Living in an over-sexualized culture, we hear messages about sex, wrong messages. These messages become more a part of us than God’s truth because we hear them repetitively and churches are scared to address sexuality.
For too long, I believed the world’s message about sex. That it’s a superficial, feel-good avenue to self-satisfaction. Wrong, partly. God did design sex to feel good!
But, there is more than that. He designed it for profound spiritual, physical, and emotional connection. It is just a shadow of things to come.
God’s design of sex is too amazing to keep silent about.
Here are five truths about God’s design of sex in marriage.
God designed sex to be bonding.
Not only spiritually bonding, but emotionally and physically. When the two become one flesh, biochemicals are released in our bodies like oxytocin and dopamine. Oxytocin, especially, is a bonding chemical. When I embraced this truth and started engaging in the marriage bed more, the tone of our marriage completely changed.
“This is why a man leaves his father and mother and bonds with his wife, and they become one flesh,” Genesis 2:24 (NIV).
God designed sex for both husband and wife to experience pleasure.
It’s an equal opportunity activity. Why else would there be a clitoris? It’s only function is for pleasure. The Song of Solomon is full of beautiful poetic language about the pleasures of physical love for both spouses.
If one spouse struggles with the ultimate moment, there are Christian resources available to help the couple understand how to achieve mutual enjoyment.
“The mandrakes send out their fragrance, and at our door is every delicacy, both new and old, that I have stored up for you, my beloved,” Song of Solomon 7:13 (NIV).
God designed sex so that we would know yearning.
Before you were married, you yearned for your fianc. Not only did you crave your fiance’s touch, you craved his/her presence and knowing him/her better. Even after years of marriage, it is good to remember this yearning. It mirrors how God desires us to yearn for him. I believe this is one reason he frequently uses the marriage as a symbol of his relationship with us throughout the Bible.
“Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us?” James 4:5 (NIV).
God designed the marriage bed to be a place to show the fruit of the Spirit.
Peace, patience, love, joy, gentleness, kindness, faithfulness, goodness, and self-control are the foundation of all Christian life, especially the marriage bed. All conflict surrounding the marriage bed can be managed through employing these key traits.
My own marriage endured a long season of mismatched sex drives. It was through these qualities and some wise communication tools that we overcame our conflict.
God designed sex as a powerful mystery.
Biblical stories of sex often confused me when I was young. There was some nasty stuff in the old testament, the rape of Dinah, Lot and his daughters, the men of Gibeah clammering for the male visitor, Leviticus 20. And yet, there is the beautiful Song of Solomon. The New Testament seemed to prefer celibacy, to be honest. As a teenager, I couldn’t understand why I liked thinking about sex if it was disgraceful and violent.
But, as an adult, I realized the stories were teaching me that sexual intimacy is powerful and mysterious. It’s OK not to have it all figured out, as long as you respect the power it holds to do good when it is aligned with God’s perfect design.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts,” Isaiah 55:8-9.
Final Thoughts
Don’t let the world’s message of cheap sex destroy the meaningful sex in your marriage. Sex may only be a small portion of the whole of your marriage. However, sex matters. It especially matters if one spouse is more interested than the other. When we ignore its power and importance in marriage, the relationship suffers.
Now, granted chronic health issues can affect sexual function and that’s a more complicated story.
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If you ask the Holy Spirit to make the marriage bed more pleasurable and to ensure that your partner is being satisfied, it will be exactly as you ask. Knowing that God wanted our relationship to be completely immersed in love and sharing all of our intimacies with us to bring the greatest joy and pleasure to us was a great revelation for me. The more you know, the better it gets with every area of a life shared with God.
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How about in marriage the 2 become one and that is not just related for sex. Where one ends the other begins and through God’s love, you learn. You are now one in marriage.
You should talk and discuss to be one closer to be one mind, body, etc. When it relates to sex, you should know each others bodies as you know your own. Becoming one with your spouse, you should know all about each other, hiding nothing. Start your marriage that way and constantly learn. you will both grow spirituality, emotionally, sexually, in all ways. It also brings spirituality and sexualuty for both. Learning good sex in the marriage bed, pleases both. All emotions bring you closer and you always share. You shouldn’t think of only yourself because you and your spouse should think as one with God’s love making you strong. Know each other and share because you are now one. You share and know each other. Constant learning, the marriage should never get old, and stay strong in your love. I can’t explain the way I want to tonight as I have a migraine but these are done if the things I’ve learned from couples that have been together 50 to 78 yrs. One couple explained their marriage somewhat this way. Even nearly 100 yes old for both, their eyes lit up when one came into a room or he just shown bright as he held her hand. It was beautiful. They said to be one, you need to constantly learn about the other. If you each think about the other BD as one, how can their be discord? To many people are to concerned about the “me” aspect. What about me. Give the me to your spouse and vice versa and share. Being concerned for the one being you now are. You are no longer one so there should be no ME. With Christ, all things are stronger. My cousins wrote and performed at many weddings, both being pastors but the song was a chord of 3 strands. A chord of three strands isn’t easily broken, a chord of three strands includes 3, you, me and Jesus makes three. With Christ holding the marriage together, it can’t be broken, pray and trust.
I wish everyone today could see God’s plan and design for sex. It’s so very important and when done correctly, it will be so much more fulfilling. Thank you for standing up for God’s way!
Thank you very much, Yvonne!
I do believe that God designed sex to be mutual enjoyable for man and wife. Still figuring out what to do with the differences in drive between the two of us.
Excellent article. Thanks for sharing. Nice website as well.
Please consider the two explicit pictures–we are bombarded enough with such imagery. Thanks!
The Corinthians passage was written to Christian’s involved in immorality. Paul was providing them a means of dealing with the temptation until they developed self-control. As for Song of Solomon, when read in context with Ecclesiastes 2 and 1Kings 11, it appears to be a description of what happens when pleasure is pursued over obedience.
I have written on both passages at davessoupkitchen.wordpress.com. Thank you for the back and forth.
Thanks for getting back to me Bonny.
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Thank you for pointing out 1 Corinthians 2:16! That’s very insightful and also may explain why the Christian community has finally taken up the banner to redeem sexual intimacy in marriage. We have the mind of Christ!
Thank you, David, for this comment. I respect that we have differing opinions. I’m just wondering how you reconcile 1 Corinthians 7:3-4, “The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but yields it to his wife. Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.”
And in regards to the Song of Solomon, what do you think of it in light of 2 Timothy 3:16, “All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work?”
Excellent article – clear, spiritual, deep and compelling.
If I may, I’d like to add two comments. 1) Paul sees marriage in the most noble terms – reflecting Christ’s union with the church. If he (or Jesus) elsewhere said that it might be better not to marry, that was in light of pending persecution. It is a horrible thing to see your family suffer in times of war or upheaval. 2) The quote about “my ways are not…etc” shouldn’t be applied, I think, to our not understanding things. It was said to a nation that was in apostasy; that’s why their human ways and thoughts were not God’s. “But we have the mind of Christ” says Paul.
But as I say, even if we don’t agree on those two points, well done and thanks for sharing this excellent post.
Very true
Speaking of an oversexualized culture, I have noticed that the evangelical community has become increasingly over-sexualized. While sex might be pleasurable for some, there is nothing in scripture to suggest that God designed it to be so. The sexual relationship Solomon describes in his song is certainly pleasurable for the characters, but it is also a relationship that involves multiple sexual partners and, tragically, does not involve God.
God’s clear purposes for sex are consummation and conception. Beyond that, married couples have the freedom to engage in mutual sexual activity as long as it is just that, mutual. Any deeper or additional purpose is just speculation and sets unrealistic expectations.
One more note: If the husband wants sex and the wife does not, the husband is commanded by God to love His wife, “just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her.” A husband just might have to give up his desire for sex, or yearning, to love his wife sacrificially.