Does God care who we sleep with?

God cares who we sleep with because God created sex.

The traditional understanding of sexuality has been under scrutiny since the mid-20th century's sexual revolution. Many proponents of the sexual revolution saw monogamy as restrictive and vicious rather than a virtue. Likewise, when it came to other questions of acceptable sexual behavior, champions of the sexual revolution advocated for expanding the bounds of what is considered acceptable. Ever since the sexual revolution, the question has often been asked of Christians, “Why does God care who I sleep with at all?”

Placing the Sexual Revolution Under The Microscope

But before I address that question directly, it is useful to place the sexual revolution under the microscope as well. Vince Vitale wrote, “When I look at the last 50-plus years in the West, one of the conclusions that I come to is that when we experimented as a society with a sexual revolution that severed sex from any proper meaning and purpose and context, the results were largely and gravely antithetical to human flourishing. The results have included drastic rises in divorce, addiction to pornography, marital unfaithfulness, abortion, and sex trafficking, to name just a few.” This summarizes the history of sexual ethics in the last half-century. Ironically, it is this view of sex that is outdated. We tried it. It didn't work.

God Cares Because: God Created Sex

But that still leaves the question: Why does God care who I sleep with? First, God cares who we sleep with because God created sex. After creating Adam and Eve in Genesis 1:27, the first command God gives to them is, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen. 1:28). That is to say, God's first command to humankind was to procreate, have sex, and fill the world with his image bearers. God created sex for a purpose, and just like everything God created, it is important to steward it in a godly and healthy way.

Take, for example, money. Jesus spoke frequently about money and the dangers that can come when money controls our lives. That is why he said, “No one can serve two masters... You cannot serve both God and money” (Matt. 6:24). Jesus knew that anything created by God can be used by fallen human beings to replace God. These things can also make us think we know better than God and don't need God.

This phenomenon is obvious in the case of money, which can control and consume people's lives. John D. Rockefeller once said that he would have enough money when he earned one dollar more. His point was that it's never enough. Money makes a false promise to satisfy us in a way that only God can.

Sex is similar. It can become the driving focus of a person's life and take the place of God in their hearts. It is helpful to remind ourselves what Augustine once said—that we should guard ourselves from loving the gifts of God more than God Himself. In other words, we should be on guard against loving creation—even good things like sex and money—more than the creator himself. To do so ultimately leads to our ruin.

God Cares Because: Our Bodies Matter (Does God care who we sleep with)

The second reason God cares about who we sleep with is because our bodies matter. God did not just make us embodied souls, but our bodies are actually so important to God that he sent his Son Jesus to live in a human body, die in a human body, and resurrect again in a human body. As we speak, Jesus is in heaven at the right hand of God the Father in a human body. Jesus is both God and man in two distinct natures and one person forever.

Some people believe that what we do with our bodies is incidental to our relationship with God, but Jesus shows us the exact opposite. When Jesus took on human flesh, he showed that God cares deeply about the human body and how we use our bodies in this world. God places prohibitions on gluttony and self-harm because he cares. So too, God places healthy and holy restrictions around our sexuality because our bodies are his creation, and our bodies matter to him deeply.

God Cares Because: We are New Creations in Christ

Thirdly, God cares who we sleep with because we are new creations in Christ. God says that everyone who has faith in Jesus has been born again and has been fundamentally changed into a new creature. We were made for heaven, not hell. That is why Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, asking, "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: the sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, men who practice homosexuality, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, and swindlers will not inherit the kingdom of God." But you were washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit of God. (1 Cor. 6:9–11

Paul was insistent on this point that sex outside of God's intended design was part of our old way of life. That is why he says to the Corinthians, whom he loves, “Such were some of you.” He tells them that a new reality has broken in because of the grace of Jesus in their lives. He says they were washed from their former sins. They have been sanctified and set apart from the world around them, and they have been justified, meaning they have been forgiven and received righteousness in the name of Jesus by the Spirit of God. This is an act of God’s grace to take us out of sin generally and sexual sin, specifically, and to set us apart for eternal life with him. Paul says this is not just a change in our way of thinking, but it is actually a fundamental change in who we are now before God.

We are new creatures and new creatures who have been saved by God, who no longer see God's prescriptions for sexuality as burdensome or oppressive. Rather, we experience them as life-giving and joyful prescriptions meant for our flourishing and good.

That is why I ask, “Why does God care who I sleep with?” It may actually be the wrong question. Instead, our question should be, “How can I serve God with my body and my sexual ethics? How can I submit my body to his loving guidance and care?”

Article by: Daniel Nealon / Core Christianity

Image by Wix.com

Daniel Nealon is pastor of Deer Creek Church, a congregation in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). He is also the author of the Deer Creek Catechism. He and his wife, Hannah, live in Littleton, CO, with their four children.

• Hebrews 13:4: "Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous."

  
  

• 1 Corinthians 6:18: "Flee from sexual immorality." Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his body."

  
  

• Genesis 2:24: "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh."

  
  

• 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5: "For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his body in holiness and honor."

  
  

• Song of Solomon 4:10-11: "How delightful is your love, my sister, my bride! How much more pleasing is your love than wine, and the fragrance of your perfume more than any spice!"