Sexual Health in the Bible

Sexual Health in the Bible

God the Father intends that sexual activity be conducted only between husband and wife. The Bible takes a categorical and unequivocal stand against non-marital sex and condemns any other sexual practice.

Exodus 20:14, “You shall not commit adultery.”

Hebrews 13:4, “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge.”

Judges 16:6, So Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me where your great strength is and how you may be bound to afflict you.”

Proverbs 6:32, The one who commits adultery is lacking sense; he who would destroy himself does it.

God the Father’s Care For Us

A child profits by obeying his parents. A child does not understand many of life’s problems. A child does not anticipate dangers. A child is not aware of the potential fallout from his actions.

Parents have experience and wisdom - some gained the hard way, through making painful mistakes or by committing sins and recovering. But human parents are sometimes too lax or too strict with children - and certainly parents do not know everything.

God the Father does know everything about us, and He has an attitude of perfect love toward us - so He always has our best interests in mind. He is neither too lax nor too strict. We should trust Him and obey Him implicitly.

Human society is complex, made up of people who are complex. Each person has a soul made up of a mental and emotional structure containing areas of strength and weakness and possessing trends toward morality or licentiousness, all coupled with a physical nature that is hard to understand or control.

Society is a matrix of individual complex souls. Each individual is unique, but there is an underlying common structure in the souls of all people.

God not only knows everything about us, He also knows all about the society we live in. He has established in the Bible a perfectly balanced set of societal standards based on His omniscience and His plan of grace.

God loves our nation and wants the best for it (as He does for all nations). His laws concerning marriage, divorce, and sexual activity are designed to help families and nations prosper, have peace, and function as a lighthouse of the gospel.

Sexual promiscuity brings harm to everyone concerned - the participants, their families, the community, and the nation. In the Old Testament times, both murder and adultery were punishable by death, because both were crimes that devastated the community and the nation, shown by many examples, including the well-known case of David and Bathsheba.

God’s Plan for Glorifying Christ

The most important part of God’s plan is that the Lord Jesus Christ be glorified in the world, so that every human being will have an opportunity to make a decision to accept Christ as Savior. Therefore, when we say that Christ is glorified during the Church Age, we are saying that Christ is the celebrated Person of the Church Age, the focus of attention.

For this reason, one of the Holy Spirit’s main functions during the Church Age is to glorify Christ and to make Him known to all people.

John 16:13,14, “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He shall glorify Me; for He shall take of Mine, and shall disclose it to you.

It is also the responsibility of Christians to glorify Christ by their own lives; and the Holy Spirit provides the power for us to be able to do that. The believer’s body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and this glorification occurs on the inside of the believer.

1 Cor. 6:19,20 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.

One of the most important and effective ways to glorify Christ is in Christian marriage. Marriage is a picture of the relationship of the Lord Jesus Christ to His Bride, the Church, the Body of Christ, including all Christians. Christ loves Christians and provides everything for them. It is imperative that believers and non-Christians be able to have a clear picture of this relationship, and Christian marriage is one of the clearest illustrations of God’s Plan on view during the Church Age.

Christian marriage, properly constituted and upheld, glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ and is a powerful witness of the gospel to an unbelieving world. The following Bible passages are very important to understanding this concept.

Eph. 5:22-33, Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord.

For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself {being} the Savior of the body.

But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives {ought to be} to their husbands in everything.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her;

that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,

that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she should be holy and blameless.

husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself;

for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also {does} the church,

because we are members of His body.

For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh\

This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.

Nevertheless let each individual among you also love his own wife even as himself; and {let} the wife {see to it} that she respect her husband.

Anything that sullies this godly illustration, anything that clouds the issue for those might be saved, is wrong and is strongly condemned in the Bible.

Read these additional Bible examples of marriage as a figure of Christ’s Union with the Church.

Isa. 54:4 -6 “Fear not, for you will not be put to shame; Neither feel humiliated, for you will not be disgraced; But you will forget the shame of your youth, And the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more.

“For your husband is your Maker, Whose name is the Lord of hosts; And your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel, Who is called the God of all the earth.

“For the Lord has called you, Like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, Even like a wife of one’s youth when she is rejected,” Says your God.

Isa. 62:1-5, For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, And for Jerusalem’s sake I will not keep quiet, Until her righteousness goes forth like brightness, And her salvation like a torch that is burning.

And the nations will see your righteousness, And all kings your glory; And you will be called by a new name, Which the mouth of the Lord will designate.

You will also be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, And a royal diadem in the hand of your God.

t will no longer be said to you, “Forsaken,” Nor to your land will it any longer be said, “Desolate”; But you will be called, “My delight is in her,” And your land, “Married”; For the Lord delights in you, And to Him your land will be married.

For as a young man marries a virgin, So your sons will marry you; And as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, So your God will rejoice over you.

Hos. 2:18-23, “In that day I will also make a covenant for them With the beasts of the field, The birds of the sky, And the creeping things of the ground. And I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land, And will make them lie down in safety.

“And I will betroth you to Me forever; Yes, I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and in justice, In lovingkindness and in compassion,

And I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness. Then you will know the Lord.

“And it will come about in that day that I will respond,” declares the Lord. I will respond to the heavens, and they will respond to the earth,

And the earth will respond to the grain, to the new wine, and to the oil, And they will respond to Jezreel.

“And I will sow her for Myself in the land. I will also have compassion on her who had not obtained compassion, And I will say to those who were not My people, ‘You are My people!’ And they will say, ‘Thou art my God!’”

Rev. 19:6-9, And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude and as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty peals of thunder, saying, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns.

“Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready.”

And it was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.

And he said to me, “Write, ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.’” And he said to me, “These are true words of God.”

Definitions

In the Bible the word adultery refers to sexual relations by a married person with someone other than a spouse. The word fornication refers to other sexual relations between unmarried people and to sexual relations in the heathen temples in which the sex act was made a form of religion. In this article the word promiscuity refers to both adultery and fornication as well as homosexual activity.

Normal adultery is sex outside of marriage with a person of the opposite sex. Abnormal adultery refers to all other non-marital sexual activity, including incest, homosexuality, bestiality, molestation of children.

Sex outside of marriage is a meaningless physical encounter. And abuse of sex can mean maladjustment to God, to the human race, and many other maladjustments in life.

Sex was designed by God for the propagation of the human race and to be an expression of love inside a marriage, between husband and wife.

As a detail of married life, sex provides only momentary happiness or pleasure. Sex is not love. It is a ritual which expresses love and the coalescence of the soul and body. Sex is an expression of happiness, not a source of happiness.

Three types of adultery are mentioned in the Bible - physical adultery, mental adultery, and spiritual adultery.

Physical adultery

Ex. 20:14, “Thou shalt not commit adultery.”

Mental adultery

Matt. 5:27,28, “You have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say unto you, that whosoever looks on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.”

Spiritual adultery

James 4:4, “You adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.”

Hos. 4:12-15, My people consult their wooden idol, and their diviner’s wand informs them; For a spirit of harlotry has led them astray, And they have played the harlot, departing from their God.

They offer sacrifices on the tops of the mountains And burn incense on the hills, Under oak, poplar, and terebinth, Because their shade is pleasant. Therefore your daughters play the harlot, And your brides commit adultery.

I will not punish your daughters when they play the harlot Or your brides when they commit adultery, For the men themselves go apart with harlots And offer sacrifices with temple prostitutes; So the people without understanding are ruined.

Though you, Israel, play the harlot, Do not let Judah become guilty; Also do not go to Gilgal, Or go up to Beth-aven, And take the oath: “As the Lord lives!”

Judges 2:17, And yet they did not listen to their judges, for they played the harlot after other gods and bowed themselves down to them. They turned aside quickly from the way in which their fathers had walked in obeying the commandments of the Lord; they did not do as their fathers.

Ephesians 4:17-19 is a strong description of people who have ignored God entirely in their lives and have given themselves over to sexual sins and other forms of unclean living. The Apostle Paul warns Christians against falling into the same patterns of living. The heathen, beginning with spiritual adultery (unfaithfulness to God), develops a life totally devoted to sinful behavior. The result is frustration and a frantic scramble for sexual experience and a search for happiness in misuse of these details of life.

Prohibitions of Promiscuity

Deut 5:18, You shall not commit adultery.

1 Cor. 6:18-20 Flee immorality. Every {other} sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body.

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?

For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.

1 Thess. 4:3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality;

Fornication is forbidden in 1 Cor 6:18 (above). Fornication is sex between two people who are not married. These verses point out that the Lord expects you to pick yourself up and run away from the opportunity for fornication.

Even mental adultery is prohibited.

Matt. 5:27,28 “You have heard that it was said, ’You shall not commit adultery,

but I say to you, that everyone who looks on a woman to lust for her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.

Man gets an image in his mind and his emotion takes over causing mental adultery. The remedy is to make sure these temptations do not take root, or if they do, to recognize the sin, confess it, and apply doctrine to the situation.

In actual physical adultery, the soul makes a decision and the body follows through. In mental adultery, only the volition or the soul is involved.

Incest is prohibited: Lev 18:6-17, 20:14; Deut 27:20,22; 1 Cor 5:1-7.

Homosexuality is prohibited:

Lev. 18:22 You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination.

Lev. 20:13 If a man lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltiness is upon them.

Rom. 1:26,27 For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural,

and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.

Bestiality is forbidden: Lev 18:23, 20:15. Animal and man were both killed in punishment. Deut 27:21.

Prostitution is forbidden: Lev 19:29; Deut 23:17.

Rape is forbidden and punishable by death: Deut 22:25-27.

Additional Relevant Scriptures

Prov. 5:1-6; Prov. 6:23-35; Job 24:14-16; 1 Thess. 4:3-8; Prov. 7:10-23; 1 Chron. 5:25,26; Eze. 23:35-37; Eze. 18:1-32; Prov. 6:23-35; 2 Pet. 2:9-18; 1 Cor. 6:13-20