Our society has done a remarkable job of breaking down our convictions about sex. Nearly every movie has ‘a scene’ in it, almost never in context of marriage. Sex is pervasive. It is used to sell everything from soap to super cars. The show Seinfeld was a brilliant sitcom in its day, but unfortunately, sex is a casualty of their humour. In Seinfeld, sex is for singles. It was just ‘yada yada’, nothing sacred that we should respect.
What are the facts about sex? Why should we respect it? Whenever I heard the ‘sex talk’ at church, school, youth group, video presentation, wherever, the tactic was always the same – what it might cost you. They talk about the things you can catch, and often read out the testimony of someone with one of those hideous diseases. I used to feel itchy just listening to it. After talking about the 9000 different diseases they then move on to the emotional cost, the financial cost, the social cost… all the risks.
My intention isn’t to make fun of those presentations because they are valid. But I have been alive long enough to notice something – risks don’t stop or deter us.
Every guy at the rehab I’m involved with was aware from the start of his addiction that there was a risk, he could die. I’m sure the people who have fallen to their death rock-climbing or base-jumping knew what the risks were, but did that stop them? Using the ‘what it might cost you’ approach is a good place to start, but it doesn’t go far enough. We must appeal to something higher.
The most compelling reason we have for putting sex within boundaries is because the God who designed it said to. Simple as that. God wants sex within the sacred boundaries of marriage; outside that it is wrong.
When we tinker with God’s plan for sex, we’re tinkering with the cosmic stream of human existence. — Christopher West, Theology of the Body for Beginners (p. 14)
Why is it a big deal to God? Before I start answering that question you answer this one. How much was it your decision to be born? You had nothing to do with it, right? How much did God have to do with you being conceived? This may shock you, but God in His sovereignty awarded that decision to your biological father and mother.
Having sex isn’t just a way of expressing intimate soul to soul love with someone. It is also the fruitful, sacred act of creating another eternal human being. This is why it is such a big deal; it has eternity connected to it.* We are tinkering with eternity when we play around with sex. We are making a choice for someone else to exist or not to exist. This is why God has strict rules regarding sexual behaviour; it’s dealing with eternity and the future of the human race.
The human race – its existence, its balance – is literally determined by who is having sex with whom, and, in what manner. — Christopher West, Theology of the Body for Beginners (p. 14)
There are many scientists who are convinced that cell division, what happens when a baby is developing, is supernatural. One BBC documentary** referred to conception as ‘an everyday miracle’. Their video and microscope observations left them dumbfounded. Yes, they know all the chemicals involved, the DNA and so on. But why? What makes it happen? The answer is simple. It is a miracle. It’s God at work. His creative power from Genesis continues to this day, this moment.
For you [God] formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. — Psalm 139:13 (ESV)
God has made this deal with us: you put a sperm and egg together and I’ll make an eternal human being. It doesn’t matter how you were conceived (rape, an affair, a one night stand…), you are and will always be a creation of God. All human life is sacred for this reason, especially the unborn. Abortion is interrupting God at work. The eternal life He is forming is literally ripped from His hands. In God’s eyes it is more than ‘termination’ or ‘family planning’ – it is murder.
God has rules about sex not only to protect you but also someone else you are making a decision for. If you were making something valuable and precious, what would you do when you had finished? You would look after it. God is no different. If He is going to create another eternal human being, He wants His precious creation well looked after, ideally by a mother and father, people who have made a vow for life, who can offer security and all the benefits of a stable family.
God designed sex as part of the marriage covenant and to image the self-giving fruitful love of the Trinity. When sex is removed from this sacred place it becomes inward-focused and self-seeking. Casual sex shows no respect for marriage or regard for another eternal being whom God can create.
Sex is a big deal. More rides on this issue than we realise. As Christopher West points out in Theology of the Body for Beginners, ‘… as sex goes, so go marriage and the family. As marriage and the family go, so goes civilisation’ (p. 13).
Sex is about commitment, covenant, divine love, new life, family, eternity. If we are not prepared or unable to wholly embrace each one of these then we best obey God and embrace something else that’s just as high and holy – abstinence.
* Is it possible our ‘modern’ views on contraception have played a major part in ‘casualising’ sex and breaking the eternal connection of children? Maybe our society’s hedonistic sexual condition is no coincidence.
** ‘The Human Body’, 1998 BBC Worldwide Ltd.