"They will become one flesh..."

Sex. Well, by experience I’m more or less totally unqualified to say anything on the subject! However I’m beginning to wonder, in light of various things that I’ve listened to and read recently, whether we are all, in one way or another, unqualified to make any comments on it. One of the Guardian supplements recently ("Between you, me and the bedpost" :: 02.04.2008 :: Kira Cochrane) ran an article that discussed the topic of sexual partners – specifically in light of the revelation by Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, that he has had “no more than 30” sexual partners. (As an aside - I was consequently tempted to hang a “SEX GOD” banner from his office window, which is located just round the corner from where I live… I resisted the temptation!) Relationships expert Carol Martin-Sperry noted in the article that our society has “reduced sex to something functional, that we can measure through tallies and numbers. Whereas sex used to be about, if not love, at least a hope for some kind of connection, these kinds of questions reduce sex to something similar to going to the gym for a workout.”

So, as a “red-blooded 21-year-old boy”, who has a girlfriend, who lives in this 21st century society, who is given free condoms by the university health service after each visit, who is expected by non-Christian and even some Christian friends to be having sex and who most definitely has a sex drive, what does someone in that situation do? Do I view my desires as the bane of my life? Is my girlfriend an object of love or temptation? Can my sex-drive be “God given”? Is my sex drive part of what it means to be made “in the image of God”?

Well, the Bible clearly teaches that sex is a gift from God. I know most people gawp at the suggestion. We seem to have this idea that when Adam and Eve started doing the things that two naked people do, that God was looking down wondering “what on earth (pardon the pun) are they doing? That wasn’t what I had in mind. I’m going to have to have words with Adam about this!” No, Genesis tells us that “it is not good for the man to be alone” and that man will “be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” Sex was God’s idea. We are, in so many ways, made for pleasure, and sexual pleasure is one of those pleasures that we are most definitely made for. But, that also means that sex and sexuality is one of those things, like everything else, that became distorted when man rebelled against God. The Bible uses the word “lust” to describe our distortion of sex and sexuality. So, if lust is therefore a distortion of what it means to be truly human what can we do? Well, fortunately, God has outlined his plan for sex, his ideal, his intention and he hasn’t kept it a secret, he has revealed it in his word.

Sex, in a truly human way, is part of how we glorify God. Abraham Kuyper says that “In the total expanse of human life there is not a single square inch of which the Christ, who alone is sovereign, does not declare, ‘That is mine!’” Sex is included in that. My dear friend Larry has posted, on his blog: Photizo, an excerpt from a sermon on sex, which clearly summarises the supremacy of Christ in our sex and sexuality. Therefore, the way that I treat sex whilst single is just as important as how I should treat it if married. My sex drive is God-given; it is part of what it means to be created in his image – to be truly human. My desire for my girlfriend should be so much more than just a desire to be united with her physically, but should be a desire to be “one” with her, in the same way that God, in the trinity, is one with himself. The Hebrew words are the same, ‘ehād. “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is “‘ehād”.” (Deuteronomy 6:4) “…and they will become “‘ehād” flesh.” (Genesis 2:24)

In his book, “Battles Christians Face”, Vaughan Roberts, summarises the problems that we have with lust in this way:

“One helpful book [“Sex is Not the Problem (Lust Is)” by Josh Harris] on the subject defines lust as: “Craving sexually what God has forbidden… to lust is to want what you don’t have and weren’t meant to have. Lust goes beyond attraction, an appreciation of beauty or even a healthy desire for sex… Lust wants to go outside God’s guidelines to find satisfaction.” It is about me: my desires and satisfaction; the other person is often incidental. But, in God’s creation design, sex in marriage should be self-giving and focused on the other person.”

So… sex. I thank God that as Christians we can affirm the God given joy and delight of truly human sex and sexuality, and that although I may be no expert on the subject matter that I can be sure of God’s purpose for sex in the world that we live in.

God bless.

Dear Freedom