God’s Good Design for Sexuality

The first command in the Bible is not a rule about what to avoid. It is a commissioning to be fruitful, to multiply, and to image God together as embodied people. That single detail reframes a lot of confusion and shame around sex, the body, and marriage, so we decided to share a portion of a church talk from James Craig, our director of projects, that takes the wide-angle view.

We start with Genesis and a Christian anthropology: Imago Dei and the claim that men and women share equal dignity and a shared calling. Then we dig into nephesh, the biblical idea that you are a whole living being, not a spirit trapped in a body. 
Lastly, we move into the meaning of “one flesh” in Genesis 2 and why the theology of the body matters for real life. We unpack union, self-giving love, procreation, pleasure, and how marital covenant points beyond itself toward union with God. 

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Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole:

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
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👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

Transcript

Why We’re Sharing This Talk

Speaker 2 0:18

My friends, today we're gonna be hearing a portion of a talk that I, James Craig, uh, director of projects, will be giving at a church, um, pretty soon. Uh, we, we give talks. Sometimes we're invited to churches as a staff to, to speak on different issues, and this, this talk is, uh, basically a macro picture, an overview of what is human sexual- sexuality all the, all about. What are some of the key dimensions of what it means to, um, to be a sexual human? What, what was God's design from the beginning? How did the fall impact that? How is Jesus's redeeming work changing that? And so I hope you guys enjoy this. And as always, if you ever wanna invite us to your church to speak, just reach out. There's a place in the description to, uh, to email us. Um, and there's a whole variety of offerings that we have for churches, and so this is just one of those. And hope you enjoy this today.

Imago Dei And The First Command

Nephesh And Whole Person Humanity

Plato Descartes And Body Spirit Split

One Flesh And No Shame

Five Meanings Of One Flesh

Is God Sexual Creation Connection

Marriage Covenant And Sexual Boundaries

Why Covenant Sex Protects Love

Reflection Questions And Closing

1:19

All right, so let's, let's get into it, starting with God's design. You might call this a Christian anthropology. Anyone familiar with this term theology of the body? This, uh, this came up in the, the tree image I showed earlier, but anyone heard of this? Show of hands. Yeah, not, not too well known. Um, theology of the body though has a, a few key tenets, and I wanna actually unpack those here. If you wanna look it up later, you'll find that it was actually a pope named John Paul II back in the late 20th century, so probably about, oh, it's close to 30 to 50 years ago, where he was trying to answer in a Christian way the sexual revolution of the 1960s, which had actually begun way earlier in, in, in different forms, but let's look first at Imago Dei. Can someone read this out loud? Genesis 1:26 through 28."Then God said,'Let us make man in our image, in our likeness so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and all the creatures that move on the ground.' So God created mankind in his own image" In the image of God, He created them, male and female, He created them. God blessed them and said to them,"Be fruitful and increase in number. Fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and every living creature that moves on the ground." Friends, this is one of the most densely packaged passages in all of scripture. Let's do a brief DBS, Discovery Bible study, another thing that dSchool, uh, has hopefully taught you some about. What do we learn about humankind in this core picture? Who bears the image of God? Is it just women, just men? It's both, right? Who's called to subdue and rule with God? Man and woman. What is His first command to them? What is the first command in all of scripture, uh, to a human being, to human beings? Be fruitful and multiply. Just think about that for one second. The first command in scripture is to have sex. We're going there today. Let's go there. So if this is the first command given to God's image-bearers, what does that say about God? This means that God designed human biology to image His creative fruitfulness. So the point here in understanding Imago Dei, that we're made in the image of God, is that humankind alone in all creation is the image of God, an icon, that which is like God, that which is meant to teach us what God is like. Okay, we're gonna hold onto that thought. Let's go to the next, um, element of theology of the body. Someone read, or I, I will in this case read Genesis 2:7."Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being." Does anyone know the Hebrew word for living being? Any, uh, this is stuff that I've gleaned from the Bible Project, so I've just gotta be clear about that. Any fellow Bible nerds, as they like to call themselves, um, listen to the Bible Project, anyone know what this term living being is? It's the word nephesh. Literally, it means life. It also literally means throat. And think about how the throat connects. It, it's often translated soul, actually, though. This is really important. And when we hear the word soul, I think the reason the NIV here doesn't use the word soul is because we map- Onto this idea of soul, a Platonic, Plato, a Platonic understanding of the spiritual part of us that moves on to heaven when we die. Anyone admit that that's what they think of? That's what I would think of when I hear the... I, I still probably think that way even though I've got these other ideas for you. Yeah. But Hebrew writers, from what I can surmise, when they say nephesh, which again translates soul, think about the throat connects the, the head and the heart. I mean, in some ways you can see why nephesh has come to be like a, a, a term that represents the whole, right? The, the soul, the life. Hebrew, in Hebrew nephesh or soul or life is your entire being. It's your body and your spirit. It's your body and your spirit. I'm, um, and you can fact check me on this, but I'm pretty sure you'll see nephesh referred to even talking about animals. That's a whole nother, uh, idea. But the point here is it's the life, it's the life of a being. And, and for, for Dallas Willard, uh, I don't wanna get too far into this, but it's, it's the integrating force of all of who we are. It, it's what integrates our physical bodies, our, our spirits or our hearts. It integrates our minds, our, our relational element. Don't let me go on that rabbit trail, um, unless you wanna ask questions about that later. But, um, nephesh. So what is a human? We are nepheshes. People don't have a nephesh, they are a nephesh, a body that includes a spirit. Body plus ghost, you might say. Animal plus spirit. I'm not talking animal, uh, I know that's gonna sound controversial to some people, but just think about it in the kind of Ar- Aristotelian sense of animal is, is simply, um, a classification of being. He, uh, Aristotle actually called us the rational animals. Um, a- as Christians reading Genesis 1:27, we're more than that obviously, but we have this physiological part, the animal, and the spiritual part. So friends, tell me this, what happens if you remove a human spirit? If you remove the breath of life that was breathed in? Death, right? Uh, we, we actually have a name for that in pop culture, it's called a zombie. Which is a not truly alive being, right? What about the other side? What if you remove a person's body and you just have the spirit left? Okay, ghosts, right? Also a dead person. Not truly alive, not truly nephesh. Here's what's amazing. The, the amazing reality of this scripture is that humans are utterly unique in all creation. We're not pure spirits like animals, and that has serious implications. We're not pure bodies... Sorry, we're not pure spirits like angels. We're not pure bodies like animals. We are nepheshes And here's one way to say that, and this is gonna sound a little funky to some of us, but the Hebrew conception is that you are your body. Yes, when we die, until the new heavens and Earth are created, we'll live with God, most likely in a spiritual form. But the climax of human history is not spiritual heaven when you die, it's the new heavens and the new Earth. It's where the Bible ends. Revelation 21:1 talks about the new heavens and the new Earth. You can also find it, if anyone's taking notes, in Isaiah 65:17. So therefore, our bodies and our spirits are inextricable in this ultimate sense. We weren't made for disembodied reality long term. If this is shocking to you, I wanna encourage you to c- do your own research on Plato, on Descartes, who kinda picked up some of these Platonic ideas that, that are so lodged into our culture. By the way, I'm not a pure Plato hater. I know that, uh, people I love, like N.T. Wright, seem to not have a single good thing to say about Plato and, and Aristotle. I'm not a pure hater of, of Plato. But, but I just want you to recognize that his thinking was pre-Christian. It, it m- likely didn't even interact with Jewish thought of his day. Maybe it did, maybe it didn't. But it's incomplete at best, okay? So real quick, though, on D- Descartes. We don't have time to get into this, but basically Descartes, the founder of modern philosophy, he kinda kicked off the last several hundred years of philosophy. He's one of the key reasons that we hold to this anti-biblical understanding of the person. He really, uh, separated out mind, spirit, immaterial self as good. Again, this is... He's pulling from Plato, but this is my best understanding of Descartes. Mind, spirit, immaterial self is good. Body, physical self is bad. But the Biblical view of nephesh is that we image God as physical and spiritual creatures, and God calls that good. Okay. You still with me? One more aspect of theology of the body of Christian anthropology that I wanna pull out today, one flesh. One flesh. So let's look at, uh, Genesis 2:18-25, and I'll go ahead and just read that for us."The Lord God said,'It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.' But Adam, for Adam, no suitable helper was found. So the Lord caused the man to fall into a deep sleep, and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man." The man said,"This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man." That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. Adam and Eve were both naked, and they felt no shame. Okay. The human genitalia are the only organs that are designed to be incomplete on their own. The human genitalia are the only organs that are designed to be incomplete on their own. Without answering out loud, I want to invite you to ponder for a second. How do male and genitalia... male genitalia uniquely image God? Not gonna ask you to answer that out loud, but just ponder that for a second. How do they uniquely image God? How about female? How do they uniquely image God? Just think about that for a moment. Some of us, by the way, have been so sexualized that it's hard to even have this question thrown without having a ton of images come into our minds, and just want you to be gracious, invite the Lord into that. But, but think for a second. These are not inherently bad things. These are not sinful things. So how do they uniquely image God? Here's the point. The point is that God's good design includes the human genitalia, and that somehow that is part of our imaging Him together as man and woman. So what does one flesh mean, all right? Five dimensions to this term at least. These are five that I'll, I'll bring up. There might be more. Number one, union. Number one, union. In some sense, man and woman both become united bodily, sexually, albeit temporarily, but also spiritually. This is why you might have done, uh, freedom, uh, freedom day a couple, uh, months ago, I think now, why we break soul ties, uh, at our church, why we go through practices like breaking soul ties, because there's a spiritual component to the physiological uniting. Notice here too that it's the physical differences that allow for union. The physical difference, differences allow for union. These beautiful physical differences are reflected in some of the different... some of our differences psychologically and vocationally in the broadest sense. That's not me doing an underhanded thing of like men should be at the factory and women should be at home. No. But nonetheless, our psych- our psychology and our vocation are rooted to some degree, in some ways, in male and female. Also, still on the union idea here- This genital sexual union calls for total life on life union. This includes things like financial union, locational union as much as possible. Union calls for full life on life union. Sexual union calls for full life on life union. Okay, number two, another aspect of one flesh, self-giving. Ephesians 5:28 says,"In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself." So think about this. If you're one with someone, if you're one flesh with them, you're loving yourself by loving them. So by self-giving, by doing self-giving love, even sometimes love that can be painful to self, self-sacrificial love, we're actually ultimately loving ourselves, but in a very Christ-like way. Beautiful way. All right, number three, procreation. God made one flesh unions to ultimately be procreative. In this sense, husbands and wives, when they become one flesh, are literally, by God's grace, I know that this is not the story for everyone, but by God's grace, are literally creating one new flesh. Both mother and father biology, the egg and the sperm, form the child, and you could also experience sensorily both the parents in the child's flesh. When you hold that child who has been born of, of a husband and wife, you can feel the oneness. The two became one, and that child now exists. Beautiful gift of God. And by the way, if you have any questions on, on that, uh, as I m- may have forgotten to say earlier, write them down and we'll, we'll have time for a Q&A in just a m- minute, actually. Q and R, I like to say, is the Bible Project test. Question and response. I don't have all the answers by any means here. Number four, one flesh. You still with me? One flesh is about pleasure. Yep. Think about the fact that if Genesis is true, which I believe it is, God designed sex to be pleasurable. God designed it. It's not just purely some sort of, uh, whether or not you believe in, you know, evolution or not, that's not what I'm even trying to get at here. I'm just trying to say, if we believe God was behind this ultimately, He's the one who designed sex to be pleasurable. Notice verse 23 of this, right? Comes right before verse 24 about one flesh. In verse 23, we see the first poem in all of scripture. Look at that passion and ecstasy. Albeit it's pr- it, it might sound primitive. It looks like a primitive form to us, but it doesn't necessarily translate to our ears, but this is passion and ecstasy. Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. All right, finally, uh, final aspect of one flesh. One flesh- Physically here, spiritually here, also points to becoming one with God. And we'll talk more about that soon. So here's the point of this little section. The one flesh union between a husband and wife is a gift from God, and it's an opportunity for union with a person, self-giving love, procreation, pleasure, and ultimately a sign of union with God, which is what we're ultimately after. At Regen, what Epicenter's after is being united to Jesus. All right, so think about this with me now. Let's apply this a little bit. If we're made in the image of God, we're called to this one flesh union. Is God sexual? Anyone have any thoughts on this? Think about that. Is God sexual if we're made in his image and he's called us to one flesh union? Yes and no. He's not sexual in the sense of having sex with people, although we know Jesus did come as a man and therefore he had, he has male genitalia in the person of Christ. But no, not, uh, not sexual being in that sense. God is spirit, it says in John four twenty-four, not flesh, before Jesus came. And even with Jesus in his resurrected, glorified body, there's still two other persons of the Trinity that are pure spirit, the Father and the Spirit. But yes, God is sexual in the most fundamental sense of sexuality, the essence of sexuality. Here's what I mean. Sexuality is about two things, creation and connection. Creation and connection. Uh, the one fleshness we just talked about, that's what it's ultimately about. It's about creation and connection. A lot more could be said on that, but let me, let me keep going for the sake of time. Another interesting question to apply this. Is sexuality exclusive to marriage? I know I, I might sound like I'm on some shaky ground here, but again, I'm gonna say yes and no. In that broader sense I just talked about, in that one sense of broader what, what is sexuality really about in its essence? How does it image God? All peoples are called to co-create with God and to live in relationship with others. We're all called to create and connect, all of us. So in this sense, it's the calling of all to tend to creation. What, what's often called the creation mandate that we read about in Genesis one twenty-six. It's right on the screen still. We have to recognize that the need for connection with other humans is wired in us by God. Think about it. Adam was walking with God, and it still wasn't good that Adam was alone. That's a profound thing. Have you ever thought about that? God is wired. It's verse 18 right there. It's not good for, for people to be alone. So sexuality, again, in its essence, I could unpack this more if you have questions, but in its essence, it points to creation and connection, two of the ways we image God. However, we also see in our passage a foundational reference to the Hebrew concept of marriage. Let me actually click here. Yeah, creation connection and the marriage covenant. So we see that in this sense, sexuality is exclusive to marriage. Listen to this. The Bible describes marriage as a lifelong covenant between one man and one woman. This is reaffirmed by Jesus in Matthew 19:6. This, this Genesis 1, uh, Genesis 2:25, sorry, Genesis 2:24 is reiterated by Jesus. Consider this. Why, given all we've discussed, would God create specific genital sexual acts, namely sexual intercourse and other genital sexual contact, to be exclusive between one man and one woman for a lifetime covenant of marriage? At least three reasons. Again, there's probably way more, but three that I can easily see. One is the bond between one man and one woman is meant to be a reflection of an exclusive, committed union with God. Our feelings fluctuate, and so there actually is, uh, people say,"I don't need a piece of paper to, to, you know, give you my love." Well, we actually, according to the Bible, and I think this is truly wise, we need a legal covenant to stand on. We need a legal, legal covenant. Real spousal love requires giving all. We just talked about that, right? And this forever exclusive commitment to one spouse is, is a way that it's a picture of our exclusive call to our one God. So monogamy images dedication to the one true God. Just like the male and female body are designed for each other, our nepheshes, our, our lives, our, our entire beings, our, our body and our spirit are made for God. There's more about that, uh, I think in 1 Corinthians, our bodies were made for the Lord. Okay, number two though, why is this exclusive, uh, marriage covenant necessary? Children. You know, ever since the'60s with the popularization of contraception, we've been very able, easily able to divorce sex from children. But I want to challenge you all to consider that children are the primary telos of sex, the purpose. Telos just means end goal or purpose. And interestingly, research shows that the healthiest environment for the development of a child is a committed mom and dad. And I know we live in a fallen world, and that's not always possible, even when no one was at fault. Death happens, and divorce happens when one party was, was actually innocent. But the healthiest environment is a committed mom and a dad. Finally, a third reason why sex and sexuality is meant to be exclusive for marriage, it's meant to be a self-giving gift for the other. You can't fully and truly give yourself, including sexually, and be open to children without lifelong covenant faithfulness. You only have one self to give, and so when you give yourself fully to another, when we give ourselves fully to our spouse, we're speaking... Think about this. When we give ourselves fully, we're speaking infinite God-given value over our spouse. We're unrepeatable, each of us. We bear the image of God. We're unique in all of creation. So when I, unrepeatable, etern- I'm an... I'm not eternal in the sense that God is, but I'm destined for a life everlasting. I've got incredible value, and so do each of you. And so when you choose to give yourself fully to another and you sign that marriage do- uh, covenant, you're speaking the value that God has imbued in you over your spouse. So in summary, marriage is a covenant that reflects the exclusive union with God, provides a healthy place for children, and an opportunity to grow as a gift for the other.

Speaker 3 24:59

Friends, that was a, a lot of content. It's a little bit of a fire hose. Um, normally, a- as you could tell from the talk, there's time for questions and, and engagement. Um, but I just wanna invite you to reflect on w- what, what was new for you? How, how is God inviting you deeper into His story that we're all still a part of? And next week, um, we will be back with more content of, of the same variety, uh, pulling together more elements of, of this teaching. So please stay tuned, and as always, let us know if you have questions or anything else.