What does God say about sexuality?

Introduction This piece of writing has been written out of a situation involving real people, real emotions and a struggle of opinions about an issue where the church of Jesus Christ in our generation is confused. This issue focusses on the question: what is Gods truth about sexuality? I am a born again Christian that holds to the conviction that the Bible is Gods revelation to humans about Himself and life in a complete way. The essence of that conviction is that what His word says is true about all aspects of life including sexuality. Psalm 119:160 is a verse that backs up the statement I have just made. It says: The sum of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous rules endures forever. The truth of this verse is confirmed by Jesus Himself in His high priestly prayer when He said in John 17:17 Sanctify them in truth, Your word is truth. Here, Jesus is asking the Father to grow Christians in the truth and confirms that the word of God is truth. The Greek word for truth in this verse literally means truth in an objective manner ie: what the truth is not based on your own interpretation. What Jesus is essentially saying is that the word of God in the B ible is the only word that can in a trustworthy way give us an objective truth about all of life. So we can trust that what God says in the Bible about sexuality is really true. Check point Now before we actually look at what God says about this issue we come to a check point in this article. I want you to stop and ask yourself the question: do I believe in the statement that the Bible is the actual inspired word of God and all within is true? If you do then those who like to give Christians labels would say your are conservative and if you dont agree then you would be labelled a liberal. Now if you are liberal in your thinking about the truth then what I am going to write in this article may be offensive to you. I would encourage you to keep reading but I would also like you to think about your tendency to be liberal. All liberalism comes from men who in the past have with sincerity asked questions about the Bible but unfortunately have gone too far to distrust it. I think its important that you know your liberal mind-set has been influenced by the way men think about things not God. You cant trust the way men think about anything in and of themselves. The following verse appears twice in the book of Proverbs (wisdom literature) which makes the point about the end result of the way of men. Proverbs 14:12 and 16:25 says the following: There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. The way of men always leads to DEATH, lets not forget that. God wants us to have life not death!

So what does God actually say about sexuality anyway? As those who believe in the God of the Bible who sent His Son to die for our sins we should naturally have the desire to please Him in every area of our life out of thankfulness for our salvation. With regard to sexuality and how we please God in this area we first need to know what pleases Him so we may pursue and then what displeases Him so we may avoid. What pleases Him? To answer this question we have to go back to the beginning of the Bible where the creation account is found in Genesis 1 & 2. When you read these chapters in a literal sense as I do there are certain things about sexuality that God shows us: 1. God was pleased when intimacy in a sexual sense was between one man and one woman in a marital relationship. Genesis 1:31, 2:24-25 2. One of Gods primary purposes in sexuality being expressed between humans was to create new life in the blessing of having children. Genesis 1:28 God does not mention any deviation away from these two design features of his creation at this point in scripture so reading the account literally one would be very hard pushed to get away from the fact that God is most pleased about sexuality when it is present between one man and one women in a marital relationship with the chance of seeing new life through children. Sadly after the creation account, in Genesis 3 sin comes into the world because of Adams disobedience and the expression of sexuality has never been the same since then. This leads us to answer our next question. What displeases Him? Sin is destructive. Any Christian who is truly being honest with themselves would see this truth. In the scriptures after the garden of Eden the effects of sin became so bad that by the time of Noah God decided to flood the earth in judgement (Genesis 6-9). After this because sin was still in the world the same worsening of the effects of sin ococcurred so that by the time of Moses nations around Israel were sacrificing their own children to so called Idols (Leviticus 18:21). Things were pretty bad. It was at this time that God gave the law to the Israelites. In the 3rd chapter of the epistle of Galatians the Apostle Paul gives us two reasons why the law was given in the Old Testament. These two reasons were: 1. To restrain sin (Gal 3:19): The commandments were to act as a way of putting a limit on what sinful human beings could do. 2. To be our tutor to Christ (Gal 3:24): Our inability to fulfil the commandments was to act in a way to lead us to crying out for salvation through Jesus. Given the first reason for the law was to restrain sin we can be sure that the laws that said dont do this or that with specific judgements attached for certain actions were a reflection that the action in question was sin.

In Leviticus 20 there are some pretty strong judgements for certain sexual acts. If you read the text you will see that these acts include: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Adultery of any kind: having sex with someone other than your spouse. Any form of incest: having sex with a relative. Homosexuality: having sex with someone of the same sex. Polyamory: having sex with more than one person at a time. Bestiality: having sex with an animal.

The first most obvious thing to state is that these acts are still present today in our society; they are not unique for Moses time. The Bible also states that Jesus is the same today, yesterday and forever (Hebrews 13:8). The God who gave these judgements in Leviticus 20 is the same God today. He clearly states in the Law that the above sexual acts are sin because he had to judge people who were involved in them. It would be inconsistent with scripture to think in any way that these acts are okay today because our God is the same. God hasnt changed from the Old Testament. He still views the creation accounts definition of sexuality as what he is pleased with and these acts which he had to judge via the law as what he is not pleased with! That was the old, what about the new? I know that many of you would have probably disregarded my statements about sexuality in the first section of this article because I was using the Old Testament. There is an idea in the Church that the Old Testament really doesnt matter anymore because Jesus fulfilled it all. Whilst the statement that Jesus fulfilled / fulfils the Law and the prophets is true, in the case of sexuality the New Testament confirms what the Old Testament teaches. What did Jesus think about sexuality? Jesus believed in the Creation account with regard to its contents on sexuality: In Matthew 19 when Jesus is being questioned about divorce by the Pharisees he showed them that when someone is married divorce really shouldnt come into question and that God allowed divorce through the law because sin was so rife in Israel. He begins His argument by stating the position from the creation account upon the importance of marriage between one man and one woman for life thus showing that He thought that the definition of sexuality in the creation account was still valid even though he had come to earth. I would encourage you to read Matthew 19 to see for yourself. Jesus believed in the standard set by the Old Testament law on sexuality and raised that standard higher: In James 2:10 the following is written: For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it

The context of this verse is that The Holy Spirit is warning the church in Jerusalem away from the sin of partiality. Essentially there were people in that church picking and choosing who they would accept and have fellowship with in Christ. James inspired by the Holy Spirit makes the point that you cant pick and choose what laws from the Old Testament youre going to follow and not follow, its either all of them or nothing and he uses this to show the believers in Jerusalem that the same applies in Fellowship. This verse illuminates something very important about Jesus. We know that Jesus fulfilled the Law in his earthly ministry (Mat 5:17). James 2:10 shows us that he would have fulfilled every single part of it because if he failed in one part of the law he couldnt have claimed to have fulfilled it. It is also logical to state that He would have agreed with every aspect of the Law because you dont fulfil something you disagree with. To do that would be stupid. Jesus is not stupid, He is God. So to make it plain Jesus does not accept or agree with the following deviations in sexuality away from the Creation account mentioned in Leviticus 20 because to do so would be inconsistent with Him fulfilling the whole Law: 1. Heterosexual sex outside marriage. 2. Homosexual sex in any form. 3. Incest in any form. 4. Sex with an animal in any form. 5. Sex with more than one person at any time. Jesus is not inconsistent, He is God! Not only that but He states in His Sermon on the Mount that it is not only the action that is culpable but it is also the stance of your heart. He says that if you look at someone with lust in your heart you have committed adultery. What this teaches is not only is sexual purity in action important to Jesus but also that if we THINK with our heart in a way sexually which is not in the confines of marriage defined biblically ie: between one man and one woman it is NOT PURE BUT SIN in Jesus eyes. I would encourage you to read Matthew 5-7 to see for yourself. What did Jesus expect the Apostles to teach the church about sexuality?

I can understand why some believers find it difficult to accept that this sort of sexual purity is expected of believers nowadays. Many of the arguments for this way of thinking boil down to the idea that if Jesus has fulfilled the law then surely it doesnt apply to us anymore. This would be true if there was nothing stated in the New Testament about standards that needed to be carried on by New Testament believers from the Law. However there is clear evidence that Jesus expected the sexual purity that He agreed with to continue in His church. In Acts 15 the Apostles had a decision to make. The church was exploding in growth and not only were there a large number of Jewish believers but the number of gentile believers was increasing as well. Also at this time in church history there was a large number of false teachers called judaizers who were teaching that to be a real Christian you had to not only believe in Jesus but also keep the Old Testament law. These false teachers were causing a big stir in the church.

The Apostles met about this in Jerusalem and debated about whether New Testament believers had to follow the Law. They came to the following conclusion in Acts 15: 19-20 where with the gentile believers in mind James inspired by the Holy Spirit said the following: There my judgement is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God but should write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled and from blood. Now it is really important to see that in this verse the context is the subject of having to follow the Old Testament law as a New Testament believer. Notice that James says that New Testament believers should abstain from sexual immorality. Given that the context of these verses are the Old Testament law we can be sure that what James was thinking here is the standard that the Old Testament law set down with regard to sexuality. There are many other passages in the New Testament that deal with sexual immorality which I could do a study on but for the purpose of this article this verse in Acts 15 is enough alone to prove that the Apostles were expected by Jesus to teach the body of Christ to not endulge in sexual thought / activity outside the instruction of the Old Testament law which really means that sexuality should be reserved for marriage between one man and woman for life. So we can see from both what Jesus believed and the Apostles taught that the Old Testament and New Testament are unamously the same in their teaching about the expression and practice of sexuality A final word of Grace & a warning To finish this article I want to spend a brief time focusing on the application of what we have found so far. Firstly I want to say that although God is pretty clear in His word about sexuality He is also pretty clear that every human being is a sinner and the only way to live obediently in sexuality is through the power of His Holy Spirit. Given that all human beings are sinners it is important to point out that our fallen nature will always try and lead us down the path of sin including the sin of sexual immorality in any form. This issue is not immune to Christians. As born again believers we have what God calls a flesh or more simply a part of us that is hell bent on going back to our former manner of a sinful life. That is why it should not surprise us that Christians have issues with desires to commit sexual immorality. I should know, I have struggled with immoral sexual desires since becoming a Christian. It is completely illogical and nave of many Christians to malign people who say they are Christians and struggle with these desires because in all honesty most Christians have problems with temptations to sexual immorality. All Christians are called to have grace for brothers and sisters who struggle with these temptations but are called to be prepared to tell them the truth laid out in Gods word so that they arent living in deception. However, just because the desire for sexual immorality is there doesnt mean it is an excuse or an okay from God for Christians to carry out these desires. The Apostles were pretty clear that although Christians would be tempted to sin that was no excuse to sin and actually they taught that if we really were Christians we would not go on doing the things that God defined as sin anyway. Read Romans 6-8 for the clearest teaching on this.

As well as this the New Testament is pretty clear that the sin of sexual immorality is an indication of the worship of self in a persons life. This is clearly taught in Romans 1. If there was ever a chapter in the bible with a tale of two halfs Romans 1 would be the chapter. In the first half Paul writes about the glorious gospel but then in the second half he talks about the terrible effects of sin. He writes about the fact that sin leads to the rejection of truth and the exaltation of self and then finally shows us the terrible consequence of this which is sexual immorality and a debased mind. So we can conclude from this that the lifestyle not the temptation of sexual immorality in a so called Christians life should be a warning sign. It should warn us to one of two things: 1. That the person is genuinely born again but is living in the flesh. If thats the case we should lovingly call them to repentance and guide them back to the truth. Luke 9:23 2. That the person is not truly born again and is a false convert. If thats the case we need to lovingly call them to repentance and call them to put their faith in Jesus truly for the first time. To conclude, we should not be confused about sexuality. If you read the word of God consistently and faithfully you will come to only one conclusion: sexuality is to be expressed between one man and one woman in marriage for life. Anything else is sin and if it is a persistent lifestyle with no repentance that person is on dangerous grounds (Galatians 5:19-21). God bless Adam Maggio 2014