According to the Bible, why is premarital sex wrong?

1 Corinthians 7:2-10 addresses this.

Genesis 2:24 gives three steps for your relationship, check it out.

Step one: Leave father and mother

Step two: Be united to your WIFE (not girlfriend, wife)

Step three: Become one flesh.


You see, God desinged us to be united in marriage before we have sex. Genesis 2:24 was also quoted by Paul in Ephesians. To me, the instruction is plain and simple, not to mention undeniable.

It is very important to be sexually pure. If you want to honor God with your body, then refrain from all sex until your wedding day. Peace.

Jesus tell us that in the pre-flood days there were marriages and giving in marriage. Marriages take place in all the diverse cultures of the world from advanced to primitive..evidence of man's common heritage and its likely origin with the first man and woman.

Marriage acknowledges that the joining of the husband and wife is ordained by God, and the vows are committed to for a lifetime, with witnesses present.

Marriage is repeatedly used as a metaphor of the relationship between Christ and the Church. The Church is the Bride, a virgin Bride. In contrast, a harlot is used to describe Mystery Babylon the Great in Revelation 17 and 18, "full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication, drunken with the blood of the saints and the blood of the martyrs of Jesus".

Fornication in Webster's dictionary is defined as:

n 1: voluntary sexual intercourse between persons not married to each other 2: extramarital sex that willfully and maliciously interferes with marriage relations; "adultery is often cited as grounds for divorce".

When the gospel first went out to the Gentiles, it was decided to not have the new converts burdened by the Jewish cermonial laws, except for these "necessary things": "That ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication: from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare ye well." Acts 15:29.

Fornication and sexual sins, then, must be a very serious issue with God. In a look forward, we see these groups excluded from the Kingdom of God:

"Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God." I Corinthians 6:9-10

"For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie." Revelation 22:15

Marriage is more then just a ceremony. That's just a man made thing.

What Dave posted is what says it...

What makes a man and woman married? As soon as they have sex, they are man and wife. Because when a man and woman have sex, they are one flesh. They are joined together.

The Bible sometimes doesn't tell us things straight out. So from some verses, we have to look at them logically to find the answer.

You have to think of the effects.
The consequences of sex were not meant to be realized outside of marriage.

Mr.Cheese said:

You have to think of the effects.
The consequences of sex were not meant to be realized outside of marriage.

Click to expand...

And Mr. Cheese gives us the answer in a single paragraph once again

(how do you do it?!)

More scriptural passages:

Note that Paul describes two states of Christian women, married and virgin, therefore to be unmarried is synonymous with virgin:
"There is difference also between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband. I Cor 7:34

The subect of I Corinthians 7 is fornication. "Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband." I Cor 7:1-2.

In Matthew 25, we have the parable of the 10 virgins. Christ is the bridegroom and the 10 virgins are the Church in 2 stages of watchfulness.

Not only virgin women are depicted as the Church, but also virgin men.
In Revelation 14:1-5 we have 144,000 male virgins redeemed from the earth, which many interpret as the Church, others as redeemed Israel.

After the disciples heard what Jesus had to say about marriage and divorce in Matthew 19, they said "If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry". Jesus replied, "All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given. For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it."

This thing "given to some men", celibacy, is again echoed by Paul, which he described as a "gift": "For I would that all men were even as I myself. But every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that. I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, it is good for them if they abide even as I. But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn." I Cor 7:7-9

Here is a lexicon reference for the Greek word inappropriate contenteia, which is translated in the King James Version as fornication: Blue Letter Bible. "Dictionary and Word Search for 'inappropriate contenteia (Strong's 4202) ' " . Blue Letter Bible. 1996-2002. 31 Aug 2003. <http://www.blueletterbible.org/cgi-bin/words.pl?word=4202&page=1>

You have discounted Genesis 2:24 too easily. Please give me a more educated reply.

Please note that the verse says be united to your WIFE (that does not mean fiancee, or girlfriend, it says your WIFE, meaning you are already married).

So you leave your parents, you get married, you have sex. In that order. There is no inappropriate contentea in this verse, just plain easy steps from God. This is so easy that you have overlooked it, which is unwise.

God has given us an example of waiting for sex in the scriptures (there may be many more, but this is one that I know of). Let's look to Jesus' own parents, Mary and Joseph. They were betrothed (or engaged to be marrried), but they were not having sex. We know this because "the virgin mary" was with child. She could not possibly be with child because they were not having sex before their marriage ceremony. So we see from this couple in scripture that they practiced no sex until marriage (because of God's instruction).

You are married when you make a vow, and when God sanctions it. We are told in the Bible to obey the governing authorities over us. Where I live, you are not married until you sign a marriage certificate. I will officially be married when I do that, when I make a committment to my wife, and make a committment to God (publically), and God will join us together at that time. Yes, it is important to consumate the marriage. For any normal human being, this will not be a problem

I hope that made some sense, I look forward to your reply.

Gen 2:24

Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall become one flesh.

This verse is taken from the KJV bible. It doesn't say anything about having a marriage ceremony. Biblically speaking, cleave means to join fast together, to glue, or to cement, but is used also passively to mean: joined to, or to abide with. None of these things specifically suggest a marriage ceremony is required.

Jill, the same concept applies, please note the wording which says....

Cleave to your WIFE

(a woman cannot be a wife unless she is married. after talking about cleaving to the WIFE, then, and only THEN do they become one flesh)

DaveKerwin said:

Jill, the same concept applies, please note the wording which says....

Cleave to your WIFE

(a woman cannot be a wife unless she is married. after talking about cleaving to the WIFE, then, and only THEN do they become one flesh)

Click to expand...

Actually Dave, in biblical times a couple who were betrothed were already considered husband and wife, therefore one can be considered a wife before you go through a marriage ceremony. I honestly fail to see how you equate "cleave" with "legal marriage".

Here is a link from blueletterbible.com which explains the meanings of the word cleave.

http://www.blueletterbible.org/tmp_dir/choice/1062482633-4129.html

Jill, I think that in Biblical times, there was still a difference between being betrothed and being married. True, to break a betrothal would require a divorce, but...I think that betrothed couples were not to engage in a sexual relationship before getting married. That's why Joseph thought that Mary had been unfaithful to him (before he understood that Mary was with child through the Holy Spirit)...because she was pregnant and it wasn't by him since he wasn't sleeping with her yet (and would not until after they were married...and as it turned out, he waited until *after* Jesus was born before having sexual relations with her.


I haven't read all of Dave's posts, but from what I've read from this thread, I agree with him on the following points:

It honours God when His children respect and follow the laws of the land that we live in. To this end, I think that this would mean that in order to be considered married in Canada, one would need to get legally married. In Canada, if you are not legally married, you are not married. One could argue that it depends on perspective...a couple makes heartfelt commitments to each other without going the legal route, and considers themselves married, but the law doesn't and many other people will not either, as you have already recognized. And as you have pointed out in your post in another thread, you also recognize that because of this, many people will consider the situation that you and your fiance to be a "stumbling block" to others (in this case, the youth in your church). And I do think that this truly is a stumbling block to others.

Please forgive me, because I don't know how to say this in a non offensive manner.

Paul says in 2 Corinthians 6:3, "We put no stumbling block in anyone's path, so that our ministry will not be discredited."

We are also to avoid any appearance of evil. (I don't recall the verse for this...sorry!)

So, I think that the legal document stating that you are married does matter...a privilege of being a citizen of the country that you live in. (I'm being a bit tongue in cheek here.)


God bless you.

ebd


(Whoops, sorry, my response combines a couple of threads...this one, and another that Jill started.)

thanks ebd, I think you made some references to another thread of mine about teaching catechism. I do not wish to be a stumbling block for anyone, so I have chosen not to teach catechism, because I feel the risk would be very great, but that does not change my beliefs on the issue.

In reference to this thread. I know that betrothed couples did not engage in sexual intercourse before they were officially married, I was just pointing out the problem with saying you have to be married to be called "wife", because during biblical times that statement was not true.

I believe we are called to obey the law of the lands, but Jesus came and gave us one commandment, to love one another, as he has loved us. If we all followed this commandment, there would be no need for law. Consider for a moment, why the legal institution of marriage is neccesary. It is needed to protect spouses from one another, to protect each other from adultery, and other dangers to the marriage. The legal institution protects people who do not obey Jesus' commandment to love one another, because people who love one another as he has loved us, do not need the law to tell them how to treat their fellow man (or husband or wife).

You know what Jill, you could go on and on justifying, and frankly, your gasp for straws is getting pitiful.

It says cleave to your WIFE because you are MARRIED. If a betrothal was the same thing as marriage, then a betrothal would not exist because it would serve no purpose. The fact of the matter is this: THE COUPLE DID NOT HAVE SEX BEFORE THEIR WEDDING CEREMONY!!!!!!!!!

Regardless of what you think, regardless of what you believe, and regardless of what you practice, you CANNOT deny this is true. Don't be absurd Jill, the couples did not have sex until their wedding day.

Jill, you're right. Being engaged was almost equal to marriage. That's why Joseph was called her husband. (Matthew 1:19). But the angel appeared to him in a dream. The angel told him to take Mary as his wife (Matthew 1:20) and it was after that when Joseph did (Matthew 1:24). Mary was pledged to be be married to Joseph, but before they were, the Holy spirit came upon her (Matthew 1:18). They never had sex, not even as an engaged couple.