Sex Is For Believers

Everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.

–1 Timothy 4:4–5

God designed the pleasures of sex for the enjoyment of Christians. We might lose sight of this, since Hollywood has ripped the curtains off the sacred marriage bed and turned a luxuriant, holy pleasure into a cheap spectator sport. We might be tempted to think that, since sex is so sinfully misused and so universally undermining to the all-satisfying beauty of Christ’s holiness, maybe we Chris- tians should have nothing to do with it.

Paul says the opposite. It is the world that has stolen what belongs to believers. Sex belongs to Christians. Because sex belongs to God. God created it “to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth” (1 Tim. 4:3).

If it is used by those who do not believe and know the truth, it is prostituted. They have exchanged the glory of God for images (Rom. 1:23). They have torn sex from its God-appointed place in the orbit of marriage. But they do not know what they are doing, and apart from God’s intervening, saving grace, the price they will pay in this life and the next is incalculable.

The pleasures of sex are meant for believers. They are designed for their greatest expression by the children of God. He saves his richest gifts for his children. And as we enjoy his gift of sex, we say, by our covenant faithfulness to our spouse, that God is greater than sex. And the pleasures of sex are themselves an overflow of God’s own goodness. This pleasure is less than what we will know fully in him at his right hand. And in it, we taste something of his very exquisiteness.

When the preciousness and pleasures of Christ are supreme, all dimensions of sex, including experiencing pleasure, seeking pleasure, giving pleasure, and abstinence from pleasure, will all find their biblical and Christ-exalting expression.

Everything God made is good. Everything is for the sake of worship and love. And this is true both in the feasting and the fasting. In the sexual union and in abstinence. Sex is made for the glory of Christ—for the Christ-exalting glory of covenant-keeping faithfulness in marriage, and for the glory of Christ-exalting chastity in singleness. It is always good. Sex is always an occasion to show that the Giver of sex is better than sex.

TALK ABOUT IT

Discuss the extent to which the world’s view of sex has influenced your own. How should knowing that “sex is for believers” affect the way you think and feel about sex?