Here is a Spiritual Conundrum submitted to Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life by a reader named Kimberly:
Hi Lee! I was wondering if sex before marriage is forbidden in the Bible. . . and if it is, why? I have a hard time understanding what could be so destructive about two people who genuinely care about each other having safe sex. I’ve been leaning towards the thought that sin is anything that keeps you away from God’s love. . . if this is true, then how would premarital sex fit into the equation? If you’re not hurting anybody, can it be so wrong? What about having multiple partners?
Just for the record, this is the same Kimberly who posed the Spiritual Conundrum that I responded to in the article, “It’s not fair that God made some people incredibly beautiful, and others just average!”
Sex is a highly sensitive subject these days. Saying almost anything clear and definite about it is bound to offend somebody.
But . . . Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life is not designed to win any popularity contests. It’s intended to offer a deeper Biblical and spiritual understanding of many issues that we face in today’s world. So we’ll just charge right into it—and you, dear reader, can make up your own mind.
The reality is that the Bible is nowhere near as clear about sex before marriage as many Christians seem to think it is. In fact, though the Bible does generally condemn sexual immorality, there is no clear prohibition against premarital sex in the Bible.
So the short answer to Kimberly’s question is:
No, sex before marriage is not forbidden in the Bible.
No matter how upsetting this may be to some people with traditional moral values, that’s the fact of the matter
However . . . before you jump right into the sack, there’s more to it than that . . .
The Bible forbids adultery, and values marriage
The Bible simply doesn’t say much specifically about premarital sex. And some of what has been interpreted as applying to premarital sex doesn’t really apply to it.
What the Bible does condemn in no uncertain terms is adultery. However, even though premarital sex is traditionally considered fornication, it is not adultery. Adultery is when one or both of the people engaging in sex with one another is married to someone else. Strictly speaking, the commandment “Thou shalt not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14) does not apply to sex before marriage.
The Bible presents marriage as a relationship that is sacred because from the beginning God created two human beings to be united into one. Based on this, we can conclude that:
- If the people engaging in premarital sex think there is nothing wrong with promiscuous and adulterous relationships, and just want to sleep around with no restrictions or boundaries, it is a serious issue.
- But if the people engaging in premarital sex value marriage and want to be in a committed, monogamous relationship, it is not such a serious issue.
Does the Bible give a green light to premarital sex, then?
No, it doesn’t.
But it doesn’t give a red light either.
Let’s take a closer look at the Bible’s yellow light on sex before marriage. Then we’ll look at some issues that are worth considering in making decisions about engaging in sex outside of marriage.
The Bible says that marriage comes from God
First, the Bible says that God created two people to be united into one, and that this relationship is to be honored.
In the first creation story, God creates man and woman together:
God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:27)
In the second creation story, God forms woman from a rib taken from the human being that God had created (in Hebrew “Adam” means “human,” not necessarily “man”), and brings her to him so that the two may become one:
So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said,
This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
this one shall be called Woman,
for out of Man this one was taken.Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh. (Genesis 2:21–24)
(On the two creation stories and what they say about the relationship between man and woman, see the article, “Man, Woman, and the Two Creation Stories of Genesis.”)
In the New Testament, Jesus refers to the second creation story in establishing marriage as a relationship created by God:
Jesus answered, “Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” (Matthew 19:4–6)
And just one more for now. In the letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament, it says:
Let marriage be held in honor by all, and let the marriage bed be kept undefiled; for God will judge fornicators and adulterers. (Hebrews 13:4)
This should be enough to show that according to the Bible, marriage is created by God, and is to be respected and honored as a God-given relationship. (Assuming, of course, that the people in the marriage are living in a godly way.)
The real question about premarital sex, then, is whether it contributes to marriage or damages marriage.
But before we get to that, let’s look at a few places where the Bible talks about premarital sex. The clearest ones are in the Old Testament.
The Bible takes a pragmatic approach to premarital sex
Let’s be honest. The Bible is full of imperfect people who do imperfect things. The only person who is presented by the Bible as sinless is Jesus Christ (see Hebrews 4:15).
In the Old Testament, laws could be quite harsh against those who broke God’s laws. Adultery, in particular, carried the death penalty (see Leviticus 20:10).
What about those who had sex before marriage?
Here, the law was more complicated, and more pragmatic.
If a woman got married, and it was then discovered that she was not a virgin when she got married, her offense was punishable by death (see Deuteronomy 22:13–21).
Yes, this was sexist and unfair. The same rule did not apply to men. But that was an earlier and more brutal age. This law was their way of assuring a man that his children were his own.
By the same token, if a man raped a woman who was pledged to be married, he was subject to the death penalty, while the woman was not to be punished at all (see Deuteronomy 22:25–27).
What if the woman was neither married nor pledged to be married?
In that society, it was assumed that an unmarried woman (who wasn’t a prostitute) would not allow a man to have sex with her, because the consequences for her would be catastrophic. So if an unmarried man did have sex with an unmarried woman, unless there was some proof otherwise, it was considered rape, and the man was to be punished for it—but not by the death penalty:
If a man meets a virgin who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are caught in the act, the man who lay with her shall give fifty shekels of silver to the young woman’s father, and she shall become his wife. Because he violated her he shall not be permitted to divorce her as long as he lives. (Deuteronomy 22:28–29)
Shotgun wedding
In other words, the man was subject to a large fine payable to the woman’s father (which was basically a bride price ) and to the ancient Hebrew equivalent of a shotgun wedding, from which he could not escape through divorce.
Of course, these laws are not in force for Christians today. We have made huge social, scientific, and spiritual progress since then—which is why most of those harsh Old Testament laws simply don’t apply anymore.
In the Bible, acceptable sex is connected to marriage
But consider the pragmatic meaning of that law about sex before marriage. If two people engaged in sex before marriage, they were required to get married in order to preserve the woman’s honor and hold the man responsible for his actions.
Another way of saying this is that in Old Testament times, the laws about sex were aimed primarily at enforcing the sanctity of marriage.
In the New Testament, there are no such detailed laws about how to handle various cases of sex before marriage. Instead, there are more general injunctions to avoid fornication and adultery, and to honor marriage through faithfulness and purity in one’s marital life. (And purity did not mean abstinence from sex.)
From this brief survey of what the Bible says about sex and marriage, we can draw two conclusions that support the ones I stated above:
- Promiscuous and especially adulterous sex with no intent to marry is forbidden in the Bible.
- Premarital sex that leads to marriage, though not ideal, is tolerated in the Bible, and is handled in pragmatic fashion to preserve social order.
This is what I meant when I spoke earlier of the Bible’s yellow light on sex before marriage. The Bible does not forbid premarital sex as many Christians claim. But it does consider it non-ideal, and either requires or encourages those who engage in it to move toward marriage.
In short, the Bible generally teaches that sex should be connected with, or lead to, marriage.
What about premarital sex today?
We are no longer living in the ancient Biblical cultures that existed two to four thousand years ago. At least in the West, premarital sex no longer carries the stigma for women that it did in those days. And the standards for men are, if anything, even more relaxed.
Is that good or bad?
That’s for you to decide.
However, if, as Kimberly says, two unmarried people who genuinely care for each other choose to engage in safe sex with each other, is that really so bad?
Of course, in some families and in some segments of society, there are still major stigmas attached to sex before marriage. Those who engage in premarital sex will have to deal with the attitudes of their families, their friends, and their community.
Beyond social strictures, though, is sex before marriage really so bad?
These days, many people are sexually active from their teenage years onward, and still go on to get married and have good marriages. Yes, I know, many also get divorced or have unhappy marriages. But that also happens to people who don’t have sex before marriage. The point is, engaging in sex before marriage doesn’t necessarily destroy the hope of entering into a long-term, faithful, and happy marriage.
It all depends on your attitude toward commitment and marriage.
Multiple partners or faithfulness to one partner?
Despite today’s freer sexual atmosphere, the Biblical and spiritual ideal is still a long-term, committed, monogamous relationship. Most commonly, this means committed and faithful marriage. For more on marriage and its spiritual source and foundation, see the article, “How does Marriage Fit In with a Spiritual Life? Is There Marriage in Heaven?”
It’s just as true as it ever was that if you sleep around and engage in promiscuous sex with many partners, you’re heading for trouble both spiritually and in your prospects for genuine romantic and marital relationships. Marriage is based on mutual love, commitment, and trust between two people. It cannot coexist with promiscuity and casual sex with multiple partners.
In other words, as I said earlier, if you think there is nothing wrong with promiscuous and even adulterous relationships, and just want to sleep around with no restrictions or boundaries, that’s a serious issue. It will ultimately destroy your prospects for a real marriage.
However, as I also said earlier, if you value marriage and want to be in a committed, monogamous relationship, sex before marriage is not such a serious issue. Your longing for a real marriage relationship will move you in that direction if you remain committed to it.
Does this mean that there’s no problem at all with premarital sex from a spiritual perspective?
No, it doesn’t mean that.
Both spiritually and socially, premarital sex still carries risks.
For one thing, though you may be clear in your own mind that you want commitment, and eventually marriage, how can you be sure that your partner feels the same way? Regardless of what he or she says, it’s quite possible that the two of you have very different goals for the relationship.
Since sexual intimacy is very pleasurable in itself, and often creates strong bonds between two people, it can easily mask major differences between you and your partner at the deeper level of love, common values, and long-term commitment to one another.
Sometimes these differences don’t come to the surface until one of you starts talking about marriage. If serious differences do come out at that point, it can lead to a traumatic break-up, and a sense that you have just wasted many months or years of your life on a relationship that was nowhere near as real as you thought it was.
It works much better to start the relationship from the inner levels of finding out whether you truly belong together than it does to start it from the outer levels of physical sexual intimacy. For more on this, see the article, “Beyonce and Jay-Z Reveal the Secret: How to Start a Lasting Marriage”—and if you’re not into Beyonce and Jay-Z, just scroll down and start at the section titled “Top-down vs. bottom-up marriage.”
Of course, marriage is no guarantee either. But if your partner is willing to take that step with you, it does give greater assurance that he or she is just as committed to the relationship as you are.
It’s still your choice
So is sex before marriage forbidden in the Bible?
No, it isn’t.
Is sex before marriage recommended in the Bible?
Not at all.
The Bible simply presents some of the issues and consequences involved in sex without the intent to marry vs. sex within marriage or with the intent to marry.
It’s still your choice.
That’s as it should be. These are very personal issues, and very personal choices. No one else can make them for you.
However, before you decide to go all-in physically, do consider what you want from the relationship.
If you simply want to enjoy sexual intimacy with someone you feel close to, that is quite doable. But that may be all you’ll get out of the relationship. If you’re good with that, then you can at least go in with your eyes open.
However, if what you really want is a long-term, committed, faithful marriage, consider the possibility that starting out with sexual intimacy early in the relationship may make the kind of marriage you long for less likely rather than more likely.
If you spend the time to find and create an inner connection with your partner before fully engaging your physical drives and hormones, you’re more likely to start the relationship on a solid and lasting foundation of inner oneness. That inner oneness is at the heart of every true and lasting marriage.
This article is a response to a spiritual conundrum submitted by a reader.
Related articles:
- Beyonce and Jay-Z Reveal the Secret: How to Start a Lasting Marriage
- How does Marriage Fit In with a Spiritual Life? Is There Marriage in Heaven?
- How to Know if Mr. or Ms. Right is Right for You: Pointers from Gloria and Emilio Estefan
- “God Hates Divorce” vs. “Do Not Be Unfaithful to the Wife of Your Youth”
- How to Attract the Opposite Sex—and Keep ’Em
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Lee Woofenden is an ordained minister, writer, editor, translator, and teacher. He enjoys taking spiritual insights from the Bible and the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg and putting them into plain English as guides for everyday life.
Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life 
Hi Lee,
Thanks for your reply. You said some things that I feel compelled to respond to.
1) CLARIFICATION OF THE MEANING OF PREMARITAL SEX AND “SINGLE” STATUS.
It seems you and I have different understandings of what the term “premarital sex” means. You seem to think premarital sex applies only when two unmarried persons who intend to get married to each other engage in sexual intercourse. That’s not how I understand it. I do not consider intention of the two parties to get married to be a criterion for the definition of premarital sex. I take the term “premarital sex” to mean sex before a person gets married, irrespective of whether the two parties intend to marry each other and regardless of whether they end up marrying each other. This is how I have always understood it. As far as I am concerned, if two unmarried persons engage in sex, it is premarital sex even if each of them ends up getting married to a different person in future. It is premarital because each of them is having sex prior to their marriage to whoever they will eventually marry in future. Going by my definition, premarital sex would include sex between two partners who are engaged or in a committed relationship, sex between unmarried persons who are casual friends or acquaintances, sex with a prostitute, etc. In my view, these are all examples of premarital sex.
After I read your reply, I decided to look up the meaning of premarital sex on Wikipedia. An excerpt of the Wikipedia definition says:
“Until the 1950s, ‘premarital sex’ referred to sexual relations between two people prior to marrying each other. . . The meaning has since shifted to refer to any sexual relations a person has prior to marriage and removing the emphasis on the relationship of the people involved.”
The latter sense of premarital sex in the above definition on Wikipedia is what I have always understood premarital sex to mean. That is, two unmarried individuals engaged in sexual intercourse when they are not married. Whether or not they intend to get married to each other is irrelevant.
In addition, your understanding of the terms “single” and “unmarried” is different from mine. You seem to think that the term “single” is different from the term “unmarried”. I see no difference between single and unmarried. My understanding is that there are only two options for one’s marital status: married or single. Anyone who isn’t married is single, even if he/she is engaged or involved in a committed relationship. One’s marital status only changes when they are legally married. So, technically, an unmarried person who is not in a relationship is single, an unmarried person who is engaged or in a committed relationship is single until he/she gets married.
I am aware that, in recent years, there has been a redefinition of what it means to be single, but I don’t agree with this re-definition. It’s all nonsense and amounts to semantic confusion which obviously did not exist only a few decades ago, let alone in the first century A.D. when Paul wrote his epistles. By suggesting there is a difference between “single” and “unmarried”, I think you’re alluding to the modern definition of “single” which I don’t recognise. And I think it’s a mistake to apply a relatively recent definition to the Greco-Roman world of the first century A.D. to which Paul wrote his epistles. Paul’s reference to the “unmarried and widows” in 1 Cor. 7:8 is a reference to all singles. Both the unmarried and widows are singles. The “unmarried” are those who have never been married, and they include those who are engaged to be married and those who are not engaged. Notice that Paul did not include divorcees in this list because God does not recognize divorce, and divorcees cannot remarry so long as their spouses are still alive. Paul’s instruction to a divorced or separated woman is that she should either remain unmarried (i.e., she should not remarry) or be reconciled to her husband (1 Cor. 7:11).
2) SEX DOES NOT CREATE A MARRIAGE.
Your argument that sex creates a marriage is an erroneous and unbiblical argument. You’re mistaken to think that sex creates a marriage. The Bible is clear that marriage is formed by a covenant between a man and a woman. Sex does not establish a marriage. It is the covenant (the wedding vows exchanged) which create the actual marriage. When Lemuel’s mother gave him advice she referred to him as, “What, my son? And what, son of my womb? And what, son of my VOWS?” (Proverbs 31:2). He was her son, not just because she had sex, but more so because of her marriage vows with his father. This verse confirms that marriage occurs by a vow or covenant.
Regarding God’s metaphorical marriage to Israel, God said: “When I passed by you again and saw you, behold, you were at the age for love, and I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness; I made my VOW to you and entered into a COVENANT with you, declares the Lord God, and you became mine.” (Ezekiel 16:8). Again, this passage confirms that marriage is by a covenant. Here, God says he made vows to Israel and entered into a covenant with Israel, and then Israel became His (God’s) wife.
Also, Romans 7:2 says a married woman is bound by the LAW OF MARRIAGE to her husband as long as the husband lives. The law of marriage in this verse refers to the marriage covenant. This verse says the woman is released from the law of marriage (the marriage covenant) only after the death of her husband.
Furthermore, Malachi 2:14 says: “Because the LORD has been witness between you and the wife of your youth, with whom you have dealt treacherously; yet she is your companion and your wife by COVENANT”. Here again, the Scripture says your wife became your wife by covenant, not by sexual intercourse. This is yet another scriptural proof that a marriage is established my means of a covenant. A covenant is a solemn agreement between two parties. It is somewhat similar to our idea of a contract but carries a deeper meaning and weight than our modern-day contracts. One aspect of the marriage covenant is that God serves as a witness to the covenant. Jesus alludes to this when he said, “Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate” (Matthew 19:6). Thus, it is the vows made by a man and woman which join them together into a new unit. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). Notice the steps involved in a marriage: (1) a man leaves his parents, (2) a man joins (marries) his wife, (3) the two individuals become one. The last step includes the concept of the act of sex, but it is so much more than just sex. The two bond so tightly that they behave as one person, a person different from either of them individually but which doesn’t exist without them both. But notice that the passage says, “and the two shall become one flesh” and does not say they are one flesh. Becoming one flesh is a process that begins after marriage and continues through marriage.
The act of sexual intercourse is a trigger for the bonding of two individuals, but it does not create a marriage. For example, having sex with a prostitute does create a very temporary bond, but it doesn’t create a marriage. “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Certainly not! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For ‘the two,’ He says, ‘shall become one flesh’” (1 Corinthians 6:15-16). If sex with prostitutes created marriages, then all the men who have had sex with prostitutes would be married to them. If one-night stands (involving casual sex) created marriages, then the world would be filled with polygamists. Worse still, rapists could force women to be their wives. No one could marry anyone but the first person they had sex with — something God never said. And there could not be a sin called “fornication” (sex without marriage) because each act of sex would, by your reasoning, create a marriage. If sex created marriage, then the sin of fornication would not exist, and there would be no reason for the Scripture to warn people to flee fornication. Instead, fornicating couples would be advised to continue their relationships as husbands and wives.
Although sex helps create a bond between individuals, the act of sexual intercourse is not the marriage. This is one reason why God restricted sex to married couples. You don’t want people forming intimate bonds without a prior commitment to remain with each other.
We can see this throughout the Bible. The Scripture gives us numerous examples of people who had sex, but no marriage was created as a result of their sexual intercourse. In addition, there is at least one biblical example of a couple who got married prior to sexual intercourse. In Genesis 34:1-7, we read that Shechem had sex with Dinah and, by doing so, violated her. In the Hebrew, the word is ‘anah which means to lower or to humble. In other words, his action reduced Dinah’s position in society, yet it did not create a marriage. In fact, notice that Shechem didn’t even feel love toward Dinah until afterward (here is an example of sex creating a bond). He wanted his father to negotiate a marriage between him and Dinah. This shows that the sexual intercourse between Shechem and Dinah did not create a marriage between them. Notice that it was only after the sexual intercourse that Shechem wanted to marry Dinah. He went about finding a wife the wrong way — sex was supposed to come after marriage, not before. It demonstrates that sex does not create a marriage.
Judah gives us another example in Genesis 38:2: “And Judah saw there a daughter of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shua, and he married her and went in to her“. There is a distinct timeline given here: (i) Judah met Shua, (ii) Judah married Shua, (iii) then Judah went into Shua (that is, Judah had sex with Shua). The function of the word “and” is to show the sequence of action and not to indicate simultaneous action. Once again, this passage confirms that sex does not create a marriage. In this passage, we can clearly see that marriage took place before sex.
Deuteronomy 22:29 provides additional proof that sex does not create a marriage. It says when man seduces an unbetrothed virgin and has sex with her, the woman “shall become the wife” of the man who seduced her. Below are examples of how some Bible translations render the phrase in this verse. Some Bible translations render it as “she shall be his wife”. Other translations render it as “he must marry the young woman”, while some others render it as “she shall become his wife”.
Each of the above phrases simply means the man shall marry the woman. It amazes me that you’re engaging in unnecessary semantic gymnastics by suggesting that the phrase “she shall become his wife” means anything other than “he shall marry her”. I’m very surprised because I suppose even a kindergarten kid would understand the meaning of this phrase — “she shall become his wife” simply means he shall marry her.
You argue that the man and the woman are already married by virtue of the sexual intercourse that took place between them, but this verse flatly contradicts your reasoning. Notice that verse 29 does not say the WOMAN IS HIS WIFE. That’s not what it says. Rather, it says the woman SHALL BECOME HIS WIFE. That means the woman is not yet his wife despite the sexual intercourse. That’s the reason the verse says the woman SHALL become wife. “Shall” is a future tense which implies that the marital union of the man and the woman has not yet happened. If the man and the woman were already married, why would this verse say the woman SHALL become his wife? What this phrase simply means is that the man shall marry the woman. The NIV and a few other Bible translations put it as: “He must marry the woman”.
You say Deut. 22:29 means “he should make her his wife” rather than “he should marry her”. What is the difference between these two phrases? There is absolutely no difference. They mean the same thing. Your argument is a self-defeating argument. You say the sexual intercourse between the man and the woman in Deut. 22 already made them married. If both of them are already married as you claim, why is the man told to make her his wife (i.e., to marry her)? The fact that he is mandated to make her his wife means she is not yet his wife. And if she is not yet his wife, how can you say they are already married? It makes no sense. This verse flatly contradicts the false teaching that sexual intercourse creates a marriage.
Another verse passage (Exodus 22:16-17) tells us that the woman’s father had the right to reject the marriage, thus young people couldn’t use sex as a means of forcing a marriage to take place, but a father could use the fact that his daughter was having sex to force the couple to get married.
MATTHEW 1:19-20. In Matthew 1:19-20, notice that the Scripture refers to Joseph and Mary as husband and wife during the betrothal period. They were already married during the betrothal period, but they did not have sex as yet. Ancient Jewish betrothal was essentially a marriage, but no sexual intercourse took place until a year later. Joseph and Mary got married at the betrothal ceremony, but they did not have sex at the time they got married. The Scripture refers to them as husband and wife (Matthew 1:19-20) even though they had not had sexual intercourse. Thus, their act of marrying did not include sexual relations.
MATTHEW 1:24-25: Further proof that sex is not required to establish a marriage comes from Matthew 1:24-25 which says: “Then Joseph, being aroused from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took to him his wife, and did not know her till she had brought forth her firstborn Son“. Notice that, in this passage, Joseph and Mary were married and sex did not come until after Jesus was born. That is absolute proof that marriage takes place before sex and does not require sex to seal it.
3) INTERPRETATION OF HEBREWS 13:4 AND 1 CORINTHIANS 7:2,9.
Your interpretation of Hebrews 13:4 is not entirely correct. Hebrews 13:4 says marriage is honourable and the marriage bed undefiled, and then it says God will judge fornicators and adulterers. Why would God judge fornicators and adulterers? Because these two groups of people are having sex outside the bounds of marriage. This verse clearly teaches that sex is only to be enjoyed within the bounds of marriage, and God will judge all those who engage in sexual intercourse outside the bounds of marriage will be God’s judgment. It establishes that sexual intercourse outside the bounds of marriage will be met with God’s judgment, and all those who engage in sex outside marriage are referred to in this verse as “fornicators and adulterers”.
So, the lessons from this verse can be summarized as follows:
You argue that “fornication” cannot include premarital and non-marital sex because premarital/non-marital sex did not take place in ancient Rome and that the only forms of illicit sexual activities were prostitution/sex with prostitutes and adultery. I disagree. There is no evidence to support your argument. But even if it was the case that premarital sex did not occur in ancient Greco-Roman societies, that doesn’t matter. Whether or not the citizens of ancient Rome were engaging in premarital and non-marital sex in the first century is irrelevant here. Paul, by the Holy Spirit, was not writing only for first century Christians. He was writing for all future generations, and God knew in advance that modern-day culture would be engaging in premarital sex on the scale that we see today, and the prohibition of premarital sex in the Bible is applicable to all generations, including modern western civilization.
Your understanding of 1 Corinthains 7:2 and I Corinthians 7:9 is equally wrong. In 1 Corinthians 7:2, Paul says: “Nevertheless, because of fornication, let each man have his own husband and let each woman have her own husband.” In this verse, Paul is advising each man and each woman to get married so as to avoid fornication. He was advocating marriage as a way to prevent fornication for those who could not bring their sexual passion under control. We know this because in 1 Cor. 7:9, he tells the unmarried and widows to get married if they cannot exercise self-control over their sexual urges because “it is better to marry than to burn with sexual passion”. So, it’s clear that the reason that Paul advocates marriage in this passage is to help unmarried people satisfy their sexual passion without sinning. Notice that in 1 Corinthians 7:9, Paul offers no alternatives to marriage – there is no other way to satisfy one’s sexual appetite outside of marriage. The fact that Paul recommends marriage as the only way to satisfy sexual appetite confirms that marriage is the only arena that God permits for sexual intercourse. Every sexual activity outside marriage is a sin. If there was an alternative way besides marriage for people to satisfy their sexual appetite, don’t you think Paul would have mentioned it? Why would he be silent about alternatives? Why does he repeatedly mention (cf. 1 Cor. 7:2 and 1 Cor. 7:9) that men and women should get married before they can enjoy sex? Why didn’t he tell the Corinthians that they could have sex if they were in a long-term relationship, or that they could have sex if they were cohabiting? He said neither of these.
I have cited several Bible verses that say people should first get married before they can have sex. Can you please cite one Bible verse that says it’s okay to have sex in a committed relationship without marriage? There is none. This shows that your position is unscriptural.
Let’s return to 1 Cor. 7:2. You seem to think that the term “fornication” in this verse can only mean prostitution and sex with prostitutes and that it cannot mean premarital or non-marital sex. But you’re mistaken, and I am going to show you why. In 1 Corinthians 7:2, Paul gives a command to both men and women. He tells each group to get married in order to avoid fornication. He tells each man to have his own wife in order to avoid fornication. He also tells each woman to have her own husband in order to avoid fornication. First, let’s focus for a moment on Paul’s advice to the women: Paul says each woman in the Corinthian church should have her own husband in order to avoid falling into fornication due to inability to exercise self-control over her sexual passions. This begs the question: what did Paul mean by the term “fornication” in 1 Corinthians 7:2? Was he referring to prostitution/sex with prostitutes in this verse? Or was he referring to other forms of fornication? Regarding Paul’s advice for the women in the Corinthian church in 1 Cor. 7:2, he obviously wasn’t asking women to get married in order to avoid going into prostitution or visiting prostitutes. This is because a woman could not satisfy her sexual passions by visiting a prostitute (women did not use the services of prostitutes in the ancient Greco-Roman world; male prostitutes only rendered services to male homosexual clients) nor could she satisfy her sexual passion by becoming a prostitute (women became prostitutes for economic reasons, not to satisfy their sexual passions). Thus, the sense of fornication in Paul’s advice to women in the Corinthian church in 1 Corinthians 7:2 cannot be prostitution or sex with prostitutes. It can only mean premarital sex. Paul asked each woman to get her own husband so that she can satisfy her sexual passions within the bounds of marriage. This will help her to avoid engaging in premarital sex. Paul was not asking the unmarried woman to get married in order to prevent her from going into prostitution or from having sex with prostitutes. It would not make any sense for Paul to ask an unmarried woman to get married to avoid prostitution or visiting prostitutes because it was impossible for a woman to have sex with a prostitute; besides, Paul’s reason for asking the women to get married was to enable them to satisfy their sexual passion (see 1 Cor. 7:9), not to prevent them from going into prostitution for economic reasons. Thus, applying your interpretation of fornication to the women in this verse doesn’t make sense at all. For the unmarried Corinthian female believer, the only meaning of fornication that makes sense in this verse is premarital sex, not sex with a prostitute.
With respect to the men, Paul admonished each man in the Corinthian church to have his own wife in order to avoid fornication. The sense of fornication in Paul’s admonition to each man in 1 Corinthians 7:2 would include both premarital sex and visiting a prostitute.
I believe Paul used the term “fornication” in a broad sense in this verse.
4) MEANING OF THE GREEK WORDS “MOICHEIA” AND “PORNEIA”.
The Greek words “moicheia” and “porneia” are translated as “adultery” and “fornication”, respectively in the English Bible. We know that the Bible prohibits adultery and fornication. Because the New Testament was originally written in Greek, we need to go back to the Greek words translated as “adultery” and “fornication” in order to know what range of sexual sins are prohibited under the labels “moichea” and “porneia”. What exactly do the Greek words “moicheia” and “porneia” (translated as adultery and fornication, respectively) mean? If we know the exact meaning of these Greek terms, we will have a better idea of what sexual sins are prohibited by the use of these two Greek terms.
Scholars of the history of the ancient Classical world have said the meaning of the Greek term “moicheia” in the Greco-Roman world of the first century A.D. is broader than adultery. In other words, the term “moicheia” meant more than adultery in ancient times. They say there is historical evidence (from documents from antiquity) that confirms the meaning of “moicheia” and “porneia” in the Greco-Roman world of the first century. If these scholars are right, the implication is that the term “moicheia” was mistranslated as adultery in the English Bible. One of such scholars is Kyle Harper, a professor of the history of the Classical world. In his 2011 paper titled “Porneia: The Making of a Christian Sexual Norm”, Harper explained that the Greek words “moicheia” and “porneia” have been misleadingly translated as “adultery” and “fornication” in the English Bible. I suggest you read his paper if you haven’t already done so. In his paper, he included a section from a letter written in the fourth century AD (during the reign of the Roman Empire) that sheds light into what was meant by the terms “moicheia” and “porneia”. An excerpt from Prof. Harper’s paper says:“Moicheia was sexual violation of a respectable woman—extramarital sex with a wife, daughter, or widow. Porneia was extramarital sex that did not injure a third party such as a husband, father, or male relative who stood in a position of protection over a woman’s sexual honor. The nature of the sexual sin. . .was determined by the woman’s place in society.”
Prof. Harper explained that the word moichea meant the “violation of a respectable woman” or the violation of a woman’s honor. A respectable woman was specifically “one whose sexual activity was of concern to a citizen male”. These respectable women were called eleutheria, literally “free women” (women who were not slaves). They included wives, daughters, widows, and anyone whose sexual activity was regulated and controlled by a citizen male. The respectable woman was expected to maintain her virginity until marriage and her chastity within marriage. Extramarital, non-marital or premarital sex with a respectable woman caused injury to a third party (i.e., injury to the male who stood in a position of protection over the woman’s sexual honor). For example, extramarital sex with a married woman caused injury to the woman’s husband while non-marital or premarital sex with an unmarried virgin caused injury to the girl’s father. Thus, a man committed moicheia by having sexual intercourse with a respectable woman (i.e., a wife, daughter, widow, etc.).
An eleutheria (a respectable woman) did not have to be married for moicheia to occur. A man who had sex with an unmarried daughter without her father’s consent (or more accurately, the consent of her kurios or “lord”, who could be her father or another citizen male) would have committed moicheia just as much as if he had violated a married woman. So, in that sense, the English word “adultery” is too narrow a term to signify it. Obviously, the woman’s consent was unimportant to the Greek’s concept of moicheia, and the violation was understood to have been committed against the man who controlled the woman, not the woman herself. And the moichos was understood to have violated another’s honour, not his own; there was no sense of having broken his own marriage bond. Similarly, there was no female equivalent, an eleutheria could not commit moicheia herself, as a woman had no personal honour to violate.
On the other hand, any woman who was not a respectable woman was regarded as a woman without sexual honour. Women without sexual honor included prostitutes, female slaves, courtesans, foreigners, outcasts, etc. Sexual intercourse with such women was called “porneia”. Porneia allowed men to satisfy their sexual appetites without violating honorable women and without causing injury to another man.
The Bible prohibits both moicheia and porneia. We know this from our English Bibles because these two terms are translated as “adultery” and “fornication”, respectively, which are both prohibited in Scripture. However, scholars believe that the translation of moicheia as adultery in the English Bible is too narrow and misleading, because the sense of moicheia is broader than adultery. If these scholars are correct, the question would be: did the translators of the KJV English Bible mistranslate moicheia? Or could it be that they just could not find an equivalent English word that captures the full meaning of moichea and, as a result, they decided to translate a part of it as adultery and the other part as fornication and then combine the fornication aspect of moicheia with porneia which is also translated as fornication? We don’t know for sure. But what is important to know is that the two Greek terms “moicheia” and “porniea” collectively encompass all illicit sexual activities outside the bounds of marriage, and the English translation of these two Greek words (i.e., “adultery” and “fornication”), when taken together, equally encompass all illicit sexual activities outside the bounds of marriage, including premarital sex.
So, to know exactly what sexual sins are prohibited by the Bible, we need to focus on the original Greek words used in the Scripture and the meanings of these Greek words rather than focusing on the English translations which might be misleading. The Bible’s prohibition of “moicheia” was a prohibition of all forms of non-marital, premarital, and extramarital sex with a respectable woman who had sexual honor, whereas the Bible’s prohibition of “porneia” was a prohibition of all forms of non-marital, premarital, and extramarital sex with women who had no sexual honor in the Greco-Roman world of the first century A.D. Taken together, the Bible’s prohibition of both “moicheia” and “porneia” is a prohibition of non-marital and extramarital sexual intercourse involving both respectable women and non-respectable women. In other words, the Bible’s prohibition of both moicheia and porneia is a prohibition of all forms of illicit sexual activities that take place outside the bounds of marriage, including premarital sex, non-marital sex, adultery, etc.
Note that Prof. Harper wrote, not as a theologian, but simply as an academic historian and as an expert in the history of the ancient Classical world.
Since moicheia is the violation of a respectable woman, and since an unmarried daughter is a respectable woman, it goes without saying that sexual intercourse with an unmarried daughter (i.e. premarital sex or non-marital sex) amounts to moicheia which is prohibited by the Bible. Even if young unmarried Roman and Greek citizens in the Greco-Roman world of the first century did not engage in premarital sex, the fact is that premarital sex is prohibited because it falls under “moicheia”. And because premarital sex is prohibited, unmarried people in the 21st century should not engage . Whether or not premarital sex occured during the reign of the Roman Empire is irrelevant. What is relevant is that the Bible prohibits it. The Bible was written, not only for the people who lived in the ancient Roman Empire, but also for all future generations of peoples and believers. including those of us living in the 21st century A.D. What is important is that the Bible prohibits premarital sex, and we have been able to establish this from the Scripture. Whether or not the people who lived in the Greco-Roman world engaged in premarital sex is not important. Yet, there is no evidence that premarital sex did not occur in the Greco-Roman world.
5) NO EVIDENCE THAT PREMARITAL SEX AND NON-MARITAL DID NOT OCCUR IN THE ANCIENT GRECO-ROMAN WORLD.
You continue to suggest that premarital sex and sex between unmarried virgins never occurred in the first century A.D., but I disagree. There is no evidence that premarital or non-marital sex did not occur in the Greco-Roman world of the first century A.D. Just because something was not very common does not mean it was not happening. The fact that the ancient Greco-Roman society placed a high premium on virginity at marriage does not mean that premarital or non-marital sex was not occurring in that society. The only thing we might be able to say with certainty is that premarital and non-marital sex involving unmarried young freeborn woman in the first century A.D. was relatively uncommon compared to our modern western society.
Do you really want us to believe that, in the Greco-Roman world of the first century A.D., the only form of sexual activity that unmarried people ever engaged in was sex with prostitutes and slaves? You want us to believe that absolutely no unmarried person living in that age ever had non-commercial premarital or non-marital sex with another unmarried person? I disagree. Even though premarital/non-marital sex was relatively rare in the Greco-Roman world of the first century A.D., I believe there were some unmarried young girls who engaged in premarital or non-marital sex in the first century A.D, despite the likely negative consequences of such illicit sexual activities. The fact that a young unmarried lady who engaged in non-marital or premarital sex was rejected by her family could not have deterred every unmarried lady from engaging in premarital sex. Even if the death penalty was imposed for premarital or non-marital sex, it still would not have deterred every unmarried lady from engaging in premarital/non-marital sex. There will always be a small minority of people who do not follow the norms no matter how severe the consequences of not complying with societal norms might be.
In ancient Roman society, fornication in the form of premarital/non-marital sex involving an unmarried female citizen was called consensual STUPRUM under Roman Law. It is the equivalent of what we call “fornication” in modern English parlance. Consensual stuprum was unlawful, but I believe some unmarried female youngsters engaged in it anyway.
While the vast majority of unmarried young women in the Greco-Roman world might have married as virgins, I believe there were some unmarried freeborn girls who engaged in stuprum (premarital/non-marital sex) and, consequently, became prostitutes. But I also believe there were other unmarried freeborn ladies who engaged in consensual stuprum (premarital sex) and later got married albeit at a much lower bride price. The fact that a lady was not a virgin did not mean she couldn’t get married. The only problem was that loss of virginity prior to marriage fetched a lower bride price. So, it’s an exaggeration to say that any unmarried lady in the Greco-Roman world who wasn’t a virgin could never get married.
Just because the consequences of premarital or non-marital sex were so harsh for ladies does not mean that 100% of unmarried young ladies entered marriage as virgins in the Greco-Roman world of the first century. In every society and in every generation throughout history, there have always been a small percentage of people whose life trajectories do not follow the norms. You can’t just make the blanket statement that absolutely no premarital or non-marital sex ever occurred between unmarried persons in the Greco-Roman world. Even adultery occurred in the Greco-Roman world despite the fact that it was unlawful, and it carried the risk of death. Even in ancient Israel where the penalty for a woman caught in adultery was death by stoning, women were still committing adultery despite the fact they knew it carried the death penalty. So, your suggestion that, somehow, every unmarried freeborn female citizen in the Greco-Roman world remained a virgin until the time of marriage is not credible. The vast majority of them might have saved sex for marriage, but there must have been some of them that engaged in premarital/non-marital sex.
6) THERE WAS A TYPE OF ROMAN MARRIAGE THAT INVOLVED COHABITATION OF YOUNG UNMARRIED COUPLES THEREBY PREDISPOSING THEM TO PREMARITAL SEX.
In addition to consensual stuprum (premarital sex) that could occur while a woman was still living in her father’s house, there was another avenue for young unmarried females to engage in premarital sex. The Romans had three types of marriages: confarreation, coemption, and usus. In the “Usus” type of marriage, a couple was required to cohabit for one year before their relationship could be considered a valid marriage. After a year of cohabitation, the woman came under the husband’s control. This type of marriage was particularly common among the plebeians (the ordinary working free Roman citizens). It wasn’t compulsory to marry by “usus”, and those who chose this type of marriage obviously exposed themselves to the temptation to engage in premarital sex during the cohabitation period. So, your suggestion that premarital sex did not occur in ancient Roman society is untenable.
7) FINAL THOUGHTS
God created sex, and He has clearly defined the boundaries within which sex should be enjoyed. God’s Word makes it clear that sexual intercourse should take place only within the confines of marriage. The Scripture teaches that any and all sexual activities outside marriage are prohibited by God. Premarital sex falls outside the bounds of marriage. Therefore, premarital sex is prohibited.
Moicheia is clearly prohibited in the Scripture. Moicheia includes premarital sex. Therefore, premarital sex is prohibited in Scripture.
Sexual intercourse does not create a marriage. All of the biblical evidence indicates that a marriage is established by a covenant, not by sexual intercourse. To say that sex creates a marriage is a false teaching which is not supported by Scripture.
May the LORD help us to rightly divide His Word.
Hi Vick,
Well, this is truly a tour de force of piling argument upon argument in an attempt to make the Bible say something that it just doesn’t say!
The Bible says, “Thou shalt not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14; Deuteronomy 5:18).
The Bible does not say, “Thou shalt not commit fornication.”
And it certainly doesn’t say, “Thou shalt not commit premarital sex.”
You keep on saying that the Bible says this, but you have not yet quoted a single passage where it actually does. That’s because there is no such passage. Piling argument on top of argument does not make the Bible say something that it simply does not say.
And no, once again that doesn’t mean it’s just fine to have sex before marriage. I have never said any such thing, nor does the Bible say any such thing. You keep falling into the same logical fallacy that I pointed out in my previous response to you.
You also continue to read the Bible as if it were written in today’s society and culture, and not in the culture and society in which it was actually written. The point of my statements about “singles” and “unmarried people” is that there was no “singles” scene then as there is today. That’s just not how it worked. The very fact that you cannot distinguish between “singles” and “unmarried people” demonstrates that you are still thinking in terms of today’s culture and practices in the area of sex and marriage.
Yes, of course the Bible is written for people of all times. But we still have to understand it in the context of its own culture, or we’ll misread it and misunderstand what it means for people of other cultures, including today’s Western culture. You can’t just mash the Bible into today’s culture and expect it to make sense.
Also note that Paul was a Jew, even if he did live in the Roman world, and was apparently a Roman citizen. His writings are based primarily on the Hebrew scriptures, which is the standpoint from which he writes. He does speak about the current situation in the Greco-Roman world, but he does so from a Jewish perspective, based on Jewish norms of behavior, including marriage. For all his advocacy of spreading Christianity to the pagan world, and not requiring converts to observe the ritual Law of Moses, Paul still expected new converts to adhere to the Jewish standards of moral behavior that Christianity had adopted. This is very clear from his letters, which are continually enjoining people to follow the behavioral guidelines set out in the Ten Commandments. Arguments based on Greek and Roman norms are suspect at best in determining what Paul meant in his statements about sex and marriage.
And yes, of course young women broke the rules just as young men did. But even you admit that this was likely a rare occurrence in the ancient world. Yes, there are always outliers. But the idea that there was some swinging “singles scene” in which young men and women were hopping into each other’s beds as they do today is ridiculous. That’s just not the world in which Paul lived. And Paul was not writing for the rare case of people who flouted the culture and norms of the times. He was writing for people who lived within the cultural norms, both good and bad, of the times.
I could go through all the passages you quote, but that would be tedious. In general, you simply don’t understand what those passages are saying. To take just one example:
This is not talking about marriage vows. It is talking about the same sort of thing 1 Samuel 1:11 is taking about:
A “son of a vow” was not a son borne from a wedding vow. It was a son for whom the mother (or father) had made a vow to God concerning the son to be born.
Most of the other passages you quote about “vows” and “covenants” also are not about wedding vows as we know them today. The “covenant” part, practically speaking, was the wedding contract made between the two families for the son of one family to marry the daughter of the other family. Of course, when it comes to God marrying Israel, God has no family to make a contract for him. God makes his own “contract” with his bride, which is the collective body of the people of faith. But among human beings, the contract was not between the man and his wife. It was between the family of the man and the family of the wife. The two might then make vows to each other, but that was over and above what would legally make them husband and wife.
You are also misreading the various passages that you think are saying that there is a marriage or wedding first, and then sex. “And” in Hebrew does not necessarily mean that one thing happens after the other. It is also used of two things that happen simultaneously. That argument of yours is a very weak one. If you’re reduced to arguing based on the meaning of “and,” you’re really grasping at straws!
The reality is that there was no marriage ceremony separate from the act of having sex. Notice in the case of Shechem and Dinah Shechem didn’t say, “Please, let’s have a wedding so that she can be my wife!” No, the idea was that now that he’s had sex with her, let the usual thing happen, which is that she is now his wife. The various passages you cite don’t say in the Hebrew “they will get married” or “she will become his wife,” but “she is/will be his wife.” And even the word for “wife” is the same as the word for “woman.” Again, you are superimposing modern wedding practices on ancient Biblical culture. You are therefore misunderstanding every passage you quote on this subject.
Further, I didn’t say that having sex always means that the two are married. I said that in general, there were two results when a man had sex with a woman: either she became his wife or she became (or was) a prostitute. The fact that occasional anomalies slipped through doesn’t negate this basic principle of the culture. Notice that at the very end of the story of the rape of Dinah, her brothers object, “Should our sister be treated like a prostitute?” (Genesis 34:31). In that story, there were the two possibilities now that Shechem had raped her: Shechem thought of her as his wife. Her brothers thought Shechem had made her into a prostitute.
Notice also that the brothers acted behind their father’s back, and he upbraided them for their actions, which the story itself describes as “acting deceitfully.” Their father never forgave Simeon and Levi for their actions, as we see in his “blessing” on them in Genesis 49:5–7:
The very stories you quote show that you are mistaken in superimposing today’s cultural practices, such as weddings being the thing that makes a man and woman husband and wife, on the cultures of the Bible. Read the Bible for yourself. There are marriage feasts. But there are no weddings as we know them today. Even the story marriage at Cana in John 2 says nothing about a ceremony. It says nothing about vows. The whole story is set in the context of a wedding feast. The same is true of Jesus’ parable of the wedding banquet in Matthew 22. You cannot find a single description in the Bible of a wedding ceremony and wedding vows because that’s just not how it was done in that time and culture.
Pay attention to exactly what the Bible says, without superimposing modern ideas upon it. Only then will you understand what the Bible means.
I could go on, but that would be tedious. Your mind is already made up anyway. You are not likely to change your pre-existing beliefs based on what the Bible actually says. You keep saying, “The Bible says this” and “The Bible says that” without quoting a single passage from the Bible that actually says this or that.
The Bible doesn’t say something just because you want it to say that thing. If you’re going to claim that the Bible says something, you’re going to have to quote the passages where the Bible actually says it.
The bottom line is that the Bible simply doesn’t say that sex before marriage is prohibited, no matter how much you or any other present-day traditional Christian may want it to.
Neither does the Bible say that sex before marriage is allowed. Jumping to that conclusion is a basic fallacy into which you keep falling over and over again.
Once again, I advise you to abandon the so-called “Christian” preachers and teachers who keep claiming that the Bible says this or that, but who can’t quote any passages from the Bible that actually say this or that.
Hi Lee, I haven’t read all of the comments so I apologize if this question has already been asked and you have already answered it. My question is that even if premarital sex isn’t necessarily sinful is there still value in waiting until marriage to have sex? And if there is value in waiting until marriage does that value justify the incredible struggle of waiting. In other words is waiting until marriage really “worth it” considering how hard it is to do that. Also could you explain in as much detail as you can what are the benefits of waiting until marriage to have sex. Thanks
Hi Nate,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment and question. For a fuller answer than the above article provides, please go to this one (which is also linked in the above article), and start reading from the heading, “Top-down vs. bottom-up marriage”:
Beyonce and Jay-Z Reveal the Secret: How to Start a Lasting Marriage
As the above article points out, premarital sex is actually not forbidden in the Bible. But the Bible does make it clear enough that it’s not the ideal. The ideal is to get married, then have sex, and not the other way around.
Of course, not everyone believes that. And not even everyone who believes it achieves it. As you say, especially in this day and age, it’s not easy to wait.
Is it worth it?
I think so. And the reasons have nothing to do with God damning you to hell if you “sin” in this way. Rather, as covered more fully in the Beyoncé and Jay-Z article, it has to do with what is most likely to result in a long-lasting marriage based on mutual love and a oneness of minds and hearts.
Sex has its own drive and its own intense pleasures. These have nothing to do with relationships, marriage, and soulmates. They’re all about reproducing the species. These are biological drives. And they work just as well with someone who has very little in common with us as they do with someone who is an emotional and spiritual match for us. If we let our sex drive drive us, then it has a high chance of producing babies (contraception doesn’t always work), but a very low chance of producing a lasting relationship based on love and on a oneness of minds.
In fact, because sex is so pleasurable in itself, and creates a strong bond between two people, it is more likely to cloud our judgment about the character of the other person in relation to our own character. We very much want her or him to be Ms. or Mr. Right, even if anyone looking in from the outside can see just what a bad match it is.
The basic reason to wait until marriage to have sex is that this provides an opportunity to make the inner connection between the two people first, without the mind- and heart-clouding effects of physical intimacy. Then, if the two of you do go on to get married, the marriage will not be driven by sexual attraction. Instead, it will be held together by a oneness of minds and hearts, which will express itself in physical intimacy and sex that is much deeper and more satisfying than sex driven by mere biological sex drives.
This, in a nutshell, is the reason it is better to wait until you are married to have sex. But please do read the Beyoncé and Jay-Z article for a more detailed explanation.
Of course, your life is in your own hands. You’ll have to make up your own mind, and make your own decisions about how to handle your love life and your sex life.
Meanwhile, contrary to popular belief, the Bible does not forbid masturbation.
So it sounds like your saying that waiting until marriage to have sex is not what matters but instead waiting until you have a oneness of hearts and minds to have sex is what matters. In other words waiting until you have a oneness of hearts and minds to have sex is the ideal whether or not the two people are married. If that’s what you are saying Is there still any value in waiting until marriage specifically? To give an example let’s say two people have been dating a while and they have a oneness of hearts and minds and want to get married and are planning to get married. The wedding is only a month away and they have sex for the first time. Would there have been any additional benefit of waiting until the actual wedding or would it not of mattered one way or another?
Hi Bob,
As suggested in the above article, premarital sex is not a matter of stark blacks and whites, but exists in a gray area. It is better or worse depending upon the circumstances and upon the values and beliefs of the people involved.
In the example you give, having sex a month before getting married instead of waiting for the wedding night, it’s unlikely to cause the whole relationship to go up in smoke. But it might have some negative effects, depending on the values and beliefs of the couple. If they don’t give any great importance to the wedding and getting married, but just think of it as something that you do to satisfy family and cultural expectations, then it probably won’t make much difference. But if they do think that the wedding is something special, and place a high value on getting married, they might regret jumping the gun and not having that special experience of making love for the first time on the wedding night.
But beyond individual values and beliefs, there are deeper reasons for the rituals and practices that we observe in human society. Why does practically every culture on earth have a ritual and a celebration for people getting married? For something to be that universal in human society all across the globe, there must be something more to it than just having a party.
That “something more” is that a wedding is a public recognition and celebration of two people becoming one. And as we see it now, this oneness is not just legal and social, but ideally is also a oneness of mind and heart.
In other words, the wedding and the oneness of mind and heart are not disconnected things. The wedding is an expression of the two becoming one in mind and heart. Or at least, it’s supposed to be.
Meanwhile, having sex is becoming one in body. If it is truly making love, and not just having sex, it is a physical expression of the couple’s oneness of mind and heart.
Perhaps you can see where I’m going with this.
Waiting for the wedding night to make love is not just some arbitrary restrictive rule imposed by traditional religion and culture. It is an expression of our recognition, from a spiritual perspective, that weddings are the outward ritual expression, and a recognition by the couple’s family and friends and by society as a whole, that these two people are now one in heart, mind, and life. Making love for the first time on the wedding night is the physical expression of the same thing: that these two are now “one flesh,” to use the biblical expression.
I should add that in many ancient and traditional cultures, including the cultures of the Bible, the moment when the two are considered married does not take place in the wedding ceremony or celebration. It is not sealed by a minister saying, “I now pronounce you husband and wife,” and the couple kissing each other. No, it is sealed, and the couple is considered married, when they first have sex on the wedding night. In these cultures, when a couple has sex, either they are now married or they have just committed adultery. That’s how close the connection is traditionally between having sex and becoming one.
So to answer your main question, I would say that making a distinction between getting married and becoming one in mind and heart is missing the point. Getting married and having a wedding is meant to express and recognize the couple’s oneness of mind and heart. That’s why traditionally, couples make love for the first time on the wedding night, and not before.
Will having sex before getting married cause everything to go to rack and ruin? Probably not. But I continue to believe that following the age-old progression of “courtship” (something like today’s “dating”), engagement, getting married, and making love for the first time on the wedding night expresses something deep in the human psyche. It is unfortunate that this is one of the traditional religious and spiritual practices that so many people today have tossed aside. I believe those who do toss it aside are missing something deep and important, even if life goes on anyway.
I agree that a relationship is not going to necessarily go up in smoke if the people have sex before they are married, but that they may miss out on something “deep and important” as you say. I assume the “deep and important” thing is the oneness of hearts and minds. I’m not saying that that kind of connection is separate from marriage but it is possible for people to develop that connection (or at least begin to develop it) before they are married. This kind of connection would make these people want and plan to be married there is no doubt, and they may try to wait but if they don’t make it it wouldn’t be the end of the world. And so because of that what is the reason to wait all the way until the wedding night at all? Would the people in my hypothetical scenario miss out on this “deep and important” thing ? The reason why I’m asking this is because waiting until marriage to have sex is very hard. In order to do something that’s very hard you need a really good reason for doing it, like the old saying goes, “he who has a why can bear almost any how.” I’m not doing this out of fear of punishment so I need another reason to do it and that reason has to be that there is something “deep and important” that justifies going through the struggle. And so if I could have this deep important thing/relationship even if I had sex before I was married so long as we were developing the heart and mind connection what would be the reason to go through the struggle of waiting all the way until the wedding night? The bible does encourage waiting until marriage to have sex as you describe, I believe that there has to be a good reason for that. If there wasn’t a good reason for it then people could have sex before they were married so long as they had the heart and mind connection and the outcome would be the same either way. And so that’s not very good motivation for someone who is trying to wait until marriage and is looking for a reason to do so. And so finally what is the “deep and important” thing that a person acquires when they wait until marriage? Would you be able to describe it in as much detail as possible, or is it too abstract to be able to articulate? Does it justify the struggle of waiting till marriage as opposed to one month or one week before the wedding?
Hi Bob,
Of course, what to do with your life and your body is your own choice. And I agree that doing big things requires big reasons. These days, waiting until marriage to have sex is considered a “big thing.” That’s part of the problem.
But to actually answer your question, the “deep and important” reason for waiting is to build the marriage relationship from the inside out rather than from the outside in. The time before marriage is the time to build the inner connection and friendship with one another. Best practice is to have sex only when the initial phase of becoming inner friends is complete. Once you start having sex, there is a whole new driver in the relationship.
It may seem arbitrary to designate any particular point in time—in this case the wedding day—as the endpoint of that period of building the inner relationship. But deadlines have a real effect upon the human mind. They provide a time frame in which to accomplish some task. The mind takes this into account and organizes itself to accomplish the task within the designated time.
The specific task of the period of dating and/or engagement is to make the inner connection first, before making the physical connection. Once the physical connection is made, the relationship enters a new phase, and it can never go back.
But rather than writing it all out here, I’ll send you to an article that covers this issue in much more detail:
Beyonce and Jay-Z Reveal the Secret: How to Start a Lasting Marriage
(Yeah, I wrote and posted it in the early clickbait title phase of the blog lol.)
The damage done by not doing it this way may (or may not) be subtle, and it may not be a marriage-killer, but it is real. Not taking a definite amount of time to build the inner relationship first can lead to issues later. For example, when the marriage hits a rough spot, as all marriages do, one or both partners may start to wonder if the relationship really is based on an inner connection and oneness, or if it was just driven by the physical and emotional pleasure and power of sexual intercourse, which tends to take over and cloud the mind. This can cause cracks to form in the relationship that, in the worst-case scenario, can indeed be a marriage-killer.
Swedenborg describes in his book Conjugal Love and I think also in Heaven and Hell that people get married and have sex in heaven. So people (angels) who never knew each other on earth meet each other in heaven, by God’s design, know that they are meant to be married and then go foreword to get married. I’m wondering is there people in heaven who have sex before marriage? This would obviously be after they meet each other and are waiting for the wedding day. Also on a side note I know you have written on this site about homosexuality and how you don’t think its a sin, so does that mean that homosexual people get married in heaven to a member of the same sex? Thanks.
Hi Bob,
These are tricky questions. Swedenborg doesn’t address them directly. He lived in an earlier culture in which sex before marriage was not so common as it is today (for one thing, our current easy, cheap, and effective birth control didn’t exist), and in which homosexuality was not discussed in polite company. As a result, what I’m about to say represents my own conclusions based on what he did say. I could be wrong. We won’t know for sure until we pass on to the spiritual world ourselves. Having said that, here goes:
When we first die, we return to a life very similar to the one we had been living here on earth. We live in a similar place, and even in the same house or apartment as we did in this world—but a spiritual-world version of it, of course. If we slept around here, we’ll keep sleeping around there.
However, this state of living an outward life similar to our life in the world is temporary. Before long, our true inner self starts to come out, and our outward life changes to match it. If we have not been very self-aware, or if we have put on a lot of outward masks that hide our true inner self, the life we now begin to live might be very different from the outward life we had been living here on earth—better or worse, depending on whether our heart is good or evil.
For people whose heart is evil, there are no marriages because they don’t believe in marriage. There are sexual liaisons, and there may even be relationships that are stable and monogamous for a longer or shorter time, but that will be because of the rules in the particular parts of hell they settle in, not because they themselves believe in monogamy and want to have sex with only one partner. Even these relationships are likely to break up after a while, and the people in them move on to someone else. So in hell, there is not “sex before marriage” because there is no marriage. There is just sex, and it is purely the result of selfish and greedy desires related to personal pleasure and power.
For people headed to heaven, the situation is very different. They also at first live a life very similar to the one they had lived in the world. This may include getting back together with their previous spouse or partner if both have died, and living together in the same kind of relationship, including the same kind of sexual relationship, they had had before, during their life on earth. For some people it may even involve sleeping with different partners, if that’s the kind of life they had been living in the world, but not out of selfishness or malice.
However, once they move on from the first, outward stage, to the second, inward stage of life, it will become clear to them whether or not they have a real inner connection and marriage with the person they are currently married to or living with. At that point, if they do have a true inner marriage, they will continue to live together, and will move on to heaven together, where they will continue to live together in a happy marriage forever.
For couples who turn out not to have a real inner connection with the person they are married to or in a relationship with, that relationship will break up, probably as they enter into the second stage after death, which is the stage of inward life. This is when our true inner character comes out, and everything we say and do starts to perfectly match what we think and feel. Even our physical appearance changes to perfectly reflect our true inner character. At this point, for any good people who had been in the habit of sleeping around a bit because of the culture they lived in, that practice comes to an end because it is not in harmony with their true inner self.
For people who were not married, or whose marriage has now ended because there is no real spiritual marriage within it, it is in this second stage or afterwards that they will find their true partner in marriage. This will be the person whom God has prepared for them, and who shares their own inner love, motivation, values, principles, and so on, so that the two of them truly do make one in mind and heart. This will happen only for people whose heart is good.
If their heart is good, and they are heading toward heaven, then once they enter into this second stage after death, the stage of inner life, it would not be possible for them to sleep with anyone but their true partner in marriage. Attempting to do so would feel terrible, discordant, and grating to them. It would actually physically hurt. Sleeping with anyone except their own partner in marriage would be impossible. It wouldn’t express their true inner character—and from this time onward, everything they say and do does express their true inner character.
Would they have sex with this person before marriage?
That’s a trick question.
Today, we have marriage ceremonies in which the priest or minister says, “I now declare that you are husband and wife,” and from that moment onward, the two are considered married. The priest or minister will also say, “You may now kiss your bride”—as if they have never kissed before. But now they are kissing for the first time as husband and wife.
Really, that kiss is symbolic of what actually caused a man and a woman to be considered married in most ancient societies, including in the cultures of the Bible: when they first had sex with each other.
In the Bible, there are wedding feasts, but there are no wedding ceremonies presided over by priests. Rather, as the feast reached its climax, the bride and groom would retire to their wedding bed and have sexual intercourse with one another—and that was the point at which they were considered married.
Based on Swedenborg’s description of a wedding in heaven, it works basically the same way there. There is no priest or minister, and no wedding ceremony of the type we have here (though Swedenborg does say that it’s proper to have a clergy person solemnize weddings here on earth). Instead, the two exchange vows, perhaps exchange gifts, and then they enter the bridal chamber and make love. That is the point at which their period of engagement ends, and their married life begins. That is when they become one both in mind and in body. That is when they are married as husband and wife.
Based on this, in heaven the term “sex before marriage” has no meaning. It is when the couple first has sex, as the capstone of a gathering of friends and a brief ritual between the two of them in which they exchange vows and rings (if that is the custom) that they become husband and wife.
Further, in the spiritual world there are no external circumstances that prevent people from getting married whenever they are emotionally ready, often soon after they meet and fall in love. There is no need to secure a well-paying job, or buy a bigger house, or gain consent from parents, or wind down one partner’s affairs in one state or country so that s/he can move to where the other one lives, and so on and so forth. In heaven, God continually provides everything everyone needs. This means that in the spiritual world, when two people meet and fall in love, it’s just a matter of building the initial connection and relationship, and then as soon as they’re ready, they can begin their married life.
In short, once couples reach the point at which they are ready to make love with one another, they have reached the point at which they are ready to be married, and both happen at the same time. Making love for the first time is exactly what begins their married life.
This may seem “physical” or “crude,” but really, in heaven especially, and even here on earth for couples who are truly in love, making love is simply the physical expression of the inner oneness that they have with one another. In heaven, when a couple makes love for the first time, they are simply completing their inner connection on all levels, heart, mind, and body, so that “the two become one flesh,” to use the biblical phrase.
As you can see from this, relationships work differently in the spiritual world. Everything that happens outwardly and physically is a direct expression of people’s true inner character and relationships. Sex itself is an expression of marriage. This is why sex before marriage, or outside of marriage, is simply impossible for people who are heading toward or living in heaven.
I’ll answer your other question in a separate response.
Hi Bob,
Now about this:
That’s an even trickier question. Swedenborg says practically nothing about homosexuality, as you can see in my article, “What does Emanuel Swedenborg Say about Homosexuality?” This hasn’t stopped some conservative Swedenborgians from building whole castles of anti-gay doctrine on the tiniest of foundations in Swedenborg’s writings and in the Bible. But the reality is that Swedenborg doesn’t deal with the subject of same-sex love and marriage. He alludes to it in a few places, mostly in his unpublished writings, but never makes any definite statements about it. All his writings and explanations about sex, love, and marriage are aimed at heterosexual relationships.
As a result, we’re kind of on our own in evaluating same-sex relationships and same-sex marriage. We can only take the principles Swedenborg laid out, and do our best to apply them to a type of relationship that wasn’t what Swedenborg had in mind when he wrote his book on marriage love and wrote about marriage here and there in the rest of his writings. Conservative Swedenborgians have bent his statements about marriage in an anti-gay direction, whereas liberal ones have bent his statements toward a gay-neutral or gay-affirming stance.
As I say in my article “Homosexuality, the Bible, and Christianity,” I don’t claim to understand same-sex orientation and relationships. It is confusing to me. But my understanding of Swedenborg’s principles, and of the realities of people who are homosexual, don’t allow me to take the hard-line stance that many of my more conservative Swedenborgian brothers and sisters have taken (much to the detriment and internal discord of the churches that they are part of, I might add). All of this is covered in great detail in the above-linked articles.
Specifically in relation to your question, here is a key passage from Swedenborg’s writings:
I’ve linked the section here in case you want to read the full section, and continue on to the next few sections, which delve into this statement in considerably more detail. As usual, Swedenborg applies it to heterosexual love, both good and promiscuous. But the general principle is that whatever our sexual love was like inwardly, in our inward desire and thought, in this world, it will stay the same in the afterlife.
This is what leads me to the conclusion that gays and lesbians will continue to be gay and lesbian in the other life, and will continue to engage in same-sex relationships, including same-sex marriages, in the afterlife.
Once again, I could be wrong. Maybe, as some people believe, if you delve deep enough in a homosexual’s heart and mind, you’ll find a hidden heterosexual. But all our experience here on earth leads to the opposite conclusion. Despite heroic efforts to reach that “inner heterosexual” in many different ways, both religious and secular, every effort to “convert” gay people into straight people has been a failure—often a disastrous and even deadly one.
Based on this, my conclusion is that same-sex orientation is a fundamental and fixed part of a gay or lesbian person’s character, and not something that can change after death.
Mind you, I’m not talking about people who have “gender dysphoria,” or are gender-confused and uncertain of their own sexuality. If these people aren’t able to sort out their gender and sexuality here on earth, they will be able to do so in the afterlife, where the light is far clearer, and our true inner self comes out before long. I’m talking about people who have a long-term settled same-sex orientation that is a basic part of their character, and about which they have no confusion or doubt.
Once again, I could be wrong. But based on the general principles of sex, marriage, love, and character that Swedenborg has laid out in his theological writings, and based on the depth and reality of gay and lesbian people’s same-sex orientation here on earth, I don’t see any other possible conclusion than that people who are gay and lesbian on this earth will continue to be gay and lesbian in heaven, and will continue to be in same-sex marriages there, also.
What if a homosexual truly does not want to be homosexual, but strongly desires to be heterosexual instead? That is an even more complicated question. But my belief is that no one is forced to do or be anything in the afterlife. If a person’s heartfelt desire is to be heterosexual even if s/he is homosexual here on earth, I believe that with God, all things are possible.
Of course, in heaven there will be no bigotry and mistreatment of people due to such things as race, sex, sexual orientation, and so on. If a homosexual wants to be heterosexual just because it’s socially unacceptable in the culture from which she or he comes, then that external pressure will be taken away, and he or she will be free to express whatever is truly in his or her heart, without fear or condemnation.
At any rate, this is what I believe, based on my understanding of Swedenborg’s teachings. I don’t claim that this is what Swedenborg teaches. Only that it seems to me to be the best and most likely conclusion based on what he did teach. I hope you find these thoughts helpful.
Homosexuality seems to be a thorny question for Christianity in general because of what the bible says and whatnot. I wonder if the reason Swedenborg didn’t write anything about homosexuality is because he didn’t know what to say about it. If homosexuality is all well and good you would think that Swedenborg would just come out and say it in one of his books. But then again there are lots of sexual practices that he never wrote about, masturbation being one of them (as far as I know). It could be that things like having sex before marriage, homosexuality and masturbation are mentioned infrequently or not at all in the bible and in Swedenborg’s writings because they are gray areas rather than black and white. Something I’ve noticed with God is when something is a moral gray area he usually just keeps silent about it and doesn’t say much about it. Which of course leaves us all to wonder and fight about it. What do you think?
Hi Bob,
I think it is more likely that these things are mentioned very little, if at all, in the Bible and in Swedenborg’s writings because in the cultures of those times these weren’t big public issues. There were more important things to deal with.
Today we are thrashing out many issues that in earlier eras were not major issues because there were other, more fundamental things that were still being worked out, such as how to get enough food and clothes to survive and not die. Humans generally had little freedom compared to today. They were subject to the decrees and oversight of the state (usually a king or emperor) and the church (the priestly class). Anyone who didn’t conform to those decrees was publicly punished or executed in harsh, humiliating, and barbaric ways. As a result, most people just toed the line. If they had any deviance from the expected cultural norms, they mostly just suppressed it or kept it hidden. Those who didn’t were dealt with very cruelly.
Today, in the new freedom that is a result of the Last Judgment and the Second Coming, that is less and less the case. People are expressing their own character, thoughts, and desires with less and less fear of humiliation, punishment, and death (though that freedom is a two steps forward, one step back process, and it is not even around the world). This means that many issues and practices that were formerly simply suppressed are now coming out into the open where we must deal with them. This makes it look like the world is going to hell in a handbasket morally, but what’s really happening is that the evils (and in some cases goods) that were within people all along, but which we socially and legally kept a lid on, are now being expressed openly.
Swedenborg, in particular, didn’t talk about masturbation, homosexuality, pedophilia, and so on because these were not things you talked about in those days. It’s not that people weren’t aware of them. Swedenborg does allude to homosexuality. He was perfectly well aware of its existence. But it wasn’t a forefront issue in the culture of his day as it is today. It wasn’t a subject that people discussed and debated. Gays were either quietly tolerated if they kept their behavior hidden or they were publicly flogged or executed if they flaunted it and went public. Lesbians could often get away with it, and sometimes even live together as “sisters,” because what they did with one another in bed was not considered to be sexual intercourse.
Today, there is a major movement toward acceptance of homosexuality as something normal and natural, and not to be looked down upon or suppressed. That simply wasn’t the case in the cultures of Bible times or of Swedenborg’s times. It was a “settled issue,” so why talk about it?
Even the Bible doesn’t make a big deal about same-sex sex. It forbids it and then moves on. There are only two or three mentions of or allusions to it in the Old Testament, and a similar number in the New Testament, none of which go into any detail. Meanwhile, adultery makes it into the Ten Commandments, and is mentioned dozens if not hundreds of times in the Old and New Testaments. It is a major issue, and is subject to an extensive body of law and commentary. This was a big, important issue in Bible times, as it was in Swedenborg’s time. Hence Swedenborg’s extensive commentary on adultery.
Homosexuality, meanwhile, along with various other issues that are big today but weren’t big issues then, get little or no mention either in the Bible or in Swedenborg’s writings. Today many issues that have been with us all along, but have been hidden or suppressed, are coming out into the open where we can deal with them. This also includes such things as slavery, pedophilia, masturbation, spousal abuse, and so on. The fact that we are openly dealing with these issues today is not a sign of moral decay, but of a new freedom and openness that is lifting the lid on the suppression of these things that had gone on for thousands of years, so that they simmered under the surface and did their damage, and were never properly dealt with. Now it’s finally time to deal with them.
Personally I treat sex before marriage as more or less bad (more if it looks to what I call down-love like adultery and fornication, less if it looks to what I call up-love or marriage-oriented), as I see it as something that should be an expression of love in marriage. Even if such is not absolute morality.
Also, if one passes away as a virgin and wants to be with someone on the same level of experience (or lack thereof) and is saving virginity for marriage, will God make that arrangement and pair him or her with a virgin who has the same values and plan?
Hi K,
About sex before marriage, I agree.
About a virgin who passes away, I think it is very likely that such a person would naturally be attracted to and marry another virgin because their minds and hearts would be congruent with one another. And yes, this would be something arranged by God.
Did Swedenborg say a virgin can only become one with another virgin?
If a woman or for that matter a man lost their virginity due to rape, would they still be able to form a marriage relationship with some who was still a virgin at their time of death even if they both shared similar spiritual traits. even if ones still a virgin and the other isn’t
Hi tammi85,
No, Swedenborg never said that. He did put a high value on virginity, as was common in his day and age. And he spoke harshly about the evil and destructiveness of rape. But being a victim of rape does not mean a person can’t go on to have a spiritual marriage with someone who shares the same ideals of marriage.