By L. Joseph Rosas III
A church in Florida recently promoted a 30-day emphasis during which married couples were encouraged to have sexual relations on a daily basis as a way of strengthening their marriages. Conversely, singles were encouraged to practice abstinence over the same period of time.
We’ve come a long way from the suspicions regarding the body and anything associated with “the flesh” of some early Christians. Origen went so far as to have himself emasculated to avoid the “lust of the flesh.” Augustine taught that concupiscence (or lust) was involved even in sexual union within marriage and, thus, only allowed it for the purpose of procreation.
Somewhere between our culture’s self-absorbed obsession with sex and sexuality and the ambivalence of some Christians towards anything sexual is a fully orbed biblical view of marriage that includes the kind of mutual submission and sacrificial love Christ demonstrates for his bride – the church. Paul says that “this [marriage] is a great mystery and I am applying it to Christ and the church” (
Eph. 5:21-33, NRSV). The ideal of a Christian marriage is to be a living demonstration of the unconditional love of Christ for His church.
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What is the uniqueness of personhood? Are we simply conditioned by culture and genetics to respond to every whim of desire or is there “something more”? Biblically, the “something more” that sets humankind apart for all the rest of the created order is that we are to express the
imago dei.
But what does it mean to be created in the image of God? “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (
Gen. 1:27). In other words, the image of God is expressed in a relational dynamic. It takes both male and female to fully express what God is like.
We should not be surprised at this. The Christian doctrine of the Trinity teaches, in part, that the fundamental relationship within the Godhead is a “divine dance.” When we come into union with Christ we are invited into that eternal and divine dance. This is a mystery that is expressed by Word and Table in worship. It is also a mystery that is expressed in the intimacy of marriage.
Idolatry and AdulteryFrequently the prophetic witness of the Hebrew scriptures judge God’s covenant people for their unfaithfulness to YHWH and liken it to marital infidelity. The prophet Hosea lives a parable of God’s continued seeking of His unfaithful bride, Israel. The problem of “meat offered to idols” in the New Testament is the association of capricious sexual expression as a form of worship in various mystery religions.