Sex Outside Marriage:
Why Would God Call It Wrong?
DOES THE BIBLE REALLY SAY SEX OUTSIDE MARRIAGE IS
WRONG?
YES: Here are some places where the Bible clearly
says fornication is wrong:Romans
WHY WOULD GOD CALL SEX OUTSIDE MARRIAGE
“WRONG” INSTEAD OF JUST ‘UNWISE”?
WHY WOULD IT BE AN ETHICAL/MORAL ISSUE?
Why would God
declare sex outside marriage wrong?
Many would say, they can’t sees anything wrong with it so long as you
have two consenting, loving adults who are responsibly using birth
control. Why would God call that
wrong? Certainly remaining a virgin
until marriage and then remaining monogamous is the only way to, with certainty,
prevent STDs. So we can see that God’s rules protect us physically. But why is this a moral issue? Why would fornication be “wrong” instead of
just “unwise”? Here are five answers (there are certainly more):
1. If I asked people whether they thought having sex with
your grown child or with your adult pet dog was OK, most would first chastise
me for even asking such a nasty question, and then they’d say “no, of course
that’s not OK; that’s sick”). There are a
few people who’d say it was OK and to “go for it” if you are so disposed. But most people would say incest (even with
an adult child) and bestiality are not good.
But in both these cases, the people/creatures involved are adult and consenting (the dog, it
may be argued, cannot truly be said to assent for certain because he can’t
talk; but the grown child can talk). So being adult and being both consenting is
not enough to determine morality. What
does define it? Seeking the other
person’s best possible good. Only sex in
marriage can do this, and God knew that.
2. Selfishness and a
possible child. Basically every act of sex—unless
the woman has had a hysterectomy—can result in a child. The chance may be very small, but it is
there. Not only can condoms, diaphragms,
and birth control pills fail, but so can vasectomies and tubal ligations. Even people declared “sterile” sometimes turn
out not to be sterile (at least not permanently). So except for a few rare instances, there is
no sex in which you can be guaranteed of not producing a child. There is
basically always a chance. And if a child does result from that act of sex
outside marriage, the child will pay a price.
For my moment of pleasure a child may pay a price all his/her life. God
can do (and does do) amazing and wonderful things in families where there is a
single, unwed parent or where a baby was born before the parents were
married. But things will still be
harder for the child (and the parent) than they would’ve been had the child
been born with married, Christian
parents. It is wrong to risk the
well-being of an innocent human being (the child who will pay a price all his
life long) for the sake of obtaining immediate pleasure—physical or
emotional. It may be hard to resist—this
sexual temptation--but to give in to it is
ultimately selfish. And a chief
sufferer here will be an innocent child.
But all the friends and relatives are also impacted.
3. Selfishness
toward the other adult—Part 1 What if a man and I, both of us
unmarried, were “in love,” were considering sex, and were both willing to risk
the STDs for the sake of “love” and “our passion for each other”? Well, it may be argued that if I am willing to
take a risk, then that’s my decision. If
I want to express my love this way and am willing to take the risk and suffer
the consequences, then what could be wrong with that? But there is another person in this
equation. What of the other person’s
risk? What of the man in this imaginary
scenario? It would be wrong for me to assist
him in doing something I know puts him
physically at risk. If he wants to jump
out a third story window to “show his love for me” and declares that his love
for me is so great that he is willing to risk breaking his legs or his spine in
doing so, does that mean I should encourage him to do it, help him to do it,
open the window for him and say “ready, set, go!” and hold hands and jump with
him? If I really love him, I won’t want
to encourage him to risk a devastating STD no matter how foolishly he may want
to throw caution to the wind and no matter how willing I may be to take that
risk for my own self. And of course for
the Christian we must remember that we are not our own to do with as we
please. We belong to God. Doesn’t He allow and even encourage us to lay
down our own safety and lives for others?
Yes, when our sacrifice brings about their good (like jumping on a
grenade to save your soldier comrades or giving up your career to spend more
time with your kids). But while the
feller may be temporarily happy that I, ahem, did this for him, and while I
might be happy for a short while because I FEEL that I showed him my love, even at my own risk…what
I am bringing about by my “sacrifice” is his harm and endangerment, not his
good.
4. Selfishness towards the other adult—part 2 What if the couple is adult, consenting, “in love,” the
woman has had a hysterectomy (in which case no child can result and there could
be no “selfishness with regard to a possible child” issue), and both are
virgins or by some other method are certain neither has STDs? What then?
How could that be hurting anyone?
Why would God call that “wrong”? Are you married? If so, you probably know that all sexual
expressions (such as kissing) which you shared with someone besides your spouse
before you got married take a little something away from the fullness of joy in
your sexual relationship with your spouse.
There are memories, comparisons, and various other hurdles and
impacts. The impact is even greater for couples where there had been previous
sexual partners. Sex always makes an
impact, not just physically but psychologically and emotionally, and
spiritually. So if I have sex with a man
to whom I’m not married—even if there is no chance of conceiving a child or
transmitting STDs- I am still harming him (and he is harming me). Whatever relationship he pursues after
his-and-mine has ended, that relationship will be diminished. His future marriage—whoever he’s married
to—will be less than it could’ve been, will have hurdles it didn’t have to
have. But, I might argue, we’ll stay together; there won’t be “another woman”
later on whose relationship with him I’m messing up. But if we are not married, there can be no
guarantee that both he and I won’t break up and go on to other people. And when we do, those relationships will be
diminished. Even if he and I eventually
get married to each other (and not to somebody else), our own marriage will be
missing a blessing it otherwise would’ve had.
Couples who had sex with each
other before marriage are more likely to be unhappy in their marriage and more
likely to divorce (statistics bear this out). Fornication is basically a way of
saying “I don’t care that I am setting you up for the rest of your life for
worse relationships than you would’ve had were we not to do this. I don’t care that I am robbing you of your
future happiness.” I am also robbing my
future husband—whoever he might be-- of a degree of happiness which he
otherwise might’ve had. It is, again,
selfish. In the first two types of
selfishness we’ve discussed (1. towards a potential child and 2. towards the
“partner” by encouraging him to risk a devastating STD), the harm may occur, or it may not. And it is selfish even to take that risk when
someone else’s well being is at stake.
But in this third type of selfishness (helping the other person or
“partner” to ruin his prospects of a future marriage free from the impediments
past relationships always cause) …well, in this one the damage is not a “may”
but a “shall.” In ways large or small
your act WILL diminish the other person’s future happiness in marriage. You
will mess up his future; it’s a guarantee.
5. It makes sense that intimacy should be related to commitment, that as the level of commitment
increases, so does and should intimacy increase. Sex constitutes the deepest level of
intimacy. What is the deepest level of
commitment? It is a legal promise to
stay together forever (and to seek one another’s good); and that is, of course,
marriage. Being “committed partners”
without that legal promise falls short of the “deepest level of
commitment.” Such “partners” may feel they
are committed, and they may even be committed…but not as committed as they
would be if they were legally married.
This discussion
is not meant to make people feel hopeless.
The Lord can bring beautiful restoration even after our most obvious mistakes. And most of us have struggled in some way or
other in this very area. But having
answers as to why God says “no sex outside marriage” will help our
kids. They (and we) should obey God
whether we understand His reasons or not.
But when we do understand some of His reasons, it makes it that much
easier to obey Him. We know it is “wrong” because it IS wrong (rather than
figuring it’s wrong because it’s called “wrong”). We can see that God called it “wrong” not
arbitrarily or because He is prudish (He’s not—He invented the whole thing) but
because it IS wrong. Knowing that fornication is selfish makes it
easier to decide not to commit it. And
it helps us see that the heart of God is not stuffy or hard-nosed. God’s heart is full of love, and His heart
sees our own selfishness better than we can see it ourselves. He wants us to act in love—not in what we may
call “love,” but instead in true, unselfish love.
