| | A Biblical View of Sex
Intro
Have you ever seen something in nature that was so beautiful that for a moment you were totally captivated by it- something like the Grand Canyon or Niagara Falls or maybe something as simple as a sunset over the ocean? It was so beautiful that you wanted to become a part of it, to reach out and touch it and become one with it, but you couldn’t. You were left with a great sense of longing, but no way for it to be fulfilled. Sex in some way is the one thing this side of heaven that gives us that chance- the chance to be united with beauty and become one with it. What’s more is that this beauty is a living person with personality and life and love. Not only is there the possibility of fulfilling your own desire of being united with beauty, but if things are ideal this beauty actually desires you as well! It almost sounds too good to be true, but it isn’t. We were created for this!
Why we crave sex
According to the Biblical account of creation mankind was made in the image of God. This means that man was made with the capacity to know and relate to God. We also know that God made Adam and then made Eve so that Adam would not be alone. From the beginning it is evident that we were made for relationship with God and each other. Without this capacity for relationship we would be machines. It’s hard to imagine two machines longing for one another and falling in love, but without God how can something like love be accounted for? On the other hand, if God is love like the Bible says He is and He created people with a similar capacity to experience love then there is a reason behind what we feel and there is significant meaning behind sex. If we leave God out, then there are only two options. Either love just appeared out of nothing- which doesn’t make any sense- or there is no such thing as love and we really are just machines. Somehow that doesn’t begin to explain the magnitude of our incredible longing to be united with beauty. Our sexual longing is so strong that it points to something beyond ourselves and not something less. The greatness of sex demands a great explanation. If that something beyond us is God then we have a desire for sex because we were made in the image of God with the capacity to relate. Sex is relationship in its most intimate form.
Marriage is necessary
Do you ever remember being a kid on the playground playing a game of basketball and having someone suggest that you play without fouls or out of bounds? It may have sounded like a fun idea at first, but before you knew it the game could hardly be called basketball. Whether you could shoot, dribble and pass well didn’t seem to matter. Your freedom to shoot was no longer protected and instead the game was destroyed. At best it had become a very sorry version of football! Imagine the seventh game of the NBA Finals being played with out any referees. It would never happen simply for the integrity of the game. So what about the integrity of sex? What rules and boundaries do we have set up to guarantee that sex will be fun, fair, and even healthy? It is easy to jump under the banner of safe sex by just using a condom, but does that really make everything safe? If all it took was a condom to make sex safe then we would be denying what it means to be human. Essentially, that we are more than flesh and blood. There has to be a way to safeguard the total person and not just the physical. What if some guy told you that he wanted to have sex with your sister and his only reason was because she’s hot? She is more than a hot body- she is your sister. You know her as a person with real hopes and dreams, and if any guy is going to get with her he better prove that he sees her as something more than sexual candy. So if he really loves her and sees her as more than a sex object how can he prove it? First, he better be willing to take the time to get to know her family and her friends and gain their approval. Having done that he better be willing to stand before all of them plus his own family and friends, and with a ring say to her, “I promise to love you until death do us part.” He might argue that it’s too high of a price for a night of pleasure, but he would be missing the whole point. If he really loves her, then he won’t reduce her solely to a means of pleasure. Guided by the love you have for your sister you have shown him what constitutes a foul and what you consider out of bounds. If he’ll play by the rules, then game on. Enjoy the honeymoon! Marriage is absolutely essential to a great sex life. Sure, it sets up walls, but they are the walls of a playground!
Culture fails to be a credible guide for sexual morality
Marriage may be the right context for sex, but what does that say about all those having sex outside of marriage? Is it wrong? Fifty years ago in American culture most people thought it was. Now, much of our culture accepts it as normal, but there still remains an element of Bible-believing Christians that say it’s wrong. Why have their views of sexual morality not changed along with the majority of culture? The answer is simple. In the Bible after God created everything including sex, He stepped back and concluded that all that He had made was good. If God is real and He is good then how can one improve or change His design for sex within marriage? The answer is that one can’t. This is why the views of Bible believing Christians have not changed with culture. In truth, the bigger question is for those who don’t have an absolute moral basis. When God is taken out of the equation and our existence is accounted for by the evolution of some primordial slime then human dignity really is in jeopardy. There is no way to explain where intellect, personality and emotion come from. They must be an illusion. Humans are left as a chance make-up of cells. Finally, if that is true what prevents the stronger from forcing sex with the weaker? Couldn’t that be excused as survival of the fittest? Unfortunately it doesn’t stop here. What if fifty years from now sex between adults and children is decided to be okay as long as there is mutual consent? On what basis could it be judged? How can a chance make-up of cells be held accountable for doing anything wrong? These are difficult questions, but when God given guidelines for sexuality are discarded and culture defines its own rules these questions must be asked.
Conclusion
In his essay, The Weight of Glory, C. S. Lewis writes, "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."
There really is something to be learned here. When we fool around with sex outside of the context which God has given us to enjoy it in we demean the whole experience. We lose the opportunity to enjoy it to its fullest, but more importantly we lose the ability to see that as great as sex is it points to something even greater!
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| | Posted 12/16/2007 12:55 PM - 117 Views - 4 eProps - 2 comments
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