Christ's Love in Marriage

 

Christ's Love in Marriage shown as a sign that says Jesus Loves His Church

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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