Love Restored - A 7-Day Plan from Dr. John KoesslerSample

Desire can be dangerous, and few desires are more dangerous than this one. Sexual lust is quickly ignited, and once inflamed is not easily extinguished. The fact that sexual desire is ordinary does not mean that it is safe. My father’s inept explanation of how sex works might not have been age-appropriate, but he was right to sound a note of warning. When we treat sex frivolously, it can be destructive to both body and soul. Perhaps the most damaging effect of the sexual revolution was the way it trivialized sexual desire, removing sexual intercourse from the realm of the sacred and treating it as little more than a pleasurable bodily function. Sex is pleasurable, and it does involve the body. But sex is also more than this. Indeed, it is the fact that sex involves the body that makes it sacred because it means that sex involves the whole person. When we engage in sexual intercourse, we not only join our body with another, we join our whole self with another whole self. We unite with another person in such a way that the two become one. The language the apostle uses when speaking of fornication in these verses implies a spiritual as well as a physical reality.

Pornography objectifies the person whose image incites our lust. Similarly, when we yield to sexual lust, we objectify ourselves. When we indulge in sexual lust in its various forms, we relate to ourselves as if we were only a body and nothing more. Sexual desire is normal and holy. Sexual lust happens when normal sexual desire moves in a selfish and self-destructive direction.

According to theologian Helmut Thielicke, before the Renaissance, the boundaries that defined both sex and marriage were public rather than private. As he puts it, “they were a matter for the family and clan.” Individual love was a factor, but Thielicke observes that love was treated more as a consequence than a pre-supposition. The modern era flipped this. Instead of expecting love to develop within the confines of marriage, people married based on an attraction they already experienced. This does not mean that attraction was not a factor before the sexual revolution. The dramatic tension in the Old Testament love story between Jacob and Rachel revolves around the fact that Jacob loved Rachel and not her sister Leah. The Scriptures make it clear that this love story began with a powerful physical attraction. The difference in the perspective of the ancients is seen in Jacob’s reaction after he discovers that he has been tricked into marrying Leah instead of Rachel. He does not demand a divorce, nor does he fail to regard Leah as his wife.

The point here is not that attraction is irrelevant in marriage but that there is more to marriage than sexual attraction. “It would be stupid to think that Christian ethics wants selfless, ministering love of neighbor to replace eros,” Thielicke rightly observes. “The one who marries with no erotic feeling but simply out of neighborly love and because of the other’s need will bring unhappiness to them both, as we have noted in another context.” The seduction of human love by the ethos of lust has only intensified since Thielicke made his observation in the mid-1970s. But the sensualism of the sexual revolution, epitomized by the popular slogan “if it feels good, do it,” took a new turn as the twentieth century came to a close. Sexual practice is no longer only a matter of pleasure or preference. Many today regard sex as the essence of one’s personhood. The old sexual revolution of the twentieth century taught everyone to enjoy sex regardless of whether they were married or not. The new sexual revolution of the twenty-first century says that we cannot be truly fulfilled humans without sex. According to Kuehne, “Relationships of obligation have been replaced with relationships of choice, and sexual intercourse has been transformed from being valued primarily for its role in procreation and in cementing a marriage relationship to being a pleasurable and typically essential component of intimate adult romantic relationships.”

Instead of being an expression of love, sex is love and perhaps even something more. Sex and identity are conflated. Sexual practice isn’t just about freedom anymore. These days sex is no longer an appetite or even a practice. Sex is treated as a human right becoming the defining factor in human identity.

Discussion Question:

What warning does Paul give regarding sexual immorality in 1 Corinthians 6:15–16? Why does this make sex “sacred?” Is physical attraction important in choosing a spouse? Why or why not?