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This is the third article in a series of three. Read the other entries here and here.
The Bible’s vision for physical intimacy is so much bigger and more beautiful than what our movies, music, and secular healthcare systems reduce it to be. God-created, God-honoring sex connects two whole people that are made in God’s image and who possess eternal souls. God’s created beings have unique personalities and, despite their sin, they possess a closeness and a union that, although imperfectly, mirrors the Trinity itself. This reality echoes the connection we had with one other and God in the Garden of Eden.
With that image in mind, we might think that sex and marriage are essential to being a whole person. However, sex is not vital or essential to being whole or to “finding oneself.”
Christian professors Trent Rogers and John Tarwater say this:
Humans, by God’s good, created design, are sexual beings who are commissioned to use their sexuality for the glory of God. But humans are not merely sexual beings, and their identity is not centered on their sexual expression.
Marriage isn’t essential either, although it may often appear that way in church—that you’re not really complete until you have a ring on your finger.
Tim Keller writes in his book, Counterfeit Gods, that we can often turn romantic love into an idol:
Sex and romantic love are some of the most common idols, even within the church. In an effort to emphasize the beauty and importance of marriage, this wonderful gift has become an ‘acceptable’ idol or substitute for God’s place in our lives.
The truth is that no matter how good and beautiful sex and marriage are/may be, we must remember two things:
- Marriage and sex cannot satisfy our deepest longings and needs.
- Marriage and sex are not the end goal for us as Christians, but glimpses of something greater.
Fully satisfied
We know deep in our hearts that we were created to be known, loved, and to belong to a perfect community. That’s how it was in the garden and how it should be. That’s why we long for love, closeness, and recognition.
However, not even the most amazing spouse or the most satisfying physical intimacy can satiate our deepest longings and needs.
Keller continues:
If we expect our spouse to fill our tank in a way that only God can do, we are asking for something impossible.
Only Jesus can fill our tank to the brim.
This means that while we as married couples should strive to be Christ-like, we should not expect our spouse to be Christ for us. The love and affection of a husband or wife cannot replace God’s love for us.
Only Jesus can fill our tank to the brim.
Therefore, we must strive first and foremost to be filled with God’s love in Jesus—together and individually. This provides the best and most solid foundation for loving your spouse as the fallible human being he or she is and avoiding turning marriage and sex into an idol.
Singles must also guard their hearts against pinning all their hopes and expectations on a future life partner. They should refrain from letting themselves be defined by the partner they do not have and instead let Christ be the primary source of identity and value. He can give us meaning, love, and peace that a spouse could never provide. Being filled with Christ first is the best starting point for a peaceful, bold, and realistic search for a potential spouse.
Not the end goal
Neither sex nor marriage is our end goal as Christians. They are temporary gifts that will pass away. They are not meant to stand alone, but to point to something bigger and better.
Author of the book God, Sex, and Your Marriage, Juli Slattery, writes this:
There is a danger of valuing marriage and intimacy so highly that we forget it was designed to be a metaphor pointing to something even greater.
Paul, if anyone, understood this. Even though he wrote the beautiful text from Ephesians 5 about marriage, he himself was unmarried for at least part of his life (cf. 1 Corinthians 7). And he was content.
In 1 Corinthians 7, he writes quite bluntly about the difficulties of being married. He even advises people to stay single, just as he was. He writes that “those who marry will have worldly troubles, and I would spare you that” (v 28).
Marriage can be a distraction from undivided devotion to Christ. Being single does not guarantee closeness to Christ, but it does potentially give you the opportunity to seek Jesus in a more focused way.
Union with Christ is our ultimate goal.
Paul capitalized on his marital status to become closely connected to Christ. He lived in such a strong realization of Jesus’ goodness that he could write like this in Philippians: “I desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better” (1:23).
This union with Christ is our ultimate goal.
The greatest wedding
This is the greater reality to which marriage and sex point: We are loved and known by Jesus here on earth but one day we will see him face to face. One day we will be fully united with him. That doesn’t mean we will have the same physical relationship with Jesus that we had with our spouses on earth. Physical intimacy and marriage are metaphors that point to the union with Christ we will experience at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb in heaven (Rev. 19:7).
When you read that, imagine Jesus as the bridegroom, standing and looking with the most loving and joyful eyes you can imagine at the bride he has chosen and purified, made beautiful and perfect—us, his people and his Church.
Ephesians 1:4 says: “God … chose us in him (Jesus) before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.”
When you read that, imagine Jesus as the bridegroom, standing and looking with the most loving and joyful eyes you can imagine at the bride he has chosen and purified, made beautiful and perfect—us, his people and his Church. That is our goal. All Christians will one day be united with our bridegroom who loves us so immensely we can only comprehend a fraction of its breadth and depth here and now.
This notion was so powerful to the Swedish theologian Rosenius, that he chose to have a verse from the Song of Soloman carved into his tombstone, declaring his expectation (and subsequent realization) of this intimate union with Christ. The gravestone reads, “I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine” (6:3).
We who are in Christ will also soon realize this incredible union with him—and absolutely nothing we experience now can compare to the joy that is to come.
