To accompany a recent sermon on sexual immorality, I wrote the following summary points on sex and marriage, focusing especially on the former. They have been translated from Portuguese.

These are basically bullet points designed for people who are coming to know God’s will. They’re designed to be starting points for further study.

1. God created one man and one woman to be united in one flesh, Genesis 2.24. This is the original divine plan. Any other type of union displeases him.
2. Sex within marriage is blessed by God, Genesis 1.28; 2.24. So much so that a whole Bible book is dedicated to it: Song of Solomon.
3. There is no Biblical evidence that the first sin was a sexual act. The idea arose from influence of Greek philosophy. Rather, it was eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, Genesis 3.1-24.
4. In marriage, the bodies of the husband and wife belong to each other. There ought to be complete liberty between the two, 1 Corinthians 7.1-5; Genesis 2.25.
5. Intimate relations with people of the same sex (men with men or women with women) are prohibited and considered repugnant to God, Romans 1.24-33; 1 Corinthians 6.9-11; Jude 7.
6. Sex with animals is prohibited, Exodus 22.19; Leviticus 18.23; 20.15; Deuteronomy 27.21. Jesus reaffirmed God’s original plan for marriage and sex as being between one man and one woman for life, Matthew 19.4-6.
7. Sex with members of one’s family is prohibited, 1 Corinthians 5.1-13. The man who had possessed his father’s wife was to be expelled from the church.
8. Forced sex is prohibited, such as rape, Deuteronomy 22.25. This also includes sex with children, who have no way of resisting the advances of an adult. Sexual aggression does not respect the free will of the other person.
9. Sex was created to be practiced within marriage and not before or outside of it. See Proverbs 27.8. God specified where sex is to be practiced. Outside of this, it is sin. The very definition of the words makes this restriction clear.
10. Adultery (Greek: moicheia) is the act of conjugal infidelity; fornication, or sexual immorality (Greek: porneia) is sex outside of marriage, in general, whether or not the person is married.
11. God’s law was made for “sexually immoral people, practicing homosexuals,” among others, 1 Timothy 1.8-11, for it prohibits those acts against the nature and the will of God.
12. Not only the act of adultery is prohibited, but Jesus also prohibits the desire to commit adultery, Matthew 5.27-30.
13. Whoever abandons the commitment of marriage cannot enter into another marriage. So such a person ought to abstain from sexual acts.
14. Christians ought to marry Christians. There is no yoke more unequal than a Christian married to a non-Christian, 2 Corinthians 6.14—7.1.
15. If someone marries again, having the right to marry, it ought to be with another Christian, 1 Corinthians 7.39.
16. A person can live without engaging in sex and please God by abstaining, Matthew 19.12.
17. A person who cannot live without engaging in sex ought to marry, if he has the right to do so, 1 Corinthians 7.8-9.
18. The person who marries and then has sexual relations with someone else lives in adultery, Matthew 5.32; 19.9.
19. A person ought to guard the marital commitment, but the one who refuses to do so must either remain alone or be reconciled to the original mate, 1 Corinthians 7.10-11.
20. Sexual immorality results in eternal condemnation, even if it is a Christian who engages in it, Galatians 5.19-21; Revelation 21.8.
21. Sensuality is not worthy of Christians, for it feeds the desire for sex outside of God’s standards, 1 Peter 4.3.
22. Sexual immorality on the part of one’s mate is the only reason given in the New Testament that allows someone the right to divorce and marry again, Matthew 5.32; 19.9.
23. Repentance means that people, including Christians, cease practicing sexual immorality, 2 Corinthians 12.21; Revelation 2.21; 9.21.
24. There is only one way to avoid temptation to sexual immorality: flee, 1 Corinthians 6.18.
25. Some practices that God permitted under the old Mosaic covenant, such as polygamy (having more than one spouse) and divorce, are not allowed to be practiced by his people, the church, under the covenant of Christ, Matthew 19.8-9; Acts 17.30; Ephesians 5.31; 1 Timothy 3.2, 12.
26. Sanctification is possible only when a person abstains from sexual immorality, 1 Thessalonians 4.3. This is important because “without it no one will see the Lord” Hebrews 12.14.

J. Randal Matheny