Sex-U-Ology

Origins: God, Gender, Marriage, and Intimacy

J. A. O'Rourke

• Publisher: Spirit Reign Communications
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781940002606
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Sexualidad y género en la religión

We are swiftly becoming a people whose relational tastes are as varied as cereal brands in the grocery store. The LGBT movement lobbies for marriage equality; Fundamentalist Mormons have Polygamy; We have the "moral" majority of conservative Evangelicals promoting traditional family values; The pornography industry runs rampant; Swingers, Polyamorous relationships have been added to the mix; Friends-with-benefits, and on and on—the list is endless. What was once viewed as the norm is now simply one option among many. Sexual intimacy has been turned into recreational sex and genital entertainment. Marital commitment is entered into based on sentimental "love" at best. Gender has become an emotional preference.To make matters worse, sexual intimacy is seen as a necessary evil—solely intended for procreation. Marital commitment is discardable at will, and gender inequality is more than a myth. Patriarchal/paternal dominance is so palpable globally that it goes unnoticed. Is this what God designed, intended, or wills? Or did God have something greater planned for humanity when He created us?Welcome to Sex-U-ology: an exploration and examination of the image of God.

1

WHY

“In the Beginning God created…”

Let this phrase settle in your minds for a moment. Whatever we believe God’s will for our lives to be, it must model what He first ordained “in the Beginning…”

In today’s world, pop culture suggests how our lives should be lived. Pop culture suggests what job to get, what food to eat, what clothes to wear, how to raise our kids, how to lose weight, what car to drive, and the list goes on and on. Relationally, it portrays to us what the ideal person is, how they dress, how they keep house, what their motives are, and how we keep them. It suggests how to fall in love, how to stay in love, and how to keep love “spicy.” It has something to say about every aspect of our lives. Pop Culture has even said that as long as two people love each other, “Love” is the only thing that matters.

In today’s world, it isn’t even love that matters anymore. Sex is placed above the person one is having sex with. The gratification of the self is supreme. I submit an example to prove the point. What kind of theological and psychological mindset allows a person to molest one’s own little girl, while claiming to be a Christian?¹

Sad to say, even in Christian circles the standard of gender, sexual, and marital interaction has become warped. Even in Christian circles sex is seen as a pastime; a form of entertainment used solely for self-gratification. God is left completely out of the picture. When we try to defend the sanctity of marriage, sexual purity, and gender specificity we have only defended them from a self-centered perspective: “God gave sex to mankind for the enjoyment of mankind and for the procreation of mankind.” Reasons like these are from a purely horizontal perspective, and are not adequate reasons to ensure sexual, gender, and marital purity. We must redefine our reasoning and explanations, and seek to understand gender specificity, sexual intimacy, and marital union from God’s perspective, or the vertical viewpoint. Created beings can theorize and attempt to come up with plans and ideas of what life should be like, how to make it fulfilling with your spouse, or even who your spouse should be. These can be and are based on such things as anthropology, sociology, and psychology to name a few. However, for the Christian, these opinions just won’t do. You see, for the Christian to seek out any being other than God for his or her life direction is to commit idolatry. So we Christians today ought to seek out the only voice that matters in this vast cloud of opinions to see what He has to say about gender, sexuality, and marriage.

A Little Reflection from Genesis

According to the Bible, God created the world in six days, and rested on the seventh day. This can be found in the creation story of Genesis chapters one and two. Colossians 1:14-18 and John 1:1-5 state it was the Second Person of the Godhead, whom we know as Jesus Christ, who actively and personally created everything. So it was Jesus specifically who caused light to shine. Jesus divided the firmament. It was Jesus who placed the sun, moon and stars. Jesus formed the land and grew vegetation. It was Jesus who created every animal, bird, and fish. It was also Jesus who personally got his hands dirty, as he formed man from the dust, breathed into him the breath of life, and man became a living soul. Jesus was personally responsible for creating the image: two genders placed together in marriage, sexually intimate for relational and procreative purposes.

Now let us think about this for one moment: If Satan is the antichrist then he is anti- Christ. So, not only does he hate Jesus Christ, he hates everything He has created, for it reminds him of Jesus Christ. If this is allowable, then it stands to reason that he hates this earthly creation as well. So while Jesus spent a whole week making the earth and life on it, Satan has spent over 6000 years defaming that creation.

Consider this: The last creature that Jesus made was human kind. This was the image of God; a male/female hetero-gendered married couple who was to be sexually active inside the marriage institution. Clearly, Satan’s hatred for the planet and nature can be readily seen in pollution, the extinction of animals, and materialism’s greedy consumption of resources. However, before he reveals himself personally as the antichrist, which all Christians regardless of denomination agree is going to happen, he must destroy God’s image as well. Therefore, he must confuse gender, make sexuality of no value other than an entertainment pastime to be participated in with whomever or whatever one desires, irrespective of marriage, and he must destroy the institution of marriage, countering its meaning and redefining its value. It is only when the whole creation week has successfully been counterfeited that Satan will then reveal himself with all signs and lying wonders to celebrate his destruction of God’s creation.

Bible-believing Christians would not want to be part of the destruction of the image of God by confusing gender relationships. One probably doesn’t want to assist Satan by destroying the divinely ordained marriage institution. It is probably in one’s best interest to not be party to defaming God by participating in sexual intimacy in a way and as a thing less than “sacred”. One does not want to be party to considering God’s creation in a common, cheap, violent, exploitative, self-centered manner. No Bible-believing Christian wants to be responsible for assisting the antichrist by participating in his degraded deceptions.

If this is true, then it would do us good to take some time to meditate on why God would make humanity gendered, married, and sexually intimate. What do those things mean to God? Why should they have meaning to me? Why should I submit to the way of God? It is to these questions that this book is directed.

____________________

¹ Alanna, Secret Sins, 2007

 

2

DESIGN

“In the Beginning…”

What does it mean to be male and female to God? What does our sexuality mean to God? What does marriage mean to God? What does it mean to be Human? What is our reason for existing? What was God’s eternal purpose for us?

Genesis 1:26, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…” David tells us in Psalms 8:5-6 that God made us a “…little lower than the angels…” The word that is used here to describe angels is used in that way only once in the entire Bible. That word is “elohiym” which literally translates “gods” or “divine beings” Mankind was made a little lower than God Himself.

An ancient church father, agrees with this position. Justo Gonzalez, paraphrasing the theology of Irenaeus of Lyons, states that Irenaeus believed the following:

“…the human creature was not made from the beginning in its final perfection. Like a true shepherd, God placed the first couple in Eden. They were not mature beings, but were rather “like children” with their own perfection as such. This means that God’s purpose was that human beings would grow in communion with the divine, eventually surpassing even the angels. The angels are above only provisionally. When the divine purpose is fulfilled in the human creature, we shall be above the angels, for our communion with God will be closer than theirs. The function of the angels is similar to that of a tutor guiding the first steps of a prince. Although the tutor is temporarily in charge of the prince, eventually the prince will rule even the tutor. Humankind is to be instructed, not only by angels but also by the “two hands” of God: the Word and the Holy Spirit. Led by these two hands, humans are to receive instruction and growth always with a view to an increasingly close communion with God. The goal of this process is what Irenaeus calls “divinization”—God’s purpose is to make us ever more like the divine. This does not mean, however, that we are somehow lost in the divine nor that we shall ever be the same as God. On the contrary, God is so far above us that no matter how much we grow in our likeness to the divine we shall always have a long way to go. From this perspective, the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ is not the result of sin. On the contrary, God’s initial purpose included being united with humankind. In fact, the future incarnate Word was the model that God followed in making humans after the divine image. Adam and Eve were so created that after a process of growth and instruction they could become like the incarnate Word.”²

Consider now the words of another author who wrote in the 19th century: “Man (-kind) was the crowning act of God’s creation”, and “designed to be the counterpart of God” ³. Here the author calls us, humanity, the crowning act and the counterpart of God. These are very bold statements. This author is not finished. Consider the following:

All heaven took a deep and joyful interest in the creation of the world and of man. Human beings were a new and distinct order. They were made “in the image of God,” and it was the Creator’s design that they should populate the earth. They were to live in close communion with heaven, receiving power from the Source of all power. Upheld by God, they were to live sinless lives. The holy pair were not only children under the fatherly care of God, but students receiving instruction from the all-wise Creator. They were visited by angels, and were granted communion with their Maker with no obscuring veil between the mysteries of the visible universe; the wondrous works of Him who is perfect in knowledge afforded them an exhaustless source of instruction and delight. The laws and operations of nature, which have engaged men’s study for six thousand years, were opened to their minds by the infinite Framer and Upholder of all. They conversed with leaf and flower and tree—gathering from each the secrets of its life. With every living creature, from the mighty leviathan that playeth among the waters, to the insect mote that floats in the sunbeam, Adam was familiar. He had given to each its name, and he was acquainted with the nature and habits of all. God’s glory in the heavens; the innumerable worlds in their orderly revolutions, the balancing of the clouds, the mysteries of light and sound, of day and night—all were open to the study of our first parents. God created man a superior being; he alone is formed in the image of God, and is capable of partaking of the divine nature, of cooperating with his Creator and executing His plans.”⁴

I must admit that after being molested, I didn’t feel very special. While I was sinning I may have, but immediately after every act with every woman, or after every session of viewing porn, I felt very “un-special”. In fact, I felt as though no one was really interested in me at all. However, according to this above passages, humanity was an order of creation superior to all other beings in the universe, capable of conversing with plant and animal. What is it about humanity that is so special, so superior, aside from the apparent ability to talk to plants and animals? What was I missing? This author has more to say in the following passage:

Family religion is a wonderful power. The conduct of the husband toward the wife and of the wife toward the husband may be such that it will make the home life a preparation for entrance to the family above. Hearts that are filled with the love of Christ can never get very far apart. Religion is love, and a Christian home is one where love reigns and finds expression in words and acts of thoughtful kindness and gentle courtesy. Religion is needed in the home. Only this can prevent the grievous wrongs which so often embitter married life. Only where Christ reigns can there be deep, true, unselfish love. Then soul will be knit with soul, and the two lives will blend in harmony. Angels of God will be guests in the home, and their holy vigils (watchful guarding) will hallow (sanctify) the marriage chamber. Debasing sensuality will be banished. Upward to God will the thoughts be directed; to Him will the heart’s devotion ascend.”⁵

Why had no one ever read this to me? No one in my church had ever told me that intimacy was something angels guarded when I got married. Why? What is it about human sexuality that we have overlooked, misunderstood, and/or ignored? Why are angels allowed to watch and made to guard the activities of the marriage chamber? How can one be sexually intimate with one’s spouse in the marriage chamber and the thoughts ascend to God? How do the actions in the marriage chamber equal heartfelt devotion, or emotionally desirous worship? I submit that the answers to these and many other questions can be found in the Genesis 1-3 account of God creating His image: Man.

Image and Likeness

Our search takes us to Genesis 1:26-27: “And God said, ‘Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him, male and female created He them.”

This text speaks to the equality of man and woman. Each one is in the image of God, and together they are the image of God. One is no more the image of God than the other. The two together, man and woman constitute the image of God according to Genesis 1:26-27.

Genesis 5:1-2 even goes so far as to say that, “…God blessed them and called their name Adam.” This adds force to the previously made statement, for both their names were Adam. Together they constituted Adam. One is no more Adam than the next.

Psalm 139:14 “I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well”. How fearfully and wonderfully made are we? What does all that entail? Why didn’t I feel as marvelous as King David was claiming I was?

It is important that we understand the notion of image for a moment. When the Bible in Genesis says “let us make man in our image, after our likeness…,” it means some unique things. “Image” is defined from the Hebrew word tselem which carries the meanings of to shade, a phantom, or illusionary resemblance, a representative figure. “Likeness”...