CARM writes about what the Bible says about sex.
Excerpt:
Any type of sexual union, contact, intimacy is for the marriage only between a husband and wife. If a man and woman who are not married go to bed together naked and do not have sexual intercourse, this is still sinful. If they fondle each other without having sexual intercourse it is sinful. If they go to bed together naked and just hold each other, it is sinful. The whole point is that the nakedness, viewing the nakedness, the touching of the private areas, fondling, etc., are all reserved for the marriage bed between a husband and a wife.
Now before we see verses, I have to define the term “fornication”. Fornication is sex before marriage.
And here are some specific verses:
1 Cor. 6:12-20:
12“Everything is permissible for me”—but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible for me”—but I will not be mastered by anything.
13“Food for the stomach and the stomach for food”—but God will destroy them both. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.
14By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also.
15Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never!
16Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.”
17But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.
18Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.
19Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;
20you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.
Ephesians 5:3-7:
3But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people.
4Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving.
5For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a man is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.
6Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient.
7Therefore do not be partners with them.
Colossians 3:1-6:
1Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.
2Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.
3For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.
4When Christ, who is your[a] life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
5Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.
6Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.
1 Thessalonians 4:1-8:
1Finally, brothers, we instructed you how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living. Now we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more.
2For you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.
3It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality;
4that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable,
5not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God;
6and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him. The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you.
7For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life.
8Therefore, he who rejects this instruction does not reject man but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit.
The Bible doesn’t go into scientific details about the effects of fornication. So what harm does fornication cause?
Well, consider oxytocin, a chemical released by women’s brains during sex that causes women to bond to men after sex. Basically, when a women has premarital sex with a man she isn’t married to, the odds are very good that he is not going to commit to her for life, and that he will leave and that she will be hurt. But if she marries the man first, then the bonding that occurs is a good thing, because he isn’t going anywhere and she is free to have those feelings of being bonded to him.
When a woman gets hurt by breaking away from a man that she has bonded with sexually, she loses her ability to trust and depend on men, which she needs to do in order to marry at all. The more she deals with the pain of breaking the bonds over and over, the more she learns to separate her emotions from sexual touching. She needs to have sex in order to make men like her, but she also has to not feel anything, in order to avoid being hurt. This destroys her ability to love and trust if she ever gets married.
Men are hurt from pre-marital sex in a different way. They become cold and cynical about women, unable to trust them, unable to serve them, unable to love them, and unable to commit to one woman for life. In my view, a man who has sex before marriage is not loving women, and he will love them less afterward. If a man loves a woman then he needs to commit to her. Premarital sex ruins a man’s ability to do the things he was designed to do with women. He loses the ability to love unselfishly.
CARM also has an article about the Bible and homosexuality here.
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