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Q: I found your article "Sex Before Marriage: What’s the Big Deal?" (July-August 2002) extremely disheartening. I think you portray sex very negatively. I completely understand that your religion does not believe that sex before marriage is what God intended. However, I think what God intended to give people is free choice. That powerful aspect of humanity is what gives people the right to choose what they believe is best for them.
Furthermore, I don’t like the way you twist the Bible around. It was written many years ago, and who are we to bring these ancient words into the 21st century? I think that people can get a lot out of the Bible, but it is not right to put your translation into it. I think that if your religion does not believe in sex before marriage you should learn to write about sexuality in a way that might not scare people. You write about it as though it were a disease that someone might catch. I think this is a horrible message. If you were not required to be celibate, would you have sex outside of marriage? I believe the answer would be yes, simply because you are human.
L.G., Internet
A: You are quite right to state that humanity does indeed have freedom of choice and that individuals have the option "to choose what they believe is best for them." God created men and women in His own image (Genesis 1:26-27), conferring on them the gift of choice. In one sense the whole Bible is the story of the choices humanity has made and how those choices have most often turned out badly.
The question is: On what information or knowledge should we base our choices? Should it be the opinions of our peers, the media, some popular author, or what?
We consider it our duty to unambiguously point out what God says in Scripture about the choices people make, the consequences of those choices and which options He mandates. God calls actions that violate His law "sin" (1John 3:4). Ultimately, the transgression of God’s law (committing sin) results in the death penalty (Romans 6:23).
The Creator inspired King Solomon to write: "There is a way that seems right to a person, but its end is the way to death" (Proverbs 14:12, NRSV; compare 16:25). Elsewhere in the Bible the prophet Hosea laments that people in effect destroy themselves when they reject the revealed knowledge of God (Hosea 4:1-6).
Without God’s revealed spiritual knowledge, men, women, boys and girls cannot make informed choices. Our Creator says He doesn’t change (Malachi 3:6; Hebrews 13:8) and that His law stands forever (Matthew 5:17-19). Breaking God’s laws brings with it automatic penalties. In the case of illicit sex, the penalties are not just the physical consequences of sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies but the mental and psychological traumas that often materialize only when a relationship has ended. A factor as well is the huge societal problems such as broken homes, fatherless children, abortions, poverty and welfare that result from sin. These consequences were spelled out in the article to which you refer.
Many people fundamentally misunderstand the purpose of God’s laws. He does not withhold from us what is truly good for us (James 1:17); He simply doesn’t want us to suffer the consequences that result from breaking His timeless, living laws.
Notice that God’s purpose in giving the Ten Commandments (Deuteronomy 5:6-21) is "that you may live and that it may be well with you, and that you may prolong your days ..." (verse 33). Our world is awash with human beings who have transgressed God’s law and suffer the inevitable, unwanted effects in their troubled lives (to better understand the consequences of sin, please request our free booklet Why Does God Allow Suffering?).
Jesus Christ came to counter the disastrous effects of sin. He said: "I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly" (John 10:10). He came to "save His people from their sins" (Matthew 1:21) and show us a right way of living.
This isn’t twisting Scripture or personal mistranslation. Why not check out all the passages on this subject in several Bible translations and see for yourself? As our free booklets Is the Bible True? and How to Understand the Bible explain, the Bible’s words are as much for the 21st century as any other. When it comes to matters of our physical and mental health and well-being, the Bible has proven to be literally millennia ahead of its time in medical advice shown to be soundly based in science (look for more details in a soon-coming issue of The Good News).
In the Good News issue to which you refer, our intentions were to present sexuality–when handled in the way God intended–as the gift from God that it is. We titled the brief article on page 5 of that issue "Sex Is Intended for Pleasure." After all, God devoted a whole book of the Bible, the Song of Solomon, to the subject. In the early chapters of Genesis, God pronounced everything He had created–including sex–"very good." The only thing that He said was "not good" was Adam’s state of loneliness before Eve’s creation. As we noted a number of times, God commanded the first man and his wife to be fruitful and multiply–to have sexual relations.
But God has decreed that we reserve sexual intimacy for marriage. There is no legitimate reason or need for anyone to have sexual relations outside of marriage.
Ultimately what you choose to do is between you and God. What He requires of those of us behind The Good News is that we publish and explain the nature of His spiritual law and the results of keeping or rejecting it. What you do with that knowledge remains your free choice.
That said, we sincerely hope all our readers choose to study God’s Word to understand His will, begin to make right choices in all aspects of their lives and repent of any wrong choices they may have made.
God says: "Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, and He will have mercy on him; and to our God for He will abundantly pardon" (Isaiah 55:6-7).
Sexual sins are no different from any others in the sense that God mercifully forgives those who genuinely repent and turn from them. Our Creator will restore joy and abundance to our lives as we begin to make right choices. God gives us the ultimate choice between life and death. But He doesn’t leave it at that. He tells us, "Choose life" (Deuteronomy 30:19).
To begin on the right spiritual path of making sound biblical decisions, please request our free booklets The Ten Commandments, Making Life Work and Transforming Your Life: The Process of Conversion.
©
2002 United Church of God, an International Association
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