Premarital Sex?
— Thursday, January 3rd, 2013 —
Christians talk a lot about premarital sex. And I think that’s a mistake. I don’t think it’s a mistake because the issue is unimportant but because the grammar is skewed. The word “fornication” is almost gone from contemporary Christian speech. It sounds creepy and antiquated. Instead, we talk about “abstinence” and “premarital sex.”
In the most recent issue of Touchstone magazine, I argue that the loss of the words “fornicate” and “fornication” implicitly cedes the moral imagination to the sexual revolutionaries because the words “fornication” and “premarital sex” aren’t interchangeable.
Fornication isn’t merely “premarital.” Premarital is the language of timing, and with it we infer that this is simply the marital act misfired at the wrong time. But fornication is, both spiritually and typologically, a different sort of act from the marital act. That’s why the consequences are so dire.
Fornication pictures a different reality than the mystery of Christ presented in the one-flesh union of covenantal marriage. It represents a Christ who uses his church without joining her, covenantally and permanently, to himself. The man who leads a woman into sexual union without a covenantal bond is preaching to her, to the world, and to himself a different gospel from the gospel of Jesus Christ. And he is forming a real spiritual union, the Apostle Paul warns, but one with a different spirit than the Spirit of Christ (1 Cor. 6:15, 19).
This is important because the Scripture makes clear that “fornicators will not inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 6:9-10; Rev. 21:8). The language of “premarital sex” can enable a conscience to evade repentance. After all, if the problem is one merely of “timing” or of “waiting” then the problem is resolved once one is married. The event was in the past.
This makes fornication even more dangerous, in this sense, than adultery. Both fornication and adultery are acts of infidelity. But a man who has committed adultery, if he is repentant, understands something of how he’s broken trust, attacked a covenant. He can see that even when his wife has forgiven him, he must invest years in rebuilding trust. He can understand why his wife concludes that if he’ll cheat with one woman, why would he not cheat with another? He must work to show himself faithful.
The fornicator can be deceived into thinking that marriage has solved the problem. He doesn’t see the ongoing nature of the problem. Often he finds it difficult to lead his wife spiritually, or to fully gain her trust. The root problem is a sin committed together, driving the couple apart.
Moreover, she knows, especially if he professed to be a Christian before the marriage, that his libido is stronger than his conscience. If he’s able to justify his fornication, he will justify his adultery. They are not two separate things, but two different phases of the same thing: immorality in contrast to the self-giving and uniting covenant of marriage.
We ought not to be ashamed of the Christian language of “fornication,” but instead to be ashamed of fornication itself.
That doesn’t make us more censorious. When we speak honestly, we are able to speak with more liberating power to sinners, including sexual sinners, in our streets and sidewalks and pews. The blood of the cross can cleanse any sin, but no one comes to the cross without repentance. When we speak bluntly and honestly we lead people to the cross—to repent, not just to rebrand.
Read the whole article at Touchstone here.
You make a great point here; one I had not thought about in a while or in my discussion with Christian brothers. This distinction is far more important than it seems on the surface, and does make a big difference in application.
Another key vocabulary shift I have started using (on a similar but separate point) is to refer to “chastity” instead of “abstinence”. At least according to the way most people understand the words, there is a lot someone can do while remaining “abstinent” that one cannot do while remaining “chaste”. Furthermore, a married man or woman can still pursue chastity in their marriage, while no longer having to be abstinent.
I love the comment of being chaste in marriage.
One can certainly abstain from fornicating and yet be unchaste.
God has called us to lives lived chaste lives grounded in faithfulness to him, both before and after marriage.
Thank you, again, Dr. Moore!
I recently was having dinner with two pastors and they both said it is impossible to expect any couple who want to get married to repent of fornication and refrain from any intimacy before marriage! I was completely appalled! They are supposed to be ambassadors for Christ!
They simply said it was ‘unrealistic’ to expect a couple to stop living together before they get married.
So sad. But then God showed himself in a powerful way for me as a pastor just within the past 6 months. I was able to take a couple through premarital counseling, all the while clearly communicating to them the importance of repenting of their fornication and refraining from any intimacy and ‘living together’ until they were married. The Lord moved them to repentance, they lived in separate homes and refrained from intimacy. The man came to Christ as a result and I baptized him two weeks prior to officiating their Christ-exalting wedding! I am now discipling him and my wife has opportunities to minister to her. I must encourage any other pastors to remain true to the scriptures and God will bless your ministry! It is unrealistic to expect sinners to act like believers–but it is not unrealistic for believers to repent and refrain!
Excellent article.
Great article, but the problem is that “fornication” is a King James word, like “distaff,” or “kine,” or “slow belly.” It’s another language, which must be translated for today’s readers because it impedes communication.
@Hal,
These words must have interesting origins, I guess. Fornication has to do with fornix which means an arch. The vaginocervix junctions are arches. We have lateral arches, anterior and posterior arches there. Porneia and pornography are linked. So is fornix and the arches in Corinth where some women allegedly ’sold their wares’ …set up for fornix work.
I guess as christians, we must have a love for words. After all, they change with times but as people who must communicate the gospel, we have to keep learning to keep on sending the messages. Terminologies change. We have an unchanging message.
Should a woman forgive an adulterous man who has fooled her for many years, but later asked for forgiveness? Should the woman have to bare his children and the pain of an unfaithful man who is amazing when he is present, but unfaithful when he is away? When he repents, it does not wipe away all the memories of broken trust…
Such a tough subject, difficult to iron out in anyone’s mind. She has a lot at stake… Her three beautiful children. She loves him enough…
Dr. Moore many years ago I came to find your blog on the blog rolls of some of my favorite Christian writers and have been following your writing since then. For the past couple of years I have been hoping one of you would write something I could use to counsel a friend on this very subject. You’re the first one to do this. I can’t thank you enough.
I have researched into the roots of the word fornication. And, it comes from the Greek Fornix. This was a tunnel under the city where men went to be with prostitutes. When Paul talks about “Fornicators” he is describing a man joining himself with prostitutes. Young’s more accurate interpretation of the Greek writings uses the word “Whoremonger” . The evolution of Pauls writings by the NIV etc. to “Sexual Morality” skews the original meaning and allows the church to try to define fornication and immorality as what they believe sexual sin to be. I am not advocating pre-marital sex. But, I also have issues with new interpretations of the Word that change it’s intended meaning. The Word is what it is, pure and true and cuts like a double edges sword.
Great article!
Its amazing how people try to make the word of God look obsolete to justify themselves. Let us not forget that God’s word is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow; moreover generations may come and go but God’s word will never pass away. Fornication according to the dictionary is sex between two unmarried people and it is considered a sin which we have the power to flee from.