#STRask - Does the Bible Explicitly Forbid Premarital Sex?

Episode Date: September 30, 2024

Questions about whether the Bible explicitly forbids premarital sex and whether Song of Songs 2:4–6 promotes premarital sex.   How should I respond to someone who says the Bible never explicitly forbids premarital sex? Does Song of Songs 2:4–6 promote premarital sex?

Welcome, friends, to Stand to Reason's hashtag SDR Ask podcast with Greg Kokel and Amy Hall. And today, Greg, starting with, we have two questions, related questions from Summer. So I'm going to ask you both of these, and we'll start with this one. How should I respond to someone that says the Bible never explicitly forbids premarital sex? Well, my impulse is to say it may not be the most politic thing, but my impulse is to say, then you have never read the Bible. The word fornication means having sex with someone who is not your wife or husband or is not somebody else's wife or husband. That would be adultery. or is not somebody else's wife or husband.

That would be adultery. 1 Corinthians 6, verse 9. Do you not know? Notice how he starts, Paul, here. He's got a list of a series of sins that are serious. So serious that if your life is characterized by any of these sins, then that is an indication you are not in the kingdom of God. Now, this is very, a lot of gravity to this statement. Here's what he says.

So, do you not know, as if, huh, no duh, didn't you get this? Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither, first item on the list, fornicators, and then goes on, idolaters, homosexuals, adulterers, thieves, covetous, drunkards, swindlers, etc., will inherit the kingdom of God. Notice how fornicators is listed with all of these other serious sins. Now, that's just one place where fornicators are mentioned. They're mentioned, I think, in the book of Revelation as those who are being judged. I think in, is it 1 Timothy that says it has a list of sins, and it includes homosexuality and fornication, I believe, and all other things that are contrary to sound judgment?

Maybe I can even look that up just to make sure. The reason I don't have all these right at hand is because all a person has to do is go to a concordance and look up fornication or fornicator. Greg, it's 1 Timothy 1.10, I think, what you're looking for. All right, here it is. He's talking about the law being made not for righteous people, but for the lawless and rebellious, ungodly and sinners, unholy and profane, murderers, immoral men, homosexuals, kidnappers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound teaching. So now in that particular passage, it does not include specifically fornicators. Okay?

Well, it says sexually immoral people. Look in verse 10, and immoral men, footnote two, or fornicators. So, yes, those are just two examples. When Jesus is asked in Matthew 19 about marriage, divorce and remarriage, Jesus goes back to the creation order. Have you not read? This is similar to Paul's, do you not know? In other words, both of them are answering a question that has to do with behaviors,

immoral behaviors, particularly included in both his sexual behavior, and they go right back to the creation order. And Jesus says, male and female, he made them. Chapter 1, chapter 2, he then cites, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. What God has joined, let no man separate. This is Matthew 19.

joined, let no man separate. This is Matthew 19. So Jesus is making this point that the appropriate place for sexual activity is in the one flesh relationship of a man and a woman who are committed for life. What God has joined together, let no man separate. Now, it mystifies me that people raise this particular issue as a Bible claim. The Bible never speaks against fornication, because it speaks against fornication, premarital sex, that's what fornication is, or pornea, which is actually a broader term than just copulation. So it speaks of it many times in the harshest of terms. So how somebody—and it's part of the creation order.

So when we think about what God has ordained as what is appropriate and what is consistently encouraged and consistently condemned, it makes it clear that the intimacies, that the profound sexual intimacies that can be had between a man and a woman ought to be reserved for marriage. So it isn't just, and some people will see this as a, well, here, I've got a, I've got, there's a loophole here. It's just talking about penetration, sexual penetration. No, it's not. It's talking about deep sexual intimacy, which includes that and includes other things as well. So the biblical notion is that sexual intimacy is to be reserved for one man with one woman becoming one flesh for one lifetime. The way I characterize Jesus' formula there in Matthew 19. Yeah, I think it's really important to look at the big

picture. And the big picture, as you pointed out, Jesus' words in Matthew 19 talk about the creation order and where God meant for sex to be and how it was supposed to be in a union that was committed and wasn't dissolved. I mean, you have to look at that big picture. There's also the whole Ephesians passage about marriage being a picture of Christ and the church. So this whole idea of the sanctity of the union, and this all plays into it, even beyond the specific verses. But here's another one from Hebrews 13.4. Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled for fornicators and adulterers God will judge. There you go. being the union that is honored and sanctified and within which you have sex and not in any other situation outside of that.

And this is radically countercultural. I get it. But the Christian sexual ethic has always been radically countercultural, especially in the first century. countercultural, especially in the first century. And so what Christianity, what the teaching of Jesus and the apostles has done is it has put sexuality in its proper place in contradistinction to the way the culture looks at it. All right. So I know this is, wow, that's extreme, you know, to people thinking the way the culture thinks about these things, but it's been the same plan from the beginning. And the only thing that's extreme is the culture, because this actually makes sense. Think about it, Amy, what, how many social ills would be avoided if people just followed the New Testament model on sexuality and marriage that goes back to the very beginning, what God originally intended? We would have no pregnancies outside of wedlock.

We would have no venereal disease or sexually transmitted diseases, the way they call it now. And by the way, we would have none of the ancillary massive problems that both of those things cause in relationships and in families. For example, unwanted pregnancies leading to taking the life of the child, child sacrifice on the altar of choice. And I'm choosing my words advisedly. This is not rhetoric. This is an accurate description. We are sacrificing this child because we want to make a choice that benefits us personally. And how that catches out is different financially, career, trouble, embarrassment, who knows? But nevertheless, it amounts to the same thing.

And I think we forget that sex produces children. So there's a particular reason why it's kept within the marriage covenant. I mean, there are other reasons, too. But a big reason, as you mentioned, Greg, is that it creates children. So this whole rule protects the woman, it protects the child from the child not having a father, not having support, the woman being left. All of these things things are having this prohibition protects from so many ills as you said greg so um it it makes sense and we find it in the bible yeah you mentioned the word let me add this though uh you mentioned the word prohibition and um it that it is it is a prohibition but um it it's kind of like prohibiting people from eating deadly mushrooms. The point of the prohibition is to do something good.

It's not to limit. It's to expand our enjoyment of the good thing that God provides in sexuality, in the safety of a committed marital relationship. Okay, so the second part of her question, Summer's question, is, I've heard that Song of Songs promotes premarital sex, specifically verses 2, 4 through 6. How should we actually interpret these passages? You said verses 2, 4 through 6. Is that chapter 2? Chapter 2, verses 4 through 6. Okay, let me just read this.

Now, of course, Song of Solomon, it's controversial a bit about how to read it. And it does seem so sensually explicit as a piece of poetry that before the church age, Israel often read this as a metaphoric love poem of God to Israel. Of course, there sure is a lot of sensuality, as we'll see here in a moment. But it was almost like to avoid the sexual implications of the song. And then after the Christian era, it became a love song between God and the church, his bride, the church, Jesus and the church. But I don't think either way of approaching it does justice to the text itself, which seems to be a love song between two sweethearts,

maybe Solomon and his Shulamite bride, and their passion for each other, and then their marriage, and then their delight in each other. Now, the book is a little bit odd, because it has a bunch of sections that jump around. First, it's the bride that's speaking. Then it's the groom that's speaking. Then it's maybe the maidens or whatever. So there's all this stuff going on and all of these emotions being expressed. And it looks like that in chapter 3, we have a description from verse 6 of Solomon's wedding day. I don't want to say that because I'm looking at the heading here. But it's not entirely clear whether everything in this book is completely sequential

or what it is. It's describing the passionate desire each have for each other in different ways they're expressing this. And it's not entirely clear if one section is describing in different ways they're expressing this. And it's not entirely clear if one section is describing what looks like an intimate engagement, that that is something that's clearly happening before the wedding day, which would need to be the case to justify this claim that Song of Solomon is promoting premarital sex. But we also have to look at the wording too. So let's just look at the passage here,

chapter two, verses four through six. He has brought me to his banquet hall and his banner over me is love. Sustain me with raisin cakes. Refresh me with apples because I am lovesick. Let his left hand be under my head and his right hand embrace me. Well, there's the functional verse. Let his left hand be under my head and his right hand embrace me.

Well, that to me is not clearly an example of premarital sex. It might be a poetic way of expressing it, but if it is, it's happening at the banquet table. And I just noticed that. Verse four, he has brought me to his banquet table, and then she's hungry. Now, the hunger that she is expressing is metaphoric of her desire for him, obviously. Now, maybe it's not literally a banquet table, then what is it? And well, you know, maybe this is just the place where he satisfies her desires, her emotional desire to be fulfilled by him. And then she expresses in verse six, an embrace. His left hand is under my head, his right hand embraces me. Now that seems like they're lying down, that would make sense of that characterization.

But what I'm saying here is there isn't an explicit, anything like an explicit characterization of premarital sexual activity. And if it is, then it's not entirely clear that this is happening before the banquet, or rather before the marriage, though it is positioned in the book before the marriage is talked about. And there are a couple of other passages where, here on my bed, chapter 3, verse 1, on my bed at night, night after night I sought him whom my soul loves. I sought him but did not find him. I must arise now and go about the city, in the streets and in the squares. I must seek him whom my soul loves.

I sought him but did not find him. Then she finds him. And I held on to him and would not let him go until I brought him into my mother's house and into the room of her who conceived me. Now, and then it says, I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or by the hinds of the field, that you will not arouse or awaken love until she pleases. My love is the way it's characterized there, but the word my isn't in the Hebrew, and there's another place that's similar to that. So there's an ambiguity here.

Certainly these are verses that could be, if you read into them, they would be consistent with maybe a sexual encounter, but it's certainly not a necessary way of reading it. encounter, but it's certainly not a necessary way of reading it. Now, here's the other part, and this is another thing that surprises me. Why strain at the gnat of the understanding of these poetic statements of romance and intimacy in the book of Song of Solomon when there's this camel all over the rest of the Bible regarding fornication, which includes, I think, the Mosaic law and certainly the New Testament as many references. And when Jesus talks about the sexual relationship, he goes back to the creation order in Genesis chapter 2.

So why, to paraphrase Jesus, why strain at the sexual gnat and swallow the sexual camel. Because the teaching of Scripture is very clear on this, and the standard thing is that we interpret the unclear, whatever may be going on here in Song of Solomon, in light of those things that are clearly expressed, which we talked about a moment ago. Yeah, I agree, Greg. I don't know that we can say that this book is completely linear in what it's describing. And because of that, you can't get a doctrine from this. It's not here to teach us sexual ethics, except in the sense that it's valuable and beautiful and something God created for us to

enjoy. Sex is. Yes, right. So you have to go with where he is much more explicit in the Bible than just get it from this story, which is, as you said, Greg, it's poetic. I need to go back and look up how have the Jews interpreted this over the years. I think that would be interesting. So maybe, Summer, you could do that, see how it's been interpreted, and see why. Well, characteristically, it's been allegorized. Even the Jews did that? Yeah, that's my understanding. Again, I haven't done a deep dive into this. I'm just going based on my common understanding of things I've read or whatever. And

it does seem to be if you don't bring in a kind of sexual discomfort associated with religious holy books, the text speaks for itself. Anybody reading this outside of a religious context will see entirely and immediately what's going on here. Well, the interesting thing is,

because I'm sure we have commentary going back for thousands of years, it would be interesting to see what they say. All right. Well, thank you, Summer. We really appreciate hearing from you. If you have a question and you'd like us to take a shot at it, we'd love to hear from you. So you can go to X and just use the hashtag STRask. That's all one word. And we'll be able to see your question there. Or you can go to our website. Our website is at str.org.

And just look for podcasts at the top of the page, choose hashtag STR ask, and you'll find a link there where all you need to do is click on that link. And you can send us your question. Just keep it two or three sentences about the same length as a tweet, and we will consider your question. So we really appreciate you listening and we hope to hear from you soon. This is Amy Hall and Greg Kokel for Stand to Reason.