In our previous post, we saw how sexuality is a good gift, from God, for our pleasure and for procreation of life.
Sex is so good, that God gives us a pattern within which to enjoy it. It’s like driving a car. A car is a good machine, useful for getting from place to place. But if we don’t control the car – if we deliberately break the rules, or if we just let it go wild – it’s dangerous. It can kill people.
Similarly, sex is good. But it needs to be managed and controlled, or else it can be dangerous.
Both Gen 1 & 2 present sexuality between a man and a woman, in the context of a committed relationship. It's heterosexual. Genesis 1:27 says “male and female he created them”. In Genesis 1:28, the command to “be fruitful and increase in number” presupposes child-bearing sexual activity, which, until very recently, was heterosexual. In Genesis 2, God creates a woman, Eve, as a companion – to stand beside the man.
And it's a committed, lifelong relationship, ie: marriage. Genesis 2:24 says “a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” That one-flesh union indicates a lifelong, intimate sharing. Jesus himself confirms this in the New Testament. Matthew 19:4-6 records Jesus as saying:
4 “Haven’t you read,” he [Jesus] replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female’, 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”
But we mustn’t just assert this pattern, as if everyone who conforms to it is a good, clean-living Christian. When we contemplate God’s pattern for our lives, it becomes clear how we all fall short of it. More on this in our next post.
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