Summary: God cares a great deal about sexual purity, but in the last decade or two, the standards for sexual purity have eroded in the American church. This post reviews what the Bible says on the topic, then urges people to change. The call goes out to those who love God and are in sexually impure relationships and to those who are leaders and influencers in the church and who have been tacitly approving of those practices by not lovingly teaching and mentoring in this area.
I want to begin by simply letting the Word of God speak to us about sexual purity. At the end, I will add some thoughts.
“The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality… and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Galatians 5:19-21, NIV).
“Sexual immorality… must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints… For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure… has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not become partners with them” (Ephesians 5:3,5-7, ESV).
“Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral… [nor those participating in many other sins] will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9-10, ESV).
“For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God… For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you” (1 Thessalonians 4:3-8, ESV).
“Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, [etc.]… On account of these the wrath of God is coming” (Colossians 3:5-6, ESV).
“I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality, [etc.]… not even to eat with such a one” (1 Corinthians 5:11, ESV).
“For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord… Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire” (Jude 4,7, ESV).
“But as for the… sexually immoral, [etc.]—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur” (Revelations 21:8, NIV).
“Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. Outside are the dogs…, the sexually immoral, [etc.]” (Revelations 22:14-15, NIV).
“Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:18-20, ESV).
I hope the overwhelming volume of verses dealing with sexual immorality along with the seriousness with which the issue is addressed serve to focus us on grappling with what God says relative to how many people in the Church live. What is especially important is the general attitude of the Church in accepting this as normal for church people. This type of behavior would not have been acceptable twenty or thirty years ago, and is a sign of the decay in the church of the Lordship of Jesus Christ, the value of holiness, and general reverence and fear of God.
The Greek word used for “sexual immorality” is “pornos” or one of its variants, which we see in use in English in the word “pornography”. The word “pornos” is used for any sexual relations outside of marriage. Many people assume I am referring to LGBT matters by referring to sexual immorality, but that is not the focus of this message. Pornos primarily refers to pre-marital sex including couples living together out of wedlock. I want to keep our focus away from LGBT issues in this discussion, because many people use that as a distraction to keep from talking about these other extremely important issues that have become even commonplace in most churches.
There are three types of sin related to sexual impurity included in the verses above:
- Participating in impurity, which the Bible tells us that if it persists, will lead to us to being condemned and not let into heaven.
- Teaching that it is okay to embrace sexual sin, which also seems to lead to eternal condemnation.
- The toleration of sexual sin in our churches, allowing it to be normal. This leads to lukewarm churches that are far from the heart of Jesus.
Participating in sexual impurity
I want to be clear that in my understanding of how God works, he is very patient with us. 2 Peter 3:9 says that God is “patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (ESV). In Jesus’s dealings with serious sexual sin in the church in Thyatira, he says he gave the prophetess time to repent of her sin of teaching sexual immorality (Revelations 2:20-23), but since she did not, he was going to cause her to become seriously ill, and punish those in the church who went along with her in that sin.
I know in my own youth, there was sin that I struggled with, and the Lord showed great compassion to me by his patience and by eventually setting me free after several years.
The bottom line is that while the Lord is patient, he is not patient forever. Sometimes he brings punishment into one’s life to bring about repentance. And sometimes the Lord perceives that the person has given up on following him at all.
I myself would not want to know what the Lord wants me to do and choose not to do it, especially in a way that clearly rejects Jesus as being Lord of my life. I would not want the Lord to discipline me, and I would not want to be in a position where my heart might grow cold and I might turn completely from the Lord.
Teaching that it is okay to practice sexual impurity
Jude 4 and 7 clearly tells us that there are teachers who misunderstand or incorrectly teach about the grace of God to make it mean that you can do whatever you want because God will forgive you. You cannot do whatever you want and expect to be forgiven. In order for Jesus to be your Savior he must be your Lord, and if you intentionally sin because you think God has to forgive you, then Jesus may not really be your Lord, and you may not actually be saved.
Teachers who teach such a cheap grace, especially if it is for the purpose of advocating for sexual sin, are themselves worthy of condemnation. They must repent and teach rightly, or the passages seem to indicate that they will be eternally condemned by God.
Tolerating sexual sin in our churches
Sexual sin would not be so prevalent in our churches if people in the churches weren’t so tolerant of it. Clearly the culture in Western countries, and certainly in the United States, has seeped into the Church to such an extent that a Biblical standard is foreign to us. In 1 Corinthians 5:11, we are instructed not to even eat with someone who claims to follow Jesus and is living in sin! While the practicality of doing such a thing with such rampant sin in churches would potentially create consequences for the Church beyond what Paul considered in his context, it does point to the fact that people living in such sin were not to be considered to be in good standing in the church.
On the other hand, Paul in Galatians 6:1 instructs those who are spiritual to gently restore anyone who is caught in a sin, knowing full well that all of us are subject to temptation and can need help when we get trapped. The goal, whether in shunning or gently restoring, is to help believers recognize the standard of holiness that Jesus calls us to and restore those who have fallen away from such a standard.
Conclusion
This article challenges the Church to see how far it has fallen and return to her first love. For those living in sexual sin, stop. For those turning a blind eye towards the sin of others, step up and have the loving conversations necessary, as led by the Holy Spirit. Changing the culture within the Church is more than one person can do on their own, but together we can help restore the church to her former glory, and even better. In the final days, the Church will be Jesus’s pure and spotless bride. Now is the time to make ourselves ready.