God, Sex and the Gospel: Part One - Sex was God's idea

What is it with God and sex? Most people, including I’m afraid, far too many Christians, seem to be under the misapprehension that God disapproves of sex and that the Bible regards it as something rather nasty. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth, and the failure of many believers to understand God’s attitude to sex has deprived countless millions of not only a full understanding of the Gospel, but of their rightful inheritance as sons and daughters of the living God.

Far from being something shameful or sinful or nasty, sex was God’s idea in the first place. He invented it, designed it, blessed it and sanctified it as something beautiful and something holy. God always intended that the legitimate expression of our sexuality should be a wholesome part of our human identity. And the Bible does not leave us in ignorance as to why that should be, because in one of the most misunderstood and mistaught scriptures in the New Testament the apostle Paul said that marriage - the sexual covenant between a man and a woman, as a husband and wife - is a type and shadow of the relationship between Jesus Christ and his Church, and not the other way round.

This article is the first part in a three-part series in which we shall take a closer look at God’s view of human sexuality and how its fullest expression - as he intended, within marriage - parallels the way that he relates to us. We shall examine how the Bible uses analogy, metaphor, allegory and parable to impart spiritual truths in physical terms, as well as the part that typology plays in Scripture and what lessons the Holy Spirit has inspired to be preserved in his Word that he intended us to learn from in this way, .

And, as we do, we will pay closer attention to two books of the Bible that particularly exemplify God’s love towards us and our response towards him - in the Song of Songs and the Book of the Prophet Hosea.

 

But let’s begin by reminding ourselves of what Paul actually taught about marriage.

Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church; and he is the Saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word, that he might present it to himself as the glorious church, without spot or wrinkle or any such things, but that it should be holy and without blemish.

So men ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, even as the Lord loves the church. For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. "For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two of them shall be one flesh."

This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

But also let everyone of you in particular so love his wife even as himself, and the wife that she defers to her husband.

Many a militant feminist will bristle like a porcupine as they cite this passage to prove to their own satisfaction that the Bible is misogynistic, and the apostle Paul in particular was Woman-Hater-in-Chief.

Although some of that attitude has sadly infiltrated even the Church, it is for the most part the opinion of unbelieving and ignorant people who have never really understood what Paul was saying because they have no relationship with God nor any real understanding of who Jesus is and how he relates to his Church.

Such people - whether women or men - do not read the passage holistically but compartmentally, and especially baulk when Paul says, ‘Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands’, as if that was all the apostle was saying in isolation, when in fact his whole intent is informed by the context...

…as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church; and he is the Saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.

This is no admonition to Christian wives to be their husbands’ doormats, but a carefully drawn analogy that Paul spells out without compromise in verse 32 -

This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

And when Paul uses the expression ‘as the church is subject to Christ’, the word translated ‘as’ is the Greek ‘hosper’, meaning ‘just as’ or ‘exactly like’, so Paul is not endorsing male dominance in any abusive relationship in which the husband rolls home drunk of an evening, only to slap their wife about before demanding his supper, sex and a sleep.

That’s not how Jesus loves his Church, nor is it how God expects husbands to treat their wives, and Paul would have been appalled (no pun intended) that anyone should suggest that he was condoning or excusing any such behaviour. And to any ladies who have the misfortune to find themselves in such marriage, I would advise that if their abusive husband doesn’t shape up, then the woman should ship out of the relationship.

The original Greek of this passage is quite simple and straightforward. In the marriage relationship as designed by God, God has placed the husband in authority and the wife as his obedient counterpart. However, the key is that the husband stands in the place of God and is therefore expected to faithfully represent God and to rule his household as God rules his Church - sacrificially and lovingly. The husband is not a dictator, nor is his wife his slave.

Also, Paul is citing a Godly principle and not an unconditional command; one that is based on the assumption that the wife is married to a Godly husband - in which case the wife is expected to obey him. Even if her husband is an unbeliever, so long as he acts in a reasonable fashion, she is exhorted to show him a good example by her Godly submission.

However, that clearly does not embrace any notion that she should submit to ungodly desires on his part. Paul never envisaged a Christian wife submitting to wife-swapping parties or having her head kicked in, any more than he intended that his admonition to children to honour their parents should be regarded as a licence for Fagan-like fathers to send their offspring shoplifting.

 

Even under the Old Covenant God condescended to reason with sinful mankind.

"Come now, let us reason together, says Yahweh: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword; for the mouth of Yahweh has spoken." (Isaiah 1:18-20)

How much more then, would God come and go with friends like Abraham, Moses and David. God has never been above negotiating or hearing out anyone’s reasonable viewpoint. He enjoys discourse with his children - even to the point of a sensible and civilised argument - and only presses his authority for our good, at which time, however, disobedience is not an option.

And that’s how a husband is supposed to relate to his wife. God expects him to hear her out and to listen attentively to her needs and desires before making any decision. And that decision should be based on Godly principles revealed in his Word and the leading of his Holy Spirit. He may even change his mind to accommodate her desires, so long as it is for her good - because selfishness is not an option either. All of which is a very far cry from some of the obnoxious ways in which this holy scripture has been godlessly profaned to justify abominable abuse.

In a Godly marriage, when push comes to shove, God simply says that the husband has the final say, because in any relationship where there are two heads, the body will be paralyzed whenever there is disagreement. And even when the man is wrong the obedient wife will be blessed for obeying God first. Because that’s the order that Paul always insists upon: Obey God first, then your husband.

There is even an excellent example of a Godly wife who disobeyed her husband, in 1 Samuel.

And a certain man was in Maon, and his work was in Carmel. And the man was very great, and had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. And he was shearing his sheep in Carmel. And the man's name was Nabal, and his wife's name was Abigail. And she was a woman of good understanding, and of a beautiful form. But the man was cruel and evil in his dealings. And he was of Caleb. (1 Samuel 25:2-3)

Here we are introduced to two people, a man called Nabal, whose name means ‘Fool’, and his wife called Abigail, which literally means ‘Father of Joy’ - although, in this instance, carrying the sense of ‘Source of Joy’.

And David heard in the wilderness that Nabal was shearing his sheep. And David sent out ten young men. And David said to the young men, “Go up to Carmel and go to Nabal, and greet him in my name. And you shall say this, ‘Long life and peace be to you, and peace to your house, and peace to all that you have. And now I have heard that you have shearers. And we did not hurt your shepherds who were with us; neither was there anything missing to them all the while they were in Carmel. Ask your young men, and they will tell you. And let the young men find favour in your eyes, for we come in a good day. Please give whatever comes to your hand to your servants and to your son David.’”

And David's young men came, they spoke to Nabal according to all these words in the name of David, and stopped. (1 Samuel 25:4-9)

 

Here we see David doing Nabal a singular kindness by protecting his flocks against marauders. And notice the gracious words David told his men to convey to Nabal, in verse 6...

...Long life and peace be to you.

Sound familiar? If you were ever a Star Trek fan, it should. Remember Mr Spock and the Vulcan Greeting “Live Long and Prosper!”? To which the correct reply is “Peace and Long Life!”

‘Ah, wait a minute! - surely you’re not suggesting that David was a Vulcan?’

Of course not. Vulcans were a made up race in a science fiction series. But Mr Spock was played by a real Jew - Leonard Nimoy - who subsequently admitted smuggling a few elements of his faith into the series’ genre, including a close English approximation of “Shalom aliechem!” and the kohanic (priestly) hand gesture called the ‘shin’, which Nimoy adapted into the Vulcan salute.

But look at how Nabal responds to David’s generosity, in verses10-11:

And Nabal answered David's servants and said, “Who is David? And who is the son of Jesse? The servants who have broken away, each man from his master, have multiplied. Shall I then take my bread and my water and my meat that I have killed for my shearers, and give it to men about whom I know not where they come from?”

Nabal’s ungracious reaction should not come as too great a surprise, since he was described at the outset that as ‘cruel and evil in his dealings’. And David does not take kindly to Nabal’s response.

And David's young men turned their way and went again, and came and told him all those things.

And David said to his men, “Let each man gird on his sword. And they each one girded on his sword”, and David also girded on his sword. And about four hundred men went up after David, and two hundred stayed by the stuff. (vv12-13)

So, Nabal certainly lived up to his name, but his men were not so stupid, one of whom went and told Nabal’s wife what had transpired:

And one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal's wife, saying, “Behold! David sent messengers out of the wilderness to greet our master, and he screamed at them. But the men were very good to us, and we were not hurt, neither did we miss anything as long as we were going to and fro among them, when we were in the fields. They were a wall to us both by night and day all the while we were with them keeping the sheep. And now know and consider what you will do, for evil is determined against our master and against all his household. For he is a son of worthlessness, so that none can speak to him.” (vv14-17)

The herdsman’s point was not wasted on Abigail who had more sense than to provoke the famous warrior David and his four hundred mighty men to anger, and she took immediate action.

And Abigail made haste and took two hundred loaves, and two skins of wine, and five sheep ready dressed, and five measures of roasted grain, and a hundred clusters of raisins, and laid them on asses. And she said to her servants, “Go on before me. Behold, I am coming after you”. But she did not tell her husband Nabal. (vv18-19)

This does not sound like an Ephesians 5 wife - disobedient and disrespectful to her husband. But in the context she is justified by her husband’s ungodly conduct. And moreover, although disobedient, her actions do Nabal more honour than he deserves. And just in time:

And it happened, she was riding on the ass and coming down under cover of the mountain. And behold, David and his men came down across from her. And she met them. And David had said, “Surely in vain I have kept all that belongs to this fellow in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that was his. And he has requited me evil for good. So and more also may God do to the enemies of David, if I leave to the light of the morning any that is his of one who urinates against the wall.” (vv20-22)

The old Authorised King James version isn’t even that polite, and says that David threatened:

So and more also do God unto the enemies of David, if I leave of all that pertain to him by the morning light any that pisseth against the wall.

So misunderstood is this idiom that most modern translations bowdlerise this verse (and others like it) in order to render it more socially acceptable to contemporary sensibilities. For instance, the English Standard Version translates verse 22 to read:

God do so to the enemies of David and more also, if by morning I leave so much as one male of all who belong to him.

Most modern translators, however, seem unaware of the nuance of this Hebrew idiom, which is an insult. They bowdlerise the text (replacing what appears to be the coarse Hebrew with a more polite English version) supposing they do God a favour when they actually subvert the intent of the Holy Spirit who chose to preserve the expression intact.

Modern translators thereby unwittingly detract from the original meaning that David meant to convey coarsely to depict a reprobate practice in Semitic culture which we Westerners do not recognise as offensive - the practice of men standing to urinate against a wall - something that is still considered unclean and uncouth in Middle Eastern culture to this day.

But now look at how Abigail addresses David. In verses 23-31:

And Abigail saw David and hurried and dismounted from the ass, and fell before David on her face, and bowed herself to the ground.

 

And she fell at his feet and said, “On me, my lord, on me let this iniquity be. And please let your handmaid speak in your ears, and hear the words of your handmaid. Please do not let my lord regard this man of worthlessness, Nabal. For as his name is, so he is. Nabal is his name, and foolishness is with him. And I, your handmaid, did not see the young men of my lord, whom you sent.

“And now, my lord, as Yahweh lives and as your soul lives, since Yahweh has withheld you from coming to shed blood, and from avenging yourself with your own hand, now let your enemies, and those that seek to do evil to my lord, be as Nabal.

“And now this blessing which your handmaid has brought to my lord, let it even be given to the young men who follow my lord. Please forgive the trespass of your handmaid. For Yahweh will certainly make a sure house for my lord, because my lord fights the battles of Yahweh, and evil has not been found in you all your days.

“Yet a man has risen to pursue you and to seek your soul. But the soul of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of life with Yahweh your God. And the souls of your enemies, he shall sling them from the hollow of a sling. And it shall be, when Yahweh has done to my lord according to all the good that He has spoken concerning you, and commanded you to be ruler over Israel, this shall be no stumbling to you, nor offence of heart to my lord, either that you have shed blood for nothing, or that my lord has delivered himself. And may Yahweh deal well with my lord, and you remember your handmaid.”

 

Many years later, David‘s son Solomon would write:

A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. (Proverbs 15:1)

And nowhere in the Bible do we see a clearer example than in Abigail’s petition to David, who responds in kind.

And David said to Abigail, “Blessed be Yahweh, the God of Israel, who sent you today to meet me. And blessed is your advice, and blessed are you who have kept me from coming to shed blood today, and from delivering myself with my own hand. And truly, as Yahweh, the God of Israel lives, who has kept me back from doing evil to you, for unless you had hurried and come to meet me, surely there would not have been left to Nabal by the morning light one who urinates against the wall.”

And David received from her hand that which she had brought him, and said to her, “Go up in peace to your house. See, I have listened to your voice and have accepted your person.” (vv32-35)

And don’t imagine for a moment that a Pharisee and Rabbi of Paul’s stature was at all unaware of this passage when he wrote Ephesians chapter 5.

And Abigail came to Nabal. And behold, he held a feast in his house like the feast of a king. And Nabal's heart was merry within him, for he was very drunk. And she did not tell him anything, more or less, until the morning light. And it happened in the morning, when the wine had gone out of Nabal and his wife had told him these things, his heart died within him and he became like a stone. And it happened about ten days afterward Yahweh struck Nabal so that he died. (vv36-38)

Nor was the apostle Paul ignorant of the fate of Nabal when he exhorted Christian wives to submit to Godly authority, nor did he misunderstand God‘s opinion of how Nabal had acted.

If Abigail was a Christian wife in some churches today, she would be castigated by her pastor as a disobedient wife, which is a peculiarly legalistic application of a principle of grace whereas, even under the old Covenant, she is upheld as an example of a Godly woman of faith.

Nevertheless, Paul’s injunction that a husband love his wife is no license for a vindictive woman to unreasonably withhold physical affection from her husband. God is not stupid and covers that angle too, through Paul’s response to a query about it from the Corinthian church:

But concerning what you wrote to me, it is good for a man not to touch a woman; but because of fornication, let each have his own wife, and let each have her own husband. Let the husband give due kindness to the wife, and likewise the wife also to the husband.

The wife does not have authority of her own body, but the husband. And likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife.

Do not deprive one another, unless by agreement for a time, that you may be free for fasting and prayer. And come together again on the same place, that Satan may not tempt you through your incontinence. But I say this by permission, not by command.

And notice something else that Paul observes, which might be summarised thus: The sexual urge is natural and not something wicked or shameful, but in order to avoid it becoming an unnecessary distraction or sinfully used by some of you, get married so that you can give it proper expression.

One aspect of Twenty-First Century living is that marriage, as an integral step in couples' relationships, is being increasingly postponed, with people marrying later and later and later in life. And one reason for this is that the status of marriage has been increasingly cheapened and eroded until it is now seen more as a lifestyle option rather than a holy covenant. And this cheapening has occurred largely because of the way that marriage is no longer regarded - even in the Church - as the only legitimate vehicle for sexual intercourse, which has resulted in an ever increasing number of couples opting to live together in sexual relationships without any legal recognition.

There are two points here that are worthy of mention.

1. Without the commitment of a lifelong covenant to remain faithful to one another, many couples are apt to form only short-term cohabitant liaisons for reasons of social convenience and sexual gratification. The Bible calls this fornication. Furthermore, if that relationship involves one or more parties who are already married to another, the Bible calls it adultery.

2. Surprisingly enough, though, the Bible reveals a God who is less judgemental than many Christians might suppose, of couples who are living in a stable and exclusive sexual relationship, where no formal wedding ceremony has taken place - because in the eyes of God they were married the moment they had intercourse.

How often have we heard the clarion cry:

“We don’t need a piece of paper to know that we’re married!”

Well, let me surprise some of you and say, they are right. However, that does not mean it is to be recommended for Christians, for the following reasons.

The lack of any formalised covenant commitment made publicly before God and man makes such an arrangement potentially volatile and inherently vulnerable to dissolution - especially in today’s promiscuous social environment.

Also, in Thessalonians 5:22 Paul admonished believers to ‘abstain from all appearance of evil’, and adds in two places that we should act unloving by flaunting our freedom in way that offends another’s conscience.

"All things are lawful for me," but not all things are helpful. "All things are lawful for me," but I will not be enslaved by anything. (1 Corinthians 6:12)

And,

"All things are lawful," but not all things are helpful. "All things are lawful," but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbour. (1 Corinthians 10:23-24)

In other words, even with the finest of motives and the purest of hearts, and living together in a faithful and exclusive sexual union that is sanctified in the eyes of God, Christians who live as a married couple without first going through the formality of a wedding ceremony may be committing sin, nevertheless. Not because they are ‘living in sin’ in the conventionally misunderstood sense - since their relationship does not necessarily constitute fornication - but because they are being insensitive to the perceptions of brothers and sisters of weaker conscience, who may misconstrue their relationship as fornication, and so mistake it for license that they may do likewise.

And God is no fool. He is perfectly aware that for every couple that chooses to live honourably together without a piece of paper, with the most noble and pure intentions, there are plenty more who are simply at it. Such free-thinkers are more often than now, simply exploiting an opportune loophole to avoid commitment, while hedging their bets with a view to bailing out as conveniently as possible, should they ever tire of the relationship. When that happens, any subsequent sexual relationship they may drift into crosses the line and becomes common fornication, or indeed adultery.

But how do we know the difference? By and large we don’t. That’s why Christians who want to have a sexual relationship should marry in church.

And, in John 4:16-19, we Jesus recognises the limitations of informal pretence, during his discourse with the Samaritan woman at the well.

Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband and come here.”

 

And the woman answered and said, “I have no husband.”

 

Jesus said to her, “Well did you say, ‘I have no husband’. For you have had five husbands, and now he whom you have is not your husband. You have spoken this truly.”

 

The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.”

Jesus’ consistent approach when dealing with sinners was to first form a relationship and show them acceptance before dealing with their situation and addressing any sin issues.

No woman went to draw water from the village well in the heat of the day as this one did unless she wanted to avoid the other women of the village, so she probably lived in a constant state of guilt and shame. However, this time Jesus was waiting for her, and although her conversation reveals a religious understanding of God - albeit devoid of any real concept of relationship - when Jesus came into her life she suddenly found herself free to change.

And let me quickly draw your attention to verses 40-43…

So when the Samaritans were come unto him, they besought him that he would tarry with them: and he abode there two days.

 

And many more believed because of his own word; And said unto the woman, “Now we believe, not because of your saying: for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.”

Now after two days he departed thence, and went into Galilee.

Where do you suppose Jesus spent those two days he remained in town? And who do you suppose he might have stayed with?

Reading this passage carefully, through the cultural lens of the day, it is not beyond possibility that the woman was living adulterously with a man whom she could not marry because either he or she was not yet divorced. Yet Jesus related the facts without judgement, in a manner illustrative of the gentleness with which God initially convicts sinners. Jesus would have been equally as justified in chiding her for adultery as for being five times divorced and now cohabiting.

But then, it was an astonishingly radical for a Jewish Rabbi to even speak to a woman at all, far less a Samaritan of any description. But Jesus was always more inclined to demolish barriers than to erect them, and far more eager to introduce the woman to the God she did not know than to remind her of those mistakes of which she was already too painfully aware.

In my country, Scots Law recognises a status known as Common Law marriage, whereby a widowed partner may seek posthumous recognition of their late relationship by petitioning a sheriff to legally pronounce them as having been married by habit and repute, thereby legitimating any offspring - as if its parents’ marriage had been legally registered.

Another aspect of Scots Law is its recognition of a marriage immediately subsequent to the ceremony in which the couple speak their assent and the officiating minister or registrar pronounces them married before witnesses.

This may sound a peculiarly pedantic observation but had profound implications in at least one case I know of, where the couple soon afterwards regretted their marriage, then seized upon an apparent loophole that emerged when they discovered that they had inadvertently failed to sign the Register.

‘Aha!’ They thought, ‘We don’t need to go through a costly and time-consuming divorce. We only need to get the marriage annulled!’

‘Think again!’ said the Registrar General. ‘You said the words, and now you’re married - whether you signed the Register or not. If you want it dissolved, you need a divorce.’

But there is another side to the coin, which is that annulment differs from divorce, in that divorce dissolves a marriage that actually took place, whereas an annulment means ‘to make nothing’, and is effectively just the law's recognition that a marriage was never legitimate in the first place.

For a marriage to be annulled means it must never really have happened, grounds for which would include a bigamous vow made by one who was not free to marry. They said the words and signed the book, but the marriage was a sham.

Another form of sham marriage, that is all too popular today, is when one is undertaken as a legal deceit to obtain citizenship - or contracted to obtain some inheritance or title or financial advantage. This sham is what used to be called ‘a marriage of convenience’.

But there is an even older form of sham that is frequently interwoven with those already mentioned and which is probably the most readily recognised grounds for annulment - non-consummation. In other words, a sexless marriage in which the couple have never slept together. And this too, has a spiritual application.

As we have seen, God regards marriage as a sacred and holy union, representing how he relates to his Church - both corporately and individually. And, just as a marriage begins with a decision and a vow, so does our Christian walk.

But even when the words have been spoken, and the vows exchanged, if no sexual intimacy happens on the wedding night, the couple are not married in the eyes of God. The obvious exception to this being where some physical impediment makes consummation impossible. In such an instance it is assumed that the couple so love one another that they would have consummated their union if possible.

Likewise, Jesus’ half brother said this, in James 2:20,

But are you willing to know, O vain man, that faith apart from works is dead?

From what I have observed over many years, it seems to me that a lot of people who call themselves Christians have only entered into a marriage of convenience - a spiritual sham - where they have come to the altar, taken their vows and said all the right things, but as soon as the Register was signed, they walked away from the bridal chamber, and such intimacy with Jesus as God recognises as constituting a true marriage to his Son.

They wanted the inheritance; they wanted the citizenship; they wanted the eternal life…The only thing they didn’t want was a deep and intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. They wanted his stuff, but they didn’t want him.

But God is no idiot, and such an unconsummated relationship with Jesus is as much a sham in his eyes as a sexless marriage. And Jesus warns us that such an annulled relationship provides no grounds for salvation:

And this is everlasting life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. (John 17:3)

 

Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord”, will enter into the kingdom of Heaven, but the ones who do the will of my Father in Heaven.

 

Many will say to me in that day, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out demons, and in your name do many works of power?”

 

And then I will declare to them, “I never knew you; depart from me, those working lawlessness!” (Matthew 7:21-23)

All of this marriage stuff may be very fine and dandy in theory, but what possible practical applications can any of it have in a local church context?

Let’s see how, by painting a few hypothetical examples and then considering how the Word of God might be applied to them, remembering that whereas the Law tends to be very much a one-size-fits-all regimen, the application of grace generally requires a finer judgement - on a case-by-case basis.

 

You are the pastor of a local church where a new couple come along for the first time. You learn that they have been together for twelve years and have five children. She is a new believer but he just comes along to be sociable. Then it emerges that they were never formally married. From further enquiries, however, you ascertain that they are in a close, committed and faithful relationship.

What do you do about it? Do you tell them to marry? Do you insist that they separate? Or maybe both?

Let me suggest how I would handle it.

Taking counsel from the Word of God, I would apply the advice of the apostle Paul who in 1 Corinthians 7:13-17.

If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.

But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace. For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?

Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches.

I might encourage them to marry, but would have no authority to judge an unbeliever (1 Corinthians 5:12), and I would remind you that they are already married in the eyes of God. There is no question of fornication or adultery because they are faithful to one another (no-one is sleeping around) leaving no scriptural grounds for divorce.

Ah, but they could not divorce anyway, because they are not legally married.

True - not legally. But in the eyes of God to demand their separation would amount to inciting them to divorce. And there are many couples who are legally bound by a piece of paper who are separated in the eyes of God and whose marriage was long ago dissolved in reality.

A couple of young singles who have grown up in your church come to you and tell you they have fallen in love with each other and want to marry, but don‘t feel they can afford to right now. They know about the couple who joined quite recently, who have children but aren't married. Since this arrangement seems to work for that couple, does that mean it’s okay for them too?

Now the rubber hit’s the road. How do you deal with this one?

This now illustrates the principle I mentioned earlier about how important our example is and how we should think about more than just ourselves when deciding how to live.

My answer to the couple - assuming that I knew their situation well enough and was satisfied there was no spiritual or moral impediment - would be, ‘No! - Get married.’

‘But we can’t afford it.’

‘What do you mean by “can’t afford it”?’

‘Well, we’ve looked into it and a full white wedding with cars and caterers and a top notch venue and a reception for 200 guests would cost about thirty grand.’

‘No. What you mean is you can’t afford an expensive wedding. Not that you can’t afford to get married. They’re not the same thing. If you love each other, know each other well enough to want to marry, there are no spiritual or moral impediments - and you feel you can’t keep your hands off each other - then God says you don’t have to: just that you should marry.’

But where did God say that? - Check out 1 Corinthians 7:6-9.

Now as a concession, not a command, I say this.

I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another.

To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single as I am.

But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

The idea that couples should postpone marrying because they cannot afford a lavish wedding is a deception from the pit of hell which only encourages couples to cohabit - which is neither wise nor Godly, for the reasons already explained.

This time a young couple come to your church who are both new converts. They’ve been together for a couple of years and have one child. Then you discover that they are not legally married. What would you do this time?

Might I suggest marriage counselling, and a wedding as soon as possible? Both of them are believers are should be amenable to pastoral authority and advice. And while I would explain what I have already said about their being married in the eyes of God, I would also highlight the importance that attaches to the formal public commitment of a wedding, and why affirming their marriage covenant is advisable for the reasons already outlined.

But they should live separately in the meantime - Right?

Wrong! - Not unless you‘re a Pharisee, because Jesus has already pronounced on this matter and ruled against you, in Matthew 19:3-6.

And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, "Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?"

He answered, "Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, 'Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'?

So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate."

What is it about, ‘they are already married in the eyes of God’ that is so difficult for so many ministers to understand?

If they have been living together in a stable and faithfully exclusive relationship for several years - and even have children - then, any pastor suggesting that they separate is again inciting divorce, and will have to answer to God for the idle words he has allowed to proceed from his mouth.

But I say to you that every idle word, whatever men may speak, they shall give account of it in the day of judgment. (Matthew 12:36)

Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. (James 3:1-2)

No, the circumstances are not ideal, but they are what they are. And we have to deal with what is rather than what we would prefer to be.

And above all, a pastor must rule in love and exemplify God’s mercy.

Seen from a distance, my differing judgements on the foregoing scenarios may look capricious and unfair. An outsider might question why I would tolerate one cohabiting couple’s relationship, while forbidding another couple from doing likewise. But that’s how the New Covenant operates: With grace and mercy as led by the Holy Spirit and guided by the Word of God. The three situations are not the same and cannot be treated as though they were. For example, in 1 Timothy 3:1-5, Paul says:

The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.

He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church?

This admonition that an overseer or bishop should be ‘the husband of one wife’ is no mere caution against ordaining a divorcee, but Paul’s recognition of a problem that is relatively rare nowadays - that of ordaining a polygamist - which in his time would have been a distinct possibility among certain Gentile believers.

Even today, Islam and some minority Mormon sects recognise polygamy. So what would you do if a Muslim or Mormon family converted and became members of your church?

As already discussed, divorce is not an option. So, should a husband with several wives become a member of a Christian church, as long as his marriages predated his conversion the family must be preserved intact. Now they are believers, there is no question of demanding that they separate and their pastor’s responsibility must not only be to support them in remaining married but to encourage the husband to fulfil his marital duties towards all of his wives.

Or would you have kicked King David out of your church?

 

So, sex is God’s idea and marriage is his ideal. In God’s eyes marriage is the only acceptable context for a sexual relationship. And that means a faithful, monogamous relationship between a man and a woman - except for those polygamous exceptions where the marriages were previously covenanted prior to conversion to the Christian faith.

And the reason why other forms of sexual relationship are unacceptable is explained by Paul earlier allusion in Ephesians 5:32.

This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

 

It was the renowned and often acerbic Philip Larkin who wrote the 1967 poem Annus Mirabilis famously begins:

Sexual intercourse began

In nineteen sixty-three

(which was rather late for me) -

Between the end of the Chatterley ban

And the Beatles’ first LP.

And it may be that many of you think that I’m presenting a very Twenty-First Century thesis, coloured by a sex-obsessed culture that is not at all representative of millennia of Christian and Hebraic thought. But you would be quite wrong.

The sexual dynamic of Judaeo-Christian theology and of God’s relationship to mankind is no novel observation or contemporary fad. Indeed, the perennially popular Christian apologist C. S. Lewis - who died in 1963 - wrote the following, under the title ‘Notes on the Way’ - a 1948 essay, concerning the ordination of women priests in the Anglican Church:

It is painful, being a man, to have to assert the privilege, or the burden, which Christianity lays upon my own sex. I am crushingly aware how inadequate most of us are, in our actual and historical individualities, to fill the place prepared for us. But it is an old saying in the army that you salute the uniform not the wearer. Only one wearing the masculine uniform can (provisionally, and till the Parousia) represent the Lord to the Church: for we are all, corporately and individually, feminine to Him. We men may often make very bad priests. That is because we are insufficiently masculine…

What did Lewis mean by, ‘we are all, corporately and individually, feminine to [God]? Well, he wasn’t principally alluding to the obvious physical differences that characterise male and female. These we generally categorise in two groups: Primary sexual characteristics (which might modestly be described as those bits we confine to our underwear), and Secondary sexual characteristics - such as the greater abundance of male body hair and the curvier female form, or the contrasting body shapes of men and women, with men generally having broader shoulders and narrow hips, whereas women usually have narrow shoulders and wider hips.

What Lewis is saying is simply that God exhibits spiritually certain characteristics that mirror the masculine traits of initiating desire, pursuit and penetration. In other words, God desires and pursues us long before we desire and pursue him, the consummation of which is effected when he penetrates the comparatively feminine human heart that is surrendered to his Holy Spirit.

A lot of men find such imagery deeply uncomfortable because they lose sight of the fact that it is analogy and typology, and no more a literal comparison than Paul’s assertion that all believers are ‘sons of God’ means that women who become Christians grow hairs on their chest.

In theology a ‘type’ is an emblematic foreshadow or exemplar of some event or truth or other reality, that we then conceptualise as its antitype. A type is somewhat similar to a metaphor but generally more concrete. For example, Jesus is sometimes called ‘The Lion of Judah’ or ‘The Lamb of God’; both universally understood metaphors that emphasise very different aspects of his divine person, whereas Noah‘s Ark or Moses’ Ark of the Covenant would be more readily considered as types of Jesus Christ.

And Jesus explained the Bible’s reliance on figurative language to Nicodemus, when he seemed flummoxed by his statement that believers must be born again:

Jesus answered him, "Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?" (John 3:10-12)

In the Old Testament Israel was often depicted as God’s wife, while the New Testament envisages the Church as Christ’s Bride, which is one reason why God considers homosexual relationships morally invalid and theologically unrecognisable.

Since marriage is a type and shadow of God’s relationship with his people on the basis of comparison between male and female, any sexual union between two men or two women (which the Bible calls ‘going after strange flesh’ - Jude 7) is a poisonous misrepresentation of that holy union, just as fornication and adultery are regarded as typical of idolatry.

Another point in this regard is that the idea of homosexual marriage is virtually an oxymoron, inasmuch sex is a word of Latin derivation (sexus) originally meaning cut or division and is thus descriptive of the essential differentness between the two sexes. Homos is the Greek for same, therefore, the idea expressed by the contrived term homosexual is one of ‘same-differentness’.

Most dictionaries will principally define sex as -

That by which a plant or animal is male or female: the quality of being male or female.

This fully accords with the Biblical idea of sex as revealed in Genesis 1:27:

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

In the Hebrew text male and female is zakar v’n’qebah - which, even when rendered as politely as I know how, translates as ‘stamp and imprint’ - the idea being of ‘one that fits into the other’. Or to borrow another Biblical image that is seldom elaborated - it might connote the idea of a foot and a shoe - if you get my drift. If you don’t believe me, check the Hebrew for yourself.

Another tenuous analogy would be of a signet ring making an impression in hot wax, where the ring is the male and the wax is the female. Now imagine pressing two signet rings together or two wax surfaces, resulting in no impression being made by either. There you have an analogy of how God sees homosexual connection.

At the same time, however, we should never confuse type and antitype. And those who are unfamiliar with Biblical typology should not infer from anything I say that God desires to have a sexual relationship with his children.

The metaphor of sex is purely that, and illustrative of certain aspects of the human sexual dynamic, which provide and a number of useful parallels as to how God relates to us, and which we shall consider in more detail in due course. Within the context and confines of marriage - and marriage alone - God not only approves of sex, he encourages it and is happy to be associated with the powerful passions that human sexual desire can arouse.

The French put it most succinctly in the time-honoured salute, ‘Vive la difference!’ - ‘Long live the difference!’ which yet again harks back to the created order before the Fall, as God intended and which Paul revealed, in Ephesians 5:

This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

Because, as God is different from man, so is man different from woman. And, as we saw earlier, C. S. Lewis observed that ‘we are all, corporately and individually, feminine to [God]’, in that human sexuality is defined, and wholesome sexual attraction driven, by our sexual differentness. And we saw that this was categorised in terms of primary and secondary sexual characteristics, the most obvious of which are physical.

However, there are also marked emotional and psychological differences between the sexes which, together with the physical, offer some interesting parallels with how we relate to God. And this includes a superficial side to the sexual psyche of both men and women that together offer a fascinating insight into Ephesians 5:32.

For example:

The eternal God is the Ancient of days, who created the man first, then the woman. The parallel of which is that husbands tend to be older than their wives.

God is almighty, and greater and more powerful than we are. This is generally reflected in the tendency for husbands to be larger and physically stronger than their wives.

God is passionately in love with his Bride and sees her as beautiful, whereas many Christians are blind to God’s beauty but drawn to his power and what he is able to do for them. This is a more negative parallel, contrasting God's goodness with our fallen nature, but is nevertheless reflected in the way that most men are very visually attracted to women, whereas many women place a higher value on a man’s non-visual attributes like power and wealth and security.

And 1 John 4:19 agrees, with a principle I alluded to earlier:

We love him, because he first loved us.

God is the initiator in our relationship with him, just as in most marriages it is the man who desires the woman and pursues her first - sometimes long before she even notices that he exists.

All of which brings us to the end of Part One, in which we have seen that sex was God’s idea and made to be enjoyed within the stable and exclusive confines of marriage as a physical type of the kind of passionate spiritual connection God seeks to have with us all - corporately as a Church and individually as its members.

As we progress into Part Two we shall see how God employs this analogy quite liberally and with surprising vigour in what is without doubt the most erotically charged book in the whole Bible - The Song of Songs - to exemplify the physical ideal of married love and the spiritual aspirations of a holy God.

In Part Three, we shall look at another aspect of God’s love as revealed through the eyes of the prophet Hosea, where we will learn how God sees and deals with the pain of brokenness in sexual relationships.