“You’re altogether beautiful my darling, beautiful in every way.” This is a quote from the Song of Songs, also referred to as Song of Solomon, in the bible. Song of Songs depicts a smitten couple in the throes of love and romantic attraction, lavishing one another with admiration and praise as their wedding rapidly approaches.
The book depicts a “cat and mouse” style, seek-and-find adventure as the young lovers find but loose one another over and over. Tension builds as the two cross each other’s paths only to be separated yet again, longing to be together.
The woman describes her desire to be “kissed and kissed again” by her soon-to-be husband, gushes over the intoxication of his scent and calls his love “sweeter than wine” (Song of Songs 1:2-3).
The man in the story describes his new wife physically from head-to-toe, delighting in what he sees (Song of Songs 4:1-5).
The excitement of their physical attraction cumulates as the wife invites her husband to finally come and fully experience her body (Song of Songs 4:16).
The Song of Songs then continues on with some of the steamiest language not only in the bible but in the history of Hebrew literature. This book was almost kept out of the bible over concerns that it would tempt readers to lust.
So…what is this even doing in the bible? In my research, I found a few different interpretations of this book:
- In Jewish tradition, the man and his wife are a representation of God’s relationship with Israel
- In Christianity, the man and the wife represent Christ’s relationship with his bride, the Church
- It’s a collection of ancient love poetry meant to display the heavenly gift of romantic love
The third interpretation seems to be what many modern scholars can universally agree on. With the garden imagery in Song of Songs, it is thought to harken back to the Garden of Eden before the fall of man. The couple in Song of Songs’ love is untainted by sin, innocent, pure. They’re together, naked and unashamed.
So, does this mean there’s an entire book of the bible that is devoted to celebrating romantic love and…sex?
It sure seems that way!
The Song of Songs doesn’t shy away from detail and isn’t prudish; these two characters are relishing in their attraction for one another and enjoying every moment of it.
In this post I want to explore a different take on sex than you may be used to. In a culture of instant gratification, I want to slow things down for a bit. I want to call us to higher thinking and give us the opportunity to restore sex back to the place of respect and importance it deserves in our hearts and in our minds.
What May God think About Sex?
Given Christian culture and stereotypes, it may seem like His stance is limited to: “Don’t do it. If you’re married you can do it. But even then, be careful not to enjoy it too much.”
I think the decadent and indulgent romantic imagery in the Song of Songs goes a long way to say otherwise.
I think God invented sex and He knew what He was doing. I think He knew what a powerful, earth-shaking, life-changing, life-giving, bonding, incredible gift He was bestowing upon humanity. As with anything else that is so extremely powerful, I think He wisely gives us parameters in which to experience it safely and optimally.
A fire is a mesmerizingly beautiful and powerful source of heat when it’s contained in a fireplace but has the potential to kill and destroy when it has escaped into a home or is let loose in a forest. A razor-sharp knife is perfectly equipped to prepare an incredible meal, slicing through meat and vegetables but the same knife can be used to stab someone to death.
Let’s Try To Imagine What God May Have Originally Intended Sex To Be Like And Why.
To unpack this, erase for a moment everything you know and have experienced about sex. I know that’s difficult. Close your eyes for a moment and imagine an intelligent designer creating a beautiful world with oxygen for us to breathe, water for us to drink, hills to run up and down, colorful flowers, all kinds of different animals and a sun to light the whole place up.
All the way back to the Garden of Eden, God thought of how much better this world would be to enjoy with companionship. So, he presented Adam with Eve.
None of us can understand God’s thoughts or how He does things but I know that God is all-knowing and that His character is perfect. He made this precious, fun and special thing called sex but He also knew He was introducing it into a fallen world. His beloved humans that He created in His image with hearts, thoughts and emotions had also inherited Adam’s sin nature. No doubt they will make mistakes and misuse this gift of sex to abuse one another and obtain selfish pleasure. It’s only human.
It makes sense that He would design parameters for sex to be within marriage the way He did: one man, one woman, meant to last forever. He knows how deeply beautiful and bonding sex is and how it usually has the natural side effect of bringing another human into the world. I assume He would want all of this to be experienced within the safe confines and structure of two people promising to be there for each other, only to be separated by death itself.
I think a kind and intelligent creator who wanted fragile, fallen people to stay together for life would also set things up to make this easier on them. The extra boost provided by the chemicals released during sex seem to do just that. Oxytocin, which is released during sex, acts as human superglue and helps to create an emotional bond. The more sex you have, the tighter the bond that’s created. Oxytocin is also shown to increase fidelity. One study showed that men given oxytocin who were in monogamous relationships kept a further distance away from attractive females than a group of men who were given placebos.
Maybe this is part of the reason why the bible tells husbands and wives not to deny one another sex but rather to be available to each other physically (1 Corinthians 7:5).
The way a woman’s monthly cycle is set up also hints to a creator who made sex for more than just procreation alone. A woman’s fertility window is only six days maximum of any given month. If sex is for reproduction alone, making women fertile every single day seems more practical.
But There’s Unmarried People Who Are Having Sex and Love Each other Just Fine. There are Christians who are Married and Are a Total Mess.
This is 100% true. I think Christians are quick to judge and invalidate non-Christian’s relationships and send them to Hell in their minds because they’re having sex and living together, etc. But I think this misses the whole point of the gospel.
Yes, fornication (sex outside of marriage) is sexual immorality and it is sin in the eyes of God. But the judgmental and self-righteous shouldn’t forget that during the Sermon on the Mount Jesus also said:
“You have heard the commandment that says, ‘You must not commit adultery.’ But I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:27-28).
I love how this verse captures the heart of God and how seriously He takes how people treat one another. He’s so sensitive, aware and intimately acquainted with us that He wants even our thought-lives to be pure. The God of the Universe looks way deeper than just our surface actions.
If you’re saying, “well that’s impossible; I can never live up to that standard!” That’s the point; God’s standard is perfection and it is impossible for us to uphold. None of us can do it. This is why Jesus lived a sinless life and was sacrificed for all of our sins. Just believing in that sacrifice grants you Christ’s imputed righteousness and right-standing with God.
This doesn’t mean you no longer mess up but the gift of the Holy Spirit that God gives you when you accept Him can actually change you and make you want to sin less. Sinning less isn’t about performance, it’s a biproduct of the relationship you have with Jesus. This is an amazing presentation of the gospel if you want to know more about how this all works.
God’s Design For Sex Feels So Outdated Today.
Living in the modern world, a lot of the natural consequences of sex like pregnancy and STDs are generally easy to prevent or erase. The pairing of sex with love and responsibility and life-long commitment no longer seems super necessary.
There is also a massive delay of graduating into adulthood today. People are maturing way later than in past generations. It feels illogical and cruel for someone to wait all of the years from the onset of puberty to well into their 30s or so to ever have sex. But that is the reality we face today with the modern-day dilemma of delayed maturity. When the gap between puberty and adulthood wasn’t as massive, I bet waiting until marriage didn’t feel as difficult or seem as crazy as it does today.
It feels really difficult to strip sex down to such a simple image. It almost seems just too Disneyland or fairytale-like. I think one of the things that tugs on my heart the most about thinking of this image is the purity of it. I think it’s hard to imagine what God’s original intentions for sex could have been because we live in such a dark world. It’s hard to imagine something being so easy and so good.
When I picture this image of marriage and sex being paired together from a pure perspective it logically makes sense. It seems like what a loving father would want for their child: peace, order, protection and stability mixed with bliss, fun, fulfillment and enjoyment.
But We’re So Desensitized.
If you’ve ever committed to cleaning up your diet and eating very naturally, you will totally understand this metaphor. Suddenly, when you start eating foods from the earth, an apple is sweet enough and manufactured, sugar-laden candies taste sickeningly sweet. But if you go back to eating the man-made stuff, it doesn’t take way too long for your body to readjust. Suddenly the deliciously sweet apple just tastes basic.
The same can be said when it comes to our attraction responses. If we’re used to going from 0-100 with people physically and seeing a lot of people naked all the time, there is an underlying and low-level numbing effect. It happens gradually and it’s hard to notice it until you step away and purposely slow down.
Just like with the natural sweetness of the apple, when you’re not engaging physically and not exposed to overly-sexualized imagery, small things start to become more special again. Even just the brush of the hand of someone you’re attracted to feels foreign and exciting; as it should be. There’s something sweet and sacred about that.
Sex Is Meaningful.
In business, a handshake is used to seal a deal. There is a certain moral expectation if you “shake” on something. If your business partner turns out to be a betrayer, the betrayal will likely sting in a deeper way if you previously shook hands on a deal. A handshake represents reinforcing a mutual agreement by adding an extra assurance of integrity.
A “pinky-swear” is similar. Every schoolgirl understands the seriousness of a pinky-swear. I even recently had a friend who is a grown man ask me to “pinky-swear” him that I would watch one of his favorite movies that I had never seen prior to his birthday as a present to him.
You better believe I watched that movie…I can’t break a pinky-swear!
If tiny, fully-clothed physical gestures like handshakes and pinky-swears bond us in a powerful way to one another, how can something as involved and intimate as sex not?
I want to affirm you that If you think sex is meaningful you are not a weirdo. You are not childish. You don’t need to just chill out. I hope you keep your heart soft and sensitive and that you never feel ashamed or shamed, pushed or pressured into doing anything you don’t want to do.
In The Bible, Marriage Is Meant To Symbolize The Relationship Between Christ and His People.
Forever present, abundantly loving and self-sacrificing to the point of death. These are the truths of who Jesus is to those who believe. This post isn’t about marriage but since God asks that sex take place only within marriage, it seems important to mention. The symbolism Paul mentions in Ephesians 5:21-33 explains why Christ-followers believe that marriage is defined as one man, one woman for life and illustrates a living example of the relationship that Jesus has with His people. You don’t have to agree with that but I hope it at least gives clarity and helps to make sense as to why Christians believe what we believe about marriage.
Is Sex Keeping You Away From God?
All of this talk about the way God views sex; it can feel pretty restrictive. I feel like I can talk about this openly because my entire life, sex was 100% the barrier against me wanting to have anything to do with the God of the bible. I wasn’t raised in church but I still had the faint awareness that since I was sexually active, I wasn’t allowed to ever be a part of “the club.”
When I finally got tired of my way of doing things and totally stopped dating and stopped having sex, there was a 2-month span where I had the greatest clarity I had ever felt. Sitting in silence, I remember actually feeling dirty from my lifestyle for the first time ever. I believe this was God allowing me to feel the weight and reality of my choices over the previous years. I didn’t even believe in God but somehow, I knew on a core level that I needed to apologize and get right with Him.
I thought that since I had already done a lot of things I knew “God doesn’t like” that I wasn’t even allowed to try to talk to Him. That if I ever tried to talk to Him, He would be there to beat me with a stick and throw back into my face all of the many reasons that He would be sending me to Hell. The truth of what God may think of me, if He existed, filled me with fear and discomfort.
I want you to know that no matter what you’ve done or been through, Jesus loves you and He still wants to hear from you.
He’s not waiting to beat you with a stick. He’s waiting to listen, to answer your questions about Him, to prove to you that He’s real and that He’s been with you all along. He wants to save, forgive, heal and have a relationship with you.
It doesn’t matter what you’re dealing with. Jesus isn’t intimidated and He can handle it. If you feel trapped and stuck living in a lifestyle or identity that doesn’t feel quite right to you but you assumed must just be who you are; it doesn’t have to be that way. God is not the enemy. He is for you. Check out some of these stories:
Former Porn star FINDS HOPE and a Second Chance | Josh Broome’s Story
Change of Affection: A Gay Man’s Incredible Story of Redemption
Equip 2019 – Pulse Nightclub Survivors Angel & Luis’ Testimony
Derek’s Story: Finding Forgiveness After Four Abortions
God loves you the way you are but He also loves you too much to let you stay that way.
He cares about your sex life and wants to give you a fresh start. A start where He can lead you in an alternative to culture’s way of viewing and living your sexuality. A way that is rich, meaningful and overflowing with protection.
His way.
Just like He did with the woman caught in the act of adultery in John 8:4-11:
“’Teacher,’ they said to Jesus, ‘this woman was caught in the act of adultery. The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?’”
They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, ‘All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!’ Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust.
When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, ‘Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?‘
‘No, Lord,’ she said.
And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”‘
❤
makemerealmovement.com 
In both the Old and New Testaments, it’s written that sexual congress joins two people in body and spirit. I was pondering how damaging it is for a sexually intimate couple to break up. I did some reading and found this quote by author Dave Willis:
“Sex isn’t just a physical act; it’s a sacred, spiritual act as well. When we reduce sex only to an act of physical pleasure, we’re ‘using’ our partner instead of truly loving him/her. We’re also creating a bond with this person that goes far beyond the physical. This is why there is so much pain, confusion and heartbreak involved in broken relationships with sexual partners that don’t exist with other kinds of relationships.”
People underestimate the tearing apart of body and spirit when two people who’ve had sex end their relationship. So in addition to avoiding sin and following God’s instructions, there are practical reasons and consequences that show we can best care for ourselves and each other by reserving sex for marriage.
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I absolutely agree!
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