What Does the Bible Teach On Sex?
Does the Bible teach that we should not have sex before marriage? Can the modern day church change that? What about homosexuality? Is a gay minister married to another
man okay as long as he loves him?
When it comes to morality and spiritual life, God’s Word hasn’t changed in modern day. Just like with the early Church who dealt with immoral cultures who were prone to fornication (Acts 15:29), we have to do the same. Sex without marriage is considered fornication (Gr. porneia, pornos, etc.)
1 Cor 7:2 “Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband.” It clearly states that sex before marriage is a part of the definition of sexual immorality. In fact, all Bible passages that condemn sexual immorality as being sinful also condemn sex before marriage.
Within the confines of the marriage bed, sex is basically unrestricted (as long as a person doesn’t violate their conscience), while sex outside of marriage is immoral. “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.” (Hebrews 13:4)
It’s not marriage vows that cause two people to become “one flesh”. It’s intercourse, “Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body [with her]? For “the two,” He says, “shall become one flesh” (1 Cor 6:16). For this reason, each time a person has sex with someone and then moves on, it’s like tearing flesh apart, just like divorce. And that’s why it’s so painful for at least one of the persons.
Revelation 14:4 assumes that unmarried Christian men who desire to be faithful are not having sex.
More scriptures: 1 Cor 10:8 >>> Num 25:1-9; 2 Corinthians 12:21; Galatians 5:19; Acts 15:20; Ephesians 5:3; Colossians 3:5; 1 Thessalonians 4:3
Homosexuality is included in fornication, along with many other deviances.
God made them male and female and designed marriage between man and woman, “From the beginning of creation, God ‘made them male and female’” (Genesis 1:27) … “‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’” (Mark 10:6-8, Genesis 2:24).
The husband / wife relationship is actually a holy symbol of Christ and the Church, joined together for a special, holy union:
Eph 5:2-3, 22-32 “And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma. 3 But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints; … 22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. 24 Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so [let] the wives [be] to their own husbands in everything. 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, 26 that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, 27 that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. 28 So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord [does] the church. 30 For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. 31 “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
It is absurd and sinful to twist God’s design of marriage. It’s not about love, because humans allow themselves to love all sorts of lusts and flesh desires. It’s about righteousness and about resisting the devil’s temptation to twist truth for our own pleasure. It’s one thing to fight and struggle with deviant temptation. It’s another to disbelieve God’s Word and fall for Satan’s deception, 2Ti 2:25-26 “In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; 26 And [that] they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.”
Homosexuality is a sin. Christians who have given themselves to it are in grave danger. They may not immediately forfeit their salvation, because God gives us space to repent. And God doesn’t immediately remove all of His goodness from their lives. So they are under the impression that it’s okay. But if they will be honest inside their spirit, their conscience will be screaming at them to stop. Because if they continue hardening their heart regarding blatant deviation from God’s Word, their conscience will be seared and they’ll lose all desire to repent and may eventually reject Christ, “speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron” (1 Tim 4:2).
One clear example of a Christian living in sin who is still saved is the fornicator Paul addresses in 1 Cor Ch 5. Because this brother wouldn’t repent from his known sin (known by all the church), Paul said, “deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus” (1 Cor 5:5). Here’s the picture: a disobedient brother being turned over so Satan could destroy his flesh with some sort of suffering, with the hope that either the brother would repent and start living right. Or that the guy would even die (before hardening his heart to the point of rejecting Christ), so that his spirit would still be saved. So, a sinful Christian killed prematurely by Satan and still saved in the end is better than that Christian being left in rebellion for many years during which his heart hardens to the point of no return. We have to accept this into our theology somehow.
We have mercy on people who are struggling with sin and desiring freedom. But the “minister” who is willingly and publicly gay is very wrong.
