Toward a Theology of Sex

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Toward a Theology of Sex

REVIEW AND HERALD, March 12, 1970

By

C. E. WITTSCHIEBE

SYNOPSIS: Man, made in the image of God, is to put sex under the control of reason, sanctified reason. This control concerns itself primarily with larger relationships—how they begin, with whom, how they develop, and whether marriage is possible and desirable.

THEOLOGY essentially is the study of God's attributes and relations. God may be described in one word—love. Since God is love, and since man was made in His image, it is to be expected that man will reveal in himself the capacity to love and be loved. This is exhibited in its primary form in the roles of husband and wife, parent and child. All of marriage provides this opportunity, of course, but in the sex act the husband and wife who are genuinely in love reach the height of "givingness," the ultimate in intimacy, in 'knowing," in sharing happiness, in belonging fully to one another for a moment of time.

Here is the human analogy of the love the Christian can feel for his Lord, an "incarnation" illustration of the believer's union with Christ (Eph. 5:28-33). It is not without meaning that Isaiah calls the Lord the church's husband, and that Paul says we are "espoused" to Christ as our husband. Because of this, the relationship of the church to Christ is that of a loving and pure wife. Herein is found the core meaning of the parable of the bridegroom and of the marriage supper of the Lamb.

So far as the individual is concerned, sex is a part of the whole personality—it is not a detachable item, nor can it be compartmented. Sexuality is not a characteristic—we are sexual persons. All that makes for personality plays a part in the development of sexuality and is, in turn, affected by the sexual essence of our nature.

Sex is only a part of the broader sexuality that includes all there is to being a man and being a woman. Man connotes the qualities that make for masculinity, for virility, for manliness. Males who lack these, or who are markedly deficient, are often termed sissies or effeminates. Solomon is an example of a man who degenerated from manliness to effeminacy in the gradual deterioration of his personality.

Woman Implies Femininity

Woman implies the corresponding elements of womanliness, of femininity. For women who come short in this respect there does not seem to be any term that corresponds with sissy for the male (tomboy, in all fairness, is much milder in meaning; and butch is specifically used for the pseudo male in the Lesbian relationship).

Just as the physical aspects of maleness and femaleness are complementary, so the psychological and emotional characteristics make for mutual completion. The masculinity of males is attracted and enhanced by the femininity of the woman; the woman, in turn, is more consciously a woman in response to the virile male. There seems to be a subtle electrical charge present (perhaps negative and positive?).

Emphasis must again be put on the fact that both maleness and femaleness came into being during the six days of Creation. At the close of this period the Lord assessed His work as "very good." These were included in the image God made of Himself in man. This is not to say that the Godhead therefore must have maleness and femaleness or sexuality. Yet whatever reservations are made, the fact remains that God chose to consider man—male and female—as made in His image.

A distinction has been made by some theologians in the meanings of love intended by the Greek words erOs, philia, agape. Put rather simply,eras conveys the idea of sexual-biological-emotional relationship; philia is used for all that is implied in friendship; and agape stands for altruistic love, self-giving love.

In the Old Testament the Hebrew word 'ahabah—love—appears with a variety of meanings. It is the word for Jacob's love for Rachel, David's for Jonathan, Abraham's for Isaac, Samson's for Delilah, Ruth's for Naomi, Elkanah's for Hannah, Amnon's for Tamar, Solomon's for 'many strange women," Ahasuerus' for Esther, and a husbands for his wife. It is also employed to indicate man's love for God, the Lord's love of the righteous, the love of the saints for the Lord, the Lord's love of judgment, and the Lord's love of Israel.

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Love Is Basic

The people of God in OW Testament times evidently regarded love as a garment without seams—a basic emotion—an attitude that had varied ways of expressing itself. They evidently regarded love more holistically than some do today and were less concerned about making sharp distinctions between types of love. If God's love for man and man's love for a woman can be covered by the same word, the association of ideas should lead to a purer, more elevated feeling about the sexual relationship.

It is a fair deduction that all three shades of meaning to be found in the finer distinctions of the Greek words referred to are to be present in their ideal, unified state in marriage which combines man's human (physical) nature, the image of God in him, and the continuing control of the Holy Spirit.

Distinction must be made between lust and the erOs type of love. The capacity to love with physical passion is part of the creation of man—the sex desires inherent in the male and female natures of man. Anatomy itself vindicates the legitimacy of this desire. Not only is the "rightness" self-evident but also the fact that it is to be an expression of maximum sensuous pleasure. Hunger can be relieved by the simple act of eating. Yet the sight of the food, the odor of the food, the attractive surroundings, the company of friends, all increase the pleasure of eating.

The bodies of men and women are designed to make this relationship possible and highly pleasing. If design indicates purpose (a point often made in arguing for the existence of God), then only one conclusion is possible about sex—the Lord intended it to be an experience of supreme pleasure, of delightfully intimate "one-flesh-ness." The Song of Solomon, the best-known and only inspired story of married love, certainly has running through it a marked chord of happiness and delight.

The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, in the introductory outline of the book, has such phrases as this: "a delightsome rendezvous in the springtime," "Solomon idolizes his bride," and "Solomon enraptured by the beauty of his bride." In commenting on chapter two, verse five, the authors interpret the phrase "sick of love" as meaning lovesick, as feeling "ecstatic delight." For chapter two, verse nine, the explanation is given that "Solomon is represented as playfully [italics mined looking through the windows in search of his beloved." The exposition of the book closes with the statement that the book speaks of "the wooing and the wedding of two happy hearts"

The joy of marriage is extolled in Solomon's writings. In Proverbs he writes: "Rejoice with the wife of thy youth" (5:18); in Ecclesiastes: "Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest" (9:9). In the Song of Songs he writes: "I sat down under his shadow with great delight" (2:3); "How fair and how pleasant art thou, o love, for delights" (7:6). (It may seem paradoxical that the monarch who cheapened and perverted the marriage relationship by having many wives should write powerfully, feelingly, and with great delicacy about the merits, blessing, and joys of monogamous marriage.)

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Sacredness Compatible With Joy

Sex, then, can be a thing of joy, of laughter, of playfulness. Sometimes, in order to avoid a too carnal attitude, theologians have overstressed the spiritual in such a way as to make the relationship almost one of austerity. Some seem to believe that feelings of asceticism and penitence must be present; that little of spontaneity and lightheartedness is 1)ennissible.

Parenthood is a sacred relationship too, but one of the first responses the mother and father watch for and encourage in the baby is a smile or gurgling laugh. These reflect the growing feeling between parent and child and the pleasure each takes in the other. This is one of the earliest ways in which "personality" appears.

Sex has this element in it, as well. Sacredness is not incompatible with joy and delight. Who else but a Christian husband and wife, grounded in their loyalty to God, secure in their permanent union, trusting each other implicitly, living for the happiness of each other, can reach the highest level of pleasure possible in sex? The proponents of the "playboy" philosophy should not be allowed to hold the center of the stage. Their sexual hedonism does not compare with the pleasure open to sexually mature and healthy Christians.

Sex in the lower animals is under the sway of instinct. For most animals the time of mating is controlled by built-in rhythms. This is the nearest they come to man's love-making. Yet they have no choice as to when, and not often much as to whom. Man chooses a mate for life and may then make love at any time. The Lord gives the privilege of complete autonomy in sex, forbidding only fornication, adultery, and relationships considered to be abominations (as in Leviticus 18).

But man, made in the image of God, is to put sex under the control of reason, sanctified reason. This control concerns itself primarily with larger relationships—how they begin, with whom, how they develop, and whether marriage is possible and desirable. Reason determines the way acquaintance grows into friendship and friendship into love. Because they are smaller parts of the larger relationship, individual acts of love too may be considered to be under reason. But this has its limits—otherwise love loses the spontaneity and freedom that should characterize its expression. Once boundaries have been established, one can move freely within them.

Reason, in turn, needs the supervision of conscience. Through it the principles of modesty, purity, and integrity control the relationship and win for it the blessing of God. Sex, being a part of the total man, has suffered the stain of sin and cannot be trusted in its natural state to act in a manner conforming to the will of God.

The desperate wickedness of the unregenerate heart can here display itself in a wide variety of thoughts and actions, and almost to a universal degree. Through the centuries the perversions of sex have been a continuing example of man's tendency to fall deeply in this key area of his life. Today's pornography is doubtless one of the most obvious signs that the people of this age are like those of Noah's day and like the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. We see the very sins now existing in the world which were in Sodom (see The SDA Bible Commentary, Ellen G. White comments, on Isa. 25:21, P. 1144).

"The earth is fast becoming a Sodom."—Gospel Workers, pp. 125, 126. "The inhabitants of the worldare fast becoming as corrupt as were the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah."—Testimoni-es, vol. 8, p. 49.These cities of the plain reeked with sensual indulgence, vile and brutal passions, debasing and abominable behavior, and moral corruption (Patriarchs and Prophets, pp. 156-167). The sex nature of man, not guided by reason and not under the direction of a sensitive conscience, can rapidly bring man to violate all the principles embodied in the seventh commandment."Animal Passions" DefinedIn some marriages there is a feeling that the relationship is a license to indulge animal passion (Testimonies, vol. 2, p. 480). Sometimes this is carried to a point lower than the practices of the brute creation (ibid., pp. 472, 473), leading to licentiousness and debasing of the body (ibid., p. 391). Outrage is done to the fine and tender sensibilities of some wives."Animal" here means the carnal nature in ascendancy over the spiritual.

In stronger terms it connotes the brutish and the beastly. Man is obligated by his relation to the Creator not to allow his sexual life to be dominated by this part of his being. However, his body is still to be the vehicle by which his spirit and mind can experience most deeply and intimately his love for his mate. As has been said, the Creator designed both bodies—male and female—so that together they might enjoy the maximum functioning of all the sensory and motor nerves involved in the art of love. Note how the lovers in the Song of Solomon stress the beauty of each other's bodies, the powerful effect each has on the other, and the physical joys of intimacy.

One insults the Creator's handiwork and plans when this relationship is called "animal" or "beastly." The epithet should be reserved for the man who regards his wife as his private sexual object—provided to meet his biological demands whenever called upon. Such a "husband" gives his wife the feeling that he has married her only for her body. Often he compounds the evil by proposing methods of love-making that violate her conscience or conflict with her esthetic tastes.

A woman, in turn, has no right to call her husband's normal sex hunger an "animal passion," nor can she in fairness depreciate the high impor?tance of the sex relationship. Many fine and considerate husbands have been made to feel guilty of sensuality and insensitivity for simply desiring what should be normal. Immature or neurotic wives have often used this as a weapon, or a fence, and have entangled their husbands in the quicksands of their unhealthy or severely constricted attitudes.

In fairness to wives, it should be mentioned that now and then one finds a husband who, because of similar limitations, makes his wife feel "carnal" and unfemininely aggressive when she takes the lead occasionally in being demonstrative or makes the overtures in loving.In general, in avoiding animalism one may veer too far to the right and fall into the ditch on that side of the road. (Note that Satan, when he could no longer succeed in having the Jewish leaders break the Sabbath, brought about an inhuman system to "keep" it by a stifling mass of minute legalistic regulations.)

The solution to intemperance is not continual fasting. The devil cares very little, we may suppose, whether one dies from overeating or from malnutrition.There is need to guard against thesame type of mistake. Avoiding lust is not achieved by destroying normal desire and by trying to block the sex drive from expression in normal channels. Avoiding "abuse" of the marriage relation is not accomplished by "no-use" of it. Sex is not a demon that must be cast out.Each husband and wife have theright and privilege of enjoying to the fullest every expression of sex possible in their marriage (under the broad control of reason and conscience). The Lord intended sex to be enjoyed. As has been mentioned, anatomy alone indicates that. We do Him no honor by depriving ourselves of gifts freely given us by Him.

There is time enough for sacrifice when medical reasons make this necessary, or separations come from death, imprisonment in persecution, or from travel in the service of the Lord. The only valid reason for the discontinuance of sexual activity(apart from moral considerations)should be physical disability. Happily married couples continue expressing their love sexually through the middle years and into later life. As their love for God grows and deepens, so does their love for each other, a foretaste of the pure, eternal love that they will experience in heaven.