Why we are where we are and how to find the truth about sex.
In a Christian context, sex is introduced within a clear framework of a man and a woman who leave their parents and become one through sexual intercourse – marriage. This is a blood covenant that is blessed by God and should not be separated. (see Genesis, quoted by Jesus). Humans wanted to live a life without having to live in accountability with God in their lives. They wanted, according to Paul in Romans chapter one, live their own way. God let them make their choices, as He honors free will above His own knowledge of right and wrong. Humanity therefore chose to leave a Godly understanding of ethics and morals and was left to figure things out according to what seemed right to men and women that have left a relationship with God. They found themselves worshipping other gods and expressing their sexual desires in any form and any direction. As a result of disobedience and pride, humanity redefined right and wrong and wrote their own moral codes, where the only source to be trusted in was men’s discoveries about the physical world they live in – science. The development of humanity living a life without God is as old as the fall. But through Jesus, a part of the world was reintroduced and re-educated about the ways of God, and the offer to live in a loving and honest relationship with God made easier and more practical than ever. But with great blessings come great adversities. The church became immensely powerful with the conversion of the dictator of the most powerful human empire ever existed, namely with Roman emperor Constantine’s. Christianity therewith suddenly became common and the norm, and so did its moral standards. But the church grew far away from what the gospel would teach about humility and honesty, and the same happened with its view of sexuality. Sexuality, according to ST AUGUSTINE and many other medieval theologians, was something inherently evil and wrong, a curse. In the meanwhile Solomon passionately defends sex as something exciting and enjoyable in the Song of Songs, something to unashamedly be enjoyed in the light of God. As a reaction to the church determining morality and dictating a codex for the private life, society in the west found liberation of the individual through the enlightenment. Society has rightly discovered the beauty and the very act of intercourse to be something that is good. But its morality, as mentioned above, was developed outside of relationship with God, and therefore the definition of intimacy and sexuality became distorted. Lust lead to perversion and boundless expressions of hormone-driven phantasies exploded and where spread all over the world, transmitted through the invention and advancement of the internet in the modern days. Our children are being educated by a distorted and perverse definition of sexuality that is fueled by lust and de-humanization of one of the most vulnerable expressions of intimacy God has given mankind. It seems as if in the absence of God’s presence a core belief was created that is damaging and permeating our minds, beliefs and reaching deeply into our understanding of love and sexuality.
Being far from a creator, and denying His existence, leads to getting rid of a world that was created. If you get rid of the idea of creation, you get rid of an originally intended design of humanity, gender and sexuality. If you get rid of an original design and identity, you get rid of divine right and wrong, and man become creators of wright and wrong. Whilst we are thankful for the enlightenment in many ways, the just mentioned development is one of the most destructive fruits of it and is directly linked with humanism and atheism.
Today we experience a church that is often still stuck in a medieval age – understanding of an inherently evil sexuality, combined with a heavy dose of humanistic influence on our moral understanding of sexuality. This causes two fruits. Shame, a direct result from the fall where Adam and Eve hid from God, aware and ashamed of their nakedness, as a result of their disobedience. (this led to the medieval belief that labels sexuality as a shameful thing). Second, the humanistic influence, allowing an ‘anything goes’ culture. If this shame and having no grid for right and wrong are combined, we get a fertile ground for easy accessible porn which grows quietly yet daily in our lives, furthering the distortion and shame of our understanding of sex and our sexuality. This is just one fruit of our choice to walk without God.
In this message I seek to argue on the basis of sexuality and sexual intercourse to be something inherently good, made by and for the glory of God. Our sexuality has been one of the parts of our humanity that is fallen, and is therefore cursed since the fall. But since Jesus died for us, it also belongs to the part of our humanity that was redeemed by the resurrection of Jesus, and sanctified by his blood which redeems every curse. We can now find the freedom that the world is desperately looking for. A freedom of slavery – even slavery unto our sexual desire. A freedom to powerfully choose God’s best for us, a freedom to surrender our human will to His divine will. A freedom to live by God’s law and moral standards rather than the ones made by men in absence of God. A freedom to unashamedly enjoy sex as an act of worship unto God, within the originally designed context of marriage between a man and a woman. There is right and wrong. There is freedom. How will we get there? Through Jesus loving us to the core and transforming us back into the design He originally intended us to walk in. Let the journey of His world permeating ours begin.
claudereifler 