We live in a world saturated with sex. But are we missing an unrealized
dimension when it comes to sex and marriage? When and how did sex originate-and
why?
by Noel Horner
How would you describe our age? Sociologists have used various labels to define
the mood or mentality of the world we live in. For example, some say that an
"age of anxiety" followed World War II. That era was followed by an "age of
melancholy." More recently we hear terms such as the "computer age" or the
"information age."
If we define an era by what people have most on their minds, the most accurate
description of our time is the age of sex. None of us can remember a time when
sex has been more openly flaunted with so many people obviously obsessed with
the subject.
Sexual awareness has always existed. It is natural in the human mind. But today
it is incessantly stimulated by sex-saturated news and entertainment media.
Sexual content is not only blatantly displayed, but objects that have no
sexuality are labeled as sexy - from cars to computers and beverages to body
lotions.
Is this the way we should treat sexuality?
We're in a kind of sexual wilderness, lacking right directions and guidelines.
Sadly, this situation has cost societies dearly in many major ways - in
financial losses, health crises, marriage and family breakdowns and a lack of
sexual fulfillment and happiness.
Few understand the purpose of sex. They are told that sex is an evolutionary
accident. Therefore they assume that anything goes as long as it occurs between
consenting adults. But that approach is naive. It is an unsubstantiated
assumption that avoids candidly addressing the question of where sex and
marriage came from.
The simple and often overlooked answer is that God reveals that He created both
sex and marriage. His reasons for doing so are nothing short of wonderful.
Ignorance of God's purpose for sex has brought about enormous problems.
Why did God create sex and marriage? Let's consider the reasons.
The first purpose
Perhaps the most obvious of God's purposes for sex and marriage is for the
reproduction of the human species. Notice the first statement in the Bible about
God's creation of man: "So God created man in His own image; in the image of God
He created him; male and female He created them" (Genesis 1:27, emphasis added
throughout).
The statement that God created them male and female is the first reference to
human sexuality. God created the sexes; it wasn't an evolutionary accident. (If
you'd like to read proof that God exists and Darwinian evolution is but a
modern-day myth, be sure to request the free booklets Life's Ultimate Question:
Does God Exist? and Creation or Evolution: Does It Really Matter What You
Believe?)
Next we read: "Then God blessed them, and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and
multiply; fill the earth and subdue it ...'" (verse 28). The statement that men
and women are to reproduce is part of the blessing that God pronounces in this
verse.
An air of sacredness permeates the process described here. God gave a blessing
to the creation of children through a loving sexual relationship. God sanctified
sexual relations between married men and women, in that the first command He
gave Adam and Eve was to begin an intimate sexual relationship and reproduce!
God essentially repeats His command in Genesis 2:24, adding another crucial
thought: "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his
wife, and they shall become one flesh." In speaking these words, God formally
created the institutions of marriage and family. Since God created and commanded
these relationships, marriage and the family are holy institutions, not mere
creations of human society.
We see here God's obvious intent that children should be conceived and born into
a family relationship, a family consisting of a husband and wife.
Historically this has been the norm. But the last several decades have produced
a drastic departure from God's pattern. People have tried to redefine the family
in all kinds of ways.
Make no mistake: God's Word reveals it is a serious blunder to profane sex and
marriage in this way, even as societies are already experiencing the bitter
fruits of people trying to do things their own way. God's reasons for creating
sex include the purpose of reproduction. But His specific intent is that it
should occur within the divine institution of marriage.
Part of God's plan
Though God created our sexuality and ordained sexual relations between married
men and women to populate the earth, this was only the first part of God's
ultimate vision for humanity. God desires to fill the earth with human beings
who can eventually enter His own spirit family. The physical human family,
brought about through marriage, is a model of God's spirit-composed family of
the future.
God sent His Son into the world so all could eventually have eternal life
through Him. "... The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord"
(Romans 6:23). His Word reveals that "the Lord is ... not willing that any
should perish but that all should come to repentance" (2Peter 3:9). All men are
appointed to die once (Hebrews 9:27), but afterward all who will repent of their
sins can receive eternal life through a resurrection.
Those who are given life through a resurrection will be the children of God,
possessing eternal spirit life, as God is spirit (John 4:24). Those who now
repent, are baptized and receive God's Spirit (Acts 2:38) are actually called
children of God at this time, though not yet immortal. "The Spirit itself
beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God" (Romans 8:16,
King James Version).
Hebrews 2:10 tells us that God's ultimate purpose is to bring "many sons (and
daughters, 2Corinthians 6:18) to glory." This "glory" will include immortal
spirit life as children of God.
God designed human reproduction through sex as a means to populate the earth.
But His eventual intent is to bring as many of the billions who have been born -
those who will repent - into His family as spiritual children. In a sense He,
too, is reproducing Himself.
Therefore, we can see that reproduction of human beings has two purposes - to
give physical life now to our posterity and to provide the potential for many
children of God to receive eternal spirit life.
The human process of reproduction is a physical type, a model, if you will, of
what God is doing on the spiritual level. This grand design is the marvelous
purpose God is working out on earth.
This plan is sometimes referred to in the Bible as the "mystery" of the Kingdom
of God. It is a mystery because only a tiny minority of humanity presently
understands it, the majority being ignorant of what the Bible reveals on the
subject. (You can learn much more by requesting our free booklet What Is Your
Destiny?)
Showing love in marriage
Sex in the human and animal kingdoms serves the purpose of reproduction, but in
virtually all animal species reproduction is the only purpose. In observing the
habits of higher animals, we can see that, except for those periods in the
female's cycle when she is susceptible to fertilization through the sexual act,
only a very few species of animals ever engage in sexual intercourse at all.
With human beings, however, sexual interest between men and women isn't
restricted to the woman's fertility period, either on a monthly basis or over
the life of the human being. Typically humans develop a strong interest in sex
beginning at least by puberty and may, if they remain healthy, stay sexually
active long after their reproductive years.
God created a continuing sexual interest and sexual appeal in human beings. This
in itself is a healthy trait of the human mind and is triggered by hormones that
God designed the body to produce.
But why? God created this sustained interest in sex as a means for men and women
to express love in marriage.
This is one of the great purposes for sex that many have failed to understand. A
look at history reveals that we're no further along in understanding this aspect
of God's design than were many bygone cultures.
Some men in ancient Greece seem to have viewed marriage with distaste and
submitted to it primarily to have a housekeeper and produce progeny. The idea of
having deep love for one's wife seems to have appeared foreign to many Greek
men. Demosthenes, the Greek orator of the fourth century B.C., illustrated his
opinion of the low social status of wives this way: "Mistresses we keep for
pleasure, concubines for daily attendance upon our persons and wives to bear us
legitimate children and be our housekeepers" (quoted by Morton Hunt, The Natural
History of Love, 1994, p. 25).
Marriage and sex in the Roman Empire bore many similarities to Greece. Money and
power were often motives for marriage. "Roman love as it emerged in the second
and first centuries B.C. involved a variety of possible unions, all of them
outside of marriage. The only illegal one was adultery, but up-to-date Romans
favored it above all others, regarding it much as modern man regards cheating on
his income-tax return" (Hunt, pp. 66-67).
The degeneration of sex and family life contributed significantly to the decline
and eventual collapse of the empire.
Distorted views of sex and marriage
Some of the leaders in the early centuries of the Christian religion advocated
views that caused marriage and sex to be held in low regard. Augustine, of the
fourth century, wrote: "I have decided that there is nothing I should avoid so
much as marriage. I know nothing which brings the manly mind down from the
heights more than a woman's caresses and that joining of bodies without which
one cannot have a wife" (Christian History, 2000, Vol. 19, Issue 3, p. 36).
Augustine made this comment shortly after his conversion. Eventually he rose to
a high position in the Catholic Church, and it wasn't long before his views and
those of others resulted in marriage and sex being regarded as a less-honorable
state than celibacy. The church came to erroneously teach that the sole purpose
of sex was reproduction.
But was this all that God intended?
Certainly not! God designed the male and female bodies to provide pleasure in
marriage. Regrettably, one of the tragic results of distorted religious views
stipulating that sex was given solely for reproduction was that it often caused
enormous guilt in married couples who engaged in sexual behavior as an
expression of their love for each other, as God intended.
It's long been a common practice among men to manipulate women just to obtain
sexual favors from them. Women in turn manipulate men so they can get something
in return. Sadly, this practice is still common even in the relationship between
some husbands and wives. When such selfish attitudes persist in a marriage, at
least one and possibly both mates use sex to get something, even if it is
nothing more than sensual gratification, rather than to give and express love.
Genuine love, as God designed it, is an act of giving. In marriage it is
cherishing one's mate. It is an eagerness to please, help and encourage.
As we noted earlier, God's first command recorded in the Bible is that man
should "be fruitful and multiply" (Genesis 1:28). In Genesis 2:24 we see another
command: that, after leaving the families of their birth and forming their own
family through marriage, they should "become one flesh" (verse 24). God's
directive that they should become one flesh means specifically that they should
become one through sexual union, although the expression also has spiritual
implications affecting every aspect of married life.
Next the Bible states that "they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were
not ashamed" (verse 25). This shows that the sexual relationship, as God created
it, was intended as completely pure and wholesome. In Hebrew, the language of
the Old Testament, sexual intercourse is described as "knowing." This is because
there is no more intimate act than the sexual act, and, by its nature, it can
greatly enhance understanding of one another's emotions and feelings and promote
exquisite companionship and unity.
Some have mistakenly believed that, after Adam and Eve sinned, purity was
removed from marital relations. This is refuted by many scriptures supporting
marriage, including Jesus' reaffirmation in Matthew 19:4-6 that men and women
should marry and become one flesh.
Sex: designed to express love
That sex is a means of expressing love is made plain in Paul's epistle to the
Ephesians. "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church, and
gave Himself for her,... that she should be holy and without blemish. So
husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies ... For this reason
a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two
shall become one flesh" (Ephesians 5:25-31).
What does Paul say is the purpose of marriage and of becoming one flesh through
sex? The purpose is love.
Sex, like any gift of God, can be misused. The tendency among human beings
through the ages has been to succumb to the pull of sex appetites outside the
bounds of marriage.
However, this is a misuse of the gift of sex that God clearly labels as sin.
Many in society see no harm in premarital or extramarital sex. But the Bible
calls these actions fornication and adultery, offenses serious enough to deserve
the death penalty (Leviticus 20:10; compare Romans 6:23). The Seventh
Commandment (Exodus 20:14) forbids such behavior, and the Bible states elsewhere
that "fornicators and adulterers God will judge" (Hebrews 13:4).
Many are aware that marriage should be a relationship built on love. One thing
many people do not realize is that the relationship between a husband and wife
should provide a mirror image of the loving relationship between Christ and His
Church. After speaking of a man and his wife becoming one flesh in Ephesians
5:31, Paul said, "This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the
church" (verse 32).
Jesus Christ had a totally self-sacrificing love for the Church, a love so deep
that He died for her. Marriage is supposed to be a picture of this great love.
Human marriage is imperfect, to be sure. Nevertheless Jesus' love for the Church
is the kind of loving relationship marriage is intended to portray.
In the physical realm a man and woman become one flesh in marriage. In a
Christian's relationship with Christ, he or she becomes spiritually "joined to
the Lord (and) is one spirit with Him" (1Corinthians 6:17). The genuinely loving
"one flesh" relationship of marriage parallels the close "one spirit"
relationship we are to have with Christ.
Paul calls this marvelous truth a "great mystery." The word for "great" in Greek
is mega. It expresses the magnitude or the profound nature of the mystery. It is
called a mystery because so few understand this truth.
When we comprehend God's incredibly high view of marriage as revealed in the
Bible, it should inspire us to treasure marriage as never before. We should
commit ourselves to continually improving our marriages, striving for a
relationship that seeks to emulate - on the human level - the deep, timeless
love Christ has for the Church.
We should also strive to be completely faithful to our husband or wife in mind
and body. No one should ever become one flesh with anyone else but his or her
marriage partner. This alone produces a wholesome relationship fit to engender
and rear healthy and happy children (see Malachi 2:15). This alone produces the
kind of marriage and family life God wants us to experience. GN