I don't understand why so many people seem so sure and so ready to declare that they have found something that God somehow forgot to include in the Bible.
The implicit suggestion that no one ever did it so it didn't merit inclusion in the biblical text as something forbidden is simply untenable. It's so untenable, nobody even suggests it out loud, but it is certainly implicit in the observation that there is no scripture that directly addresses it but people still declare it wrong.
The fact is, however, that masturbation is directly addressed in the Bible.
This is not generally acknowledged, but the very reason is that the people looking to find it in the Bible are not looking at passages that do not condemn it. They are looking for a passage to condemn it, and since the passage that does mention masturbation does not actually condemn it, they simply ignore it.
What passage?
The passage I speak of is
Lev. 15:16-17. However, to fully understand it, we really should look at verses
16-19 (and the following verses too, if you want). Here is the passage:
16 ‘Now if a man has a seminal emission, he shall bathe all his body in water and be unclean until evening. 17 As for any garment or any leather on which there is seminal emission, it shall be washed with water and be unclean until evening.
There it is. Masturbation in the Bible.
Some claim that this is really talking a “nocturnal emission” and claim that it only applies if the guy is asleep. But that limitation is not found in the passage. Furthermore, we’ll see in the very next verse that the guy is obviously awake there, so we can’t just “read it into” this verse. There is nothing specified in these verses about whether the “emission” happened spontaneously or by active intent. Clearly then, it must apply to either case, so this passage definitely
does speak to masturbation.
Notice the only “penalty” for this event is that the man will be ceremonially “unclean” until evening. But does that mean that the practice is wrong? “Unclean” can’t be good, can it?
Don’t jump to conclusions—
let’s read on…
18 If a man lies with a woman so that there is a seminal emission, they shall both bathe in water and be unclean until evening.
This verse gives the same “penalty” for a man having sexual relations with his wife… which of course, also includes a “seminal emission.” Let’s keep reading…
19 ‘When a woman has a discharge, if her discharge in her body is blood, she shall continue in her menstrual impurity for seven days; and whoever touches her shall be unclean until evening. (The verses that follow expand on the regulations regarding a woman’s period)
Here, we see the very same “penalty” for a woman having her menstrual period!
Would anyone try to make the case that marital sex is wrong? Or a woman’s period? Of course not! Therefore, we
cannot claim that the Bible teaches that the practice of masturbation—
in and of itself—is wrong!
So, the only verse in the Bible that clearly applies to masturbation does not condemn.
Full stop.
Those who claim that the bible condemns masturbation are simply wrong. They are lying about what God says in his word. They are trying to build man-made rules for righteousness which god did not give. That is what the Pharisees in Jesus' time did. And it is no more right or acceptable to do today.
Those who would declare that masturbation is a sin are guilty themselves of the sin of adding to God's word. Quite frankly, it is the more grievous sin.
Before people start jumping to conclusions that I do not believe, let me just declare unequivocally, this is not saying that lust and illicit imaginations while masturbating is okay. Those things are clearly wrong. But the act of masturbating by itself is not inextricably linked to lust.
I've written a series of articles about this very topic, in fact, I pasted in a few paragraphs from that article here.
David Martin