sex outside of marriage between two unmarried people, is sin. The fact that he so frequently makes passing mention of it without thorough discussion gives strong evidence to its being the accepted ethic in the church.

Paul writes that fornicators will be judged by God and that those who indulge in such sin will not enter the God’s Kingdom (see Hebrews 13:4; 1 Corinthians 6:9). And for Paul there is a very strong foundational reason why fornication is sin: it dishonors the redemption Christ achieved for us. He gives two specific developments of this point, it is worth considering both.

The first passage says that for the redeemed to fornicate is to include Jesus in sin. Paul writes about this in 1 Corinthians 6. He writes:

Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never!  ¹⁶ Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.”  ¹⁷ But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.  ¹⁸ Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.  ¹⁹ Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own,  ²⁰ for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. (1 Corinthians 6:15-20)

We defile the Temple of the living God by enjoining ourselves to a prostitute. Fornication is a sin against the body and against the Lord of that body.

The second passage more compellingly than any other illustrates that horror of sexual sin by comparing the marital relationship to Christ’s relationship with the church, his bride. In his letter to the Ephesians Paul writes that husbands are to act like Christ, and wives are to act like the church (Ephesians 5:22-32). The parallel implies that the marriage is meant to point people to the gospel. By implication, then, sexual sin in marriage lies about what Christ’s relationship with the church is like.

Fornication, then, needs to be clearly seen in the New Testament as a sin that points people away from the gospel. Uniting yourself to someone who is not your spouse (which is what Paul is addressing in 1 Corinthians 6) is a spiritual sin and not just a physical one.

The whole Biblical teaching on sex and marriage is succinctly summarized by Hebrews 13:4

⁴ Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.

The marriage bed is the place for proper, Biblical sex. “Holding it in honor” will be our next point of discussion.