There are few topics that generate more passionate debate in the church today than the topic of sex. Sexuality plays a crucial role in the identity politics of our time, which only heightens tensions and magnifies the rhetoric between those of different views. With so much at stake, Christians are often hesitant to engage on this topic. But we can both affirm the beauty of sex as God created it and lovingly respect the unique, sacred role God has given to sex. We will see that sex is far richer and more meaningful than our culture may suggest, and that it involves sharing our very selves.
Sex was intended by God to be something that unites people, in the most literal way, and carries with it an intrinsic beauty. The first step toward understanding its purpose is to examine how sex should be understood within the larger context of our humanity.
It is helpful to start by reflecting on sex in the contemporary world. Ours is a sex-saturated culture, and yet it cannot decide whether to take sex seriously or not. The overall message preached by the media class is that sex is a fun recreation, to be indulged in for personal pleasure and satisfaction. Yet movements such as #MeToo and our revulsion at figures such as Harvey Weinstein reveal our intuitive understanding that sex is not trivial but holds a much deeper significance.
Pornography Illustrates the Problem
One way to examine the significance of sex is to consider pornography. Our permissive culture says that pornography is harmless and creates no residual problems. But pornography changes the way we perceive others well after the images are viewed. Porn encourages viewers to see those involved on the screen as mere objects to be consumed solely for their pleasure. And the personhood of the actors is immaterial to the audience: All that really counts is their bodies and the use to which those bodies are being put. The focus is on satisfaction bought at the cost of no personal investment in them as individuals with inherent worth.
The simple truth is that when a couple has a sexual encounter, they should not be taking something from one another but giving. And what they give is themselves.
Of course, there are plenty of other areas in our lives where we routinely treat people as instruments. For example, when I order a pizza, my interest in the waiter is purely as a means for delivering food to my table. Or when I watch an ordinary movie, I am interested in the actors only for the entertainment they provide. But there is a difference with the reductive nature of pornography, and we intuitively know that. This is why society prosecutes sex crimes more severely than, say, stealing a pizza or pirating a movie, as unacceptable as those actions might be. Sex is different, and when it is used as a vehicle for objectifying others, it is wrong.
Pornography also detaches sexual pleasure from any kind of ongoing human relationship. It removes it from the broader context which actually gives it meaning. It is not the only phenomenon that does this, of course. Hook-up culture and casual one-night stands do this too, although there is real bodily interaction and some brief relationship with another. As such, pornography stands as one example of the logic of sex that underlies the sexual revolution: It is a pleasurable recreation whose purpose is self-fulfillment.
Why Sex Matters
When sex is reduced to self-fulfillment or recreation, it is not only sex that is cheapened. The very nature of human relationships — indeed, of what it means to be human — is also reduced.
Again, we know this intuitively. World literature is populated with the dramatic consequences of sexual infidelity, from the book of Genesis to “Anna Karenina” and beyond. These works speak to us across the ages and across cultures because the sexual bond is powerful and, when transgressed, unleashes irrational forces within the human heart. Throughout the world, sexual initiation has historically been surrounded with sacred significance, ceremonies, and taboos. Even today, in our “sex as recreation” culture, the man who sleeps with a prostitute and tells his wife not to worry because “it was only sex” is likely to find that such reasoning only deepens the betrayal. Most understand why: He has taken something that was unique to his marital relationship and treated it as worthless. And in so doing he has devalued his relationship with his wife.
The simple truth is that when a couple has a sexual encounter, they should not be taking something from one another but giving. And what they give is themselves.
Giving Our Very Selves
To explain this, we must understand the significance of our bodies. Christians (rightly) believe that human beings are body and soul. But there is a tendency to see one as more important than the other. For example, one worldview would say that I am primarily my soul — my body is merely something I inhabit in order to operate in this world.
But that is not what Christian teaching asserts; it says I am a body-soul entity. Man was created as a body with a soul. He was not inserted into a body. That is why salvation is not merely the forgiveness of sins. It also is tied to resurrection because I do not experience full redemption until my body is resurrected and reunited with my soul.
This has many implications. Think, for example, of facial expressions. It may sound like a tautology, but when I smile or cry or frown, it is me who smiles, frowns, and cries. My relationship to my face is not the same as my relationship to the keyboard on which I might type “I am crying.” I communicate through both, but in the former, I communicate myself; in the latter I communicate something about myself. My face is not an instrument like a pen or a computer. It is me. When you see my face smiling, you see me smiling.
When this is applied to sex, we can begin to see why human beings, made in the image of God, know intuitively that sex is not mere recreation. In the act of sexual intercourse, each partner does not merely give pleasure to the other. They give their very selves. No other physical act comes close to this. When the Bible speaks about sex using the language of “knowing,” it is surely pointing to this. To make love to another is to know their very self because they are giving their very self to you.
This giving of each self to the other is powerful in a way unlike any other physical act: shaking hands with a friend, brushing away a tear from a loved one’s cheek, ruffling the hair of a child. It binds and unifies two selves.
This is why ordering a pizza is not the same as watching pornography. In the former, I am not taking from the waiter that which is only his to give: his very self. But in watching pornography, I am denying the selfhood of the people on the screen — for they are merely bodies, not individual selves, to me. Their act has been reduced to a commodity, and they too have been reduced to those same things. In a one-night stand where there is no real relationship, no sacrifice, no cost, I am taking from that person rather than giving my self to them. Again, they are no more than a body to me. And in committing adultery, I am giving that which I have given to my wife and which belongs to her — my very self — to another.
This is also why sexual assault is so serious. If someone slaps me in the face, that is unpleasant, possibly criminal, and therefore liable to appropriate judicial penalties. But I will likely recover, both physically and emotionally. Yet if someone sexually assaults me the wound is savage and terrifying. Why? Because I have been attacked at the deepest level. I am created as a sexual subject but have been treated as a sexual object. That which only I can give — my self — has been forcibly taken from me. And if a woman made love in the dark to a man that she thought was her husband and woke up the following morning to discover it was somebody else, then none of the pleasure of the act will overcome the deep revulsion and sense of violation she will experience. She will consider that the self only she can give was been taken from her by deception. The pleasure her body felt is inseparable from what she thought she was doing — giving herself to the man she loves.
The Innate Power of Sex
This idea lies at the heart of the unitive purpose of sex as set forth in the Bible: The two become one flesh in a most intimate physical union. This giving of each self to the other is powerful in a way unlike any other physical act: shaking hands with a friend, brushing away a tear from a loved one’s cheek, ruffling the hair of a child. It binds and unifies two selves. This is why sex in the Bible is not merely a matter of private significance. In Genesis, there is a social movement involved: The man leaves his father and mother and marries. A new social entity, one that overrides that of parent to child, comes into existence. The man and the woman belong to each other in a way that must not be violated by others, and sex is the seal marking that. The thing that distinguishes this relationship from every other, even the closest of other friendships, is the dimension of sexual union. Hence the seriousness of adultery. It steals from one partner and trivializes the marital relationship. The fact that marriage is the closest analogy to the relationship of Christ and the church reflects the intimacy, power, and significance of this union.
This sexual union is also a complementary one. Male and female bodies are designed for union in a specific way. This is one obvious problem with homosexual sex. It simply cannot achieve the complementary union of man and woman. And that complementarity is connected to the other matter which makes sex so unique and powerful. It is the means by which new lives are created. As well as being unitive, sex is also procreative. It is the act in which human beings are, in a sense, most God-like. It is not only about giving one’s self to another, as profound, remarkable, and sacred as that is. It is also the means of creating new life.
This is one reason sex is such a powerful force within human society. It makes us like gods, and in a fallen world that is the thing we most want to be. It is not surprising that we live in a sex-saturated world. Nor is it a surprise that we want to detach sex from its natural and God-given role in society. In doing so, we assert godlike powers. For this reason, a biblical understanding of sex and how it connects to our selfhood and to its proper ends — in uniting husband and wife and in leading to the creation of new life — is vital.
Sexual identity politics is filled with fallacies, but it does get something right: Sex and sexual desire are foundational to what it means to be human. Where modern society goes wrong is seeing this in self-centered terms. Instead, Christians should acknowledge sex as identity only in terms of my ability to give myself to another in marriage in the most intimate and powerful ways. Once we start to think of human beings in this way — as sexual subjects, not objects —Christian views of sexuality become clearer, and more beautiful.
Carl R. Trueman (PhD, University of Aberdeen) is professor of biblical and religious studies at Grove City College. He is also the author of 10 books, including “The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution.”