When young people explore the question of relationships with the opposite sex, biblical wisdom sets a constraint on very strong desires. Amid a culture that says self-fulfillment is a moral duty, even when it comes to sexual urges, the question arises in the church: “What about my sexual feelings?”—with the implication that if the feelings are there, it is necessary to act on them.
Once, when she was a guest on a BBC talk show, the historical romance novelist Barbara Cartland commented on the racy content that filled the romance novels of a younger writer: “Listen, that isn’t love. Love is something quite different from what we’ve had. We’ve had sex, sex, sex. … There is nothing about love in this at all.” She was striking on a common-sense truth about attraction between men and women: Of course there is a physical, sexual dimension—but that is only one dimension. It cannot replace or displace the emotional, the intellectual, the volitional.
The whole issue of our sexuality has to be framed within the context that God, the Designer, has established.
Love, in other words, is much more than a drive, much more than a set of involuntary urges to act upon or instincts to heed. Love is not an irresistible force that acts upon us. The whole issue of our sexuality has to be framed within the context that God, the Designer, has established for it—that is marriage. Before carrying physical attraction to its end, we are to employ emotional connection, conscious decision, moral judgment, and, importantly, a volitional promise. The expression of sexual feelings within the right context brings men and women into all the benefits and blessings God intended for it. But to separate sex that from those other factors is to create a monstrosity.
Unfortunately, our culture has grown increasingly consumed with sex for its own sake—and when people think about relationships, they often think first of all in sexual terms. They do not treat the question of unifying heart and mind, body, and soul in an act of physical love as a goal toward which to build but as the place to start. They seek to consummate a relationship without ever asking, “Is this wise? Is this right?”
When someone asks, “What about my sexual feelings?” then, the answer, we might say, is “What about them?” Of course they’re important. No doubt they are quite strong. But they are far from the whole picture. And if we were to give as much attention to the context in which we’re supposed to give expression to those feelings, then the feelings would be all the greater and all the better.
This article was adapted from the “‘Lasting Love’ Radio Interview” by Alistair Begg.
Truth For Life Blog