What does God say about sex?

Wonderful sex is part of the Creator’s plan for mankind.  It is part of His ideal will,  when it is experienced in obedience and under the power of the Holy Spirit.

There are 42 references in Scripture to “sexual relations”, all but four appear in the priestly laws (Leviticus mostly).  They reference the limitations surrounding sexual relations. (Don’t lie with your father’s wife, your niece or nephew, your sheep or camel, etc.)  The other four appear in the New Testament, where the term used more frequently is “sexual immorality”, cited 22 times. I’m guessing that the people attending church in 60 A.D. were clever enough to avoid blatant sexual sins for the most part, and practiced more of the “secret sins of lust”.  So the authors of the New Testament targeted “sexual immorality” as the identified problem.  One key verse is 1 Cor. 6:18. “Flee form sexual immorality.  All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body.”

Let’s review God’s plan for sex:

After God created Adam, He wanted to provide a suitable helper, a “support”, for Adam.  So God took a “rib” from Adam and formed a woman.  The word for rib refers to a structural support, like a plank or board that holds something straight.  The root of the word for rib is “limp or lame”  [So I guess man is limp or lame without a woman.]

God then intended man to leave his mother and father. “Leave” means to be set free, to be loosened from, to depart from.  Once set free, man and woman are then joined together, syzeugnumi (sue-zoog- na-me), like being put under a yoke together as a team of working oxen.

The intended purpose in God’s plan is for man and woman to become one flesh.  Egg and sperm link and a new life is formed. Thus mankind is fruitful and multiplies.

Let’s look at this plan in psychological terms:  An infant is created from that act of sexual intercourse.  He develops physically and emotionally, hopefully with a strong capacity to trust and grow.  When he is a child, he learns independence and productivity. He begins to use his gifts and develops his interests and values.  As a teen, he forms his identity.  He progresses towards the stage where he will be set free from his parents. Then he leaves them.

At that point in development he is ready for intimacy.  He knows who he is, so he now can lose himself in another person. This other person knows who she is. They “fall in love.”  They merge (through marital union) and become one flesh. And the cycle starts again.

The sex act is blessed with hormones, apparatus, sensations, erotic zones, eyes, ears, you name it.  And under God’s divine plan all parts of the body — which is God’s very temple — are in the play. So the intimate act of intercourse is a mini, earthly version of the intimacy we have with our Creator.

So what went wrong, and caused this problem with sex?  What are your thoughts about this topic?