By Faith On Marriage & Sex/Gender

Continuing from our previous entry: 

 6. God’s design for sex and marriage is clear

God has established marriage to be a covenantal, lifelong, monogamous, one-flesh, heterosexual union between one man and one woman. 

According to Genesis, God established marriage to be a lifelong, monogamous, one flesh union.  Genesis 1 & 2 are insufficient to deduce that marriage is a heterosexuals only affair, insofar as the only road to that conclusion runs through conflating God’s decretal will & God’s moral will.   

In Reformed Theology deducing what God did from what God did & what God commands of us are not always the same.  For example, God creates our souls ex nihlio (Zechariah 12:1), & does so in the image of Adam, who is our federal representative in the Fall.    

Yeshua, having no human father is excepted, insofar as He was unable to sin, therefore created Established & Confirmed in Righteousness.   We, however, are created without the ability to do any spiritual good accompanying our salvation (Romans 8:7, WCF 6.3 & 4).

If descriptive statements about what God did (God’s decretal will) properly serve as the epistemic warrant to what God commands of us (God’s moral will), then that means that since we are created unable to exercise saving repentance & faith, there is no moral obligation to do so, even though Ezekiel & Acts state otherwise. 

And He has given humanity the good and beautiful gift of sex to be shared only within the context of marriage. 

If by this, the author means a marriage that is legal because of a sacramental administrator or administrators performed it, then he would be incorrect.   The Bible doesn’t command us to marry - it commands us to be fruitful & multiply, & marriage is never presented as the only legal option in God’s eyes that makes sex between 2 people moral.  If that was the case, then a marriage certificate proving that such a ceremony of legal transaction had taken place would make marriage legal & moral in God’s eyes. 

I Corinthians 7 is a harm reduction measure for people using temple prostitutes then and who have pornography and one night stand issues today.  It is not about marriage curing lust or giving us a get out of jail free card. 

The purpose of sex as God has given it to us is to consummate and seal the marriage relationship, to foster mutual intimacy, to enable mutual pleasure, and to respond to God’s command to “be fruitful and multiply” (procreation). God calls us to chastity in singleness, and faithfulness in marriage.

Based on what standard? I Corinthians 7 teaches married people to be love one another & stop using the Aphrodite temple or any other such venue for temple prostitution.  Instead, they should individually & as a community parclete one another by staying out of the pagan temples  & stop swapping spouses & engaging in temple prostitution. 

Relative to singles, the text encourages them to do the same, & if they find themselves unable to exercise self-control they should move in the direction of marriage.  At no point does the Bible ever teach that God condemns & commends us regardless of our motives, which means that any teaching that single people are in sin if they engage in sexual activity outside of marriage, they are in sin no matter what their motives are is false. 

7. God recognizes that we will all struggle with sex and gender

God knows that we are all sinners. We must recognize that due to sin in the world, all human beings will struggle with sexual brokenness, and that we will encounter temptations to wander from God’s will. God makes it clear that any form of sexual immorality (including but not limited to adultery, fornication, LGBTQ+ behavior, bestiality, incest, sexual abuse, sexual harassment, sexting, sex trafficking, polyamory, objectification, and the use of pornography) is sinful and harmful to one’s self and others.

That is only true if one engages in any of those activities while failing to love God over & above everyone & everything & your neighbor before yourself.   As we have seen in our previous entries in this series,  morality turns on motive, & when it comes to issues like homosexuality, the tradition bound view runs through 4 up to 5 epistemic, logical, & exegetical fallacies. 

Note: With respect to animals, the authors have 2 things in mind - the use of animals in cultic sexual or quasi-sexual ways, as well as disallowed sacrifice like those in which the goat fuckers in Leviticus 17 were engaged.   The Bible also teaches that acts of animal cruelty, especially acts that demean animals & run afoul of God’s commands relative to stewardship of tte animal population as well as the environment, are forbidden - which basically means that sex with animals is an act of cruelty, & in all likelihood our relatives in the Church Triumphant would tell us that - even though technically it would be no sin to have sex with an animal if God removed our inability to love Him & others perfectly, people just plain don’t do that sort of thing because it’s be incredibly stupid to do so & some things just appear to be reflexive. 

In our next entry, we will conclude this series. God bless us all, every one, & “Go & sin, no more.”