Why Abstinence Before Marriage? Is Masturbation a Sin?
© Seth Kniep, 2008. All rights reserved.
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Why is abstinence before marriage so important? Where does the Bible talk about it, and how does that affect a Christian’s faith?
What I love about this question is that most Christians kind of assume, “Well of course you’re not supposed to have sex before marriage.” But where does the Bible actually say that? Now I agree that abstinence is good, but where does the Bible teach this? If you were talking with someone who disagreed with you, how would you defend your view from Scripture? Does the Bible ever say, “Do not have sex before marriage”?
I want to show you why I believe that we are supposed to practice abstinence. But I also want to tell you why I think that focusing on abstinence is the wrong thing to focus on.
If you are a human, you probably have a sex drive, you probably desire intimacy—that’s natural, that’s how God designed you—and at some point or another, you are tempted to lust. That’s fine. When you focus on abstinence, you focus on what you're not supposed to do. And that’s good. But someone could have a lustful thought and still be physically abstinent. Right? And that’s still sin. Someone could look at pornography and still be physically abstinent. And that’s still sin. We could list all sexual sins, all the way to sex with animals. The focus God wants you to have is a focus of purity, of holiness. If the heart is pure, then it will result in a pure life.
Let me show you why this is important. Job said something that has become a life passage for me, because I get tempted with lust. I have to protect my eyes and be careful where I let them look. This is such a great passage, dudes. Ladies too! Job said,
You know what it’s like. You’re walking through a college campus and suddenly this hot girl walks by. And your eyes want to gaze. And you literally have to pull your eyes away from her and look at the ground. You learn to bounce your eyes. Guys, if you’re honest, you know what I’m talking about. And even when you get married it doesn’t deal with lust. It helps, but you still get tempted. My wife and I are very open about these things. That’s the way we men are—women too—but men are very visual.
Job was married when he wrote this. Obviously, marriage did not magically remove his temptation to lust. If Joseph wasn’t tempted to sleep with Potiphar’s wife—and I doubt she was a 350 lb. woman going, “Come here boy!” in a deep, manly voice—he wouldn’t need to run. She was probably good looking. Why did he run? Because he was tempted. He had to get out of there because he couldn’t handle it. He ran because he was so weak, not because he was so strong. When you face the reality of your own weakness it will help you. Be honest and say, “I can’t handle it. I need accountability. I need protection.”
But I still haven’t really answered the question! When we ask if fornication is right or wrong, what we are really asking is a question about the purpose of sex. If you understand the purpose of sex, you then know exactly when to yield to your desires and when not to. Let’s go back to the first marriage to get our answer:
Genesis 2:25 is a commentary on Genesis 2:24. The reason he says “naked” in verse 25 is because the “joining” in verse 24 is not just spiritual and emotional but also physical. The text suggests an innocent openness and freedom in sex between Adam and Eve.
But here’s the problem: We separate sex from the relationship. It’s sort of like, here’s our spiritual time to study the Bible and now here’s our physical time, let’s make love, and now here’s our emotional time, let’s go on a Valentine dinner. But the Bible doesn’t want you to separate those three. It’s all mixed. They flow into each other. When Paul said in 1 Corinthians 7:3-4 that the husband and wife are supposed to fulfill their duty to each other, he wasn’t saying, “Make sure you have sex all the time!” (although a lot of guys would probably like that). He was saying, “Be intimate all the time.” Now intimacy could be calling up your wife and saying, “You got a really cute butt.” Or it could be the wife leaving a little note for her husband: “I am so in love with you.” Or it could be holding hands on a walk. The reason Moses had to add to that they were not ashamed (Gen 2:25) is because he wrote this after the Fall. The picture Genes 2:24-25 gives us is total oneness between husband and wife.
Sex before marriage is sin because the Bible says do not commit fornication which means any sexual activity outside of marriage (1 Cor 6:9; Heb 13:4). In the day of the New Testament everyone knew what fornication meant—it was not up for discussion. To imply that fornication did not include sex before marriage is to ignore the historical context of the entire New Testament. There has been no historical debate over that question.
Does fornication include masturbation? I know the Bible does not directly say, “Thou shalt not masturbate,” and James Dobson says it’s not a sin. Campus Crusade for Christ says it is. I can see why James Dobson says it’s not a sin because some people say, “When I do it I’m not really lusting in my mind.” My first question to that thinking is: Can someone truly masturbate without lusting in his mind? But more importantly: Why did God give you those desires? To be expressed to someone whom you are married to. Now I know it’s really hard, particularly if you are not married, it can be incredibly difficult. Sometimes the desire is insanely strong. But if you give that desire as a sacrifice of worship to God, wouldn’t it be cool to be able to say, “I don’t have to do what my body wants. I can wait”? That becomes worship. Wouldn’t it be cool to know that even that desire does not dominate you? Aesop was right (even though he was not a Christian), when he said, “The most difficult thing to master is one’s self.” It is easier to conquer the world than to conquer one’s self, which is why the Antichrist, when he does conquer the world, has performed a lesser accomplishment than someone who has the ability to say no to the desire to masturbate. And you can if the Holy Spirit lives within you.
I am not going to say that masturbation is an outright sin, period. And there’s probably some Christians who’d say, “That’s ridiculous, of course masturbation is a sin.” But the Bible doesn’t say that. But again I would ask: Has it become an idol? Is it controlling you or are you controlling it?
If you’re not a virgin, don’t read this and walk away like a dog with it’s tail between its legs, feeling like you’ve gone beyond grace and God can’t forgive you. He wants to and will, if you humble yourself and ask. He loves you no bit less. If you’re addicted to pornography, God can set you free from that. He loves you no bit less. He wants to help you. He’s not here to go, “Haaaaa! I can’t believe you did that!” Smash. That’s not God. But it’s still sin and it will destroy you if you let it have its own way with you.
But there is something bigger than that I want you to see. The reason it’s important to not be sexually active until you are married is because sex before marriage is an insult to sex. It reduces sex to just a feeling. Not because sex is bad; sex is a precious gift from God. But to use it wrongly says that sex is low. It’s like taking a gift from God and tossing it in the sewer. Sex is wonderful because it is a celebration of union, but union becomes cheap if it is not preceded by commitment. God didn’t say, “Hey Israel, I’m going to help you out, but I can’t commit to you.” That’s why fornication is wrong. It’s saying, “I want you to give me gratifying pleasure, but I’m not willing to commit my life to you.” It’s pleasure without commitment which makes it empty.
What I love about this question is that most Christians kind of assume, “Well of course you’re not supposed to have sex before marriage.” But where does the Bible actually say that? Now I agree that abstinence is good, but where does the Bible teach this? If you were talking with someone who disagreed with you, how would you defend your view from Scripture? Does the Bible ever say, “Do not have sex before marriage”?
I want to show you why I believe that we are supposed to practice abstinence. But I also want to tell you why I think that focusing on abstinence is the wrong thing to focus on.
If you are a human, you probably have a sex drive, you probably desire intimacy—that’s natural, that’s how God designed you—and at some point or another, you are tempted to lust. That’s fine. When you focus on abstinence, you focus on what you're not supposed to do. And that’s good. But someone could have a lustful thought and still be physically abstinent. Right? And that’s still sin. Someone could look at pornography and still be physically abstinent. And that’s still sin. We could list all sexual sins, all the way to sex with animals. The focus God wants you to have is a focus of purity, of holiness. If the heart is pure, then it will result in a pure life.
Let me show you why this is important. Job said something that has become a life passage for me, because I get tempted with lust. I have to protect my eyes and be careful where I let them look. This is such a great passage, dudes. Ladies too! Job said,
I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin? (Job 31:1).It’s like Job and his eyes got together and said, “We’re going to make a deal!” “Hey eyes! Let’s make a deal together!” Now what does Job mean? That’s it’s okay to gaze at someone who’s not a virgin? Although the Hebrew word for virgin here, betulah, distinctly means “virgin,” this does not mean Job felt it was okay to indulge in gazing at other men’s wives, as he makes clear later in Job 31:9-10. Generally speaking, a virgin is young, and since younger women generally have been less affected by the effects of gravity and calories, there is going to be stronger temptation to lust after them.
You know what it’s like. You’re walking through a college campus and suddenly this hot girl walks by. And your eyes want to gaze. And you literally have to pull your eyes away from her and look at the ground. You learn to bounce your eyes. Guys, if you’re honest, you know what I’m talking about. And even when you get married it doesn’t deal with lust. It helps, but you still get tempted. My wife and I are very open about these things. That’s the way we men are—women too—but men are very visual.
Job was married when he wrote this. Obviously, marriage did not magically remove his temptation to lust. If Joseph wasn’t tempted to sleep with Potiphar’s wife—and I doubt she was a 350 lb. woman going, “Come here boy!” in a deep, manly voice—he wouldn’t need to run. She was probably good looking. Why did he run? Because he was tempted. He had to get out of there because he couldn’t handle it. He ran because he was so weak, not because he was so strong. When you face the reality of your own weakness it will help you. Be honest and say, “I can’t handle it. I need accountability. I need protection.”
But I still haven’t really answered the question! When we ask if fornication is right or wrong, what we are really asking is a question about the purpose of sex. If you understand the purpose of sex, you then know exactly when to yield to your desires and when not to. Let’s go back to the first marriage to get our answer:
For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh (Gen 2:24).I remember as a kid reading this verse, but the next one made me squirm:
And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed (Gen 2:25).Now this is a weird thought: two people walking around nude, picking fruit off trees. It’s weird to us because we are sinful, not because there is anything wrong with it. It’s a wonderful, beautiful thing. This may sound ridiculous, but there is no need for clothing in heaven—other than the white garments that represent the righteous deeds of the saints (Rev 19:8)—we are not covering up because it’s bad to be naked in heaven. When there is no sin there is no lust. There is total openness. There is no reason to believe that Adam and Eve were going to start getting dressed after they had kids. If they hadn’t sinned, the Garden of Eden would have become a nudist colony.
Genesis 2:25 is a commentary on Genesis 2:24. The reason he says “naked” in verse 25 is because the “joining” in verse 24 is not just spiritual and emotional but also physical. The text suggests an innocent openness and freedom in sex between Adam and Eve.
But here’s the problem: We separate sex from the relationship. It’s sort of like, here’s our spiritual time to study the Bible and now here’s our physical time, let’s make love, and now here’s our emotional time, let’s go on a Valentine dinner. But the Bible doesn’t want you to separate those three. It’s all mixed. They flow into each other. When Paul said in 1 Corinthians 7:3-4 that the husband and wife are supposed to fulfill their duty to each other, he wasn’t saying, “Make sure you have sex all the time!” (although a lot of guys would probably like that). He was saying, “Be intimate all the time.” Now intimacy could be calling up your wife and saying, “You got a really cute butt.” Or it could be the wife leaving a little note for her husband: “I am so in love with you.” Or it could be holding hands on a walk. The reason Moses had to add to that they were not ashamed (Gen 2:25) is because he wrote this after the Fall. The picture Genes 2:24-25 gives us is total oneness between husband and wife.
Sex before marriage is sin because the Bible says do not commit fornication which means any sexual activity outside of marriage (1 Cor 6:9; Heb 13:4). In the day of the New Testament everyone knew what fornication meant—it was not up for discussion. To imply that fornication did not include sex before marriage is to ignore the historical context of the entire New Testament. There has been no historical debate over that question.
Does fornication include masturbation? I know the Bible does not directly say, “Thou shalt not masturbate,” and James Dobson says it’s not a sin. Campus Crusade for Christ says it is. I can see why James Dobson says it’s not a sin because some people say, “When I do it I’m not really lusting in my mind.” My first question to that thinking is: Can someone truly masturbate without lusting in his mind? But more importantly: Why did God give you those desires? To be expressed to someone whom you are married to. Now I know it’s really hard, particularly if you are not married, it can be incredibly difficult. Sometimes the desire is insanely strong. But if you give that desire as a sacrifice of worship to God, wouldn’t it be cool to be able to say, “I don’t have to do what my body wants. I can wait”? That becomes worship. Wouldn’t it be cool to know that even that desire does not dominate you? Aesop was right (even though he was not a Christian), when he said, “The most difficult thing to master is one’s self.” It is easier to conquer the world than to conquer one’s self, which is why the Antichrist, when he does conquer the world, has performed a lesser accomplishment than someone who has the ability to say no to the desire to masturbate. And you can if the Holy Spirit lives within you.
I am not going to say that masturbation is an outright sin, period. And there’s probably some Christians who’d say, “That’s ridiculous, of course masturbation is a sin.” But the Bible doesn’t say that. But again I would ask: Has it become an idol? Is it controlling you or are you controlling it?
If you’re not a virgin, don’t read this and walk away like a dog with it’s tail between its legs, feeling like you’ve gone beyond grace and God can’t forgive you. He wants to and will, if you humble yourself and ask. He loves you no bit less. If you’re addicted to pornography, God can set you free from that. He loves you no bit less. He wants to help you. He’s not here to go, “Haaaaa! I can’t believe you did that!” Smash. That’s not God. But it’s still sin and it will destroy you if you let it have its own way with you.
But there is something bigger than that I want you to see. The reason it’s important to not be sexually active until you are married is because sex before marriage is an insult to sex. It reduces sex to just a feeling. Not because sex is bad; sex is a precious gift from God. But to use it wrongly says that sex is low. It’s like taking a gift from God and tossing it in the sewer. Sex is wonderful because it is a celebration of union, but union becomes cheap if it is not preceded by commitment. God didn’t say, “Hey Israel, I’m going to help you out, but I can’t commit to you.” That’s why fornication is wrong. It’s saying, “I want you to give me gratifying pleasure, but I’m not willing to commit my life to you.” It’s pleasure without commitment which makes it empty.