One of the most concerning and surprising things I have learned as a pastor over 15 years is how many marriages end up sexless or never achieve a happy and faithful marital bed. Sex is one of those topics I hoped never to discuss with others because it is awkward. I remember being challenged by a friend in seminary that a pastor must ask questions about sex if he is going to care for married couples. I've come to learn through counseling others that he was right because sex is a barometer or indicator of the health of a marriage.
Sex is one of those important topics that we do not like to talk about because it is personal, important, and often tied to idolatry. We do not like to talk about it seriously in the context of marriage, yet we are constantly surrounded by a culture that is entertained by it. At the same time, too many Christian marriage beds are defiled by neglect. My goal is to provide a basic biblical framework for how Christians should understand sex as a good gift from God that establishes and strengthens a healthy marriage.
God's Good Design For Sex
Sex was first introduced in Genesis 1-2, before the fall and sin. Genesis 1 records God’s command to be fruitful and multiply, which implies that God’s ordained way of multiplying falls under his own evaluation of “very good.” Genesis 2 ends with Adam’s first recorded words celebrating that God provided him with the helper he had promised. God then provides a summary declaration and instruction for all future generations, “therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”
The clear biblical pattern presented is to leave the most important human relationship God gives us first with our parents in order to enter into what must now become the most important human relationship with your spouse. Marriage requires a reordering of priorities because it is a different kind of relationship. The two become “one flesh.” Children are designed to initially depend upon their parents but separate from them as they grow older. A marriage is a closer, more personal and important relationship that gives you a new identity with another person that is only supposed to end with death. This description of marriage as “one flesh” emphasizes that it is a covenant that calls two people together into a unique union that is physical and exclusive.
Power of Sex
Paul gives more clarity on what this important declaration, “one flesh,” means when correcting the Corinthian church members who are having sex with prostitutes. He asks them a series of questions (1 Cor. 6:15-16).
Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?
Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never!
Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her?
The first question emphasizes a believer's covenant union with Christ that is likened to the marriage covenant in Ephesians 5:20-31. A believer has a new resurrected identity when he is united with Christ in the new covenant made with his blood. Paul’s second question demonstrates how a believer's covenant with Christ changes who they are and how they behave. A member of Christ’s body should know that they cannot also be a member of a prostitute. The third question demonstrates the power of sex and what God designed sex to do. When someone has sex with a prostitute, they become one body with her. Paul grounds this declaration by quoting Genesis 2:24, “for as it is written, ‘the two will become one flesh.’”
“One flesh” is a covenant declaration that cannot be reduced to sex, but it must include (or involve) sex. Sex, by its design and nature, unites two people in the covenant of marriage. It effectively unites two people together and should be exclusively enjoyed in this way within the covenant of marriage. Sex does not make you married, but it is designed to unite you to another as if in a covenant. What stands out in Paul’s warning about having sex with prostitutes is that even meaningless, loveless, paid-for sex still has the power to unite you with another human.
How much more should a husband and wife see the importance of sex in their marriage as the way they celebrate their one flesh covenant and express their unique love to another? Sex is designed for a husband and wife to enjoy their covenant union as they give themselves over to each other in order to enjoy and be enjoyed. It is vulnerable, personal, and one of the most powerful ways to express love and receive love.
Sex with a prostitute uses another human being to experience selfish sexual pleasure. However, sex within a marriage expresses covenant love and strengthens covenant union as the husband and wife give themselves over to each other to enjoy one another.
Paul ends this section with the declaration, “so glorify God in your body.” It is important to remember that our marriages are part of how we worship God and that even how we conduct ourselves with our bodies in the marriage bed is part of worship. We must seek to honor the Lord and his clear instructions. Having established that sex is designed to unite two as one body, Paul turns to give marriages some of the most practical instruction for sex.
Importance of Sex
Paul goes from confronting members of the Corinthian church for sleeping with prostitutes to correcting other members who are proposing sexual relations may be bad even within a marriage (1 Cor. 7:1-5). Paul answers this confusion by establishing how married couples should relate to each other with regards to sex.
“Each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.”
The original audience would have found this teaching on mutual rights, authority, and submission to be radical because it gives wives an authority and right with regard to her husband. Wives would have known no such thing in the ancient world. On the other hand, our contemporary culture finds the notion of a husband having a right over his wife’s body offensive because of the influence of feminism. Paul’s words are countercultural and surprising, but they teach God’s design for how spouses should relate to one another in sex.
God’s Word sets forth how we must know ourselves, our spouse, and our responsibility to them in the marriage bed. God instructs husbands to have their wives and for the wife to give herself over to him. God instructs wives to have their husbands and for the husband to give himself over to her. Sex in marriage should never be taken from each other and it should never feel like it has to be taken from a spouse. Glorifying God in your bodies as a married couple means you enjoy giving yourself over to be enjoyed by your spouse.
Paul grounds these instructions in the one flesh covenant. She does not have authority over her body, it is his in the marriage bed. He does not have authority over his own body, it is hers in the marriage bed. This shows how important sex is in marriage because it is the only place where mutual authority and submission are instructed. Paul calls wives to submit to their husbands in everything as to the Lord, just as the church submits to Christ. Husbands are given authority in the marriage as the head of the wife. This order in the marriage appears to change in the marriage bed when the two participate in the one act that makes them one flesh and celebrates their union. This special instruction highlights and emphasizes how important sex is for the marriage and for the spouse.
Paul concludes with the charge, “Do not deprive one another, except perhaps for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves in prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.” His qualifications for why a couple might not attend the marriage bed highlight the importance of sex once again. “For a limited time” makes it clear that the two should celebrate and strengthen their one flesh covenant often. Paul’s qualifier, “that you may devote yourselves to prayer” removes most of the excuses why so many marriages are deprived of sex. Finally, his purpose is so that Satan will not tempt you, which corresponds back to his opening concern of “temptation to sexual immorality.”
Conclusion
Marriages too often grow sexless because of poor prioritization of time and energy or a lack of effort and priority. Many are discouraged to even approach the topic because of how their spouse has communicated that they do not want sex, like sex, or enjoy sex. Wisdom is aligning your thoughts, desires, and actions with God, which means you seek to practice what he says is good and right, expecting that he will bless your good efforts.
If you find yourself in marriage not wanting sex or not wanting it as much as your spouse, you should pray for God to help you desire what his Word says is good. You should also seek to practice even when you do not feel like it. The key to this practice is that you are seeking to enjoy that your spouse enjoys you. One other suggestion is to consider what commitments and priorities need to be changed so that you are not overly tired or uninterested in your spouse.
If you find yourself in a marriage wanting more sex than your spouse, pray for patience and for God to bless you with perseverance and persistence. Study them to know how to encourage them and help them enjoy what God has designed.
Married Christians must seek to glorify God with their bodies and in their marriages. Sex is a uniquely powerful gift, which also means it is dangerous when we use it wrongly or try to enjoy it outside of God’s design. But if we seek to know God’s good design for sex in marriage, then it is powerful to unite us with our spouse, help us enjoy one another, and protect us from outside temptations.
