Spirituality and Sexuality (Part I): An Extended Meditation on a Theology of Body and Sexuality for the 21st Century Church
We are spiritual and sexual beings created in the image of God. Throughout Scripture, the ideas of fidelity and infidelity abound as do the themes of jealousy, passion, long-suffering and the pursuit of God as a lover.
The Celebration and Commemoration of the Lord's Supper is a renewal of our marriage vows, as the Bride of Christ, with our betrothed, Jesus Christ, the bridegroom of the Church. In The Gospel According to John, beginning in the fourteenth chapter, Our Lord tells us that He is going to go and prepare a place for us - for His bride - as is the case of an engaged couple in the time of Jesus. After the future son-in-law and his soon to be father-in-law agreed to the terms of the marriage, the son poured wine into a cup and offered it to his beloved. If she accepted the cup and drank from it, her libation was her sealing of an unbreakable covenant between her and her bridegroom. Afterwards, the groom would go and prepare the house wherein his wife and he would live and consummate their marriage for the very first time. Between the time the bride drank from the cup and entered the house prepared for her by her betrothed, they were married for all matters and for all purpose - save one. They were not to have any conjugal relations until they were under the same roof. They were to be faithful to each other. This is why Joseph is so heartbroken upon hearing the news that his beloved bride, Mary, was with child.
Each time we take the cup during the Lord's Supper, we renew our marriage vows with Christ and covenant to remain faithful to Him. We are to remember His passion & resurrection so we are strengthen in our devotion to Him and remember our first love and the vows we took when we called Him into our hearts for the very first time - and fell in love. We are to anticipate His return with urgency and excitement as we should feel desire at the thought of our being carried home - over the threshold of the very doors of Heaven and in doing so we are brought into unfathomable and unimaginable intimacy with our Lord as we see Him face-to-face - for the very first time.
We are created in the image of God because we are purposed to experience in flesh and in spirit the most profound and sublime form of worship this side of Heaven - sexual relations with our spouse. This is why sexual relations are to be experienced only after marriage. Sexuality in the context of Christian marriage is how two people - through & in Christ Jesus - experience the oneness of the Holy Trinity, the union of two persons becoming one in the presence of Christ Jesus - a trinity. Blessed and in joyful transparency, without guilt, shame or ties to anyone else - the indivisible nature of three-in-one, Christ, husband and wife, provides the opportunity to see beyond the veil of flesh and of this temporal world - to the joy, mystery, pleasure and wonder of Heaven. In Christian marriage, sexuality is the means whereby we celebrate our full surrender to our beloved, our mutual & complete surrender to our Lord and the rendering of our pure worship, through the bodies He created according to His image - to the God the Father, the Creator of Heaven and Earth.
Outside of Christian marriage, sexuality is perverted and distorted. It becomes obscene and abominable as the purposes of sex become means whereby one worships the created being. It is an exercise in self-worship rooted in greed and pride. Premarital sex or sex outside of marriage is the means whereby one seeks pleasure in complete rebellion to God and His will for each and every one of us. It is a symphony of greed and avarice - as one only thinks of oneself and of satisfying one's carnal desires & fantasies. One's body becomes an idol and the practice of sex is how we render worship to our bodies. It is boastful as we are ungrateful, despicable and foolish stewards of our bodies. To engage in this sin, humans claiming to have the ultimate authority over their bodies & in doing so, they give themselves over to sinful and perverse practices with others, spiritually binding oneself to other idolaters who also live in the darkness of their hearts and of this broken world. What are the consequences?
Illegitimate children, abortion, shame, guilt, rape, abuse, power, control, manipulation, fear and shattered spirits - which were supposed to have been elevated to worship God - are brought down, crushed and beaten to a state of total spiritual bankruptcy and moral decadence.
Satan knows that we are spiritual and sexual beings. He knows that as we are destroyed sexually, our spirits are simultaneously attacked and ultimately shattered. Far from being who God created us to originally be, our dignity is ripped out of us and we are left void and with a divine identity. Rather than to seek God to fill the void, we are spiritually intoxicated by deep shame, guilt and anger - the direct ramifications of premarital sex, casual sex and sex outside of marriage. Crimes of power such as rape and sexual abuse of every kind, prostitution, pornography, etc.; all directly contribute to the bottom spiral down the abyss of emotional numbness, lack of feeling, devoid of spirituality and inebriated by the demonic. The darkness fills the void and medicates the pain.
We as the Body of Christ cannot continue to ignore the need for a Theology of the Body and Sexuality. We cannot continue to expect that the standard conversations on abstinence, pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases are going to be adequate for the youth and adult membership of our gathered communities in Christ.
We owe it to each member to remind them that sexuality is the most beautiful expression of God's design for us to know Him or it is the most insidious means to destroy us as children of God in order to make us slaves of Satanic prostitution. We are not fighting flesh and blood, but it through flesh that we are redeemed, it is also through flesh that we can be shattered and taken to the threshold of the Gates of Hell itself.
The Celebration and Commemoration of the Lord's Supper is a renewal of our marriage vows, as the Bride of Christ, with our betrothed, Jesus Christ, the bridegroom of the Church. In The Gospel According to John, beginning in the fourteenth chapter, Our Lord tells us that He is going to go and prepare a place for us - for His bride - as is the case of an engaged couple in the time of Jesus. After the future son-in-law and his soon to be father-in-law agreed to the terms of the marriage, the son poured wine into a cup and offered it to his beloved. If she accepted the cup and drank from it, her libation was her sealing of an unbreakable covenant between her and her bridegroom. Afterwards, the groom would go and prepare the house wherein his wife and he would live and consummate their marriage for the very first time. Between the time the bride drank from the cup and entered the house prepared for her by her betrothed, they were married for all matters and for all purpose - save one. They were not to have any conjugal relations until they were under the same roof. They were to be faithful to each other. This is why Joseph is so heartbroken upon hearing the news that his beloved bride, Mary, was with child.
Each time we take the cup during the Lord's Supper, we renew our marriage vows with Christ and covenant to remain faithful to Him. We are to remember His passion & resurrection so we are strengthen in our devotion to Him and remember our first love and the vows we took when we called Him into our hearts for the very first time - and fell in love. We are to anticipate His return with urgency and excitement as we should feel desire at the thought of our being carried home - over the threshold of the very doors of Heaven and in doing so we are brought into unfathomable and unimaginable intimacy with our Lord as we see Him face-to-face - for the very first time.
We are created in the image of God because we are purposed to experience in flesh and in spirit the most profound and sublime form of worship this side of Heaven - sexual relations with our spouse. This is why sexual relations are to be experienced only after marriage. Sexuality in the context of Christian marriage is how two people - through & in Christ Jesus - experience the oneness of the Holy Trinity, the union of two persons becoming one in the presence of Christ Jesus - a trinity. Blessed and in joyful transparency, without guilt, shame or ties to anyone else - the indivisible nature of three-in-one, Christ, husband and wife, provides the opportunity to see beyond the veil of flesh and of this temporal world - to the joy, mystery, pleasure and wonder of Heaven. In Christian marriage, sexuality is the means whereby we celebrate our full surrender to our beloved, our mutual & complete surrender to our Lord and the rendering of our pure worship, through the bodies He created according to His image - to the God the Father, the Creator of Heaven and Earth.
Outside of Christian marriage, sexuality is perverted and distorted. It becomes obscene and abominable as the purposes of sex become means whereby one worships the created being. It is an exercise in self-worship rooted in greed and pride. Premarital sex or sex outside of marriage is the means whereby one seeks pleasure in complete rebellion to God and His will for each and every one of us. It is a symphony of greed and avarice - as one only thinks of oneself and of satisfying one's carnal desires & fantasies. One's body becomes an idol and the practice of sex is how we render worship to our bodies. It is boastful as we are ungrateful, despicable and foolish stewards of our bodies. To engage in this sin, humans claiming to have the ultimate authority over their bodies & in doing so, they give themselves over to sinful and perverse practices with others, spiritually binding oneself to other idolaters who also live in the darkness of their hearts and of this broken world. What are the consequences?
Illegitimate children, abortion, shame, guilt, rape, abuse, power, control, manipulation, fear and shattered spirits - which were supposed to have been elevated to worship God - are brought down, crushed and beaten to a state of total spiritual bankruptcy and moral decadence.
Satan knows that we are spiritual and sexual beings. He knows that as we are destroyed sexually, our spirits are simultaneously attacked and ultimately shattered. Far from being who God created us to originally be, our dignity is ripped out of us and we are left void and with a divine identity. Rather than to seek God to fill the void, we are spiritually intoxicated by deep shame, guilt and anger - the direct ramifications of premarital sex, casual sex and sex outside of marriage. Crimes of power such as rape and sexual abuse of every kind, prostitution, pornography, etc.; all directly contribute to the bottom spiral down the abyss of emotional numbness, lack of feeling, devoid of spirituality and inebriated by the demonic. The darkness fills the void and medicates the pain.
We as the Body of Christ cannot continue to ignore the need for a Theology of the Body and Sexuality. We cannot continue to expect that the standard conversations on abstinence, pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases are going to be adequate for the youth and adult membership of our gathered communities in Christ.
We owe it to each member to remind them that sexuality is the most beautiful expression of God's design for us to know Him or it is the most insidious means to destroy us as children of God in order to make us slaves of Satanic prostitution. We are not fighting flesh and blood, but it through flesh that we are redeemed, it is also through flesh that we can be shattered and taken to the threshold of the Gates of Hell itself.
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