Although it was written thousands of years before His time as a man, when Jesus was asked about relations between married couples, He looked towards the first book of the Bible, Genesis. This book is sometimes called the ‘foundational book,’ and all the major doctrines of the Bible, from creation to salvation stem from it. Accordingly, we will also start to look at God’s timeless teachings on the subject of sex there.

In the beginning, after God had made the first man, we read the following passage:

“So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field. But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame” (Gen 2:20-25).

This is just the first of many passages from the Bible on the subject of sex. Part of it is exactly what Jesus quoted when He was asked about marriage and divorce. In the passage, we read of Eve being created and brought to Adam to become his helper. There is talk of man leaving his parents (becoming the head of a new household) and being united to woman, becoming one flesh. Thereafter it is accepted that Adam and Eve are married, they are both naked and open before each other, without shame. ¹

After God had created the man and the woman, equally, male and female in His image (Gen 1:26-27),

“God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it...”” (Gen 1:28).

The Bible holds very high regard for procreation, which is seen as one of the major reasons for sex. However, having babies wasn’t the only reason for humans to have sex. Sex took away man’s loneliness and offered humans the ability to experience wonderfully close relationships with one another. Here though, in Genesis 1:28, sex for procreation was commanded. Of course people obeyed God in this matter; they married and were fruitful, and they subdued the earth.

Sex and marriage were an integral part of human life right from the very beginning, and were around even before the first sin. Sex is neither sinful nor shameful, in fact, God created us as sexual beings.

God designed people to be married. And sex and marriage, like all of creation was very good. But God didn’t want us to have sex with more than one person. It was normal and right to have sex with only one. There are a number of places where we can see these things.

Firstly, in Genesis 4:25, we read “Adam lay with his wife again....” We know that this wife was Eve, because in the same verse she says, “God has granted me another child in place of Abel, since Cain killed him.” Eve was still Adam’s only wife even after 130 years!

Secondly, there is no distinction in the Hebrew language ² between the words ‘woman’ and ‘wife.’ Where we read “...the man and his wife were both naked...” (Gen 2:25), the original text only says, “...the man and his woman ³were both naked....” Likewise, when we read “...Adam lay with his wife again...”, the original text only says, “...Adam lay with his woman again....” Men had women, and every woman that a man had sex with was his woman; rendered in English, ‘his wife.’

Today, if we heard that a certain man had one wife, we would not understand that to mean that he had only had sex with one woman. However, in Biblical times, a man having 'one wife' was a man who had only had sex with one woman. Adam is just one of hundreds of Biblical examples of men who only had one wife; who had only ever had sex with one woman.

A third reason why we can believe that people had sex with only one person for life is found in genealogy lists. The Bible includes a great many of these lists, right down to the time of Jesus. In this very first part of Genesis, chapter five includes the list of names of eleven generations of Adam’s descendants. And as with all of the genealogy lists found in the Bible, this list is a list of fathers and sons. While wives/mothers/daughters are occasionally mentioned, the lists of names are all male. If the women living in Biblical times had more than one male sexual partner, then there would be disputes as to the fathers of sons. However, there seems to be no dispute - and the only reason for this would be that women had sex with only one partner.

After we read the creation accounts and then the story of the first sin, chapters four and five of Genesis relate to us the names of eleven generations of people who lived after Adam. It is interesting to note that besides Cain, only one of Adam’s descendants in the first eleven generations was a murderer. This man’s name was Lamech. And not only was this Lamech a murderer - the Bible tells us that he also was the only man in the first eleven generations of humanity to have married more than one woman (Gen 4:19).

Among the eleventh generation after Adam were Noah’s sons, and chapters six to nine of Genesis, tell the story of Noah and the flood. As we read the first part of this story, we wonder what sins humans had committed for God to decide to flood the entire earth. The first part of Genesis chapter six strongly suggests that the sin had to do with too much sex: “...the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose...” (verse 2). A little later in Gen 6:11-12, we read that “...the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence.”

The earth was corrupt and filled with violence. Yet Matt 24:38 and Luke 17:27, both describe the time saying “...people were eating and drinking, marrying and being given in marriage....” Both this, and the verse that says: “...they married any of them they chose...” suggest that among the many sins abounding in the time of Noah, people of the earth had forgotten that they were to be married to one partner only. Instead, they were ‘marrying’ many partners - any whom they chose.

It is also interesting here that we are told that Noah (the only man who found favour in the eyes of the Lord) and his sons had only one wife (one woman) each (Gen 6:8-9, 18).

Yet, after the flood, God tells Noah to “be fruitful and increase in number” three times (Gen 8:17, 9:1, 7), so sex in itself was obviously not an evil sin - only its abuse and misuse. When God wanted the people to “be fruitful and increase in number” - He meant with only one partner.

In the years after the flood, sexual monogamy was very much respected. This is most clearly seen in a passage in Genesis 12:10-20. Here we find Abram and his wife, Sarai who had travelled down to Egypt. Abram was scared to tell the Egyptians that Sarai was his wife because she was very beautiful, and he thought they would want to kill him so that they could have her (they would not have sex with her while her husband was alive). In his fear, Abram told the Egyptians that Sarai was his sister:

“But the LORD inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because of Abram's wife Sarai. So Pharaoh summoned Abram. “What have you done to me?” he said. “Why didn't you tell me she was your wife? Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her to be my wife? Now then, here is your wife. Take her and go!” Then Pharaoh gave orders about Abram to his men, and they sent him on his way, with his wife and everything he had” (Gen 12:17-20 NKJ).

Even among those of foreign cultures, such as this Egyptian Pharaoh, sex and marriage were recognised to be sacred. Pharaoh would not have sex with a married woman - and that is exactly what he wanted to do - he wanted to have sex with the beautiful Sarai. Yet the Bible says that he was to take her as his wife! Just having sex with her would have united Pharaoh and Sarai in marriage. This will be shown more clearly as the book progresses.

And again, in this next part of Genesis we see more genealogy lists. Genesis chapter ten is devoted to recording the names and clans of Noah’s sons who became fathers to four generations after Noah. And chapter eleven records the names of the line from Noah’s son Shem down to Abram: Ten generations, fathers and sons. The Bible teaches that in the time it was written, people knew exactly who their father was - long before such things as paternity tests had been invented.

The early chapters of Genesis, along with the rest of the Bible, clearly teach that couples who had sex with one another were to stay together as married for life. Sexual promiscuity was not acceptable to God, and that was one reason why God had already destroyed the world in a flood.

Then, in one part of the world, in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, it seemed that people became indifferent to this fact again. Because of this, God destroyed the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning sulfur. Where can we find out why they were destroyed? In Gen 13:13, we read that “the men of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the LORD.” Then Jude 1:7 in the New Testament explains what these sins were. We read that “...Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion.”

Lot was the only man saved out of Sodom because he had been the only righteous man who lived there. It is interesting to note that Lot had only one wife (one woman) (Gen 19:15-16). And Lot was the only man considered to be righteous - yet, he had offered his two virgin daughters to the Sodomites, so that they could do what they liked with them!

"Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom-- both young and old-- surrounded the house. They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.” Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him and said, “No, my friends. Don't do this wicked thing. Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don't do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof”” (Gen 19:4-8 emphasis mine).

Women were allowed to have one sexual partner. In offering his virgin daughters to the men, Lot was not doing anything particularly wrong. A man could have had sex with one of Lot’s daughters, and if he then kept her as his wife, this would not have been wrong. The men however, obviously had other ideas. Thankfully for the girls then, the angels who had come to Lot’s house struck the men of Sodom blind (Gen 19:11) and they left the house. In a later chapter we will get back to the story of the future of Lot and his daughters.

As we continue to follow Genesis, we come back to the story of Abram. His life illustrates to us many things, including the fact that not only are we to have one sexual partner for life - but that we should choose carefully who this partner will be.

Abram’s wife, Sarai is the very first woman recorded in the Bible to be childless. We don’t know why this is so, but perhaps it was as a punishment to Abram for marrying a woman who was his half-sister. Although Abram probably didn’t know it, marrying a sister was something against the law of God (Lev 18:6, 9, 11), and often, these types of marriages were not blessed with children (cf. Lev 20:20-21). (Sure, the sons and grandsons of Adam and of Noah would have married their sisters or close relations, but they had no choice. By the time of Abram there would have been many women to choose a wife from without Abram having to choose a sister.)

Anyway, in Genesis chapter 15, we see Abram calling out to God in pain because of his childlessness. Yet even though his state of childlessness was painful to him, Abram knew it was wrong to take another woman to impregnate. Abram was actually tested to stay with only one woman!

However, Abram failed the test. In Genesis chapter 16 we read of his sin in taking a servant girl, Hagar, to give him a child. Not only does this pregnancy cause a major rift between Hagar and Sarai, but God also tells Abram that this child would not be the son from which Abram would receive a blessing. ⁴ Eventually though, Abram was blessed through a son born to him by Sarai when he was one hundred years old (Gen 21:2-5).

When Abram failed the test and had sex with the servant girl, Hagar, so that he would bear a child, we see that Hagar becomes Abram’s wife. From that point on, the Bible never talks about ‘Abram’s wife’ again - because there would be confusion as to which wife was meant. Rather, to ease confusion, God continually specifies which wife He is talking about, saying “...your wife Sarah.” ⁵

It is interesting to note that so far in the book of Genesis, we have not seen any wedding ceremony. ⁶ Neither are we taught anywhere that vows are necessary to begin a marriage. Rather, we see that people normally had only one sexual partner, and that their partner was to be their married mate - the person they stayed with for life. Sure, Abraham (Abram) had two wives - yet this was seen neither as normal nor pleasant - he suffered much distress because of it (cf. Gen 21:11-12). Having more than one sexual partner was not good; the people who did this were either punished by death (as in the flood and in Sodom and Gomorrah), or they contended with other problems (as in the cases of Lamech the murderer and Abraham).

In Genesis chapter 24, we read about the making of a marriage - that between Isaac and Rebekah. We read that after Isaac's mother passed away, Abraham (his father) asked the chief servant in his household to find a wife for Isaac, a woman not from the land they were living in, but a woman from among Abraham's relatives living far away. The chief servant embarked on a long trip. We read that God was with him, and helped him to find Rebekah. Rebekah and her family agreed that she could travel with the servant back to marry Isaac.

“Now Isaac ... went out to the field one evening to meditate, and as he looked up, he saw camels approaching. Rebekah also looked up and saw Isaac. She got down from her camel and asked the servant, "Who is that man in the field coming to meet us?" "He is my master," the servant answered. So she took her veil and covered herself. Then the servant told Isaac all he had done. Isaac brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah, and he married Rebekah. So she became his wife, and he loved her; and Isaac was comforted after his mother's death” (Gen 24:62-67).

As with the very first marriage, Rebekah and Isaac were married just by having sex with each other. Although they had both agreed to be married beforehand, there was no wedding, or any type of ceremony or banquet, no church, no priest, no ‘leaving of parents’ (on Isaac’s side), not even any human witnesses! Isaac and Rebekah married alone in a tent. Isaac’s father had not even seen the girl, nor had he given his blessing. However, once Issac and Rebekah had sex, they were married.

In Genesis chapter 29, we see a similar occurrence. In this passage, we weigh up the contrasting values of sex as opposed to weddings. We read here that Jacob was in love with Rachel, the youngest daughter of his Uncle Laban. Jacob had agreed to work for Laban for seven years to get Rachel for his wife. After the seven years Jacob said to Laban,

“Give me my wife. ⁷ My time is completed, and I want to lie with her.” So Laban brought together all the people of the place and gave a feast. ⁸ But when evening came, he took his daughter Leah and gave her to Jacob, and Jacob lay with her.... When morning came, there was Leah! So Jacob said to Laban, “What is this you have done to me? I served you for Rachel, didn't I? Why have you deceived me?” Laban replied, “It is not our custom here to give the younger daughter in marriage before the older one. Finish this daughter's bridal week; then we will give you the younger one also, in return for another seven years of work” (Gen 29:21-27).

In this story, Jacob had been betrothed to Rachel, and had even had a wedding with her - yet, we read that as Jacob had sex with Leah, she became his wife. Neither the betrothal nor the wedding had caused Rachel to be married to Jacob. However, a woman with whom Jacob had never been betrothed to, or had a wedding with, became his wife just because they had sexual relations.

Some say that Jacob’s wedding was in fact with Leah, and that she was veiled at the time so that Jacob did not realise that he was ‘marrying’ the wrong woman. However, if we read the Biblical text, it clearly says that the feast came first, then, when evening came, Laban gave Leah to Jacob. Leah was not given to Jacob until the evening, after the wedding feast that he had with Rachel.

Christian author Rudolph Brasch agrees that in Biblical times, people who had sex with each other were to remain married. He writes, “In Biblical times a specific marriage ritual was unknown. Sex itself was the ceremony. There was no additional vow, no formula, officiant or ‘documentation.’ The actual sexual union of the man and the woman, making them ‘one flesh,’ was all that was needed.”⁹

As we continue examining the Biblical teachings on sex, we will see the truth in this: sex is extremely important and sacred - much more important and sacred than what many of us seem to realise. The entire Bible does teach us that if a couple has sex, then they must stay with one another, be the other’s companion, caring for and loving one another for life - ie. be and remain married. What I mean to say by that is this: Couples who have had sex with one another should stay in married relationship for life. Sex is so special and important; it binds people together, not only in body, but in spirit also. I’m not thinking here about wedding ceremonies or marriage contracts, I’m thinking here of what is in the heart and mind. It is acceptance of and compliance with the obligation of lifelong companionship that sex itself brings that makes a marriage righteous.¹⁰

Many of you may find this teaching difficult to believe or understand at this point. As was said in the introduction to this book, many of your pre-conceived ideas about marriage and sex will be challenged. Many of the words we think we understand, such as ‘marries,’ ‘adultery,’ ‘fornication’ and ‘divorce’ will be shown to have a different Biblical meaning than what is commonly accepted.

For example, when we hear or read the word ‘marries,’ we assume that a wedding ceremony or contract has been affected between two parties. However, in the Bible, this word usually only means ‘to be joined.’ Marriage begins when a couple have sex with each other, and enter into a special, sacred and set-apart relationship. The Biblical meaning of the word ‘marries’ has no relation to any formal contract, agreement or wedding celebration. Righteous marriage is not a legal institution; it’s a spiritual joining (with the right person) and a personal commitment.

To begin illustrating this fact, we can look at the language used in Genesis 38:2. In the NIV we read: “There Judah met the daughter of a Canaanite man named Shua. He married her and lay with her.” At the end of this verse, it sounds as if Judah and the woman took two separate steps - a wedding, and then sex. Their marriage sounds as if it began by a legal contract or vow, and was then consummated by sex.

If we compare the same verse from the King James Version (which is a much closer rendering to the original Hebrew), we read: “And Judah saw there a daughter of a certain Canaanite, whose name was Shuah; and he took her, and went in unto her.” Here we see that there was no wedding ceremony or legal component involved. Judah took the woman and had sex with her. In ‘taking’ her to be his woman, he shows personal commitment, a willingness to be spiritually and then physically joined with this woman for life. Their sex, along with their acceptance of the obligation of lifelong companionship it brought, made their marriage righteous.

We find many similar occurrences to this throughout the Bible. In Gen 38:8, the KJV reads: “And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother's wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother.” We notice here that it says to ‘go in unto’ and then ‘marry her.’ Today's Christian would most likely say ‘marry her’ first, and then ‘go in unto.’ The reason why we have this different view from the Bible is that the Bible sees ‘going into the woman’ as actually marrying her. The sex achieved the spiritual joining; the couple then had a righteous marriage by accepting this, and by remaining personally committed to each other. In the Bible, ‘marry her’ was not seen as a legal ceremony with vows or a contract; sex was the special and sacred act of joining one person to another. It was the one special act that required lifelong commitment and companionship between two people.

Weddings didn’t always include a ceremony! They began as celebrations of new marriages - parties that celebrated an end to childhood, and the start of new married life. They celebrated new relatives, the start of a couple running their own household, of prospective parenthood, and of an entire new way of life for the people involved! The first time a person had sex was a momentous occasion - certainly something to celebrate!

Back in ancient times when the wedding was just a celebration (and not a ceremony), it was not thought of as the beginning of marriage, for people knew that it was sex itself that was sacred and sex was the only ceremony needed to start this type of relationship.

People knew that a wedding was not what married a couple just as a funeral was not what killed a person! A wedding only marked the marriage in the same way that a funeral only marks death.

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Copyright 2000 Monicque Sharman


 
 
 

Scripture in the book is taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION.  Copyright 1973,
1978, 1984 by International Bible Society.  Used by permission of Hodder & Stoughton Ltd.  All rights reserved.

FOOTNOTES:
1 It is overwhelmingly agreed that here, in Genesis 2:20-25, Adam and Eve did in fact have sex with one another. They were ‘naked before each other’, and this is the term used in many Old Testament passages to describe the sexual act - for example, in Leviticus 18, the words used to describe prohibited sexual relationships are at times translated as “Do not uncover the nakedness of…” Return
2 The Old Testament of the Bible, including Genesis, was written mainly in Hebrew.  Return
3 The Hebrew word translated as wife or woman is ‘ishshah’. The New Strongs Exhaustive Concordance (Thomas Nelson Publishers 1990) defines this word as meaning a woman. The KJV translates it as: [adulter] ess, each, every, female, X many, + none, one, + together, wife, or woman. Return
4 The blessing I am talking about here is the blessing that God promised Abram in Genesis 12:2-3,7, 13:14-17. This blessing was to come through a child of Abram. Return
5 Abram and Sarai’s names had respectively been changed to Abraham and Sarah. We see the words “...your wife Sarah...” in places such as the following: Gen 18:9, 10, 20:2, 23:19, 24:36. Prior to Genesis 16 Abram’s wife is unnamed in places such as the following: Gen 12:20, 13:1. Return
6 Some say that the “leaving of parents” mentioned in Gen 2:23 is the ancient equivalent to a wedding ceremony.  However this “leaving of parents” more likely refers to the fact that when married, couples are to start new households - new families - forsaking their lives dependent on their parents.  In any case, in all of the marriages we have seen, there has neither been talk of ‘leaving of parents’, or of any sort of wedding or marriage contract.  Return
7  Remember that the original Hebrew word here is the same as ‘woman’.  The text could read “Give me my woman...”  Return
8  This feast was Rachel and Jacob’s wedding.  Return
9  Dr R Brasch “How did sex begin?  - The sense and nonsense of sexual customs and traditions” Collins Australia 1973  Return
10 We will of course speak of unrighteous sexual relationships - for example between relatives - in later chapters. Return
 

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