This post is a very rough sketch of ideas and may include unfinished, incomplete, or erroneous ideas that will later be corrected. This post will be part of a series that will form the basis of a new book I’m writing following on the themes of my last book, Thoughts From Reconstruction. All of these themes center around the New Covenant. You can find everything published so far in this series on the Highlights page under the My Most Important section.
Sex Before Marriage
Sexual immorality in the Bible included sex outside of marriage and this is the phrasing commonly used throughout the Bible to include sexual activity outside of marriage. It would have been clear to first century Jews, based only on their customs and regular teachings, that outside of marriage was immoral. The Bible made it clear quite early on, in the Old Testament, that virginity was to be preserved until marriage, with requisite punishments if this was found not to be the case. Yet, these law came more than a thousand years after Adam and Eve who are not recorded as having been married. We see, then, that something else is at play, some deeper truth.
From the earliest parts of scripture, we see laws for the Israelites which governed sexual activity. From the Ten Commands we have the sixth commandment,do not commit adultery. In Deuteronomy, we see more laws that show how, by creating boundaries, sexual moral law is being constructed.
If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay her father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the young woman, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives. -Deuteronomy 22:28-29
If a man seduces a virgin who is not pledged to be married and sleeps with her, he must pay the bride-price, and she shall be his wife. If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him, he must still pay the bride-price for virgins. -Exodus 22:16-17
If a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her, you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death—the young woman because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man’s wife. You must purge the evil from among you.
But if out in the country a man happens to meet a young woman pledged to be married and rapes her, only the man who has done this shall die. -Deuteronomy 22:23-25
This is how Paul’s audience, in Corinth, would have understood marriage being the solution to sexuality immorality.
But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband. -1 Corinthians 7:2
We can, and have, largely reasoned why this is the case by appeal to Jewish moral law but, as we see, Jewish moral law does not, itself, give us a why, only a what. The Law prescribes right actions, and right consequences, but doesn’t spell out why, although we can easily intuit near the true by acknowledging, I wouldn’t want that to happen to me or I wouldn’t want that to happen to my family or friends. But these good intuitions are logically incomplete as they rely on on a personal connection or ability to relate. What we need is a why that can be held even for those who do not or will not hold such convictions.
The New Covenant provides the answer, of course, as to why sex before marriage is wrong but it also provides the adequate descriptive to illustrate how exceptions such as Adam and Eve who, for example, were not in sin even being outside of the marriage, at least marriage as we know it. The Old Covenant prescribed righteous sexual activity whereas the New Covenant describes righteous sexual activity: Righteous sexual activity is such that honours God, upholds His principles, and loves the one we are marrying by loving them as we love ourselves, seeking their good.
The New Covenant is why Adam and Eve, and generations for over a thousand years before the Flood, joined together, “knew” and “went into” the other, and all without marriage as we now describe it. The principles of the New Covenant existed from Creation, were implicit to it, and were created in it. For it was the Tree that lead to the Fall of Adam and Eve that reflected, in its choice, the only true moral law that has ever existed.
The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was a test of Love God and Neighbour: Would Adam and Even love God enough to trust him completely? Would Adam and Eve love each other enough to stop the other from sinning? It has always been the failure to uphold the Greatest Law that lead to the Fall of Man, then and now.
The Bible has always taught the immorality of ‘sex before marriage’ but we have largely forgotten the morality that holds it up and makes it understandable in the complexities of life. The deeper truth of the principles of the New Covenant show us the truth and set us free from man’s laws. Under the New Covenant, we see marriage for what it is, for what it was to Adam and Eve: A commitment to follow God’s commands and to love our neighbour as ourselves.
This series will continue. Please check back from time to time, if you’re interested in reading new parts as they become available. The entire series will be made available on the Highlights page under the My Most Important section as each part is published.