Kristos
Servant
For those who believe that pre marital sex is a sin - can you please explain why?
I don't need verses claiming it is sinful - I want to know why it is sin. For example - is it sin because it harms someone in a very specific way? How is it inethical? Specifics required.
I think this question becomes confused because our conception of marriage today is very different than in the past and from historical Christianity. Marriage has become more of a civil contract that gives certain rights and privileges, and in most modern, even Christian, incarnations this includes the privilege of sex - some might even say right, but I won't go there. I honestly don't think this was ever the intent. It twists the anthropology of Genesis and the witness of the bridegroom in the gospel by making the fulfillment of the union the sex rather than the other way around. As Paul says, thru sex we become one flesh and as God says in the beginning, it was not good for man to be alone, so he created woman - them both He created in His image because only together (as one flesh) could they be "very good". So really the sin is becoming one flesh with someone without any intent to actually become one flesh as it was meant to be, to become that image of Christ and the Church that Paul describes, to become "very good" in the eyes of God, to become what we were created to be. Does any of this require a piece of paper from city hall? Absolutely not - I would say that civil authority has destroyed the sacramental understanding of marriage in many ways, but it does offer protection to the vulnerable, and so has merit of it's own. But in a nutshell, sex and marriage are ultimately related very directly to our own salvation - our own freedom to become what we were created to be, a working out of our salvation as one flesh with a partner who completes us in a way that sheds light on the very salvation of mankind, as an icon of the Christ the Bridegroom and us, His bride. With this understanding it's impossible to imagine a situation where sex without marriage could be acceptable to God.
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