Everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the Word of God and prayer. 1 Timothy 4:4–5

God created us as sensuous beings. The scent of a flower, the warmth of the sun, or a baby’s first smile brings us joy. To this also belongs sexual attraction. God has given us a great gift in our senses, and if we use them to praise and honor him, they can bring us great happiness.

To reject the living senses is to reject God and his handiwork (1 Tim. 4:1–3). He does not want us to reject the body or its emotional powers. But just as the area of sensuous experience can bring us close to God, so too can it mislead us and bring us into darkness. This is true because Satan seeks to undermine every good thing, and is always waiting to deceive us.

The soul is drawn to God through the spirit, but is also bound to the physical through the body. The real enemy, however, is not what is physical. The real enemy is Satan, who continually tries to attack the human soul and sever it from God. And God’s will is that every part of life – spirit, soul, and body – be brought under his control (1 Cor. 10:31).

There is nothing wrong with the sphere of the senses. After all, everything we do, whether waking or sleeping, is a sensory experience at some level. But because we are not animals, and are made in the image of God, far more is expected of us. And it is up to us to decide which decisions we make, and which direction our hearts will follow (Jer. 17:10).

Falling in Love

When two people fall in love, the joy they have at first is on a sensuous level: they look into each other’s eyes, they hear one another speak, they rejoice in the touch of the other’s hand, or even in the warmth of the other’s closeness. Of course, the experience goes far deeper than seeing, hearing, or feeling, but it still begins as an experience of the senses.

Yet human love can never remain at this level. It must go much deeper than that. When the sensuous becomes an end in itself, everything seems fleeting, and we feel compelled to seek our satisfaction in experiences of ever greater intensity (Eph. 4:17–19). Spending our energies on the intoxication of our senses, we soon exhaust and ruin our ability to take in life’s vital power. We also lose the capacity for any deep inner experiences. Unless we surrender ourselves in reverence to God, we will be unable to experience the things of this world to their fullest.

I have often seen how people who focus on gratifying their senses wind up leading aimless lives. When our senses rule, we will become frustrated and confused. But in God we can experience the eternal in the sensuous. In him we can satisfy our heart’s deepest longings for what is genuine and lasting.

This Gift is a Mystery

As a gift from God, sensuality is a mystery. Without God, its mystery is lost and it is desecrated. This is especially true in the whole area of sex. The sexual life has a deep intimacy of its own, which each of us instinctively hides from others. Sex is each person’s secret, something that affects and expresses one’s innermost being. Every disclosure in this area opens up something intimate and personal and lets another person into one’s secret. Therefore the sexual sphere – even though it is one of God’s greatest gifts – is also the sphere of shame.

We are ashamed to unveil our secret before others, and there is a good reason for this. Adam and Eve were ashamed of their nakedness before God because they knew that they had sinned, and all of us, too, know that we are sinful by nature. This recognition is not an unhealthy mental disorder, as many psychologists claim. Rather, it is the instinctive response to protect that which is holy and given by God.

Sexual union is meant to be the expression and fulfillment of an enduring and unbreakable bond of love. It represents the supreme surrender to another human being because it involves the mutual revelation of each partner’s most intimate secret. To engage in sexual activity of any kind without first being united in the bond of marriage is a desecration.  Premarital sex, even with a partner one intends to marry, is just as harmful, and will severely damage a future marriage. The veil of intimacy between a man and woman must not be lifted without the blessing of God and the church in marriage (Heb. 13:4).

The Fruits of the Spirit

Even within a marriage, the whole sphere of sexual intimacy must be placed under Christ if it is to bear good fruit. The contrast between a marriage where Christ is in the center and one where the flesh is the focal point is best described by the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Galatians:

The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissension, factions, and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires (Gal. 5:19–24).

The sexual sphere has a special significance because it touches our souls so deeply. People who consider lust to be on the same plane as gluttony, for example, do not understand this. When we surrender to the temptations of lust, we are defiled in quite a different way than by gluttony, even though that, too, is condemned by Paul. Lust and impurity wound us. They attack the soul at its core. Whenever we fall into sexual impurity, we fall prey to evil, and our being is corrupted. Then we can be freed only through repentance and conversion.

The opposite of sexual impurity and sensuality, however, is not prudery, moralism, or false piety. Jesus warns us against this. (Matt. 23:25–28) In everything we experience with our senses, our joy must be genuine and free. Pascal says, “The passions are most alive in those who want to renounce them.” When sensuality is repressed by moral compulsion rather than disciplined from within, it will only find new channels of untruthfulness and perversity (Col. 2:21–23).

The Importance of Reverence

In our corrupt and shameless time, it is harder and harder to raise children with a deep sense of reverence for God and all that he has created. All the more, we must strive to bring up our children in such a way that whether or not they marry, they grow up to be men and women committed to a life of purity.

We must be watchful that our children do not talk irreverently about sexual matters. At the same time we cannot avoid the issue, but need to bring a spirit of reverence to our children. We must teach them to understand the significance and holiness of sex in God’s order, and impress upon them the importance of keeping their bodies pure for marriage. They must learn to feel that sex finds its greatest fulfillment, and gives greatest pleasure, only in a pure and godly marriage.

God has joy when a young married couple experiences full uniting: first in spirit, then from heart to heart and soul to soul, and then in body. When a man and woman lift the veil of sex with reverence, their union honors God. Every couple should strive for this reverence, for “the pure in heart shall see God.”

 

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Your Turn. Tell us what you thought about this article:

Responses

This was a very good article except it did not cover anything about using birth control as a means to being responsible and not having more children than a couple can take care of.

Would the writer please consider addressing this issue in regards to marriage and sex? 

Tom S