“the Christian religion and I have different views on social issues like abortion or gay marriage.”

SEX AT THE START

Everything the Bible teaches about sex traces back to the first two chapters of Genesis, the book that opens with the famous words, “In the beginning….” (Genesis 1:1). Human sexuality begins in the garden of Eden, where God created all things good. He designs male, female, marriage, and sexuality. He defines gender as binary, marriage for a man and woman, and sex as he meant it to be only within marriage. In the opening pages of Genesis, we see the world as God made it and before sin corrupted it. When God told humans to become one flesh and be fruitful and multiply, he established marriage as a covenant to be consummated sexually. Moses records this, Jesus repeats it, and Paul echoes it. Long before human governments existed, God created marriage and established the family unit as the first building block of cultures and nations.

Across the Old Testament there are passages that carry on this positive image of sexual love, as scholar Stanley Grenz describes:

“The most explicit affirmations of sexual pleasure are found in the wisdom literature of the Old Testament. Several of the Proverbs, for example, are devoted to the theme of finding true sexual pleasure. This theme is expressed both through warnings against seeking sexual fulfillment outside of marriage and through assertions concerning the delight that the married person should find in one’s spouse. Above all, however, the Song of Songs is significant in this regard…. The book is best seen as an extended description of the celebrative dimension of sexuality. This literature is erotic in the positive sense of the term. It celebrates sexual pleasure and eros, the attractiveness that the lover finds in the beloved.”(2)

The whole of the Bible teaches that God intended the fires of sexual passion to be contained in the hearth of marriage. But almost right from the start the flames broke past those boundaries and there has been a wildfire ever since.

If Genesis 1-2 present the world as God meant it to be, Genesis 3 reports the human race’s terrible leap into sin. Tragically, sex and marriage are among the first casualties, as the rest of Genesis reports. We see not only the triumph of love and romantic commitment (Genesis 24:1-67; 29:20) but also the disaster of polygamy (4:18-24; 28:46-49; 29:14-29). There are heartbreaking love triangles (16:1-16; 29:31—30:24). In the days of Noah many defy God’s ban on marriages between believers and unbelievers (6:1-2). A mismatched marriage causes grief that reached to extended family (26:34-35). There are also sad accounts of a loveless marriage (29:31) and the pain of divorce (21:8-14; 23:1-2; 25:1).

The Old Testament records endless episodes of sexual sin and its consequences. Examples of broken sexuality include rampant lust in Sodom, the womanizing of a key spiritual leader named Samson, the sexual failings of great kings with David and Bathsheba and Solomon’s many wives and concubines, and Amnon’s incestuous rape of Tamar. The Old Testament also specifically denounces the following sexual acts:

• Fornication (Genesis 2:24-25; Genesis 38:12-13; 38:24; Lev. 21:9; Numbers 25:1; Deut. 22:21).
• Adultery (Ex. 20:14; Deut. 5:18)
• Rape (Gen 34:1-31; Exodus 22:16-17; Jdgs 19:1-30; 2 Sam 13:11-14)
• Incest (Lev. 18, 20, 20:11-12, 14, 17, 19-21; Deuteronomy 27).
• Homosexuality (Leviticus 18:22, 20:13).
• Bestiality (Exod. 22:19; Lev. 20:15-16; Deut. 27:21
• Prostitution (Gn 38:21–22; Lv 19:29; 21:9; Dt 23:17; Hos 4:14; 1 Kings 15:12; 2 Kings 23:7)

Notice that the Bible is restrictive on many kinds of sexual activity, and no one sexual actively is singled out. Far more items concern heterosexual boundaries.

Some Bible critics dismiss Old Testament rules about sexuality because they often appear alongside other laws we are quick to ignore, such as bans on eating pork, cutting hair, or wearing clothes woven from mixed fibers. Indeed, the Bible says, “Christ is the end of the law” (Romans 10:4 ESV). But the subject is more complex than that. Jesus fulfilled every law in Scripture by living without sin (Matthew 5:17-18). On the cross, he took our place and met the law’s greatest demand against us—death for sin (Romans 8:3). Those who believe in Jesus are now free from the Law and ruled by him (Galatians 3:24-26). And although Jesus has done away with a multitude of the old laws, he specifically chose to carry on many significant moral principles, including nine of the ten commandments—all but the Old Testament instruction to keep the Sabbath. Most important for this debate, Jesus arrives on the scene and upholds Old Testament teaching on sexuality as we will study in the next blog.

(1)“Rick Warren on homosexuality: “Just because I have a feeling doesn’t make it right . . . not everything natural is good for me,” Piers Morgan Live (blog), CNN, November, 27, 2012, http://piersmorgan.blogs.cnn.com/2012/11/27/rick-warren-on-homosexuality-just-because-i-have-a-feeling-doesnt-make-it-right-not-everything-natural-is-good-for-me/.

(2)Grenz, Sexual Ethics, 70–71.