https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uW1k0cNsDtk&feature=youtu.be
This is the first of a two-part series on how our society both undervalues and overvalues sex.[1] First, how do we undervalue sex? (And be sure to check out Part 2, how we overvalue sex).
Our society wants to push the idea that sex is just physical. It’s like food: when you’re hungry, you eat. When you’re feeling sexual, you sex. No big deal. It’s draconian and needlessly old fashioned to talk about what morality when it comes to sex. The only relevant question is, “What do you enjoy?”
But something within us just can’t seem to accept the idea that sex is just physical. After all, if sex is just physical, why is it that rape is reported so much less than other physical abuse? If sex is just physical, why is it that adultery is so devastating to a relationship—moreso than other types of betrayal? If sex is just physical, why is that when someone sits in my office and says, “Pastor, I’ve never told anyone this before,” that 99% of the time, it’s something sexual? Our experience screams that sex can’t just be physical. Something bigger is going on.
As a society, we may think we’re breaking new ground, but treating sex like it’s only biology is actually pretty old. In fact, it’s been around for thousands of years. And Scripture tackles that lie head-on. Take, for instance, Proverbs 30:18–20.
Proverbs 30:18–19 is called a “3-4 poem.” This was a Hebrew poetic device to express wonder. There are three things that amaze me…but the fourth exceeds them all! The four things the author compares here are (1) an eagle in the sky, (2) a ship on the ocean, (3) a snake on a rock face, and (4) a man and a woman in the throes of their passion.
What makes sex between a man and woman like those first three images? It’s the idea of mystery, almost magic, as one “creature” navigates another: watch an eagle fly through the sky, or a ship on the sea, or a snake slither up a sheer cliff, and it’s incredible. Surfaces that are unmanageable to most other creatures seem to be perfectly suited for the eagle, the ship, the snake. In fact, the images hint at a mysterious union: just as the eagle seems to unite with the air as he soars, the man and woman are mysteriously bound up when they have sex. It’s mysterious, magical, almost divine.
And then verse 20. It’s deliberately jarring: “This is the way of an adulteress: she eats and wipes her mouth and says, ‘I have done no wrong.’” Here it is: sex-as-biology. Sex is seen as just another urge, like having a snack. But how pitiful a picture when compared to the reality!
When we think about sex as solely physical, we totally miss the wonder that God built into sex. In sex, two become one. We understand that physically, but sex is so designed that this physical oneness is supposed to happen in a context of an entire life. Finances become one, families become one, futures become one.
This is why sex outside of marriage is so devastating. It separates the physical oneness from the oneness of everything else. It is us saying, “I don’t really want all of you, at least not yet. I just want your body for now.” As C.S. Lewis said, a guy wanting to sleep with a girl without marrying her is approaching her like a bulimic approaches food: he wants the taste but not the calories; he likes the pleasure she gives him, but doesn’t want her.
Using sex like this isn’t just damaging to the people we’re using; it hurts us, too. Because we aren’t just animals, and whether we want to or not, every time we have sex we unite ourselves to another person. Social scientists, for instance, are beginning to show how casual sex re-wires the brain. Having multiple sex partners makes genuine, lasting, selfless relationships much more difficult. As Tim Chester put it, “You can no more ‘try out’ sex than you can ‘try out’ birth. The very act of sex produces a new reality that cannot be undone.”
I fear that for most people who have bought into our culture’s lies about sex, they already know this from experience. They know—and feel—how damaging their sexual decisions are. This is where the social scientists don’t offer much hope. They can explain the problem, but not the cure.
But praise God, we have hope. We have a cure for sexual sin. Though our past may be littered with mistakes, our future can be as pure and perfect as if we had never sinned. Though our sins blot our soul like scarlet, God can make it white as snow. In Christ, we stand before God whole—not because we’ve avoided sins, but because we’ve been clothed in Christ’s righteousness. Christ’s blood can make the foulest clean, and I know this, because his blood availed for me.
For more, be sure to listen to the entire message here.
[1] I owe much of the insight here—particularly the “undervalue/overvalue” language, to Tim Keller’s sermon, “The Temptation of Beauty.”
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