MARRIAGE-PHYSICAL INTIMACY
If love is
the perfect bond of unity, sexual problems may be the red light on the
dashboard of the marriage indicating a lack of biblical love in that marriage. Usually when couples
are expressing and experiencing I Corinthians 13 love, sexual problems are at a
minimum. A fresh application of the type of love which is patient, kind,
humble, compassionate, gentle, forgiving, unselfish, courteous, considerate,
sensitive, truthful, appreciative, and protective will do more to improve sex
relations than reading all of the latest books on methods and techniques. Let
the husband and wife lovingly and joyfully fulfill
their biblical roles toward each other; let them learn to communicate deeply
according to biblical principles, and most of their sexual problems will
evaporate.
Strengthening Your Marriage, P&R
Publishing, 1977, p. 127-128. Used by
Permission.
According to
the Bible, the marriage act is more than a physical act. It is an act of
sharing. It is an act of communion. It is an act of total self-giving wherein
the husband gives himself completely to the wife, and the wife gives herself to
the husband in such a way that the two actually become one flesh.
Wayne Mack
Strengthening Your Marriage, P&R,
1999, p. 120, Used by Permission.
Indeed, the
marriage act is the symbol or culmination of a more complete oneness, of a
total giving of yourself to another person.
Consequently, if the more complete oneness is not a reality, sexual relations
lose their meaning.
Wayne Mack
Strengthening Your Marriage, 1999,
P&R, p. 6, Used by Permission.
Becoming one
flesh is a broad concept involving the totality of life. The context of Genesis
2 and the teaching of the rest of the Bible about marriage demand this. At the
same time, it is generally recognized that there is no place where this total
sharing is more beautifully pictured or fully experienced than in the sexual
relationship of the man and his wife.
Wayne Mack
Strengthening Your Marriage, P&R,
1999, p. 119, Used by Permission.
Sexual
relations within marriage are holy and good (Hebrews 13:4).
1. Pleasure in sexual
relations (like pleasure in eating or in the performance of other bodily
functions) is not forbidden but rather assumed (Proverbs 5:18-19 and Song of
Solomon).
2. Sexual pleasure is
to be regulated by the key principle that one’s sexuality does not exist for
himself or for his own pleasure, but for his partner.
3. Sexual relations are
to be regular and continuous.
4. The principle of
mutual satisfaction means that each party is to provide the sexual enjoyment
which is “due” his or her spouse whenever needed.
5. There is to be no
sexual bargaining.
6. Sexual relationships
are equal and reciprocal.
Harry H. McGee
The Scriptures, Sex, and Satisfaction,
P&R Publishing, 1975. Used by Permission.
Sexual
intercourse is more than a physical act; it is a symbol of a spiritual relationship
and the expression of the complete oneness of two persons in married love… It
is...the means by which they are confirmed and nourished in that union. Sexual
intercourse is the physical establishment and confirmation of that oneness. The
true dignity of sex is in its ability to enhance this personal unity between
two persons who have committed themselves to each other in love and marriage.
In sexual intercourse the couple becomes joined in an indissoluble unity,
called in the Bible “one flesh.”
Dwight Hervey Small
Design for Christian Marriage, Revell, 1971,
p. 46, 96.
It is
important that you let your children in on the fact that there is a sexual
dimension to mom and dad's relationship. Some Christians have the mistaken idea
that their children should never see mom and dad in any intimate embrace. The
result is that the fraudulent affairs on TV and in the lives of wicked people
are the only expressions of sexuality that they ever see. I am not talking
about inviting children into the bedroom, but about the importance of knowing
that there is a sexual dimension to mom and dad's relationship.
Tedd Tripp
Shepherding a Child's Heart, Shepherd
Press, 1995, p. 203.
Sexual
expression within a marriage is not an option or an extra. It is certainly not,
as it has sometimes been considered, a necessary evil in which spiritual
Christians engage only to procreate children. It is far more than a physical
act. God created it to be the expression an experience of love on the deepest
human level and to be a beautiful and powerful bond between husband and wife.
John MacArthur
1 Corinthians, Moody, 1984, p. 157.
Unless
it is by mutual consent, for a specific prayer need and for a brief period of
time, sexual abstinence can become a tool of Satan (1 Cor. 7:5). It is never to be used as pretense
for spiritual superiority or as a means of intimidating or manipulating one's
spouse. Physical love is to be a normal and regular experience shared by both
marriage partners alike, as a gift from God.
John MacArthur
1 Corinthians, Moody, 1984, p. 158.
The only
rightful place for sexual intercourse is within marriage and that those who
marry are sexually active. For them to attempt precipitously to suppress
awakened desires will only expose them to a sexual undertow that will tug them
into a sea of temptation, where they will ultimately drown.
David Garland
1 Corinthians, Baker, 2003, p. 256.
Sex is from
God. He gave it to us as a gift. It’s a wedding gift.
Bill Shannon
A Passion for Purity, Shepherd’s
Conference, 2005, Session #33.
While
standing in line at the grocery story I made the mistake of scanning the covers
of several rather tawdry tabloids. The heading on one of them virtually shouted
at unwary customers: “The Greatest Sex You’ve Ever
Had!” No, I resisted the urge to read the article. Because I have read the
book! The Bible! God, yes God, has a prescription for great sex for His people.
Sam Storms
Copied
from: Pleasures Evermore: The Life-Changing Power of Knowing God by Sam Storms,
© 2000, p. 230. Used by permission of NavPress – www.navpress.org. All rights
reserved.
It is God’s
good plan that sex not be thought of, principally, as a legitimate way to get a
rush, but rather as God’s way of bringing man and wife to the point of greatest
unity and, through that unity, propagating (for Himself) “a godly seed” (Mal.
2:15 KJV).
Timothy B. Bayly
Pastoral Leadership for Manhood and
Womanhood, ed. Wayne Grudem and Dennis Rainey, Crossway, 2002, p. 145.
Husbands and
wives frequently complain that they are having trouble with sex, but the
trouble usually is not with sex. Counselors do not find many difficulties that
have to do with sex alone. The real difficulties in bed at night come from the
fact that all kinds of problems have been carried into bed from the day,
problems that should have been settled before going to bed.
Jay E. Adams
Christian Living in the Home, P&R
Publishing, 1972, p. 36, Used by Permission.
Sex in
Scripture is holy, normal, right, proper and good… There is nothing wrong with
sex; and marriage, indeed, is the proper framework for the expression of it.
Sex according to Scripture, is not unholy of itself,
but only when it is misused. It ought never to be used outside of the covenant
bond. It should be used freely within this structure. God has so ordained. God
strongly encourages sexual relations.
Jay E. Adams
Christian Living in the Home, P&R
Publishing, 1972, p. 50, Used by Permission.
Sex may be
enjoyed, but only according to the Biblical principle that “it is more blessed
to give than to receive.” Indeed, the most enjoyable aspect of sexual
intercourse is not the personal release experience in one’s own orgasm but
rather in the pleasure of satisfying one’s marriage partner. Husbands and wives
are required to satisfy their partners. He may not withhold his body in
order to get even with his wife. She may not use sex as a bargaining factor.
Sexual relations involve giving one’s self freely and fully in love to the
other in order to fulfill the other’s need. Scripture is not prudish about sex,
but some Christians have become prudish. As if they knew more than God!
Christian Living in the Home, P&R
Publishing, 1972, p. 50, Used by Permission.
Many men,
even Christian men, view sexual relations with their wives as little more than
an opportunity to masturbate. They are concerned only with pleasing themselves.
They do not realize that God gave them their sexual organs, not primarily for
their own pleasure, but rather for the pleasure of their wives (1 Cor. 7:4).
They have never learned that in sexual relations, as in all other areas of
life, it is more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 20:35).
Lou Priolo
The
Complete Husband, Calvary Press, 1999, p. 173, www.calvarypress.com.
In
the right setting – that is marriage – sex is a wonderful gift from God. Sex is
given for our good. But God gave sex to be the servant of love and never the
slave of lust. God intends for love to express itself in the commitment of
marriage, and only then for intimacy to unite us in the joys of sexual love.
Richard D. Phillips
and Sharon L. Phillips
Holding
Hands and Holding Hearts, P&R, 2006, p. 143. Used by Permission.
Christians
must confront a sensate culture with the biblical vision of human sexuality.
The Bible offers more than a fallen world can ever imagine, placing sexual
pleasure within the holy covenant of marriage, combining restraint with
passion, pleasure with protection, sense with sensibility.
Albert Mohler
The
Pornographic Seduction, Tabletalk, June 2005, p. 63. Used by Permission.
Sex only
makes sense within the Christian worldview. Christians, alone on earth,
understand by the grace of revelation that God has a purpose for sexuality that
eclipses any human aspiration. At the same time, we understand that sex isn’t
everything and everything isn’t sex.
Albert Mohler
The
Pornographic Seduction, Tabletalk, June 2005, p. 63. Used by Permission.
You don’t
have to be ascetic, and you don’t have to be afraid of the goodness of physical
pleasure, to say that sexual intimacy and sexual climax get their final meaning
from what they point to. They point to ecstasies that are unattainable and
inconceivable in this life. Just as the heavens are telling
the glory of God’s power and beauty, so sexual climax is telling the glory of
immeasurable delights that we will have with Christ in the age to come.
There will be no marriage there (Matt. 22:30). But what marriage meant will be
there. And the pleasures of marriage, ten-to-the-millionth power, will be
there.
John Piper
This
Momentary Marriage – A Parable of Permanence, Desiring God Foundation, 2008, p.
127-128, www.DesiringGod.org.
Jesus’
teaching in general [implies] that happy and fulfilling sexual relations in
marriage depend on each partner aiming to give satisfaction to the other. If it
is the joy of each to make the other happy, a hundred problems will be solved
before they happen.
John Piper
This
Momentary Marriage – A Parable of Permanence, Desiring God Foundation, 2008, p.
134, www.DesiringGod.org.
First, faith
believes God when He says that sexual relations in marriage are good and clean
and should be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the
truth. Second, faith increases the joy of sexual relations in marriage because
it frees us from the guilt of the past. Faith believes the promise that Christ
died for all our sins, that in Him we might have guilt-free, Christ-exalting
sexual relations in marriage. And finally, faith wields the weapon of sexual
intercourse against Satan. A married couple gives a severe blow to the head of
that ancient serpent when they aim to give as much sexual satisfaction to each
other as possible. Is it not a mark of amazing grace that on top of all the
pleasure that the sexual side of marriage brings, it also proves to be a
fearsome weapon against our ancient foe?... It is not surprising then that
Satan’s defeat, Christ’s glory, and our pleasure should come together in this
undefiled marriage bed.
John Piper
This
Momentary Marriage – A Parable of Permanence, Desiring God Foundation, 2008,
p.135, www.DesiringGod.org.
Sex has been
designed by God for His miraculous work of creating new human beings, each with
an immortal soul. The physiology of sex in every detail works to engender new
life. The emotions of sex exist to bring a man and woman together to constitute
a family. Yes, sexuality is distorted by the Fall, so
that lust and fornication can work against God’s purposes and be tainted by
sin, but God’s created order remains.
Gene Edward Veith
A
Depraved New World, Tabletalk, June 2005, p. 10. Used by Permission.
The Bible reveals
at least five purposes for sex in marriage:
1. Procreation (the raising up of a godly seed).
2. To enhance the experience of companionship.
3. To foster physical, as well as spiritual, unity (“one flesh”; Gen. 2:24).
4. Pleasure (Song of Solomon).
5. To curb
fornication and lust (1 Cor. 7).
Sam Storms
Birth Control, November 6, 2006, www.enjoyinggodministries.com. Used by Permission.
Ten Arguments against the use of birth control and a response
to each:
1.
Genesis 1:28; 9:1. But:
a.
If this were a specific
command to every individual, every man and woman would be required to marry.
But clearly marriage is not a universal obligation (Jesus, Paul, 1 Cor. 7).
b.
This text does address
the responsibility to bear children but says nothing about how many or for how
long. Nothing in the text explicitly requires us to have as many children as is
biologically possible.
c.
Gen. 1:28 must be read
in the light of 1:26.
2.
Deut. 23:1 – The argument is that this prohibition reflects God’s
displeasure with any means of birth control. But:
a.
There is nothing to
indicate that these men were castrated as a means of birth control.
b.
In all likelihood, this
refers “not to states of infertility produced by illness or accident, but to
deliberate acts of castration at times associated with pagan worship in the
ancient Near East” (Davis, p. 37).
3.
Genesis 38:6-10 (Deut. 25:5-10). But:
a.
Onan’s sin was not that he violated the general command to have
children, but that he violated the specific obligation in the law of levirate
marriage. His action was sinful not because he used a form of birth control,
but because he disobeyed a legal responsibility to raise
up seed in his deceased brother’s name (probably because he didn’t want to
assume the personal and financial obligation of raising them).
b.
Lev. 20:10-21 lists
specific sexual crimes punishable by death under the Mosaic Code. If coitus interruptus, such as that committed by Onan,
were regarded as an abuse or sin, one would expect to see it in this list.
4.
Psalms 127:3-5; 128:1-6 – No one would dare
disagree that children are a wonderful blessing from the Lord. But:
a.
Why should we conclude
from these texts that we are morally obligated to have as many children as is
biologically possible?
b.
As with all God's
blessings, we must be wise and prudent stewards in the enjoyment of them.
5.
The purpose of sex in marriage is procreational,
not recreational. But:
a.
The Bible reveals at
least [four other] purposes for sex in marriage.
b.
“If sex were intended
only for procreation, then it would be strange that nature has it that women
can procreate less than half of their married life…and then only at a very
limited time each month” (Geisler, p. 215-16).
c.
If this argument were
valid, it would be sinful for a married couple to have sexual relations
subsequent to female menopause or a hysterectomy or in cases where either
husband or wife is sterile.
6.
Birth control is unnatural and artificial. Common sense suggests that the purpose for human sexual organs is
reproduction. Anything that prohibits or interrupts the sex organs from
performing their appointed role is thus sinful. But:
a.
“If the sole purpose of
sexual intercourse is procreation, then why did God give women the desire for
sexual intercourse at times when they cannot become pregnant? Does not the
natural order of things, then, demonstrate that procreation is not the only
purpose of sex?” (Feinbergs, p. 175-176).
b.
We do many so-called unnatural
things that run counter to and hinder so-called nature, none of which any of us
would regard as immoral or unbiblical: shaving, air-travel, mowing the lawn,
etc.
c.
If we consistently
applied this principle we would be forced never to employ medical assistance,
medication, or surgery.
d.
Those who employ this
argument concede the use of the rhythm method and abstinence during times of
ovulation, none of which is itself natural (charting or scheduling intercourse
based on body temperature, etc., is hardly natural; and abstinence runs counter
to the natural sex drive).
7.
Birth control betrays a lack of trust or faith in the sovereignty of God.
He is Lord over the womb. If God wants us to have children, He should be free
to bestow them. If He doesn’t want to, He (and He alone) should have the power
and prerogative to prevent conception. But:
a.
We must be careful that
our trust in God is not simply irresponsible behavior.
b.
If this argument were
consistently applied, we should never work, use locks or alarms on our homes,
save money for emergencies, purchase life or health insurance, wear safety
goggles when using a weed-eater, use sun-screen when outside, or support the
police or national defense.
8.
Birth control has the potential to alter in a destructive way our
concepts and experience of love and commitment. But:
a.
The fact that birth
control may yield negative
consequences does not itself make birth control wrong. The absence of intimacy,
promiscuity, etc., are wrong, not because one may have employed a contraceptive
device, but because such things are declared to be wrong in the Bible.
9.
Birth control encourages promiscuity among both married and unmarried
people. But:
a.
We must distinguish
between an object and the purpose or use to which an object is put. Cars are
not sinful simply because people can use them to escape the scene of a crime
they’ve just committed. The fact that an object can be used for immoral
purposes does not necessarily prove the object is in and of itself immoral.
10.
Birth control devices have negative side-effects and are detrimental to
one’s health. Since our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit, we should not
employ those things that do damage to our physical constitution. But:
a.
If a birth control device is found
conclusively to have physical destructive side-effects, it should not be used. But
such scientific evidence does not exist for all methods of contraception.
Sam Storms
Excerpted from: Birth Control, November 6, 2006, www.enjoyinggodministries.com.
Used by Permission.
Sex
is a sacred act, a gift of God, which is secured and protected by marriage.
Author
Unknown