Living Like Yeshua, Part 10: Sexual Purity

 

Note: This may not be content for the *cough* too youthful. And some search engines may even hide this content for the keywords repetitively used. But these topics are way too taboo in the modern church. I debated creating substitute words for the article, but the Bible doesn't, so why should I?

"You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart."
~Matthew 5:27-28 BSB

Now, I will say from the start, grace covers a multitude of sins. Else-wise we are ALL condemned. But also, we live in a world where sex and sexual sins have just about become the world's biggest and most devout religion. And the second biggest religion is the other side of the coin, those who go to drastic legalistic measures to try and stay pure. Thus I believe these are important topics to get right, because Yeshua calls his followers to a higher standard than the righteousness they knew from Mosaic law, while yet not embracing legalism.

Now, this section of the Sermon on the Mount could make a long enough lesson of its own. Yet it seemed like an appropriate door into the entire topic of sexual immorality, because, as scripture says:

"Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a man can commit is outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body."
~1 Corinthians 6:18 BSB

And it is an extremely important topic, because while people like to play blame games (eg "she shouldn't have dressed like that" or "he shouldn't even have looked in that direction" or whatever else), we are only responsible for our own selves, and it is upon the individual to reign their passions under control.

"For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God"
~1 Thessalonians 4:3-5 ESV

Now, in studying the whole of scripture, my observations have deduced approximately six main types of sexual sins. Adultery, Fornication, Sodomy, Incest, Bestiality, and Infidelity.

Adultery: Sexual sin involving a married individual
Fornication: An archaic term for prostitution.
Sodomy: Same-sex marriage & similar unnatural relationships
Incest: Marriage to close kin, & similar unnatural relationships
Bestiality: relations with non-humans (both animals and non-living objects)
Infidelity: Although 1 Timothy 5:8 says that not providing for your household makes you *worse* than an infidel, I am using this term for sexual relationships that would otherwise be valid except for failure to provide. Further explanation later on.

The first sin, adultery, is a big one, with many subdivisions. Under the law of Moses, it is sex between a man and a woman when one or both of them are already in a legal, binding, contractual marriage with someone else. Under Biblical law, there are three things which can effect. These are money/object of monetary value (Genesis 24:53, Hosea 3:2), a document/legal contract (Malachi 2:14, Jeremiah 31:31-32, Romans 7:2), or intercourse (Exodus 22:16, Deuteronomy 22:28-29, Genesis 24:67, 1 Corinthians 7:36, 1 Corinthians 6:16). Traditionally, such a union consists of all three, but a marriage is still legally binding in the presence of any one of those things, by itself. Even betrothal/engagement counts as marriage within this context. In Deuteronomy 22:23, if a man has sexual relations with a virgin betrothed to someone else, even though the marriage has not yet been consummated, this is adultery.

Back in Matthew, Jesus adds that it is also adultery to even covet another man's wife (or, by the transitive rule, another man's betrothed).

Now, a lot of religious institutions, both churches and institutions of some other religions, tend to present the idea of "boys, if you so much as look at a female and have an emotional desire, you've already committed the deed with her and have sinned horribly". But I don't believe that is the idea Yeshua is presenting. Really, He isn't even adding anything new to the law of Moses. Because Exodus 20:17 says, "You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, or his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor." (The Hebrew "covet" and Greek "lust" are the same concept, essentially to eagerly and passionately desire). And because the context of this whole section of scripture is discussing adultery and divorce, "a married/betrothed woman" would be the grammatically proper usage, not "women in general"

Inherently, the sexual and the emotions and feelings attached to it are hard-wired survival instincts that the Lord programmed into our species. Well, most of us, anyway. Some of us, the instincts are very delayed, or never come at all. (Matthew 19:12, 1 Corinthians 7:8, 1 Corinthians 7:37) But generally, humans want to be intimately known and to share passionate love. A single person being attracted to a single person is not a sin. But where desire goes awry is when you start longing for somebody else's wedded/betrothed (adultery), longing for someone other than your own wedded/betrothed (still adultery), or lusting to an unhealthy degree.

Lusting to an unhealthy degree? Isn't ANY lust an unhealthy degree? Isn't lust a sin?

Well, not necessarily. One must understand the word in its older context. Even Yeshua lusted in a sense. “And He said to them, ‘I have lusted [ἐπιθυμέω] to eat this Passover with you before I suffer!'” (Luke 22:15) 

Lust/coveting/desire is not sin in itself. It is an appetite which can lead to sin. For example, it is not sin to be hungry for food. It is a sin to let your hunger drive you to gluttony. Appetite is natural. But it must be governed and controlled and not allowed to run rampant. E.g. Desiring every cute girl in your high school is a wrong appetite. Desiring someone who explicitly doesn't reciprocate it is a wrong appetite. Desiring someone that the Lord has forbidden you to have is a wrong appetite. Desiring the wife or property of your neighbor is a wrong appetite. Desiring someone when you already have someone is a wrong appetite.

But so many men are driven to guilt and self-defeat, trying to fight lust, when the appetite isn't the problem at all, the problem is the object being desired. Which is why Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians, recommends that if you can't control your passions, get married and channel your desire into your spouse, rather than letting it drive you to sin.

This is not to say desire and appetite can't or shouldn't be brought under one's subjection. But redirecting desire to right things is a much more readily conquered battle than eradication of desire altogether.

But to go even a step further, Yeshua now adds divorce as a form of adultery. In Matthew 5:32, He states, "But I say to you that everyone divorcing his wife, except on account of sexual immorality, causes her to commit adultery. And whoever shall marry her who has been divorced commits adultery."

And Paul adds to this in 1 Corinthians 7, when he urges, "To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband (but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband should not divorce his wife."

So then, if your partner commits adultery, you can divorce for unfaithfulness and remarry without sin. But divorce for any other reason is not valid, and if either side of a invalid divorce marries somebody else, it is adultery. And by Proverbs 6:22, he who commits adultery destroys himself.

If these warnings are not clear enough, Yeshua reiterates the command in Matthew 19:9, going so far as to implicate, in verse twelve, that people unwilling to commit to life without divorce are better off castrating themselves for the sake of the kingdom.

Adultery:
-taking another person's wedded spouse
-taking another person's engaged fiance
-mentally desiring the wedded/engaged
-Invalidly divorcing (any reason other than sexual immorality)
-marrying after being invalidly divorced
-marrying someone who invalidly divorced
-mentally desiring someone who invalidly divorced

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Okay, so what about fornication (in some translations, just written as general "sexual immorality")?

Well, the Greek word used is the word from which we get a certain four letter word that starts with the sixteenth letter of the English alphabet and rhymes with thorn. In short, prostitution, or rather, having a lifestyle of illicit sexual relationships.

Now, if you or they are married, this becomes a subset of adultery. But when neither have been married, it is still its own class of sexual immorality.
But while we are told extensively to avoid this and those who practice it, the term is not specifically defined in English Bibles and is often translated as sexual immorality in general. Nonetheless, a little digging into Greek linguistics (of which I will not profess to be an expert, and I welcome cited evidence if I am in error) indicates that this is almost certainly prostitution and sex trafficking.
On a side note, as per 1 Corinthians 6:16, fornication is an extremely severe sexual sin, as becoming one flesh with a prostitute is still as much a binding union as with anybody else.

***

So then Sodomy? This is the entire rainbow alphabet flag, including, but not limited to, homosexuality. I can feel the flak coming.

You must not lie with a man as with a woman; that is an abomination
~Leviticus 18:22 BSB

But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house. And they called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may know (Hebrew euphemism for sex) them.”
~Genesis 19:4-5 ESV

Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who submit to or perform homosexual acts.
~1 Corinthians 6:9

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness. For what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from His workmanship, so that men are without excuse.
    For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and darkened in their foolish hearts. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images of mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
    Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity for the dishonoring of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is forever worthy of praise!Amen.
    For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. Likewise, the men abandoned natural relations with women and burned with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
~Romans 18:27 BSB

The sexually immoral [fornicators], men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine
~1 Timothy 1:10 ESV

***

Incest is any other unnatural human relationship, such as with close kin. (1 Corinthians 5:1, Leviticus 18:6). 

***

Bestiality is easy enough. Human to animal relations (or really any human to inanimate object relationship). Scripture only mentions animals, as per Exodus 22:19, but simple intuition deduces that using inanimate objects is no less mentally derange.

***

So then we finally come to what I call Infidelity. This is when an otherwise valid sexual relationship misses the mark of what the Lord intended it to be, because of failure to provide.

If anyone does not provide for his own, and especially his own household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
~1 Timothy 5:8 BSB

Paul's words here are in the middle of instructions that a widow's children and grandchildren ought to take care of her, if she has any. But the implication is that non-widows are being cared for by their husbands. In other words, marrying without the ability and intent to financially support a wife is a form of infidelity.

Granted, some things are beyond control. A workplace accident, getting laid off, an illness, many things could very quickly take away a man's ability to provide. This is simply life. But infidelity is a willful ignorance of these duties.

And it goes beyond the financial. Without quoting the scriptures here, because this is getting long enough, the role of a husband/father is to:

-love his wife, nurture her, cherish her, sanctify her (Ephesians 5)
-understand and honor his wife (1 Peter 3)
-discipline and instruct any children, if they exist, but NOT provoking them to anger (Ephesians 6)
-show compassion to any children (Psalm 103)
-train any children in the way they should go (Proverbs 22)

So then, providing for one's household, while financial provision is kind of a big one, also entails providing spiritually, mentally, and emotionally. A man who ignores his responsibility to provide for the financial/material needs of his wife/children would rightfully deserve reproof. But refusing to acknowledge his spiritual leadership, or refusing to work on strengthening his family's minds, or refusing to nurture them emotionally, these are equally wrongful.

But just how wrong are these sexual sins? Well, if you read part nine of this series, you will remember that Yeshua talked about the fires of Gehenna. They appear a second time, in Matthew 5:29-30, where He says that if your eye or your hand causes you to fall into these sins, it would be better to gouge it out/cut it off and live maimed than to be whole and cast into the fires of Gehenna.

Which creates an interesting puzzle. Are the fires of Gehenna rhetorical, or could a person actually be maimed for eternity? But that is a study for some other day.