What does the Bible say about sex and marriage?

What the Bible says

The Bible is not embarrassed about sex. It begins with God making human beings male and female.

So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Gen 1:27

God looked on all he had made, and it "was very good" (Gen 1:31). The body and the delight of man and woman belong to that good creation. Yet one thing God called "not good."

The LORD God also said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make for him a suitable helper.”

Gen 2:18

Marriage is God's answer to that loneliness.

For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

Gen 2:24

Asked about divorce, Jesus went back to these words.

So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.

Matt 19:6

The Song of Songs sings of married love as joy and desire:

For love is as strong as death, its jealousy as unrelenting as Sheol.

Song 8:6

Paul speaks of marriage as mutual duty: each spouse's body belongs to the other (1 Cor 7:4). Neither partner owns the other. Ephesians calls husbands to a love with a pattern:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her

Eph 5:25

This follows the command to "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ" (Eph 5:21). And Hebrews says, "Marriage should be honored by all and the marriage bed kept undefiled" (Heb 13:4).

But the Bible does not say that marriage is the only whole life. Jesus did not marry, and he spoke of those who live unmarried "for the sake of the kingdom of heaven," adding, "The one who can accept this should accept it" (Matt 19:12). Paul writes:

But each man has his own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that.

1 Cor 7:7

Marriage and singleness are both gifts. A single person is not a lesser person, and the church is meant to be their family.

The church's witness

First, the church's historic teaching, stated plainly. The Eastern Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant churches have all taught that sexual relations belong within the faithful, lifelong marriage of one man and one woman. Sex outside marriage and adultery were therefore treated as sin, and sexual relations between two people of the same sex were understood as falling outside that teaching too. At the same time the church rejected as heresy the Manichaean notion that the body and sex are evil. Augustine summed up the goods of marriage as faithfulness, children and a lasting bond, and the Reformers, rejecting compulsory clerical celibacy, upheld marriage as an honourable calling for clergy too.

On Matthew 19, Chrysostom notes that God did not merely put man and woman side by side: "and not bade the husband merely approach his wife, but be joined to her, shewing by this manner of speaking the inseparable bond" Chrysostom.

On singleness, Jerome says the gift of Matthew 19:12 is no matter of chance: "For that is given to those who have sought it of God, who have longed for it, who have striven that they might obtain it" Jerome.

Churches differ among themselves. Catholic and Orthodox churches treat marriage as a sacrament, and most Protestant churches as a covenant ordained by God. They also differ on divorce and remarriage, and on the roles of husband and wife in Ephesians 5. Complementarians read the husband's headship as a duty to lead by self-giving, as Christ does, never as domination; egalitarians take the mutual submission of 5:21 as the passage's frame and its headship language as addressed to its own social order, so spouses now serve each other as equals. Both agree headship gives no licence to harm.

In the original languages

"United" in Genesis 2:24 is davaq (דָּבַק), "to cling, to stick." It is also a word for covenant loyalty. "Flesh" is basar (בָּשָׂר), which often points to the whole person, so "one flesh" has been read as a oneness of the whole life, not only of the body.

The usual New Testament word for sexual sin is porneia (πορνεία), "sexual immorality." It covers sexual relations outside marriage, and Paul treats it as a sin against the body, which is "a temple of the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor 6:19).

Common objections

"Biblical sexual ethics is outdated repression." Part of this is right: the church has sometimes taught about sex through shame and silence, and has condemned wounded people. But the Bible itself delights in love. Its restrictions are there not to crush people but to keep the body and its promises from being treated lightly. John's Gospel tells how Jesus spoke to a woman caught in adultery: "Then neither do I condemn you... Now go and sin no more" (John 8:11). (The story is absent from the earliest manuscripts of John, but the church has long treasured it.) Grace and truth go together.

"Refusing to affirm same-sex love wounds people." This is the objection that most deserves a hearing. Some people were mocked and turned away in churches because of their sexuality, and their pain is real. If the church has despised them or excused violence, that is sin to repent of. Here Christians divide. The Catholic and Orthodox churches and most Protestant churches worldwide keep the historic teaching. They read the creation pattern (Genesis 1-2, Matthew 19:4-6) and the Bible's direct texts as defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman, and so do not affirm same-sex sexual relationships. Some Christians who experience same-sex attraction share this view and live faithful, celibate lives, sustained by friendship in the church. Some Protestant churches, mainly in Europe and North America, read those texts as about exploitative relations, or hold that the whole thrust of Scripture on love and justice, with the Spirit's guidance, calls for a new understanding, and so they bless same-sex marriages. These churches usually say they honour Scripture and marital faithfulness too. The historic teaching remains that of most churches worldwide. What both sides must hold is clear: every person bears God's image, no one is to be despised or harmed, and no church should close its door on anyone.

"The Bible's words on marriage excuse abuse." Ephesians' call to submit has at times been used to oppress wives or make them endure violence. But Scripture sanctions no abuse. Malachi says that the man who divorces his wife "covers his garment with violence" (Mal 2:16). Paul says, "Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them" (Col 3:19), and Peter tells husbands to treat wives "with honor" (1 Pet 3:7). A husband who takes Christ's love as his pattern cannot coerce, strike or crush. If you suffer violence or coercion from a spouse or anyone close to you, that is not God's will and it is not yours to bear in silence. Get to safety and ask for help from emergency services or a domestic-abuse helpline.

Going further

What the Bible says about marriage and sex is not a list of prohibitions but a picture of love: the faithfulness that gives itself to the other, as Christ gave himself for the church. The married keep that promise afresh each day; the single receive their calling as honourable within the church's love. To those with a broken relationship or a painful past, Christ gives a new beginning, not condemnation.

Some questions to ask yourself. Do I see sex and the body as God's gifts, or only through shame and fear? If I am married, do I try to possess my partner? Do I show those who struggle over these questions welcome rather than contempt?

To read further, see What is love? and Does the Bible put women down?.