Can you have sex before marriage if you are in a committed relationship?
Question:
Some Christians, such as myself, do believe in sex before marriage if in a committed relationship.
Answer:
Jesus asked, "But why do you call Me 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do the things which I say?" (Luke 6:46). Here you are directly violating the Lord's command, and pretending that you are following Christ.
- "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God" (I Corinthians 6:9-10).
- "But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner--not even to eat with such a person" (I Corinthians 5:11).
The problem is that you don't get to make the rules. A committed relationship means you have entered into a marriage covenant, not that you are monogamous in who you have sex with. "Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge" (Hebrews 13:4).
Question:
In biblical times, people were married during their teens due to shorter life expectancy. Also, marriages back then were secular, and not as commercialized as it is today. I have been taught whoever you have sex with is who you are married to in God's eyes.
Answer:
Much depends on the source of your information.
"Under Judaism, boys could marry or make religious vows at 14-years-old and girls at 12-years-old, both only with parental permission, which parental permission was required until both boys or girls were 21-years-old" ("Adult Age," McClintock and Strong Encyclopaedia).
But this only states the minimum age but doesn't tell us the typical age. For example, currently, the minimum age in most states is 16 with parental permission and 18 without permission, but the typical age to marry today is about 27. About 100 years ago, the typical age to marry was between 18 and 21 because a young man had established himself in a business by then. In ancient Rome, "The average age for a Roman girl to marry was thirteen or fourteen; men usually married in their late teens or early twenties" [Nicholas Shanks, "Roman Marriage"].
Technically you could get married today if your parents gave consent. So this line of argument is empty.
The claim that marriages were secular during biblical times is false. "Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate" (Matthew 19:9). Jesus states that marriages are established by God and not man.
Regardless of how marriages were conducted, the fact remains that marriage was required and that is something you admit that you have not done.
Sex has never created a marriage. Marriage is created by a marriage covenant. "Yet she is your companion and your wife by covenant" (Malachi 2:14). Logically if sex created a marriage, there would be no sin of fornication, there would only be adultery. Laws, such as "If a man entices a virgin who is not betrothed, and lies with her, he shall surely pay the bride-price for her to be his wife. If her father utterly refuses to give her to him, he shall pay money according to the bride-price of virgins" (Exodus 22:16-17) would make no sense. How can a man be forced to marry a woman if their act of sex already made them married? How could her father refuse a marriage that already supposedly took place?
The law of marriage from the beginning has been: "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh" (Genesis 2:24). There are three steps listed here:
- Leaving one's parents (no longer under your parent's authority)
- Being joined as husband and wife (i.e. marriage)
- Becoming one flesh. The start of a new family, which includes physical coupling in sex.
You've skipped the first two steps. To claim that God recognizes your sex as marriage is false. God states it is fornication because you have not entered into a marriage covenant before Him and witnesses. There is no recognition of a union between you and your girlfriend. If she decided to leave you next year, you would have no claim on her. All you have is your imaginary claim that having intercourse is as good as a marriage, a claim that carries no weight.
Your arguments are without a biblical foundation. "Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, ..." (Galatians 5:19). You are involved in the last three. It is evident that you are living a life of sin. "For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality" (I Thessalonians 4:3). Quit fooling yourself and live life as the Lord commands.
Question:
That is what I have been taught at my Catholic school.
God Bless.
Answer:
I guess that proves that people have a tendency to hear what they want to hear and if it disagrees with what they want, they'll modify it.
Roman Catholicism teaches that marriage is instituted by God and not man. "Marriage was instituted by God. We read in Genesis that God created them male and female, and blessed them, saying “Increase and multiply, and fill the earth.” Gen.1;27-28" ["Catholic Marriage," Catholicism.org]. It declares that it is a sacrament. "Through the sacrament of matrimony, husband and wife receive graces which join them in the bonds of mutual love, aid them to share affection for one another, strengthen them to avoid illicit attachments and passions, fortify them to become worthy parents, and help them to keep their marriage honorable in all things. A marriage entered into with such proper dispositions will be blessed in many ways" ["Catholic Marriage," Catholicism.org]. And that after marriage sex is allowed. "Another end of marriage is the procreation and rearing of children" ["Catholic Marriage," Catholicism.org].
In regards to sex without marriage, Roman Catholicism teaches, "Fornication is carnal union between an unmarried man and an unmarried woman. It is gravely contrary to the dignity of persons and of human sexuality which is naturally ordered to the good of spouses and the generation and education of children. Moreover, it is a grave scandal when there is corruption of the young" [Catechism of the Catholic Church].
Therefore, your own religion confirms that you are in sin.
Question:
We all sin. We will always continue to sin. God loves us and knows who we are and what we will do ahead of time. He forgives all sins.
Answer:
At least you admit that you are sinning. That at least is some progress.
Your current line of argument is not new. "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?" (Romans 6:1-2).
That people sin is true. "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us" (I John 1:8-10). However, you err in arguing that God finds it acceptable for people to remain in sin. "My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous" (I John 2:1).
The difference between a child of God and a child of Satan is their response to sin. Even the most wicked person in the world does good things once in a while, but that good doesn't define him. He sins and he does nothing about it. Righteous people do sin once in a while, but those sins don't define him because he does something about his sins. "Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother" (I John 3:7-10). Not "cannot sin" in the sense of unable to sin, but "cannot sin" in the sense of unable to remain in sin.
This is the reason I've been strongly pointing out that you are in trouble. You have told yourself so many lies that you are now convinced that God accepts you while you remain in sin. "But to the wicked God says: "What right have you to declare My statutes, or take My covenant in your mouth, Seeing you hate instruction and cast My words behind you? When you saw a thief, you consented with him, and have been a partaker with adulterers. You give your mouth to evil, and your tongue frames deceit. You sit and speak against your brother; you slander your own mother's son. These things you have done, and I kept silent; you thought that I was altogether like you; but I will rebuke you, and set them in order before your eyes. Now consider this, you who forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver: whoever offers praise glorifies Me; and to him who orders his conduct aright I will show the salvation of God" " (Psalms 50:16-23).
God can and does forgive sin, but there is a condition attached to it. A sinner has to repent -- turn away from his sin both in his attitude toward the sin and in his behavior. ""But if a wicked man turns from all his sins which he has committed, keeps all My statutes, and does what is lawful and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die. None of the transgressions which he has committed shall be remembered against him; because of the righteousness which he has done, he shall live. Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?" says the Lord GOD, "and not that he should turn from his ways and live?"" (Ezekiel 18:21-23). That is what is missing from your life.
Yes, God does love you. That is why you still have a chance to change. But until you do change, it is your love of sin that is separating you from your God. "Behold, the LORD'S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; nor His ear heavy, that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear" (Isaiah 59:1-2).
Response:
Yes, I understand.
