In the eyes of the world, sex and love are synonymous.
Even the most casual perusal of today’s newspapers, magazines, books, movies, and television programs will make this clear.
Much of the material in these media treats sex and love as if they are inseparable, as if there is no difference between them.
The logical outflow of this view is the philosophy that says, “If you love me, you’ll let me.”
After all, if sex and love are the same, how can you claim to love someone and yet decline to have sex with him or her?
Closely related to this is the view that sex is proof of love.
How often do we encounter this scenario in books or on film: A man meets a woman and they hit it off well.
The next thing we know, they are in bed together. This is our “tip off” that they are “in love.”
They must be in love; they’re
having sex, aren’t they? It may be an adulterous relationship with one or both of them married to someone else, but that doesn’t matter.
All that matters is that they are in love. They go to bed, have their fling, get up the next morning, and everything is fine.
That’s the picture the world paints.
What these books and films rarely if ever reveal is the negative side to these kinds of encounters.
In real life, sexual liaisons of this type produce in most people feelings of guilt, shame, and a sense of being dirty, not to mention a deep absence of fulfillment.
It may be “fun” for a moment, but it leaves them feeling empty, and often they don’t know why.
The idea of sex as love is one of the biggest lies with which the world has perverted God’s original design for sexual expression, enjoyment, and fulfillment.
The idea of sex as love is one of the biggest lies with which the world has perverted God’s original design for sexual expression, enjoyment, and fulfillment.
Sex Is Not Spiritual
Love—true love—is spiritual in nature. Sex is not. Sex is 100 percent physical and chemical.
That is why we run into problems whenever we try to equate love with sex. Love is a spiritual union between two people—a joining of spirit to spirit.
Sex is a physical coupling of two people—a joining of flesh to flesh.
In its proper use, sex is a beautiful and fulfilling physical expression of the spiritual joining that is true love.
Love is a spiritual union between two people—a joining of spirit to spirit. Sex is a physical coupling of two people—a joining of flesh to flesh.
Understanding this distinction will help us guard against falling prey to a lot of the weird ideas floating around out there that
try to convince us that sex is (or can be) some fantastic kind of
“spiritual bonding” or getting in touch with the spiritual realities of life. It is nothing of the sort.
Sex is an exhilarating physical experience, but in and of itself there is nothing spiritual about it.
Sexual activity never bonds us spirit to spirit with another person. Nowhere does the Bible teach that a sexual experience will cause us to see God or be brought close to Him.
Sex is a product of the human part of our makeup and has nothing to do with our spirit. Rather, our God-given sexual drive is an appetite that must be brought into subjection to and controlled by our spirit. Our spirit is to rule over our flesh.
Sex Is an Appetite Sex is an appetite, one of many appetites that God built in to us when He created us.
Whether we call them drives, cravings, hungers, passions, or whatever, they are still appetites. We have an appetite for food, an appetite for water, an appetite for sleep, an appetite for sex, an appetite for God—you name it. All of these are perfectly normal.
God designed us for appetites. The strength of any appetite is determined by the degree to which the capacity for that appetite has been activated.
All appetites begin at a capacity level of zero.
The ability for an appetite is always present, but its capacity will be zero until it is activated.
A baby develops an appetite and capacity for food even before it is born as nourishment flows to it from the mother through the umbilical cord.
it has been since we last ate, and other factors such as the kinds of foods we crave, our appetite capacity rises accordingly.
Our sense of hunger will continue to grow until we satisfy it by eating. Once satisfied, our appetite falls off until it is reactivated when it is time to eat again.
An interesting thing happens, however, to an appetite that is left unsatisfied: Eventually it falls off anyway. People who enter into an extended fast quickly discover this.
The earliest days of a fast are the hardest because our appetite for food has to be readjusted. After our body adapts, the fast is easier.
My point is this: Not only can we satisfy our appetites, we also can control them. Every appetite is like that.
Our hungers and cravings are subject to our will. This is just as true for our sexual appetite as for any other.
Paul made this clear in his first New Testament letter to the believers in the
Asian city of Thessalonica when he wrote: “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”
(1 Thess. 4:3-4). What makes this passage even more interesting is that the Greek word skeuos (“body”) also could be understood to mean “wife.”
In this sense, then, Paul would be saying that husbands should learn to “live with their own wives in a way that is holy and honorable.”
Either way, the emphasis is on controlling one’s sexual appetite, reserving it for expression exclusively in the context of a marriage relationship.
Our hungers and cravings are subject to our will. This is just as true for our sexual appetite as for any other.
