God’s design for sex

Sex, for good and bad, can be “awe-fully” consequential. As such, it is always provocative and never safe. When Andy Warhol said, “Sex is the biggest nothing of all time,” he was so wrong. Sex is one of the biggest somethings of all time – and for far deeper reasons and in many more fabulous ways than most people appreciate.

For Christians, sex is a big thing because it’s a big thing to God.

Those outside the circle of faith often see followers of Christ as we typically see our parents. They couldn’t possibly be sexual, save for the few obligatory engagements needed to bring offspring into the world.

But this is a false understanding. Truth be told, parents and Christians have a very vibrant interest in sexuality (except my parents, I’m sure!). And Christians have a higher view of human sexuality than most people.

Sex and seeking God

G. K. Chesterton hinted at this in an odd way when he said, “When once you have got hold of a vulgar joke, you may be certain that you have got hold of a subtle and spiritual idea.” G.K. Chesterton, “The Cockneys and Their Jokes,” in All Things Considered (London: Sheed and Ward, 1908), p. 11.

And Bruce Marshall is even more startling: “The young man who rings the bell at the brothel is unconsciously looking for God.” Bruce Marshall, The World, The Flesh and Father Smith (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1945), p. 108.

What Chesterton, always the provocateur for truth, is trying to have us understand is that human sexuality comes to us from God, and even when it is sadly perverted in vulgar joke, the teller is unwittingly referring to something that is, at its root, remarkably sacred and godly. (And that’s exactly why the perversion of it is so wrong.)

Marshall would have us know that even the search for intimacy in the wrong places, in the wrong ways, is intimately about seeking what God made us for. (And that’s exactly why it should be sought in the right places in the right ways.) This search drives all of us in many different and powerful ways. Some are simply more aware of what is really behind it.

The Christian’s radical view of sexuality

What these men are saying is that – at its root as God created it – sex is remarkably sacred and ultimately about seeking that which God made us for. We must understand that God’s interest in human sexuality is so much more than merely making sure people behave themselves.

God is much more than some supreme Dr. Laura barking out moral directives over a heavenly radio. But it’s not confined to only this. His interest is rooted in something much bigger.

God, and those who follow him, take sex very seriously, and the Christian picture of sexuality is much more serious, vibrant, and well . . . sexy . . . than any other view held in the larger culture. As a result, it’s far more fulfilling.

While it might seem old-fashioned or passé to people outside the faith, the Christian view of sexuality is actually a very radical one. It’s radical because is goes against the culture and holds up human sexuality as nothing less than an icon of the inner life of God. That’s far from “nothing.”

Before we address this, let’s understand that place of sexuality in family life.

Sex: Where it all starts

Regarding the relationship between sex and the family, allow me the indulgence of quoting Chesterton again:

“Sex is an instinct that produces an institution; and it is positive and not negative, noble and not base, creative and not destructive, because it produces this institution. That institution is the family; a small state or commonwealth which has hundreds of aspects, when it is once started, that are not sexual at all. It includes worship, justice, festivity, decoration, instruction, comradeship, repose. Sex is the gate of that house; and romantic and imaginative people naturally like looking through a gateway. But the house is very much larger than the gate. There are indeed a certain number of people who like to hang about the gate and never get any further.” (G.K. Chesterton, G.K.’s Weekly, 29 January 1928.)

Sex certainly isn’t an end in itself, any more than a gate is an end. It leads us somewhere. Sex ushers us into something grand and glorious, more than we can imagine. Therefore, we need to understand its nature and participate in it as it was meant to be.

Sexuality is all about context

C. S. Lewis refers to this when he says, “The monstrosity of sexual intercourse outside of marriage is that those who indulge in it are trying to isolate one kind of union (the sexual) from all the other kinds of union which were intended to go along with it and make up the total union.” (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, (New York: Macmillan, 1960), p. 96.)

A Christian view of human sexuality is all about context – making sure we don’t separate some part of the thing from all the others that are intended to make it a complete thing. The Message, Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of the Bible, states it this way:

“There’s more to sex than mere skin on skin. Sex is as much spiritual mystery as physical fact. As written in Scripture, ‘THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE.’ . . . We must not pursue the kind of sex that avoids commitment and intimacy, leaving us more lonely than ever – the kind of sex that can never ‘become one.’

“There is a sense in which sexual sins are different from all others. In sexual sin we violate the sacredness of our own bodies, these bodies that were made for God-given and God-modeled love, for ‘becoming one’ with another.” (1 Corinthians 6:16-18)

Again, we accomplish this not by merely understanding how we should act or not act, but how human sexuality reflects the very inner life of God and how it gives him glory when we live in it as he created it.

What is God’s interest in sex?

Adam as man and Eve as woman are uniquely created to show forth the image of God in creation. They reflect it as individuals and they reflect it as complements to one another. This image is one of love, intimacy, creativity, cooperation, beauty, glory and much more. In Adam and Eve’s God-given design, let’s observe how their sexuality is a primary part of their being.

What’s the first statement God makes to Adam and Eve after their creation? “God blessed them; and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth’ ” (Genesis 1:28).

Think of this in terms of what he doesn’t tell them to do. From the start, God doesn’t tell Adam and Eve to engage in

• learning, as intellectual beings.
• prayer, as spiritual beings.
• economics, as industrious and productive beings.
• politics, as orderly and civil beings, or
• writing stories. performing music or dance, or doing art, as creative beings.

Of course, each of these is part of our God-given humanity and part of God’s command to “subdue” the earth. Each of these is a part of family life that we should practice and celebrate. But these are not what came first. God blesses man and woman and bids them to be fruitful and multiply – exercising and reveling in their nature as sexual beings. This was the first command for humanity, and Adam and Eve were, no doubt, quite happy to obey. God was pleased also.

Adam and Eve’s first gaze

Likewise, let’s look at the event when Adam and Eve, fresh from the mouth of God, first gaze upon each other. Adam didn’t look at Eve and declare his appreciation for her intellectual brilliance, her sensible outlook on life, or her spiritual piety. Not by a long shot!

Adam and Eve first glory in something else, something some Christian theologies have unfortunately and incorrectly thought of as quite base and ungodly. They marvel at each other’s bodies – their flesh. When Adam sees Eve for the first time, he proclaims with great excitement, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Genesis 2:23, NIV).

He can’t help but recognize this aspect of her. God had made Eve beautiful and Adam knew instinctively that this partner was just right for him. Adam was a physical and emotional oddity without Eve, but now it all made sense. Both of them understood the naked truth (sorry!) that Adam was made for Eve and Eve was made for Adam. God revealed it in their flesh, as part of his perfect design.

This helps us understand something very important about Christianity. As C. S. Lewis said, “Christianity is almost the only one of the great religions which thoroughly approves of the body – which believes that matter is good, [where] God himself once took on a human body.”

This gets us back to Chesterton’s quip about the vulgar joke. Satan can corrupt sexuality and the flesh and turn it into something ugly. But it is, at its core, something beautiful and godly. Therefore, the flesh is spiritual and we should appreciate and cherish it under the lordship of Christ.

Sex as a picture of the inner life of God

When God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness (NIV),” and then created Adam and Eve and bid them to be sexually fruitful, it tells us something important about who God is.

I don’t want to draw too sharp a comparison here, because the persons of the Trinity don’t have physical bodies as we do and therefore don’t manifest their love for one another as humans do. But notice the close connection in the tight space of two short verses (Genesis 1:27-28) of God’s desire that we reflect the image and likeness of the Trinity and how God directs Adam and Eve first to commune with each other as sexual creatures.

The significance of this commandment

We can’t overlook the significance of this: God creates man and woman as reflections of the image of the Trinity and the first command is to engage in the sexual embrace.

This means that when a man and woman come together in marital sexual intimacy, somehow – mystically – they mirror the wonder, beauty and creative power of God like no other part of creation. Again, this is far from “nothing.”

As poet-farmer Wendell Berry explains, “The sexuality of community life . . . is centered on marriage, which joins two living souls as closely as, in this world, they can be joined.”

He continues, “This joining of two who know, love and trust one another brings them in the same breath in the freedom of sexual consent and into the fullest earthly realization of the image of God. From their joining, other living souls come into being, and with them great responsibilities that are unending, fearful and joyful.” (Wendell Berry, Sex Economy, Freedom and Community (New York: Pantheon Books, 1993) pp. 138-139.)

Beautiful! This is the glory of family life.

How do we love God in our sex lives?

For Christians, single or married, this is one of the most important questions we can ask, because our sexuality is so central to who we are.

It always made me laugh inside when I was a teenager and church leaders would talk to us about sexual health and encourage us not to be sexually active until we were married.

Of course, this was smart and godly advice. But I found it funny because, even though I had never been intimate with a girl and didn’t plan to be until I married, I was a healthy teenage boy. I was so hugely active sexually – on the inside, even if there was no external expression.

Things were churning in me like a volcano. I had to govern my feelings and desires constantly. I had to keep my mind from wandering where it shouldn’t. I had to be careful how I related with girls and of the images I saw in magazines and on television. Mentally, I was very sexually active. And my sexual, physical and spiritual health demanded this deliberate, internal discipline to ensure that my outward behaviour was in line with what God desired for me.

We are all sexual beings

What I’m saying is that we have to see “sexual activity” as so much more that just “doing it.” It involves how we appreciate and live out our own God-entrusted sexuality. We are all sexual beings.

I can see this in my preschool-age children. They’ve already come to a place where they’re instinctively shy about family members seeing them naked. When they go from their baths to their bedrooms, they’re sure to wear a towel or dash as fast as they can and try to cover themselves by putting one hand in back and one hand in front of them in a futile attempt to keep anyone from seeing their bums. They’ve become aware, all by themselves, that certain parts of their bodies should be kept private. This is healthy, age-appropriate sexual activity.

So, not only married people should be concerned about loving God in their sex lives. We all have an awareness of our sexuality and how we express it. It’s part of our thought life, the way we dress, the ways we interact with boys and girls in our youth and men and women when we’re older. It’s even a part of how we view and interact with God.

How to love God in our sex lives

How do we love God in our sex lives? We love God in our sex lives by making sure they reflect the nature and qualities of the relationship shared by the Trinity, the image we and our sex lives were created to reflect. This requires that we understand some primary characteristics and qualities of the Trinity.

The community of lovers:

• The Trinity is a community of lovers who are relationally active, not static. They are, from all eternity, giving to and receiving from one another in unconditional, loving intimacy. It’s their very nature to do so. It’s who they are!
• This community of loving persons is permanent, for they have always exhibited this giving and receiving of love for each other and always will. These are not merely convenient or passing relationships.
• This community of loving persons is committed, for their relationships are not dependent on how fulfilled they are or on what tey can get out of the relationships.
• This community of loving persons is exclusive, for there have always been three specific members and there always will be three. No more, no less. They don’t invite other gods into their intimacy nor do they swap partners. They are each for the others.
• The persons of this community are self-giving, for they seek to serve and to give to one another and glory in doing so. They’re not self-seeking. While they glory in receiving love from one another, it’s not about what they can get but whatt can give.
• This community of persons is one, but also distinct and complementary. This means that while the members of the Godhead are one in essence (each is fully God), they are also distinct from one another and complement one another. Each person of the Trinity can’t be fully appreciated apart from the other two. Each needs the others because they are distinct from the others. They complement each other in their uniqueness.

The glorious story of sexuality

Christians have a far more beautiful story to tell about the glorious nature of human sexuality than any other story occupying the cultural stage now or ever. None of the rivals are even close.

The Christian story of sexuality is true to the fullness in which God made us as humans and true to the nature of what is ultimately behind everything in the universe: God, who is love and who dwells in loving intimacy. We shouldn’t be shy about telling it with the power and beauty of our lives.

We tell it to:

• We tell it to the world when we make deliberate decisions to protect our sexual health and wholeness from the ravaging wolves of premarital and extramarital sex.
• We tell it to our spouses when we give our total selves exclusively to them, desiring to give and serve rather than to take. We tell it when we affirm, honour, and protect their femininity or masculinity, whether we’re alone or in front of others.
• We tell it to our spouses and children when we honour our spouses with our fidelity. This isn’t just physical, but also mental and emotional. Husband, do your wife and children see you looking at other women or treating other women more kindly than you do your own wife? Wife, do you use sex as a bargaining chip with your husband, even playfully: “If you don’t play golf this Saturday, maybe we can see what happens after the kids go to bed?” Married couples should give of themselves freely and exclusively, without demanding from one another.
• We tell the Christian story when we treat our spouses as reflections of God upon the earth, not as objects for our own pleasure or usefulness.
• As your friends and children observe your life, what do they learn about sexuality? Do they get a distinctly Christian picture of sexuality? Do they see that you seek to please God and reflect his nature by honouring and serving your spouse? How we quietly care for and live out our sexual lives in front of others is a powerful lesson to them about how we view God, others and ourselves. Remember, there’s much more to our sexual lives than the activity that takes place behind closed doors.

Purity in our sex lives

Loving Christ in your sex life means being pure. It means being chaste. Purity is so much more than what you don’t do. It’s who you are. Both purity and chastity are positive virtues and not merely an absence of wrong behaviour. Pope John Paul II describes chastity very nicely in one of his pastoral letters:

“The chaste person is not self-centred, not involved in selfish relationships with other people. Chastity makes the personality harmonious. It matures it and fills it with inner peace. This purity of mind and body helps develop true self-respect and at the same time makes one capable of respecting others, because it makes one see in them persons to reverence, insofar as they are created in the image of God and through grace are children of God, re-created by Christ who “called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). (Pope John Paul II, The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality: Guidelines for Education Within the Family (Boston: Pauline Books & Media, 1996), p. 20.)

To love God in our sex lives means to be pure in the fullness of the person God created us to be – physically, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually. To do so is to live in wholeness.

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From My Crazy Imperfect Christian Family, published by NavPress. Copyright © 2004, Glenn T. Stanton.

Related resources

  Glenn T. Stanton is the director of global family formation studies at Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs.