A CHRISTIAN VIEW OF SEXUALITY
By Spencer Gear [1]
Freedom
There's a lot of talk these days about sexual freedom. What is freedom? Freedom to do anything? The apostle Paul to the Corinthians explains: The Bible is clear: God, being God, does not have to explain his commands, yet he chose to do so. In I Corinthians 6:13 he tells us why premarital and extramarital heterosexual sex and homosexual sex are wrong: "But it is not true that the body is for lust [i.e. fornication/sexual immorality]; it is for the Lord."
 
Purpose
God defines freedom according to the purpose for which something is designed or made: "The body is not meant for sexual immorality" (I Cor. 6:13 NIV). The world in which we live is one where everything has a design and function.

John White's explanation helped me:

"You don't set a fish free from the ocean (poor fish! so confined and restricted!) or birds from the necessity of flight. Birds were designed to fly and fish to swim. They are freest when they are doing what they were designed to do. In the same way your body was not designed for premarital sex [or extramarital sex or homosexual sex] and will never be truly free when you engage in it. . .

"The experience of freedom has to do with being loved and loving. God designed you because he loved you. His purposes for you are an expression of his love to you. And as you respond in love to his commands (about sex or anything else) you are set free, free to be and to do what both you and God want. The more completely you are enslaved to his blessed will, the freer you will discover yourself to be" (1997, pp. 46-47).

 I don't think the best question to ask is: When are sexual relations wrong? But, when are they right? God is very clear, and we are told our purpose, sexually, from the beginning of creation.

 From creation, God said . . .

We can conclude this from God's description of creation in the early chapters of Genesis:

1. Gen 1:27: Human beings are created spiritual beings, "in the image of God".

2. Gen 1:27: "Male and female he created them". God's revealed will is heterosexuality, from the beginning of creation.

3. Gen 1:28: "God blessed them [male and female] and said to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth." Sexual intercourse is a gift of God and God's purpose is that it involves male and female." One purpose of sexual intercourse is having children.

4. Gen 1:31: "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good." Sex (between male and female) is very good in God's sight.

5. Gen 2:18: "The Lord God said, 'It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.'" God brought the animals and birds to Adam to name, "but for Adam no suitable helper was found" (Gen 2:20).

So "the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and brought her to the man." (2:22). And what was the man's response? "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman', for she was taken out of man" (2:23). That phrase "this is now" could be paraphrased "Wolf whistle". Man was alone; he needed completion, but that did not come with an animal, nor with another man, but with a woman.

Sexuality involves more than behaviour. "It is not good for the man to be alone." There is a deep yearning for intimacy, connection with another--not a lustful, seductive encounter. As a former homosexual, Andrew Comiskey explains that this yearning:

Grows from that God-inspired desire within each of us to break out of the walls of the lone self and merge with another human being. Intercourse is only one expression of this merging...

Sexuality involves longing and desire. The body longs for human touch; the soul desires a companion to ease its aloneness. Such yearning is not a concession to our fallenness. According to the Bible, God deemed Adam--prior to the fall--as not suited to being alone (see Gen. 2:18). The Creator shaped a complement for Adam to provide for his unique emotional and physical needs, as well as for hers...

Although Adam and Eve had clear access to God, He realized they needed something more. So He provided for each the gift of the other" (1989, p. 37).

 There is more to the creation account. Gen 2:24: "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and they will become one flesh."

"One flesh" is a powerful symbol of this heterosexual coming together. In the act of sexual intercourse, the male and female merge bodies, souls and spirits.

Here, one husband unites with one wife to become one flesh. This is monogamous heterosexual marriage.

7. God upholds healthy heterosexuality as His intention for us. But Genesis 3 tells how the male-female relationship fell from innocence. The entry of sin into the human race caused sexuality to become depraved. All of us are sexually vulnerable. As a result, the heterosexual orientation is just as fallen as homosexual tendencies. So we have a world invaded by fornication (premarital sex), adultery, incest, bestiality, homosexuality.

Andrew Comiskey explains:

God never intended for man or woman to seek completion in the same sex. Thus, homosexual pursuit of erotic and emotional bonding violates something basic to our humanity. The Creator, in His inspired Scriptures, has shown that homosexual feelings and behaviors must be identified as resulting from the fall. Homosexuality is one of the many sexual disorders that have become woven into the fabric of sinful humanity (1989, p. 43). This is one example of sexual brokenness. Our only hope for wholeness (to truly love others) is a restored relationship with the Almighty Creator God, through Jesus Christ. When united to Christ, "we grasp our true sexual identity. Our sexual desires must encounter the greater reality of [God] Himself" (Comiskey, 1989, p. 13).

The God-inspired "longing to connect and ultimately merge with another defines our sexuality" (Comiskey, 1989, p. 13). But the whole human race living in sin confuses it.
 

Notes

1.  I am an Australian family relationships' counselling manager, doctoral student in biblical studies, an active Christian apologist, and may be contacted at: P. O. Box 3107, Hervey Bay 4655, Australia.

References
    Comiskey, A.. (1989). Pursuing Sexual Wholeness. Lake Mary, Florida: Creation House.
    White, J. (1977). Eros Defiled. Leicester, England: Inter-Varsity Press.


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Copyright (c) 2007 Spencer D. Gear. This document is free content. You can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the OpenContent License (OPL) version 1.0, or (at your option) any later version. This document last updated at 6 May 2007.