The Gospel and Sexual Purity (5-Pack)

Sexual Freedom and Pleasure Through Purity

Introduction

It is impossible to think about the Bible and sexual purity while avoiding the larger topic of pleasure. Since the Bible puts a high priority on sexual purity, pleasure matters. If we get pleasure wrong, we tend to misuse sex. All conversations about sexual purity need to address the core issue: pleasure.

The pleasures of life are everywhere. We could not escape pleasure if we tried. It is not an overstatement or a distant theological platitude to say that pleasure is from God. Legitimate pleasure of any type is God's creation, and our ability to recognize and enjoy pleasure is the result of his design. With wisdom and purpose he created a world overflowing with pleasures of every kind. There are pleasures of sight, sound, taste, and touch. There are pleasures of thought and emotion. There are pleasures of location, situation, and relationship. Pleasure exists because it fits with God's purpose for his creation. It is one of his chief gifts to us. But we need to understand the role of pleasure in God's creation and how we are to respond to the pleasures that greet us every day.

God's creative intention was to bring glory to himself through the pleasures he created. Each pleasurable thing was perfectly created and
designed to reflect and point to the greater glory of the one who had created it. These things were designed to induce pleasure but also to serve a spiritual purpose. They were meant to remind us of him. They were meant to amaze us not just with their existence but with the wisdom, power, and glory of the Creator. They were put on earth to be one of God's means of getting our attention and capturing our heart.

We will never understand pleasure if we treat it as an end in itself. Pleasure is pleasurable, and we should never feel guilty for enjoying it or for wanting more of it. Our enjoyment of pleasure is all according to God's design. But we must recognize that pleasure has a purpose beyond its momentary enjoyment, which exists as a sign of the one who alone can satisfy and give rest to my heart.

Pleasure exists to remind me that I was made by God and for him. Pleasure, like every other created thing, has been designed to put God at the center, not just of my physical joy but of the deepest thoughts and motives of my heart. Pleasure exists to stimulate worship of the Creator, not the created thing. The glory of every form of pleasure is meant to point me to the glory of God.

The pleasure of sex is meant to remind me of the glory of my intimate union with Christ, which only grace could produce. The pleasure of food is meant to motivate me to seek the heart-satisfying sustenance of the bread and wine that is Christ. The pleasure of all things beautiful is designed to cause me to gaze upon the Lord, who is perfect in beauty in every way. The pleasure of sound is meant to open my ears to the sounds of the one whose every utterance is a thing of beauty. The pleasure of touch is created to remind me of the glory of one whose touch alone has the power to comfort, heal, and transform. The pleasure of human affection is meant to move me to celebrate the glory of God's eternal, undeserved, self-sacrificing love. The pleasure of rest is meant to draw my heart toward the one who in his life, death, and resurrection purchased for me an eternal Sabbath.

If God created pleasure, then pleasure is not the problem. The problem comes when we seek pleasure based on the wrong understanding.

Pleasure in Eden

God placed Adam and Eve, the first humans, in the garden of Eden: an environment of delicious pleasures they were free to enjoy. The garden was full of the pleasures of sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste. The garden introduced them to the pleasures of emotional and sexual love. It was a gloriously pleasurable place to live in which there was nothing inherently evil or dangerous.

It is important, however, to recognize that the pleasures of the garden were not boundless. God set boundaries for Adam and Eve. He gifted them with glorious pleasures to be enjoyed but within his limits. Adam and Eve were not meant to have a self-centered, any time-any way relationship to pleasure. They were designed and called to live inside the purpose that God had in mind for them. Their lives did not belong to them, and neither did their pleasures. They were free to enjoy, but to do so in an attitude of submission and obedience. The boundaries were a protection. The rules themselves let Adam and Eve know that they were not in charge, and that they were created for the purposes of another.

The rules were not pleasure-destroying or enjoyment-inhibiting, but were given to protect the hearts of Adam and Eve so they would be free to enjoy the pleasures of the created world without being enslaved by them. The rules were there so that they would give themselves not to pleasure but to God, even as they enjoyed the beautiful things from him.

Is this not precisely where our modern Western culture gets it wrong? We are told that authority destroys freedom and that rules wreck pleasure. According to this view, eating is no fun if someone is being told what to eat. Sex is not enjoyable if someone is being told how, when, and with whom one can have it. Creating things of beauty is not said to be satisfying and pleasurable if we have to think about the message they communicate. Eden was the most beautiful place that ever existed, filled with perfect pleasures of every kind, yet its continuance depended on Adam and Eve's staying inside God's protective boundaries. It is the horror of human existence that they decided not to do so. Boundless pleasure is a deception. By God's design it does not exist on this earth--and, if it did, it could never work.

At some point in the conversation with the serpent Eve began to look at that which appealed to her sight. B