Christ's Love in Marriage
I have always struggled with my sexuality. It has weighed on me like a load of bricks my entire life. I have never known much, if any peace around it. At least not until the last year or so, but even then, it continues to be a struggle. Not that I struggle with my identity as a heterosexual man, but that I have always used porn and masturbation as my only outlet for my desires.
I know I am not alone in my struggles. This type of struggle is a far cry from what
God has in mind for our sexuality. He
wants it to be a source of sacred joy and satisfaction, to bring forth life and
flourishing to ourselves, our spouses and families. It has taken a great deal of therapy, Twelve
Step work, reading and study, but I am beginning to grasp and understand God's
purposes for sexuality. I am gaining,
bit by bit, a vision of the glorious beauty that God wants to shine through my
sexuality.
A key passage that has helped me grasp God's design for sex
is Ephesians 5. Verse 25 says this,
"Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave
himself for it." Then verses 31-33,
"For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be
joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak
concerning Christ and the church.
Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as
himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband."
I am indebted to Christopher West and his book, "Our
Bodies Tell God's Story" for much of my thinking around this passage, and
around sexuality in general. These
verses teach that the sexual relationship between man and woman is meant to
tell the story of God's love for the church.
Our sexuality is a language that is meant to declare the glory of
redemption in Christ. To properly
understand the purpose of our bodies and sexuality, we need to understand how
Christ loves the church, and allow that same love to guide our relationships as
well. West writes that Christ's love for
the church can be defined by four characteristics, it is free, total, faithful
and fruitful. We will look at
"free" this week and the other three in the weeks to come.
"Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down
my life, that I might take it again. No
man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself." John 10:17-18a
Nobody forced or coerced Christ to lay down his life for
us. He laid it down willingly and of his
own accord. He loved us so fiercely and
desperately that he was ready to pay the ultimate price so that we could be
saved and enjoy eternal bliss with him.
Most of us intuitively understand that no one can be forced
into loving someone. Here in the West we
are appalled when we hear out about young women being forced into marriage with
Taliban soldiers. The immorality of this
is clear to us because we know marriage should be built off of love, and love
should always be a free choice.
When it comes to our sexuality we should understand that any
activity that violates the freedom of another is contrary to love and God's
vision of sex. Therefore anything
involving human trafficking, prostitution or coercion cannot be a part of healthy
sexuality. Most states have laws against
statutory rape and child pornography for just this reason. Children do not have the understanding or
maturity to be able to make a responsible choice around their sexuality,
therefore any sexual activity involving children is exploitative and evil.
There are voices who would argue that some choose of their
own free will to be involved in prostitution and pornography, and as such,
there is nothing wrong with it. I would
argue that many men and women involved in pornography and prostitution suffer
from addictions and other mental illnesses.
While they may say that they are doing what they are doing of their own
free will, it is still exploitative, much in the same way that statutory rape
is wrong. Many times these people are
vulnerable and ill-informed and the people using them are taking advantage of
them. Consider the eighteen-year-old
girl being seduced into performing for pornography, there is not much
difference between a sixteen-year-old and an eighteen-year-old. Neither are capable of making a wise,
judicious choice around these issues.
Another problem with pornography is that it reduces the
human body to a commodity. Every human
has been created in the image of God, and as such is worthy of dignity and
respect. Pornography disregards all that
and makes sex into something to be bought, sold and consumed like a fast-food
cheeseburger. If money is exchanged in
any way, then it is no longer free. If
sex is not a free gift, then it is not modeling Christ's love for us and we are
being disobedient to his plans for our sexuality.
Our entertainment driven culture feeds into this
commodification of sex. I read an
article recently about a major female celebrity who felt guilty about doing a
sex scene with a male star because he was married. "I know it's just part of the job, but I
still feel guilty," she said. She ended up having to get drunk in order to
do the scene. It is just a job, they
say. Nobody today would refer to any
actor or actress in these situations a gigolo or a prostitute, but that is
essentially what they are. They are
selling their bodies for the entertainment of others. And our society does not even blink an eye,
quite the contrary, we wait in line and pay good money to watch their movies.
God is calling us to honor our bodies as the sacred images
they are and use them as a free gift to love each other, that is, as husbands
and wives loving each other within the sacred covenant of marriage. If we are allowing porn and other distortions
of sex to satisfy us, then we are participating in that commodification of the
human body, we are defiling the sacred image of God stamped on the human body
and are profaning his divine purposes for our sexuality.
To bring this a little closer to home, the love of husbands
and wives, and the sexual relationship they enjoy, should be free. There should be nothing even hinting of
manipulation and coercion. Sex should not
be used as leverage to get what we want, or as a bribe, or as a punishment. I have heard it said that men will use love in
order to get sex, and women will use sex in order to get love. That quid pro quo attitude is not the example
of love Christ gave for us. Sex was
meant to demonstrate the love husbands and wives share, if it is forced or if
there are strings attached, then it is not demonstrating God's free love for
us. Christ gave his body as a free gift
for us when he died on the Cross, husbands and wives should be willingly and
freely giving their bodies to each other in a similar fashion.
God's design for our bodies and sexuality is that we reflect his goodness and grace into the world through our marriages and sexuality. God's love for us is always free, total, faithful and fruitful. In the next post we will look at the "total" aspect of Christ's love for us and how this applies to our sexuality.
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