Premarital Sex Re-examined

Sex without a marriage license? If you want some flippant or simplistic answer, go elsewhere. Likewise if you just want to follow the crowd. This is solely for people who genuinely and passionately want the truth. Most people prefer ignorance. In the sobering words of the Bible, people love darkness rather than light (John 3:19).

Are you up to the challenge of recklessly abandoning every preconception and bias in a full-blooded pursuit of truth, no matter what the cost? Do you “hunger and thirst for righteousness,” (Matthew 5:6)? Every alternative leads us away from the Holy Lord and leaves us wide open to spiritual deception.

Yes, Christians can be deceived. So great is the danger of Christians falling into deception that a quick scan of the Bible reveals an astonishing number of warnings about deception (Examples).

The Gospels are emphatic that Jesus was tempted by an evil spiritual being who even quoted the Bible (Matthew 4:6; Luke 4:11; Mark 1:13). If it happened to Jesus, we can expect the same, since Jesus was “tempted in every way, just as we are,” (Hebrews 4:15). Given that the devil lacks the divine ability to be everywhere at once, instead of his one-on-one involvement we are likely to be subjected to attacks from his underlings, referred to variously as his angels, demons or evil spirits. That makes the battle no less serious. I am staggered that there are actually people who, despite living in world filled with so much evil, believe in God – a terrifyingly powerful spiritual being who is good – and yet doubt the reality of evil non-physical intelligences. And because they are evil they see it as their mission to delude, seduce and corrupt us so that we stray from the Holy Lord. Nevertheless, the Bible insists they exist, as if we hope to find some excuse for sin it is logical to expect them to gleefully help us out.

Orientation

The only way we can truly understand our sexuality is to learn from the Creator of sex. If you believe you have greater access to the mind of the Creator than Jesus, I’m intrigued as to why someone of your infinite knowledge bothers to surf the Internet. Jesus, the authority on spiritual matters, regarded the Bible in a way that staggers even many Christians.

For a mere glimpse, consider how Jesus quoted Genesis 2:24. We will see later that this is a key Scripture for a true understanding of sex, but for the moment note the original context of the verse Jesus cited. Genesis doesn’t introduce this verse with anything remotely like, “God said.” It reads like a comment from the human author. And yet in quoting this passage, Jesus said these were the very words of the Creator. (Scriptures) This is typical of how Jesus revered Scripture. He constantly treated the Bible as the very word of God. That boggles the mind, but to reject this attitude to Scripture is to claim to know God better than the world’s greatest Teacher and to pronounce Jesus Christ a deluded fool. Hopefully, I am not so vain as to consider myself a greater moral authority than Jesus. My goal is to have Jesus’ attitude to the accuracy and supreme authority of the Bible.

Background

A search for divine truth must begin by prayerfully purging ourselves of the post-Christian morality of Western society that seeps into our consciousness from every angle. The best way to counter this insidious force is to immerse ourselves in a deep awareness of the God-given foundation upon which Jesus’ teaching and New Testament revelation is built: the Old Testament. The following quote from Jesus is worth careful reading:

Matthew 5:17-20 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.

Remembering that the Scriptures available during Timothy’s childhood were primarily – perhaps exclusively – the Old Testament, consider the following:

2 Timothy 3:15-17 . . . from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures . . . All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

A key function of Old Testament law is to reveal what sin is:

Romans 7:7  . . . I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “Do not covet.”

It is with good reason that theological dictionaries on any topic typically commence with the Old Testament. Let’s start with the Old Testament foundation on which the Son of God built his teaching. We are right to differentiate between Old Testament law and God’s morality. The two are not identical. As we shall see later, however, they are clearly connected because the same God is behind them.

Under the Old Covenant, parents kept as proof of their daughter’s virginity the blood-stained garment or sheet from the wedding night. If the husband ever accused his wife of not being a virgin when he married her, the bride’s parents would produce the stained cloth. From this the man would be proved guilty of slandering his wife. So seriously is virginity taken that the prescribed punishment for making such a scandalous false accusation was for him to be physically whipped, severely fined and by law forbidden to ever divorce his wife as long as she lived (Deuteronomy 22:13-19). If, however, the bride had not been a virgin upon marrying, she would receive the same penalty as any man or woman guilty of adultery (Leviticus 20:10), that is:

Deuteronomy 22:21 she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done a disgraceful thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father’s house. You must purge the evil from among you.

This shocks senseless anyone mesmerized by current western thinking (or should I say brainwashing?). As a safety net to protect us from plunging headlong into ridiculous presumptions, we should note several things.

Few people would have actually died. The very law would have been an enormous deterrent and would have spared Jewish society from such slavery to sex addiction as to make abstinence see impossible.

It was because of the dire consequences outlined in the Old Testament that, upon assuming his fiancée was not a virgin Joseph, who “was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly,” (Matthew 1:19). (It is worth noting from this incident how, in contrast to disgusting fakes that turn God’s stomach, true righteousness goes hand in hand with mercy and goodness.)

The stoning of those who lost their virginity before marriage sounds appallingly harsh, but our reaction demonstrates how far we have slipped from God’s holy standards and from an awareness that it is only by God’s mercy that any of us are alive. Since “the wages of sin is death,” (Romans 6:23) “all have sinned” (Romans 3:23), none of us can point an accusing finger at anyone else. When citing Old Testament instances of people being killed for disobeying God, Paul wrote under divine inspiration:

1 Corinthians 10:6 Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did.

Of particular relevance to our study, he goes on to say:

1 Corinthians 10:8 We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did – and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died.

We must not to confuse God’s mercy with his approval, nor his delay in judgment as his final word. As the New Testament warns:

Romans 2:4-5 Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance? But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed.

Back to the Old Testament quote: Note how it is assumed the girl went straight from her father’s care to marriage. People probably married so young in those days that sex before marriage was a less prevalent temptation than adultery. This would explain why the Bible mentions adultery more often than fornication (sex between unmarried people).

The emphasis is on the woman’s virginity, simply because there is no corresponding way to determine physically (and hence legally) that a man is a virgin. Not even an intact hymen proves a woman has maintained God’s standard of sexual purity; it is simply suggestive of the purity God looks for. The biblical principle that premarital sex is wrong, applies equally to both sexes (For confirmation, Both Genders Equally Responsible).

The penalty for adultery applied because any unmarried woman who kept quiet about her lost virginity, can be presumed to have voluntarily had sex with a married man. This presumption is reasonable because under God’s law if an unmarried man had sex with an unmarried woman she could have safely blown the whistle on him. If she wanted to marry him, he would be forced to do so regardless of his wishes and he could never, ever divorce her. This applied regardless of whether pregnancy was involved. The man’s only escape from life-long marital commitment was if the woman refused to marry him, in which case the man still had to pay her full dowry and suffer public shame. What he did was wrong – so wrong that it exposed him to life-long obligations.

Divine Revelation Since Then

Does the New Testament maintain this strong stance against premarital sex? Is the power of sexual union an unalterable fact built into the very fabric of creation? We can answer with absolute certainty, but to do so we must dig deeper into Scripture than some people might have thought necessary.

This is because the Greek word translated fornication in some Bible versions is better translated sexual sin. Given the divinely inspired Old Testament attitude to premarital sex it is obvious that in First Century Jewish culture – the background to virtually all the New Testament – sex before public marital commitment was regarded as sexual sin. It might possibly be argued, however, that the Greek word is a little too broad to prove emphatically from this word alone that the New Testament strongly forbids sex before marriage. For the hard to convince, we’ll delve deeper and make some fascinating discoveries.

When speaking against divorce and the sin of adultery (Matthew 19:3-6), Jesus quoted Genesis 2:24 and said that what God has fused together, no one should try to sever. But who is it that God declares to be so inextricably joined? Is it only those who have had a church wedding? The Bible never even speaks of a church wedding. The Old Testament prescribes sacred rites for the birth of a child, for determining marital unfaithfulness, even regulations for cleansing after sexual relations, but nothing for a marriage ceremony. In the words of the Wycliffe Bible Encyclopedia “ . . . marriage was a purely civil contract, not formalized by any religious ceremony.” (Reference)

Does God only join those who first seek his will about their relationship? Any Christian who is still free to make the decision (that is, not already bound to a non-Christian) should only marry a true Christian (see the link Choosing a Partner at the end of this webpage). Other than that, the Bible doesn’t even say we should consult God as to who we marry – although it would be the height of stupidity to deny ourselves access to his wisdom by not fervently seeking his guidance, and to neglect seeking his guidance is hardly living in submission to Christ.

Scripture is emphatic that it is a gross spiritual perversion for a born again Christian to be sexually intimate with a non-Christian. If it were possible to defile the Holy Lord, this act would do it. The matter is that grave. And yet God takes sexual union so seriously that for Christians who find themselves one flesh with a non-Christian, the Faithful One goes to the extreme of making the non-Christian physically (not spiritually) holy in order to maintain a bond that turns God’s stomach. (Scriptures)

So what is it that creates this bond – the two becoming one – that Jesus declared no one should rip apart? Does an official piece of paper cause this bond? A solemn ceremony? No. The bond that no one should break is created by the most intimate of human commitments. Scripture reveals that a single act of sexual intercourse – no matter how brief or superficial – makes two people one in God’s sight.

1 Corinthians 6:15-16 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.”

A man using a prostitute is not only not married to her, they clearly have no thought of commitment to each other and yet Scripture declares them one.

This critical piece fits the jigsaw. Adam and Eve experienced this special union, and yet there would have been virtually no similarity between their ‘wedding’ and modern Western weddings or legal arrangements. What God saw as binding was the act of intercourse itself. If we are to have God’s attitude, the act of sex should therefore be as binding as marriage and should be associated with lifelong commitment. This, too, fits what we saw in the Old Testament, that an unmarried man who seduces an unmarried girl is compelled by law to marry her. If there is doubt that she consented to the act, the woman has the right of refusal, but because he initiated sexual union the man loses all rights to choose independence. He is bound to her through a single sexual act.

This might also explain the rather startling omission of any divinely-ordained wedding rituals. The most sacred aspect of entering marriage is not some religious ceremony but the act of sexual union, which should ideally involve the shedding of virgin blood. God’s Word could have instituted religious rituals associated with a couple’s first sexual experience, but that would suggest that only if those rituals occurred is sexual union binding, whereas it would seem that in God’s eyes any initial act of sexual union is sacred, and is equivalent to vowing a lifelong commitment.

As I counsel people who have suffered sexual abuse I am continually astounded by how extensively it has affected them. Decades after the event they are usually still plagued with devastating health, relationship, spiritual and psychological problems. This merely highlights how highly damaging any wrong sex is.

I doubt that any of us can fully get our head around it, but divine revelation exposes the frightening fact that sex affects us so deeply that when indulged in outside of a holy covenant of lifelong commitment, the result is uniquely damaging.

1 Corinthians 6:18 Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.

We puzzle over the mystery this verse hides, because it is obvious that other sins can grossly affect the body. Elsewhere the writer himself acknowledges that the profound way sex affects the body – making two people one flesh – is a mystery.

Ephesians 5: 31-32 “ . . . and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery . . .

Whereas the weakest Christian is one with Christ, the nicest non-believer belongs to the devil and as such is evil and profane. So if a Christian has even the briefest sexual encounter with a non-believer, the resulting union is a spiritual perversion on the level of bestiality. And if the partner is a Christian, the result is akin to the terrifying sin of profaning the holy of holies. These two mind-boggling statements are carefully explained in links at the end of this webpage.

If we would not marry without total commitment to a person, how much more should we wait for total commitment before engaging in the act that by divine plan is intended to be the consummation of life-long commitment? If we would not be so irresponsible as to flippantly rush into a wedding ceremony without solemn expectations of a lifetime of commitment, should we treat with less respect that which is even more sacred? Sexual union is of such mind-boggling significance that to have sexual relations outside of marriage is equivalent to defiling that which is holy, and we cannot do that without defiling ourselves and offending the God who made us. It would be to our shame, and with terrifying consequences, to treat our Creator and Judge with such disdain. We rightly recognize the gravity of the sin of rape – sex against a person’s will – but what about sex against God’s will?

A marriage license is a piece of paper that gift-wraps the sacred treasure of sexual union. How dare any of us imagine we are honoring God by valuing the paper if we have been trashing the priceless gift! It is the height of hypocrisy to make a show of reverencing a man-made ceremony if we have no remorse about having trampled underfoot that which comes from God himself – sexual union. I’m not for a moment suggesting we should not respect the piece of paper, but for us to take care to avoid foolishly rushing into marriage is a sham if we don’t treat sexual union with equal care.

Note that in God’s revelation about sexual morality there is no mention of pregnancy. The sin is not in letting a baby be born out of wedlock. The sin is in relating sexually before marriage, irrespective of whether conception occurs.

And God is not talking merely about sexual intercourse. In his eyes, unmarried couples can sin sexually without ever getting close to what the world regards as “going all the way.” We know from our own feelings that what bonds two people together is not primarily the positioning of body parts, but the sharing of sexual pleasure. The notion that only sexual intercourse is sinful is so far off course, that in reality, most sexual sin occurs between strangers who never even touch. Jesus brought to this sin-ravished planet the startling revelation that even looking sexually at a stranger is a sexual offense as serious as adultery or fornication. The morality by which God will judge us is so much more sophisticated than that of western society that many of us cannot even grasp the concept. If you need an explanation as to why the cherished daydream is as immoral as the act, see The Thought Versus the Deed.

Deliberately indulging in mental sex corrupts you, whereas deliberately inciting mental sex in others – by petting, for instance – corrupts both them and you, because it makes you the tempter and a willing partner in their sin.

How far can a dating couple go? All I know is that petting and sex talk are playing with nitroglycerine and that what is safe for one person might not be safe for another. Like fingerprints, each person’s sexuality and vulnerability is unique.

Other than the decision to become a true Christian, it is hard to conceive of a decision that will shape your entire character and future as profoundly as your choice of marriage partner. By that choice you are sentencing yourself and setting in concrete more things than our mind can cope with. Even your children’s genetic makeup is at stake. To abandon careful thought and prolonged prayer and reduce your choice of marriage partner to a few minutes’ lack of self-control is one of the most foolish and irresponsible things anyone could ever do.

If satisfying your lust is a more urgent need that honoring God by waiting until marriage, then God is not the God of your life. Whatever you have made your god – be it self, lust, or something else – it certainly is not the One before whose throne you will one day stand naked and defenseless.

To indulge in sex outside of marriage is even to sin against yourself and your partner. How can you possibly trust yourself or your partner to be faithful to each other for life if you can’t even control yourself for a year or so? Be assured that the enemy of your soul knows your weakness and will delight in pouring on the pressure after marriage; arranging things so that your partner is unable to meet your cravings for an extended time and providing you with someone who seems ideally suited to fulfilling your every fantasy.

It is sex, not a piece of paper, that ties the knot. In God’s sight, any couple who have had sexual relations are no longer independent entities. They are ‘one flesh.’ Their lives are as bound together as Siamese twins. To separate that which God has declared to be one is clearly contrary to God’s ways. ‘Uncommitted sex’ is like an ‘uncommitted’ leap off a cliff – once you jump you are committed to the consequences whether you like it or not. I won’t hazard a guess as to the implications for someone who has already engaged in sex outside marriage, but it is very obvious that we should do everything to avoid getting ourselves into the bind resulting from having sexual relations with someone we later find we don’t want to be bound to for life.

Sex While Engaged

People engaged to be married usually expect in every fiber of their being to be bound to each other for life. Most are so serious about their commitment that they cannot imagine not marrying. And yet the fact remains that despite their certainty, some engaged couples discover that it would be a tragic mistake to marry. They break the engagement, heartbroken but relieved that they discovered their incompatibility before it was too late. In other words, although they feel absolutely committed to each other, when it comes to the crunch they discover they do not regard themselves as bound together for life. They believe they can break their commitment without it being as serious in God’s eyes as divorce. This confirms that engagement is not an acceptable time for sexual relations. Sex is more binding, in God’s eyes, than we regard an engagement.

To have sex before being publicly married, you would not be cheating on your partner; you would be cheating everyone who knows you. You would be asserting to everyone that you are not married and secretly acting as if you were.

Breaking with Convention

Christians are free to be creative and break with Western traditions. One must be mindful of the wisdom, “Marry in haste, repent in leisure.” Morally, however, it is acceptable to marry:

    long before you can afford an engagement ring

    long before you obtain a wedding dress

    long before you live together

    long before you have a honeymoon

    long before you have a flashy wedding

(You could, if you choose, have the simplest wedding with a pastor and a couple of witnesses and much later celebrate your marriage with a re-enactment replete with traditional trimmings.)

All we need do is ensure our actions are Scriptural, and comply with civil law, and that our actions do not become a source of temptation to weaker Christians (this latter vital principle is expounded in Romans 14:1-15:5; 1 Corinthians 8).

Besides providing a valuable incentive to ensure the relationship is for life, there is a sound scriptural basis for saying sexual relations should only commence after a marriage that is both legal and publicly announced.

Romans 12:17 . . . Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody.

2 Corinthians 8:21 For we are taking pains to do what is right, not only in the eyes of the Lord but also in the eyes of men.

1 Thessalonians 4:12 so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders . . .

1 Timothy 5:14 So I counsel younger widows to marry, to have children, to manage their homes and to give the enemy no opportunity for slander. (Emphasis mine.)

Although most of these Scriptures do not refer specifically to marriage, they underline a divine moral principle highly applicable to one’s sexual union. We are ‘our brother’s keeper.’ Our inescapable moral obligation to everyone who sees us is to take “pains to do what is right, not only in the eyes of the Lord but also in the eyes of men” (2 Corinthians 8:21).

If a ‘marriage’ is not legal, why not? It’s almost always because one or both partners think they can opt out of the relationship at some later date. This concept is totally contrary to God’s ways.

At the very least, if a couple want sex before the big wedding that they do not yet have finances for, they should legally marry before the big wedding and announce this to the world. Otherwise, they are exalting pride or extravagance above God and morality. Neither is it acceptable to compromise morality because of relatives. In the words of Jesus, “Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:37). If any reason for deferring being legally married is important, it is important enough to also defer marital relations.

Like it or not, to have ‘marital relations’ without marriage is to tell the world that it is acceptable to stretch the boundaries. In practice, this usually has the effect of encouraging observers to take even greater liberties than you had taken. The great spiritual hazard in trying to push the limits of what is acceptable is that it is not only questionable in itself but most observers would be unable to tell the difference between your actions and immorality, and so some would be tempted to follow what they consider to be your example and commit blatant immorality. If so, God would hold them responsible for yielding to the temptation, but he would hold you responsible for causing the temptation.

The Mystery of Sex

We commenced by looking at the Old Testament emphasis upon the shedding of a virgin’s blood when consummating marriage. Having given highest priority to what is indisputable, let’s return for a deeper exploration. I think you will find it fascinating and powerful.

Scripture calls marriage a covenant. This term is highly applicable because the couple enter into a very deep and binding agreement. In biblical thought, covenants are sealed by the shedding of blood. We often think in terms of animal blood, but the ultimate covenant was sealed by human blood (that of our precious Lord) and all divinely ordained covenants and sacrifices point symbolically to this, the greatest of covenants and sacrifices. So it is not surprising that human blood had a role in some other biblical covenants. The Abrahamic covenant, which all Jews entered into, was sealed by male circumcision. Like a virgin at the consummation of her marriage, circumcision involved the shedding of human blood from the organ of marital union. Ideally, boys were circumcised just days after birth – the closest fallen humanity can get to innocence – and a bride’s blood as the hymen is broken suggests her sexual purity. Both of these events seem to point symbolically to the far greater purity of our Savior, whose loss of blood was far greater, in order to seal a far greater covenant that makes him one with you. (Scriptures relevant to this paragraph)

Although Scripture does not specifically state that the shedding of virgin blood seals the marriage covenant, it fits the divine scheme so perfectly that it is hard to imagine it not being in God’s mind when he created our bodies and instituted marriage.

To be the acceptable sacrifice for our sins, Jesus had to be sinless. (The debt we owe justice is death, declares Scripture. After paying the death penalty for our own sin, we sinners would have nothing left to pay for anyone else’s sins.) Christ preserved his moral purity to consummate his relationship with us. Similarly, singles should preserve their sexual purity in order to consummate marital union with their life’s partner.

Significantly, Christ’s union with us, which his shed blood instigated, is seen by Scripture as being marriage-like. This is taught throughout the Bible. Consider the following, for example, which speaks of God’s covenant with his people as being like a marriage covenant:

Ezekiel 16:7-8. . . Your breasts were formed and your hair grew, you who were naked and bare. Later I passed by, and when I looked at you and saw that you were old enough for love, I spread the corner of my garment over you [a symbolic act that in biblical times was associated with a marriage proposal – compare Boaz and Ruth (Ruth 3:9)] and covered your nakedness. I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Sovereign LORD, and you became mine.

The interconnection between union with a human through physical intimacy, and union with Christ through his shed blood is most clearly spelled out in

Ephesians 5: 31-32 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery – but I am talking about Christ and the church.

This Scripture reveals that the mystery of sex is intertwined with a spiritual mystery. It would seem that the Creator has built “laws of nature” into the very core of our being – our sexuality – that parallel and point to the most intimate and most vital of all unions – that between God and us. Scripture is emphatic that before planet earth existed, God had already planned that his eternal Son would pour out his life-blood in order to be intimately and permanently committed to us. It seems that Creator God had this in focus when designing the human body, intending that the covenant of life-long marriage be sealed by the shedding of virgin blood, just like our never-ending union with him was sealed by the shedding of his Son’s sinless blood.

Although the physical sign of virginity is placed within the woman, the Holy Lord is not party to double standards. He expects the same degree of consecration in men, as typified by our Lord instituting circumcision whereby males belonging to him bore on the organ of sexual union the mark of consecration to God and of commitment to God’s morality.

The profound similarity between sexual union with a human and spiritual union with God is hinted at in yet another Scripture:

1 Corinthians 6:16-19 Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit. Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own

Note how in this passage, as in the former, Scripture moves immediately from referring to physical union to spiritual union.

“The two will become one flesh.” But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.

This connection between the two types of union is not merely symbolic, it is built so deeply into our very being that wrong sexual union affects us more profoundly than any other violation of God’s law:

1 Corinthians 6:18 Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.

And just as our Savior’s shed blood consummated his union with us and initiated a covenant we should never break, so the covenant between humans initiated by intercourse should never be broken.

Final Thoughts and Encouragement

The word translated fornication in the King James Version refers not exclusively to premarital sex but to all sexual looseness. The word does not differentiate between premarital and extramarital sex. The New Testament sees no need to differentiate because both are equally appalling in the eyes of humanity’s Judge. It keeps insisting that any sex outside of heterosexual marriage is a grave offense – even if it is kept a matter of the heart and not physically expressed. In the same way, the Bible sees no need to differentiate between patricide (killing one’s father) and matricide (killing one’s mother) because all murder is wrong and hate – wishing someone were dead – is equally immoral (1 John 3:15).

Galatians 5:19,21 The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery;  . . . I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

1 Thessalonians 4:3-8 It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him. The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you. For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. Therefore, he who rejects this instruction does not reject man but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit.

Jude 1:7 In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.

(Related Scriptures)

If, like so many of us, you have already lost your physical virginity, do not imagine you have nothing left to preserve. Even without the shedding of blood, sexual union is just as real and as binding as ever. Consider the prostitute Scripture warns against becoming one with. Is she likely to be a virgin? And yet sex with this non-virgin still makes a person one with her.

Be it through thoughts or whatever, all of us have tragically lost our virginity, but our past is not a valid reason for repeating a sin. In the words of Jesus, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and sin no more” (John 8:11).

And the most exciting incentive for acting like a virgin is about to unfold. If you let him, God will wipe out your previous offense, making you a virgin again. Despite its initial appearance, the concluding part of this webpage, is equally relevant to both genders.

Don’t miss the short but thrilling conclusion to this webpage:

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