I did not intend for this post to discourage legal marriage or marriage ceremonies in any way. I have noticed how many Churchgoers in modern society have a horrible attitude toward people who have had sex prior to marriage. Terms like “bastard” and “bitch” developed as a result. While I am against adultery and fornication, I do not have anything specifically against a man and a woman making a lifelong commitment to each other and sealing that commitment through sexual intercourse. I know some people who have had sex first and then later got married. They did not commit adultery and they did not fornicate. Yet, people have this horrible outlook at people like this. So I decided to try to look at marriage from a Biblical perspective and this post is what I came up with. Please add your comments. All Biblical quotations are from the KJV unless otherwise statement.
Marriage ultimately finds its origins in Genesis and develops throughout the ages as cultures and societies evolve.
“Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh” (Gen 2:24).
Adam and Eve had no official ceremony. They had no one to celebrate with (except God). Marriage, for Adam and Eve, was a physical and emotional covenantal bonding and oneness, sealed through sexual intercourse, hence “one flesh.” So, technically, premarital sex was part of or even the marriage itself.
Only later on in history did a ceremony become involved with marriage. We see this later on in Genesis.
“And Jacob said unto Laban, Give me my wife, for my days are fulfilled, that I may go in unto her” (Gen 29:21).
Jacob wants to take Rachel as his wife. More than sex is involved for Jacob, however, because “Jacob loved Rachel” (Gen 29:18). In this sense, sex becomes the symbolic act of the joining of a man and woman as one in not only a physical aspect, but in an emotional aspect as well. The marriage ceremony is the celebration of a man and woman about to become one. We see this also in Genesis.
“And Laban gathered together all the men of the place, and made a feast” (Gen 29:22).
But the ceremony is not the marriage itself; it is the celebration of the marriage. This is why the marriage is not really complete until Jacob later goes “in unto her [Leah, mistaking her for Rachel].” However, it is also important to notice that sex is not enough. Jacob wakes up the next morning and is upset that he had been tricked into having sex with Leah. He had become physically one with Leah, but not also emotionally. He was not in all senses “one flesh” with Leah, for he loved Rachel, and not Leah.
Jesus picks up on this theme.
“The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away? He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so” (Mat 19:3-8).
Here, Jesus says by a man and a woman cleaving to each other and becoming one flesh God is joining the man and woman together. This is somewhat different than how we view marriage in modern society, where typically a priest is the one who legally does the joining. We notice, moreover, Jesus is not entirely concerned with legal issues (as we are today when it comes to marriage ceremonies), when he says “Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.”
Paul views marriage in a similar way.
“What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh” (1Co 6:16).
To Paul, even having sex with a prostitute is an act, though a distorted act, of becoming one flesh. To Paul, there is a big difference between having sex with someone, becoming “one flesh,” and staying with that person for life, than going around and having sex with person after person. These are the communities Paul was dealing with. He wanted those that found themselves attracted to woman to find a wife so that they could satisfy their sexual urges without commiting adultery.
As for Mat 5:27-28, I feel it is blown completely out of proportion.
“Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart” (Mat 5:27-28).
The Greek word translated “woman,” gune, in many cases carries connotations of a married woman or a “wife.” In the KJV, it is translated wife 92 times, and women 129 times, and therefore is extremely context dependent.
In Matthew 5:27-28, the word is used within the context of adultery. Adultery is the act of putting away your wife for another woman or causing someone else to put away his husband or wife. So Jesus probably has “wife” in mind with his use of gune. What Jesus means, then, is that a man thinking about taking another man’s wife is as sinful as the act itself. This is extremely similar to the Law saying, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s” (Exo 20:17) where the act of coveting is as bad as stealing.
Paul makes it clear there is nothing wrong with desiring ones own wife for sex. God created man and woman to be “one flesh” and sex plays an important role in the maintaining of the “one flesh.”
“But he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife” (1Co 7:33).
“But if any man think that he behaveth himself uncomely toward his virgin, if she pass the flower of her age, and need so require, let him do what he will, he sinneth not: let them marry” (1Co 7:36).
“Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband” (1Co 7:3).
I feel some people take Jesus’ words out of context to mean that having sexual desires for ones own wife is even sinful. Paul, to the contrary, makes it clear sex was designed for man and woman and within the right context it is not sinful.
Another problem is many people automatically equate “fornication” with premarital sex. I looked into the word and I do not feel premarital sex in every context is a form of fornication.
“Fornication” is translated from the Greek porneia.
It is translated fornication in all instances: Mat 5:32, 15:19, 19:9, 7:21; Joh 8:41; Act 15:20, 15:29, 21:25; Rom 1:29; 1Co 5:1, 6:13, 6:18, 7:2; 2Co 12:21; Gal 5:19; Eph 5:3; Col 3:5; 1Th 4:3; and Rev 2:21, 9:21, 14:8, 17:4, 18:3, 19:2.
Porneia is derived porneuo, meaning “to act the harlot” (Strong G4203), which in turn is derived from the root porne, which is the feminine of pornos, meaning “a strumpet; figuratively an idolater” (Strong G4204).
The word is used 39 times in the LXX: Genesis 38:24; Numbers 14:33; 2Kings 9:22; Isaiah 47:10, 57:9; Jeremiah 2:20, 3:2, 3:9, 13:27; Ezekiel 16:15, 16:22, 16:25, 16:31, 16:33, 16:34, 16:36, 16:39, 16:41, 23:7, 23:8, 23:11, 23:14, 23:17, 23:18, 23:19, 23:27, 23:29, 23:35, 43:7, 43:9; Hosea 1:2, 2:4, 2:6, 4:11, 4:12, 5:4, 6:10; Micah 1:7; and Nahum 3:4.
Of the 39 uses of porneia in the LXX, from looking at the KJV translation of the MT:
12 it is used in reference to whoredom.
7 times in reference to idolatry.
14 times in reference, by implication, to both idolatry and whoredom, particularly in Ezekiel.
2 time in reference to both whoredom and adultery.
1 time in reference to figurative, generalized, perversion. For example, “it hath perverted thee” (Isa 47:10).
Not once is porneia in the LXX explicitly used in the context of premarital sex.
Merriam-Webster defines whoredom as:
1 : the practice of whoring : PROSTITUTION
2 : faithless, unworthy, or idolatrous practices or pursuits
Premarital sex does not always involve whoredom or adultery.
Additionally, the Law does not condemn premarital sex unless it involves whoredom or adultery.
“And if a man entice a maid that is not betrothed, and lie with her, he shall surely endow her to be his wife. If her father utterly refuse to give her unto him, he shall pay money according to the dowry of virgins” (Exo 22:16-17).
In this instance, the premarital sex is not condemned, but the adultery it could lead to. That is, if the virgin were to have sex with another man, it would put away the one flesh, and be a form of adultery. Legal marriage, here, requires the man to ask the father to give him his daughter, and if he refuses, for the man to buy the daughter.
In the first century, there were three ways a woman could be married according to Jewish oral law.
“A woman is acquired [i.e. married] in three ways and she acquires herself in two ways. She is acquired through money, documents, or sexual intercourse. With money: Beit Shamai says with a dinar, or the equivalent value of a dinar; Beit Hillel says with a pruta or the equivalent value of a pruta. How much is a pruta? It is one eighth of an Italian issar. She acquires herself with a get or the death of her husband. A levirate woman is acquired through sexual intercourse and acquires herself through halitza or the death of her levirate husband” (Misnah, Kiddushin, 1:1).
As we see, traditions concerning marriage were much different in the first century. Women were married by being bought, as we see also in Exodus, by documents, as we see in the Gospels (cf. Mar 10:4), or by sexual intercourse, as we see in Genesis with Adam and Eve.
However, Jesus is not largely concerned with contemporary tradition (as I pointed out before and I will elaborate further) but with the Scriptures.
“And Jesus answered and said unto them, For the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept. But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh” (Mar 10:5-8).
As we see, Jesus was not concerned with what is lawful according to tradition, but what is lawful according to God.
In God’s eyes, marriage requires:
1) A man and a woman (e.g. Gen 2:22).
2) Love and a lifelong commitment (e.g. Gen 29:30).
3) And both emotional and physical oneness, symbolically expressed through sexual intercourse (e.g. Gen 2:24).
By these three steps, a man and a woman is joined together by God (Mar 10:9), not man, as husband and wife.
A ceremony is merely the celebration of a man and a woman becoming one (e.g. Gen 29:22).
Most say a marriage ceremony is required for a man and a woman to be married in God’s eyes in modern day society. This is typically based on the following verse.
“Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation” (Rom 13:1-2).
However, we must note two things: 1) Premarital sex is not illegal in modern day society and 2) We are not to obey the laws of the land that go against God.
For example, it was a law during the first century for each community to make sacrifices unto Caesar as a god and son of god. The New Covenant Scriptures make it very clear to abstain from idolatry and sacrifices unto idols, which in effect was illegal.
What Paul was talking about in this instance were things like paying taxes. Many Jews during the first century were bitter toward Rome and wanted their messiah to organize a revolt and destroy the oppressing Gentiles. Jesus, on the other hand, makes it clear: pay your taxes, if you are hit, turn the other cheek, and if you are asked to walk one mile, walk two.
Is there anything wrong with having a legal marriage and ceremony? No. Is there anything wrong with being married as Adam and Eve were? No. If two virgins in modern society have sex, never put the flesh away, and soon after become legally married, did they sin? No. If someone off on a small Island with no societal concepts of legal marriage and marriage ceremonies emotionally and physically commits himself to a woman and symbolically seals his covenantal commitment through sexual intercourse, does he sin? No.
If a man has sex with a girl just for pleasure and the next day goes and has sex with another girl, has he sinned? Yes. If a man has sex with a woman before legal marriage and then leaves the woman, has he sinned? Yes. If a legally married man leaves his wife for another woman, has he sinned? Yes. If two teenagers assuming they will spend the rest of their lives together have sex, not lustfully, but lovingly, and things don’t work out as they planned, have they sinned? Yes.
Legal marriage and ceremonies are quite useful in modern society, because they further encourage two spouses to stay together for life. A ceremony, moreover, is a great way to celebrate God’s joining of a man and woman as one flesh. However, legal marriage and ceremonies are not explicitly required by God and never were.
Feel free to comment.
Covenantal Aspects of Marriage
In the above post, in an attempt to foil the paradox of premarital sex, I focuesed mainly on the physical aspects of marriage from a Biblical persective. In the process, some may have concluded from my post I am in no way concerned with the other aspects of marriage. In this brief post, I hope to offer my views on the covenantal and emotional aspects of marriage, which in the end, are more important than the physical aspects; after all, the physical aspects of marriage are the outworking of the inward aspects of marriage.
In my above post, I explained that from a Biblical perspective sex is an intricate part of marriage and in some cases, when the circumstances are right, becomes synonymous with marriage itself. Of course, more is involved with marriage than sex. Marriage is not just the physical joining of a man and a woman through sexual intercourse, but also the emotional joining of a man and a woman prior to sex and through sex.
Marriage is like a covenant. A man and a woman that love each other make an agreement with each other and before God to stay with each other for life. The husband will care for the wife and the wife will care for the husband in an equal relationship.
However, a covenant is not just an agreement. There is a symbolic sealing and representation of the covenant.
In the same way the covenant between God and Abraham was symbolically sealed and represented through circumcision, so also is the covenantal agreement between a man and wife sealed through sexual intercourse.
What is my point? Sex is as much a part of marriage as was circumcision a part of God’s covenant with Abraham. However, sex under the wrong circumstances becomes a distortion of true covenantal marriage, in the same way the early Jews viewed covering up circumcision or not circumcising ones child as a rebellion against God’s covenant with Abraham (e.g. 1 Maccabees 1:15); in the same way Jesus constantly criticized in his ministries that having the outward circumcision of God’s covenant with Abraham is nothing if one does not fulfill God’s covenantal purposes for the Jews of being a light unto the Gentiles (e.g. Matt 5:14-15).
Having sex is not enough to be married in God’s eyes; likewise, merely fulfilling the emotional aspects of covenantal marriage, without fulfilling the physical aspects of covenantal marriage, is not enough. For example, one can say he “loves” his wife but lie around and watch T.V. all day while his wife brings home the bacon and does all the housework.
True marriage requires a covenantal agreement between a man and a woman. This is why the Church encourages people to wait for sex until legal marriage because most people in modern society are not fully capable of making or keeping the covenant themselves; they need legal documents and a ceremony to feel further bound to their spouse.
Concerning my quote from Paul about being joined to a harlot, let me further elaborate because I feel I gave the wrong impression, and maybe I subconsciously had the wrong impression. Having sex with someone just for fun is not true marriage, but a distortion of true marriage, in the same way being physically circumcised but failing to be a light unto the Gentiles was a distortion of God’s covenant with Abraham to Jesus in the first century.
Joining yourself to a harlot does not fulfill all the aspects of marriage. It is not the symbolic token of a covenant because the covenant never existed. That is, there is no prior covanental agreement; there is no emotional bonding; and there is no commitment. Rather, it is fueled by the lusts of the flesh, and the lusts of the flesh alone. This is why Paul adds, “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?” (Co 6:19).
My point still remains: pre-legal-marital sex is not in every situation fornication or adultery. Fornication, from a Biblical perspective, involves whoredom or idolatry as I pointed out before. Adultery involves putting away ones spouse for another or causing another to put away his or her spouse. However, premarital sex usually is, but not always, a form of fornication or adultery. Nevertheless, we are in no position to judge when premarital sex is or is not fornication or adultery.
I think more work needs to be done on the subject of marriage. I have only thrown some ideas out in the open.
Perhaps in a few days I will make a post pointing out the paradoxes and trivialness of homosexual marriage in modern day society. My thesis will be: It is impossible for homosexuals to be married, because marriage requires a man and a woman. I’m sure that post will be controversial with the emerging Church.
Re: Covenantal Aspects of Marriage
Enarchay, marriage isn’t ‘like’ a covenant. It is a covenant (biblically speaking, that is).
The point about Adam and Eve never getting married in a ceremony seems quite trivial because it ignores the nature of the text (pointing out details like this, or like the fact that Cain’s fear of being hurt by ‘other people’ should lead to the realization that we are reading the text wrong).
You’re right that ‘one flesh’ and ‘commitment’ are a good summary of marriage (not sure where you get romantic ‘love’ in any normative way from the biblical text though).
Overall your analysis seems ok, but I’m concerned about its practical implications. The entire argument sounds like an attempt at justifying secret sex. I make no assumptions about you personally, but I had friends in high school and college who argued along these lines, and it was always because they were sleeping with their girlfriends and ‘it felt right’ (and they didn’t want to feel guilty).
Premarital sex may or may not be ‘immoral’ in some abstract sense, but who cares!? Christians aren’t concerned with merely avoiding immoral things (though that is in general a good idea). Rather our calling is to embody New Creation, and this means taking on good-making and virtue-building practices which stand as permanent critiques of our selfishness and lustful drives. The practice of sexual chastity outside of Church-blessed covenantal marriage (I don’t we should give a damn about what the ‘legal’ status of such a union is in the eyes of the State) teaches self-control on the one hand and highlights the beauty of unconditional commitment on the other.
I’ll grant that the current cultural climate has fuzzied-up things a decent amount (by making space for this odd thing called ‘adolescence’), but the Church owes it to itself to aim for a higher standard and to locate individual acts within larger practices (as an aside, sex is never ‘private’ since, in spite of the Western myth of ‘birth control’, it leads to babies—and this casts a towering shadow over your argument for private commitments [which are socially quite weak anyway]).
I hope this was a helpful critique (the only kind of critique worth making). Let me know your thoughts.
Cheers,
-Daniel-
Re: Covenantal Aspects of Marriage
maybe this is my own naivety, but in what sense is birth control a western myth?
~jhimm — it’s smarter to be lucky than it’s lucky to be smart.
Re: birth control
My point was just that sex leads to babies. ‘Birth control’ helps westerners be in denial about this (and leads to rather myopic sexual ethics in my opinion).
I also think that ‘conception management’ is better terminology than ‘birth control’ (‘myth’ is an imprecise term—so I apologize for the confusion it may have spawned).
Re: birth control
So you mean birth control makes many forget what purpose sex actually serves? Perhaps this is why the line between homosexuality and heterosexuality, among other things, is so blurred.
Re: Covenantal Aspects of Marriage
No, I’m not trying to justify casual sex, if that’s what you mean. I have no hidden agenda, also. I’m a virgin and don’t plan getting married any time soon. However, I think there are certain situations when premarital sex, at least as we have come to define it today, is not exactly sinful. I believe we need to stop thinking of marriage from a societal perspective, but from a Biblical perspective. For example, homosexuals are getting all revved up about “marriage,” and if marriage was not connected so tightly with society and legal issues, we would not have this problem in the first place.
I agree with you that we need to embody New Creation and because of that should remain chaste. My post was basically designed for two reasons: 1) To criticize those who look down upon people who have had sex and been legally married shortly after and 2) Look at marriage and fornication from a Biblical perspective.
I think it is good to have a marriage ceremony and so on, but I think the problem is many have come to see this as marriage itself, when it is only one aspect of marriage in our society.
That’s my opinion so far, anyway. Do you understand what I mean?
Re: Covenantal Aspects of Marriage
Yes, I do think I understand what you mean.
I also think there’s something about a ceremony (/public declaration/covenantal vocalization) which needs greater emphasis. Sex isn’t private. One-flesh-ness is public. Therefore the commitment which is the presupposition of one-flesh-ness should be public as well.
This is not a deep metaphysical claim (though perhaps something could be said at that level), but rather it is a claim about the kind of people the Church is called to be…
Re: Covenantal Aspects of Marriage
I agree. However, I think we need to view the ceremony less as the actual marriage and more as the celebration of the marriage, which is the covenantal joining of a man and a woman, symbolically sealed and expressed through sexual intercourse.
Many today think the actual ceremony is the marriage, and like I said, if the many did not think that way, we would not have the societal homosexual issues of marriage that many are forced, wrongly I’d say, to take a stance on, with both sides of the fence having no grass. Does that incoherent sentence make any sense?
Re: Covenantal Aspects of Marriage
I don’t really think you agree, because I strongly disagree with you (which means I must not have been clear—let me try again).
You can’t have sex in public (well, I guess you could, but you probably shouldn’t), therefore sexual intercourse cannot be the public declaration of commitment which is the presupposition of one flesh unity.
To say "I promise" is to promise (have you ever heard of speech act theory? It may help point to what I’m getting at here). To say "I do" is to make a public covenant. Therefore the wedding ceremony in and of itself should be valued by Christians as that which establishes the marriage.
The point is not to be able to judge people who haven’t done this, the point is to have a communal practice which shapes us into the kind of people we are called to become.
Re: Covenantal Aspects of Marriage
Maybe you are right.