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Exchanged Glory III: Wise as Serpents
The love relationship created by sex is incredibly potent – as strong as death, superglue for the soul.
Something amazing happens when we are stimulated to sexual climax. A physical and spiritual reaction takes place within us that joins us to another person.
Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For "the two," He says, "shall become one flesh."
This verse makes it clear that it is sex, not marriage, that makes a man and a woman one flesh. There is no lasting commitment between a harlot and her client, yet this scripture says that their bodies are joined.
Science has helped us to understand a little of how this works. When a man and woman are sexually united, powerful chemicals are released. One called dopamine gives us an incredibly good feeling. Another, called epinephrine, imprints the images and emotions of the encounter into our minds.[38] Others also add their touch to make the experience powerful and memorable.
The chemicals produce hormone charged “sensual snapshots” that tend to resurface during future lovemaking. This produces a wonderful effect when we are with the same partner. Past experiences join with the present, creating an ongoing lifelong delight. Two bodies, souls, and spirits become intertwined through an ever-evolving symphony of cherished passion.
The work of these chemicals causes trouble when we have multiple partners. Visions of previous encounters tend to show up while we are trying to be intimate with someone new. What God created to bind us to a single lover brings confusion to the current relationship. We were designed for long term commitment, not short flings.
The Scriptures describe the sexual bond between a husband and wife in terms that resemble addiction.
Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is as strong as death, jealousy as cruel as the grave; its flames are flames of fire, a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, nor can the floods drown it. If a man would give for love all the wealth of his house, it would be utterly despised. (emphasis added)
How strong is death? Has anyone been able to escape its hold? I know, Jesus did and there were a few others who were raised from the dead, but you get the idea. The love relationship created by sex is incredibly potent – as strong as death, superglue for the soul.
That’s why a husband or wife has a right to be upset if their spouse cheats on them. God has designed their relationship to be exclusive and unbroken. When it is violated, the jealousy that results is as cruel as the grave. Distraught feelings burn through the wronged partner’s soul like a vehement flame. The one flesh is being torn apart, and he or she reacts with emotion.
On the other hand, when a couple remains together, there is great joy. A love relationship can be so entrancing that a man is willing to give all the wealth of his house for it. He sacrifices his own treasures for the sake of his family.
(Before I go on, I need to interrupt myself to insert one balancing thought. I believe that these verses use hyperbole – exaggeration to make a point. In reality, the bond between a man and a woman is not literally as strong as death. If it were, there would be as little hope for a successful marriage after an immoral affair or a divorce as there is for raising someone from the dead. Remarriage after the death of a spouse would also be extremely difficult.
God has made us so that we can eventually recover. Still, the message of these verses is clear. The chemical and spiritual realities God has placed within us bring a strong unity through sex. They join us in ways that are difficult to break. As they etch their work into our hearts, we become one flesh.)
What I have said is nice in theory, but we have to be honest – couples break up all the time. Some people move from one shallow physical relationship to another with relative ease. How can those who have become one flesh learn to so easily separate?
It is possible to confuse our chemistry. There are any number of tricks we can use to violate our nature. All of them are sins against our body.
Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.
We wrong our body because we go against the way God has created it to work. We were designed for lifelong intimacy. It should be no surprise that breaking that intimacy through sexual immorality can lead to guilt, confusion, broken homes, diseases, and poverty. It is a breach of our nature.
One of the ways we numb ourselves and continue in sin is through self-deception.
This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.
It is possible to throw our minds into such futility, darkness, ignorance, and blindness that we become callous enough to give ourselves over to sexual pleasure rather than to a spouse. Our lovemaking devolves into lewdness. Its power ends up having the exact opposite effect from the intimacy it was designed to produce. We embrace greediness for erotic thrills rather than care for another, and our hearts forget (or never learn in the first place) that sex is about relationship.
Allow me to illustrate the positive power of sex by using an example from my life. I am by nature a “starving artist.” I value self-expression extremely highly, and my heart is easily captured by projects that have little practical value. As a result, if I were a single man, I would have difficulty holding a job. I would simply find it too constricting for my artistic nature.
My sexual desires, however, pulled me in a different direction. As a young Christian, I knew the only valid outlet for those desires was with a wife, and this motivated me to take the chance of marrying someone who would sometimes contradict my artistic tendencies. I was forced to slowly work through the issues of expressing my creativity while also providing for a family. I stayed in jobs I clearly would have quit apart from my concern for my wife and children. I endured all sorts of situations that never would have been worth the effort without them.
In short, my sexual relationship with my wife changed me. I became one flesh with her, and this made me more concerned with her happiness than with what I wanted. Of course, this wouldn’t have happened without the word and power of God. Many men engage in sex without giving up a bit of their selfishness, but this is because sin has distorted their experience. When our erotic desires are expressed properly by God’s grace, they bring us out of ourselves.
When they are not expressed properly, the same power that can produce positive change will produce negative change. We can see this if we look in more detail at 1 Corinthians 6.
Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Certainly not! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For "the two," He says, "shall become one flesh." …Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.
(1 Corinthians 6:15-16; 19-20)
When we have an erotic encounter with a harlot, in what ways are we reshaped by the experience? The nature of the relationship doesn’t allow it to turn us toward a marriage commitment with her, yet the one flesh chemistry still operates. What does this tend to do to us?
One destructive effect comes immediately to mind: we learn to see male-female relationships in terms of using a woman for pleasure. While married sex would reshape us for long term service and sacrifice, harlot-sex reshapes us according to the nature of that relationship. We become “married” to uncommitted sensuality. Our hormones build and reinforce a mindset that sees women as objects for our own self-satisfaction, and we find ourselves lusting after anyone who excites this connection. What God created to lead to a focus on one woman for a lifetime, the harlot experience reprograms into a focus on encounters that involve a lack of attachment.
This sort of transformation is totally out of character with the work of the Holy Spirit, whose temple we are in Christ. He is trying to reshape us for love, commitment, and purity, but our choice of the harlot rewires us for selfishness, betrayal, and lewdness. We have sinned against our body by programming it for a lifestyle that opposes God’s goodness. We have failed to glorify God in our body.
This occurs whether we want it to or not. The one flesh chemistry of our sexuality is located in our body. It is not held with God and only released when we enter into marriage; it is inescapably connected to erotic expression. The only way to benefit from sex is to enjoy it in the context in which it was designed to work, which is marriage.
Continual misuse of our one flesh chemistry places us in extremely dangerous territory. We have left the context in which God has made it safe to indulge in sensual thrills, and we open ourselves to strong destructive influences.
Marriage holds our chemistry in check. Though sex creates a dependency, the spiritual bond of love between husband and wife makes the dependency productive. The unselfishness involved in laying down our lives encourages a self-control that keeps our bodies from spinning out of control. The demands of work, raising children, and maintaining a household help keep us from getting lost in a downward spiral of dopamine and epinephrine rushes.
What happens when we take away God’s controls? For example, what happens when we give ourselves over to an unending supply of pornography and privately acting out? Now the chemicals have become like a fire that has escaped from the furnace. Rather than binding us to a person, they unite us with sensuous fantasies that can burn out of control and eventually consume us. We become willing to give all the wealth of our house for a perverted love (Song of Solomon 8:7). We risk our families, our futures, and even ourselves for the sake of forbidden delights. Sin mixes with impure erotic experiences to reshape our entire personalities along the lines of our longings.
In this environment, sex often becomes our way of attempting to fulfill our needs for nurture, acceptance, security, competence, independence, and significance.[39] We look for it to take the place of God in caring for us. It was never designed for this task, however, so our hearts suffer malnutrition under its entrancing tyranny.
As our hormones and spiritual deception mix, we engage in privately acting out with more frequency, and it loses some of its allure. In order to keep it intense, we need to look at more and more perverse images. A dependency on greater lewdness grows within us. It is frightening what many sex addicts end up putting in front of their eyes.
The chemicals which were intended to bind us together with a person have now entangled us in sickness. In a way, we have become “one flesh” with a beautiful monster – a combination of erotic fantasies, unmet emotional needs, and demonic influences. Love is as strong as death, and the devil has used its bonds to imprison us in a dark dungeon.
My heart goes out to anyone trapped in this pit. When I was trapped in my version of it, I was bound to my beautiful monster more firmly than if I had been married to it. My bondage was as cruel as the grave, like flashes of fire. Many waters could not quench it, rivers could not overflow it. It brought me bliss but held me in chains. Breaking my addiction was in many ways like withdrawing from drugs and going through a divorce at the same time. It wasn’t easy, but God was strong enough to handle it. Though I was twisted, He straightened me.
Jesus came to make us free indeed. I don’t accept the conclusion that a once person has a misled sexual orientation or a sexual addiction he or she can’t be changed on the inside. First, I have scriptural objections.
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. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. (emphasis added)
The Bible is clear that Jesus has changed our nature, even if we have been bound by sexual sins for many years. This has been my experience. I was trapped by both an abnormal sexual orientation and sexual addiction. I had a deeply felt long term bondage that I wondered if I could ever escape. But as I have set my heart to know Jesus and place my feet on straight paths, I have changed. The pleasantness of God’s wisdom has replaced the destructive pleasure of addiction.
There is also no physical reason why we can’t find a new life. I can see why those who have been addicted to a drug like alcohol might always consider themselves to in some ways be permanent addicts. They may have gone through a change in their body chemistry that causes them to react to a substance.
An addiction to sex is different. The chemicals involved are natural parts of an experience that God has created for our enjoyment. When proper wisdom is added, they will do what they were designed to do. We will have to deal with some physical withdrawal, but we were created to handle sex in a healthy way. With grace and perseverance, we can return to our God-given chemical makeup.
I know that escaping is difficult, however. The spiritual and emotional withdrawal can feel overwhelming. The feelings involved are as strong as death and cruel as the grave (Song of Solomon 8:6). I remember how distraught I felt when I divorced my previous sexual orientation, but I also remember the joy of watching the pieces of my heart realign into total sexual rapture with the woman I love. The chemicals that once held me in bondage have become a part of our joy together.
Freedom is possible, but it takes time. When I learned Proverbs, I desperately wanted to experience all that it promised as quickly as possible. I tried to make that happen, but I couldn’t. All I could do was to focus on knowing Jesus, walking in whatever He gave me, and trusting Him to bring me where He wanted me to go. Only He knew how to bring me to His kind of bliss.
NOTE: This section contains a description of sex in marriage. It contains a scripture that describes female body parts and may trigger those who have trouble controlling their sexual desires. If you are such a person, you may want to skip this section.
God has created marriage to be a safe place in which to enjoy the images, drives, actions, and chemicals that are part of sex. Solomon said it best.
Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of your youth. As a loving deer and a graceful doe, let her breasts satisfy you at all times;[40] and always be enraptured with her love. (emphasis added)
Those of us who are married are to be focused on intimacy with our wives. The word translated ‘enraptured,’ ‘shagah,’ means ‘to stray.’[41] In a different context it might be translated ‘to go astray,’ ‘to deceive,’ or ‘to err.’ It is not a tame word. The powerful reality of becoming one flesh produces extremely strong emotions.
These verses tell us that a married man should get lost in those emotions. His wife’s love should carry him away regularly. The scenes that turn him on, like his wife’s breasts, should be scenes that he drinks in often. The wife should have similar sexual experiences with her husband.
Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.
It is clear that for a married man or woman, freedom is more than a matter of not lusting after someone other than their spouse. It is also a matter of delighting in intimacy with their spouse. Husbands and wives should have a “controlled passion” for each other.
The word ‘controlled’ is very important in what I just said. It takes maturity to “go astray” without going so far astray that we use our partner. It takes restraint to keep proper jealousy from turning into oppressive possessiveness. While sex in marriage is extremely pleasurable, it also must involve a great deal of selfless love and sacrifice. The times when we indulge our passions need to be balanced by times when we hold back for the sake of the other. And even when we indulge, we need to seek to please our spouse.
It can be a tough balance to learn, but if we humble ourselves before our Heavenly Father, He will teach us. In the context of a life-long commitment, He gives us ways to make the wonderful mystery of becoming one flesh a beautiful experience.
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