When it comes to the Christian view of sex, confusion abounds, despite a deepening stack of books on the subject. Denny Burk, associate professor of biblical studies and ethics at Boyce College and editor of The Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, is the latest to come forward with a proposal for theological and moral clarity. In What Is the Meaning of Sex? (Crossway), Burk addresses sensitive issues of sexuality—including marriage, gender roles, family planning, and homosexuality—within a framework of biblical ethics. Author and editor Lisa Velthouse spoke with Burk about God's design for sex and the cultural influences that interfere with our seeing and abiding by it.
So. What is the meaning of sex?
The reigning sexual ethic reflects a tongue-in-cheek lyric from Sheryl
Crow: "If it makes you happy, it can't be that bad." This worldview
affirms any and all attempts to get sexual pleasure so long as such
attempts do not harm others. If it feels good and you're not hurting
anyone, how could it possibly be wrong? Many people see no larger
purpose for sex. They have severed their sexuality from the objective
order that God has created, and they have lost sight of God's purpose
for our sexuality. So when people ask what they should or shouldn't do
sexually, they are asking a question about purpose—whether or not they
realize it.
When Paul commands us to glorify God with our bodies in 1 Corinthians
6, he may as well have said, "Glorify God with your sex." He clearly has
in mind the use of the body for sex, so the ultimate purpose of sex
must be the glory of God. To enjoy sex for God's glory is to enjoy it in
the way God has determined.
In the book, I distinguish subordinate purposes of sex from ultimate
purposes with the example of an automobile. We might say that a car is
made for somebody to sit in. Nobody can deny that that's one of its
purposes. But the ultimate purpose of a car is to transport people and
objects from one place to another. Unless we account for the ultimate
purpose of the automobile, we have failed to grasp what it was made for.
The same is true when we talk about sexual morality. I agree with the
Christian ethicist Dennis Hollinger that there are four purposes of sex:
consummation of marriage, expression of love, procreation, and
pleasure. But we must realize that these purposes are subordinate to the
ultimate purpose of glorifying God.
Why is marriage central to sex that glorifies God?
When Jesus and Paul talk about marriage and sexuality, they appeal to
the Old Testament. But they don't point to the polygamist kings of
Israel—not even King David or Solomon—or to polygamist patriarchs like
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Instead, without exception, they look back to
the monogamous union, before the Fall, of Adam and Eve. That's what
they present as the norm of human sexuality and marriage. Paul writes in
Ephesians 5 that Adam and Eve's marriage (and every other marriage
after it) is meant by God to be an icon of another marriage: Jesus'
marriage to his bride, the church. So marriage is fundamentally about
the glory of God, because it's meant to depict the gospel. It tells a
bigger story: husbands loving their wives as Christ loved the church,
and wives relating to their husbands as the church relates to Christ.
Is sexual holiness about our state of mind or what we do with our bodies?
It's both. What we do with our bodies is an overflow of what is inside
our hearts. That's why Jesus equated lust and adultery in the Sermon on
the Mount. But sexual holiness is not merely a state of mind. God
intends the body to be his temple—a place where his glory is on display.
A Christian sexual ethic must be concerned with bringing both mind and
body under the lordship of Christ.
No comments:
Post a Comment