Compiled by: Herman Abrahams (Pastor), Cornerstone Faith Ministries, P.O. Box 740, Westridge 7802, Rep. of South Africa.
E-Mail: Mentorship2003@yahoo.co.uk
Note to the reader:
If you have been blessed with this sermon compilation, I would be honoured to receive an e-mail from you merely telling me where in the world you are based- I do not need any other information. This is merely so that I can have the pleasure of giving thanks to Almighty God that all over the globe the ministry which he has entrusted to me, is blessing the body of Christ and helping to extend the Kingdom of God. Thank you and God Bless. Herman Abrahams,
Cape Town, South Africa.
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Series: Successful Family
A CHRISTIAN INTERPRETATION OF SEX IN MARRIAGE – Part 1
2 Tim 3:16-17: 16 “All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”
The bible is not a book on sex. However, it does contain many specific ideas concerning sex and how sex fits into the total plan of creation and the progress of the Kingdom of God.
It should be helpful to any couple planning marriage or any married person with wrong attitudes or faulty approaches to sex to study carefully some of the Bible passages related to sexuality in marriage.
God invented sex; he thought it up in the beginning. We have God’s permission to enjoy sex in marriage. He intended it for our pleasure! Sex in marriage (or the “act of marriage”) is not something unholy; it is not just a necessary activity altogether separate from our Christian lives; it is a God-ordained invention for husband and wife to experience and enjoy without any feelings of guilt.
Negative attitudes about the act of marriage can destroy marriage relationships.
Let us go explore God’s Word to find out what the Creator-God has to say on this subject.
1. PROVERBS - “CAPTIVATED BY HER LOVE”
PROV 5:15, 18-19: 15 “Drink water from your own cistern, running water from your own well… 18 May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth. 19 A loving doe, a graceful deer— may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be captivated by her love.”
Here the bible speaks quite openly, so joyously of sex in marriage. Procreation (reproduction) and children are not mentioned.
Not only is a man’s behaviour, when he is meeting his sexual needs in marriage with his wife represented as “wisdom and understanding” (Prov 5:1 - RSV), but God is represented as always knowing, watching and approving this relationship (verse21)
2. SONG OF SOLOMON
The Song of Solomon contains poetry about the love relationships between husband and wife. The book describes in vivid poetic language the physical bodies of married lovers. Throughout the book the feelings, the attitudes, the imagination, the dreams, the spiritual joys, and the romantic happiness of married lovers are beautifully described.
a) Song of Solomon 6:1-10:
Friends
1 “Where has your lover gone, most beautiful of women? Which way did your lover turn, that we may look for him with you?”
Beloved
“2 My lover has gone down to his garden, to the beds of spices, to browse in the gardens and to gather lilies. 3 I am my lover’s and my lover is mine; he browses among the lilies.”
Lover
4 “You are beautiful, my darling, as Tirzah, lovely as Jerusalem, majestic as troops with banners. 5 Turn your eyes from me; they overwhelm me. Your hair is like a flock of goats descending from Gilead. 6 Your teeth are like a flock of sheep coming up from the washing. Each has its twin, not one of them is alone. 7 Your temples behind your veil are like the halves of a pomegranate. 8 Sixty queens there may be, and eighty concubines, and virgins beyond number; 9 but my dove, my perfect one, is unique, the only daughter of her mother, the favorite of the one who bore her. The maidens saw her and called her blessed; the queens and concubines praised her.”
Friends
10 “Who is this that appears like the dawn, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, majestic as the stars in procession?”
b) Song of Solomon 7:1-9
“How beautiful your sandaled feet, O prince’s daughter! Your graceful legs are like jewels, the work of a craftsman’s hands. 2 Your navel is a rounded goblet that never lacks blended wine. Your waist is a mound of wheat encircled by lilies. 3 Your breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle. 4 Your neck is like an ivory tower. Your eyes are the pools of Heshbon by the gate of Bath Rabbim. Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon looking toward Damascus. 5 Your head crowns you like Mount Carmel. Your hair is like royal tapestry; the king is held captive by its tresses. 6 How beautiful you are and how pleasing, O love, with your delights! 7 Your stature is like that of the palm, and your breasts like clusters of fruit. 8 I said, “I will climb the palm tree; I will take hold of its fruit.” May your breasts be like the clusters of the vine, the fragrance of your breath like apples, 9 and your mouth like the best wine.”
c) Techniques in sexual arousal between husband and wife are implied
“His left arm is under my head, and his right arm embraces me.” (Song of Solomon 2:6; 8:3)
3. GENESIS – “BE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY”
GEN 1:27-28 “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.”
In this passage we see that on the non-physical side both man and woman are made in the image of God. That is, they were persons characterized with intelligence, accountability, the will to choose etc. On the physical side they possess physical bodies, including sexuality and the capacity to reproduce. In the command to “be fruitful and increase in number,” we have sex in the creation of man and woman for the purpose of procreation (reproduction). Sex in marriage is basic in the plan of God in creation.
4. “ONE FLESH”
GEN 2:24-25 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united (or “shall cleave”) to his wife, and they will become one flesh. The man and his wife were both naked and they felt no shame.”
a) Husband and wife are here commanded to be joined together in sexual union, to be “ONE FLESH”.
This phrase however does not only refer to the bodily union of husband and wife but also to their spiritual union. This “ONE FLESH” relationship does not refer specifically to reproduction but rather for their act of marriage to provide a profound personal experience of spiritual and physical pleasure for both husband and wife.
b) The term used for sexual intercourse in the King James Version of the Bible is “TO KNOW”.
· Gen 4:1 (KJV) “And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived…”.
· Mary, speaking of her virginity, said “How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?” (Luke 1:34)
· Matt 1:25 says that Joseph “KNEW her not” until after the birth of Christ.
This “TO KNOW” is the same term used in the Bible to define our relationship with God whereby we have an intimate, personal knowledge of Him. The word “know” is the same word used of God’s loving, personal knowledge of Abraham in Gen. 18:19 “for I know him ….” Husband and wife learn to know each other in a deeper, higher and more intimate way through the act of marriage. Our marriage relationship portrays the truth of our relationship with God.
(c) Husband and wife need not be ashamed of the sex act in marriage (Gen 2:25).
(d) The nature of this pleasure involves the total physical and the total mental, emotional and spiritual nature of both husband and wife.
(e) Sex in marriage did not become and unholy practice when sin entered in the world, as some have assumed. This notion is ruled out when we note that Jesus quoted this passage as a basis for His ideas about marriage (Matt 19:5 Mark 10:7-8). See also (Ephesians 5:31)
5. GOD SAW ALL THAT HE HAD MADE, AND IT WAS VERY GOOD. (Gen 1:31)
The creation of light was “good”, the creation of land and sea was “good’, and likewise, the creation of vegetation, of fish and birds and animals was also ‘good’.
However, when God created man and woman, male and female, in his image, the Genesis account states that “it was very good”. The creation of man and woman with physical reproductive bodies is “very good”. At the same time, their creation spiritually in the image of God, was “very good”. This total complete unit of spirit, soul and body was “very good”.
(See also Genesis 2:18-23; Psalms 139:14; Eph 5:31-32; Heb 13:4)
