WARNING: This article contains a few frank references to a man's
semen, sexual intercourse, birth control and there are even one
or two passing references to masturbation. If you find such
things sexually unsettling or are easily offended, perhaps this
article is just not for you, but please allow me to assure you that many Christians do indeed have questions in this area, and these questions are not normally addressed by local ministers.
I was recently asked a very long and detailed
question on marriage. My questioner proposed three main points
which he backed up with numerous scriptural quotations. These
were his points:
1 Scripturally, it seems that God considers the first
person we ever experience sexual intercourse with, as our
lifelong spouse.
2. Biblically, there is no evidence of a 'marriage
ceremony.'
3. Therefore Christian congregations should not judge, but
rather, welcome all couples who live together without having gone
through any formal marriage ceremony.
What follows is my (rather long, I'm afraid) answer to my
questioner's points.
In this response, I find it necessary to discuss sex, a man's
semen and birth control too. I have tried to deal with the issues
with all tact, propriety and decency but some of my comments
could still prove a little strong for some. I hope that you are
not offended.
Hi Ben,
I just read your article on marriage and I must compliment you
for the work which you put into that. I think that you make a
very strong case indeed for saying that, in God's eyes, we are
'married' to the first person we have sexual relations
with.
The second point you make is that no "marriage ceremony" - as
such - is ever instituted in the Bible, which seems to be
correct, therefore couples who have lived together for some while
are 'married' in any case, so why should Christians discriminate
against them?
For my part, I am prepared to accept that if a couple have lived
together for 20 years without being formally "married," they may be
no less "married" in God's sight than some who have been through
a ceremony but are not living together harmoniously.
But to say that 'you make a very strong case' is not the
same thing as saying that you have proven your point because, frankly, I
don't think that you have. There are problems with your view:
1. How does one know that a couple who live together did not
experience several sexual acts with other people before they came
together?? If so, then even if they have lived together for 20
years, they are not (according to the view which you desire to uphold),
truly married!!
2. To be frank, in our age, couples who live together who have
never felt the need to formalise a marriage union before others,
often seem to place a low commitment on their union.
Yes, I know you will find exceptions to this and you may also say
that many married couples show a low commitment to their union.
But the desire to make a public commitment before others in a
formal 'act of marriage' seems important for most people, whether
it is done in a place of worship or somewhere else. I agree that
no "marriage ceremony" (as such) appears in the Bible, but I do
believe that for a couple to make a public commitment before
others is important. Is this not the same principle which we find
in baptism? We know that we are not saved by the act of being
baptized, but surely God has given us the ceremony of baptism
before others as a witness that we have dedicated and commited
the rest of our earthly existence to God!! So there seems no
reason why we cannot make a public marriage confession in the
same manner; an outward sign of the motive of our inner heart to
share the rest of our lives with this very special person.
3. Christians should never bring reproach or condemnation on
the message of the gospel by the things which they practise. The
biblical example is to obey the laws of man except where they
obviously conflict with the laws of God, and then we must not
obey them!
This point alone would mean that for most of the church age we
should support the principle of a 'Christian marriage
ceremony.'
Did you know that a number of people become Christians every year
after marrying in a place of worship? They had fallen out of the
practise or perhaps had never seen the need of acknowledging God,
but something in the marriage ceremony in which Scripture was
quoted spoke to them!
If - from tomorrow - all denominations said: 'From now on, we
are going to scrap the Christian marriage ceremony, since - if
you live together and are having regular sex - you are already
"married,"' I'm afraid that this would tend to buy into this
society's casual, no-commitment attitude towards sex. There is
just something in the act of seeking to formalise ones union
before others which speaks of the importance which we should
place upon it!
4. If we say that God 'only accepts' the first person we ever
experience sexual intercourse with, as our lifelong husband/wife,
are we not painting a rather naive and simplistic view of the God
who rules the universe??
Can we actually believe, for example, that a God of love looks
down on a couple who are devout Christians and who are raising
children in the great truths of the Gospel yet rejects them both
-with their marriage and children - because of
indiscretions which one or both of them were responsible for in
their younger years?? I don't think we can support the concept
that a God of love and forgiveness would reject such a
couple!
I find a certain naivety in that view of God.
This seems to be very close to the Roman Catholic teaching
against birth control. Catholics were traditionally taught that a
man's seed (semen) can only be produced for procreation. They
believed that all semen is life, and it must never be wasted;
therefore withdrawal as a means of birth control (the man
withdraws from his wife at the point of climax before his sperm
spills into her womb) and other methods of birth control (as well
as masturbation), are inherently wrong and sinful since the man
is purposely 'spilling,' or, 'wasting' life. But the Roman
Catholic argument is seriously flawed because no life commences
until a man's seed fertilizes his woman. Life begins inside a
woman's body - it takes two!! Semen only has the potentiality for
life - it is not 'life' in itself. In fact, a woman's own monthly
cycle washes away unfertilized eggs. So God has allowed even
nature to show us that there is nothing inherently sacred about
the sexual components which men and women produce with the
possibility of producing new life.
But when these two things successfully come together and a man
successfully impregnates his woman, then, and then alone, new
life starts!
Catholics use the example of Onan in Genesis 38 to demonstrate
that birth control is sin because God struck Onan dead after he
spilled his 'seed' on the ground.
Funnily enough, Protestants have often used the very same
Scripture to show how sinful masturbation is. But the act which
is recorded has nothing to do with masturbation, although it
is a description of birth control by the method of
withdrawal - but why did God take Onan's life? Lets read
the account:
6.Judah got a wife for Er, his firstborn, and her name was Tamar.
7.But Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the LORD's sight; so ther Lord put him to death.
8.Then Judah said to Onan, "Lie with your brother's wife and fulfil your duty to her as a brother-in-law to produce offspring for your brother."
9.But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so whenever he lay with his brother's wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from producing offspring for his brother.
10.What he did was wicked in the LORD's sight; so He put him to death also.
(Genesis 38:6-10, NIV throughout)
First of all, why was Onan told to commence
sexual relations with his brother's widow?
The Geneva Study Bible says of this practise:
This order was for the preservation of the stock, since the child begotten by the second brother would have the name and inheritance of the first: a practice which is abolished in the New Testament.
In fact, this was the first recorded instance of
a custom, later incorporated into the laws of Moses, that when a
husband died leaving a widow, his brother next of age was to
marry her, and the issue, if any, was to be served heir to the
deceased. The practise served both as a loving memorial but also
to provide for the widow.
But Onan had other plans! In the ancient world children were
one's means to wealth! He did not want any children which he
produced to be his late brother's heirs so he selfishly witheld
his semen from his brother's widow. We don't entirely know why -
perhaps there had been friction or rivalry between Onan and Er.
Therefore he adopted withdrawal as a form of birth control
in order to prevent the widow from becoming pregnant by him. The
text seems to make it clear that he was extremely careful to
continue this practise over some period of time, since it
says, 'whenever he lay...' This undoubtedly became cruel for the
widow (one would have thought that it would also have been highly
frustrating for Onan himself since it is extremely hard - and
against all nature - for a man to withdraw from his woman at the
point of climax!!) But Onan's selfishness was apparently so great
that he was assiduous to maintain this practise - THIS is why God
took his life!! Nothing to do with the act of withdrawal itself,
but because of his dedicated selfishness.
It is not inherently wrong to practise withdrawal, though it must
surely be highly risky as a form of birth control; neither is
birth control, in principle, wrong or sinful.
Just think: if the traditional Catholic teaching that all
spillage of semen is spillage of life and is therefore great sin,
is correct, then that would even make nocturnal emissions a great
sin. Nocturnal emissions are occasionally experienced by many
(though not all) younger men; basically, a little semen is lost
during the night. The man naturally produces and spills a little
semen - he did not choose to do so, he was asleep! Presumably
strict Roman Catholics would even consider this sinful.
And yet whenever a man lovingly takes his woman in his arms and
lovingly caresses her he is already starting to produce a little
semen, even if these caresses never end in full intercourse. Very
often such occasions will lead to the man needing to visit the
bathroom for a thorough wash - this is normal. All we men know
about and understand this. So semen is produced by our love for
our wives. Would any seriously suggest that God got 'caught out'
by this - that He did not know that this would happen?? That God
is sitting in heaven thinking,
"Oops!! There goes another sin to put on the list!! Bill just
produced semen even though they are not planning any more
children!!"
Preposterous! Do we think that God does not fully understand the
children He Himself designed and created?
The first reference to marriage and sexual union occurs in
Genesis 2:24:
For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh
Some say that a principle of monogamy is
established here, but I think they are technically wrong. This
simply refers to the marital union; it does not even discuss the
possibility that a man could be joined to more than one woman;
this Scripture - of itself - does not say that people like
Abraham and Moses sinned by having more than one wife; it just
refers to the act of marital union - please don't
misunderstand, I am not saying that polygamy is fine, I am
talking about a technicality here!
As my correspondent may have pointed out, there is no marriage
ceremony here, yet there is certainly a sense of momentous change
as a man's sexual union with his wife commences, and his earlier
life within his parent's house comes to an end. But there is no
comment here on producing children.
If we take the Song of Solomon, this book was written to
celebrate sexual love between a man and his woman and, of course,
we know that some of the verses look forward to the love between
Christ and His Church. From this book alone we know that sexual
intercourse between a man and his woman should be utterly joyful!
We should not be ashamed nor embarrassed in seeking the fullest
joy during loving heterosexual intercourse! Yet how different
this is to traditional Catholic teaching!
Song of Solomon has - effectively - been banned from many
a Sunday School and Home Discussion Group and I don't need to
quote from it here but it contains many references to sexual love
- some subtle, some far from subtle! Yet it never talks
about producing children! So this most 'sexy' of biblical books
(if you will pardon me saying that), which clearly celebrates
sexual love contains not a single word of warning that men should
only produce 'seed' for the purpose of procreation!! And yet, as
I have shown, men start producing semen even in the act of
holding, squeezing and caressing their wives!
Yet, even in Proverbs, we have an encouragement to fully enjoy
sexual love:
A loving doe, a graceful deer - may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be captivated by her love
(Proverbs 5:19)
Paul clearly discusses the sex act and the
responsibility of husbands and wives in 1 Corinthians 7:3-6 -
this is plainly talking about marital sex, but again, not a
single word of warning from Paul that a man's semen is only for
the purpose of procreation.
So in all the biblical references to sexual activity we never
find a warning that the sole purpose of such sexual activity is
for the procreation of children! Rather, as husbands and wives
joyfully submit to each other in love, God occasionally grants
the great blessing of new life!
But regarding any 'spilled' semen, I dislike being indelicate
but, to be perfectly frank, almost all men beyond the age of
puberty and of average to strong sex drive will occasionally
spill a little 'seed'. I have no intention of elaborating.
I cannot conceive of a God who keeps a record or who has put
angels in charge of keeping such records. I cannot conceive of a
huge heavenly 'scoreboard' which shows that Bill Smith's 'spilled
semen score' stands at ten thousand so he will have ten thousand
sins to answer for since the semen should only have been produced
in order to procreate!!
So I find the point clearly established that the Roman
Catholic teaching on birth control is completely erroneous and
wholly without biblical support!
But we certainly have to thank Catholic writers for their great
support of family values and their opposition to abortion.
Moreover many years ago my wife and I came to the conclusion that
the 'rhythm method' which the Catholic Church upholds is
by far the best form of contraception! The 'rhythm method' is a
simple recognition of the stages of a woman's monthly cycle;
during much of this cycle, a woman cannot become pregnant.
Now I have digressed a very long way......
But the point I am making here is that the Catholic understanding
of why birth control is sinful is somewhat similar to my friend's
concept that God refuses to consider that anybody beyond one's
first sexual partner can ever be one's legal husband or wife
under divine law!
If one looks at the lives of the patriarchs of the Old Testament,
several clearly had more than one sexual partner (wives and
concubines), but I cannot find a single word in my Bible where
the Lord reveals to them that ONLY THE FIRST OF THESE WHICH THEY
EVER TOOK were their bone-fide wives!! Can you find such a text??
If so, please tell me where it is!! (By the way, please don't
misunderstand I am not upholding polygamy!) Neither can I find a
single text where the Lord rejects these people from his presence
because they had failed to understand that only their first
sexual partner were legally wives under divine law.
So both the view that a man's semen is 'life' and God keeps a
record of all 'spilled semen' which is sacred, and the view that
God only considers that one's first sexual partner is ones
lifelong spouse seem to present a very naive view of God. Indeed,
it is a picture of a God who somehow got it wrong when designing
us and was surprised by the potency of sexual love!! Without
question, these concepts are also highly legalistic.
Just in case anything here is misunderstood, let me make it plain
that Christians are bound to uphold the principle that sexual
relations should only occur within marriage. Yet we must not be
naive about changes in modern western society which means that
probably the overwhelming majority would not necessarily agree
with this. Yet when such people come to the Faith we must point
out to them the biblical standards of modesty, loyalty and
marital faithfulness.
So I welcome my e mailer's comments on marriage and sex but don't
find his points fully substantiated, except that I am prepared to
agree that a couple who have lived together completely faithfully
for many years are undoubtedly 'married' in God's sight. But if
they become Christians a wise pastor would still advise they they
enter into formal marriage since the ceremony of marriage remains
a fine and inspiring Christian tradition, and the couple would
then surely wish not to bring any reproach or disrepute upon
their congregation.
Robin Brace
2003