Clear Instruction

Paralleling the instruction in Genesis, the New Testament also provides plain instruction regarding sexual relations.

Let’s return to I Corinthians 7:1-40 and Paul’s instruction to those tempted with fornication and considering what to do about it. Notice: “Now concerning the things whereof you wrote unto me: it is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband” (I C or 7:1-2).

Two points arise from this passage: The statement that “It is good for a man not to touch a woman” is almost certainly Paul reiterating what a member or members of the Corinthian congregation had previously written to—“wrote unto”—Paul. This scripture is certainly not some kind of broad endorsement or mandate for celibacy, because it would contradict the very next verse. Some in Corinth, like today, were recoiling from rampant promiscuity to the position that “all sex is bad.”

Also, I Cor 7:2 states that one purpose of marriage is “to avoid fornication”—to channel sexual urges into the proper, God-ordained realm of wedlock! No reference to procreation is found here!

However, as the reader progresses to verse three, the language of the King James Bible, translated in 1611, reflects a bias toward the repressive morality of that period. This may blur its intended meaning. Let’s read: “Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband.”The vague phrase “due benevolence” used here is actually referring to sexual relations. Continuing, “The wife has not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband has not power of his own body, but the wife” (I Cor 7:4).

Let’s understand. Though God has “bought us with a price,” He gives each married person a certain “power” over the body of his or her spouse. The husband and wife literally belong to each other physically, and each should willingly give to the other sexually!

Although virtually all women and (less commonly) men will have occasional days during which they are genuinely “not in the mood” for sexual intercourse, God forbids any pattern of selfish denial of a spouse’s natural sexual needs, sometimes called “frigidity” in the realm of psychology, but which is usually plain selfishness. But Paul admonishes the married Christian: “Defraud you not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency” (I Cor 7:5). (This will be revisited in a later chapter.)

The Results of Traditional Teaching

The teaching that sex is intended strictly for procreation has kept countless millions of spouses from enjoying this wonderful gift of God—and being able to release themselves so that sexual enjoyment can occur. This idea offers two alternatives: Either severely restrict, or deny altogether, God-ordained desires within matrimony—or enjoy the exquisite pleasure of sex and pay the penalty of eternal torment in a fictional “hell-fire.” Is it surprising, then, that the annals of marriage are overflowing with frigid wives (or husbands), frustrated husbands (or wives) and loveless unions?

Truly, any supposed god who would present this impossible situation to his followers would be a monster—an incredibly cruel being. He would be a “god” that creates the potential for intense pleasure through orgasm while expecting people to deny themselves this enjoyment even though they knew he had created them that way. Satan—the “god of this world” (II Cor. 4:4), and the real author of this falsehood—fits the bill perfectly!

The great law of CAUSE and EFFECT is seen with painful clarity in the terrible confusion permeating the many humanly-devised wrong concepts and uses of sex and sex in marriage. The effect—the transformation of marriage from God-given delight to diabolical curse—springs from a very real cause: ignorance and rejection of God’s Word—His plain instruction for mankind!

Sex truly IS necessary to preserve marriage, and to impart lessons in character that prepare us for an eternity in God’s kingdom. Used rightly in wedlock, sex as an act of love and affection, apart from procreation, is not only permissible—it is COMMANDED!

But other vitally important and basic information about the physical sex organs is necessary for couples to possess in order to properly carry out God’s command. Before discussing them, we must first discuss the enormous differences between sex in human beings and sex throughout the animal kingdom.