In Passo, Germany, there is a cathedral and our brother, Paul Bishop, some time ago, was visiting there and admiring as he was seated in the midst of a concert, the exquisite design and carving of the pulpit that stands in a commanding position in the front. All of a sudden, he happened to look up and notice much to his surprise that their suspended above the pulpit was another pulpit. This one, a miniature replica of the pulpit below. In every detail, it was exactly like the one below except for one. There, standing behind the pulpit in the position of the one who would be sounding forth the message, was a carving of a dove, the emblem of the Holy Spirit.
This is a wonderful visual aid for me because it is a reminder of my prayer that God would enable this congregation always to hear a better sermon than is preached. It's my prayer that when from this pulpit below, something is taught that is perhaps distressing or confusing, that you having your ears tuned to the pulpit that is above will be benefited by the Holy Spirit who will bring clarity and certitude and elaborate that message for your blessing. When it's the case that's from the pulpit below, you might hear some error, some mistaken notion, that God by His Spirit would so answer our prayers that He would cause you to immediately forgive and to forget that which you heard. And it is also my prayer that if by the grace of God you should hear some truth coming out of the pulpit below, that the Holy Spirit would do His work to write His word on our hearts and cause us to live and believe His truth. Last Sunday I attempted to continue to work out some of the implications of our studies on the subject of the Bible's view of marriage and sexual intimacy. For the benefit of those of you who may not have been here over the previous weeks, it's my premise that everywhere in the Bible, in some texts explicitly, marriage is identified as a covenant. And because it is a covenant, a relationship over which God super intends, because it is a covenant, there is in marriage some gesture, some action which is appointed by God to be the means by which that covenant is ratified and renewed. This is the case with every covenant. It's the case with marriage. And it is furthermore than our arguments that in many texts, that gesture, that is the means by which marriage is ratified, and renewed, is true union. That this is the means that God has appointed for us in a solemn act to invoke God, whether we are aware of it or not, to hold us accountable, to love our spouse as one flesh, to love her as that one flesh bond that is now being depicted. And likewise, because it has that meaning in terms of what God views it as, it has a similar meaning with respect to our spouse. It's saying to her or to him, honey, I love you so much that I want to hear by marry you all over again. It's a way of renewing our pledge of love to our husband, to our wife. Well, this is all very fine, but naturally it then begs the question, if we have such a view of marriage, what is the implication and sexual intimacy and marriage, what's the implication for pre-marital sex? I'm aware that the things that I shared with you must make you imagine, particularly those who are new to the church, that I must be some sort of throwback to the enderthal. And even if God has so blessed you as to have had a wonderfully chaste life up to this moment, every one of us is subject to the constant glare of the propaganda of mass culture that is constantly eroding our moral sensibilities, and so we're no longer even capable for the most part of thinking straight about right and wrong. I'm reminded of David Wells' insightful comment that worldliness is what makes sin look normal in any age and righteousness seem odd. In any case, and last Sunday we tried to apply these insights to the issue of pre-marital sex. I admit that at first I felt a little concerned that maybe I was coming across as a bit severe, hopefully not condemnatory, but nevertheless honest in terms of the Bible's presentation. I was encouraged, after the fact, by an avalanche of emails, letters, telephone conversations and so on, some of which kind of went out of their way to talk about how helpful this was. And I think particularly of one, and I'm sharing every one of the things I will share with you this morning. I want to put you at ease right away. I have received the permission of the people who wrote these things or said them to share these things with you. But one sister indicated what a breath of fresh air this standard was that I was upholding. In a previous church, her youth pastor was of a different opinion, and his judgment, a pre-marital sex, was not a huge thing, so long as a couple genuinely had feelings of love for one another. And incidentally, he felt this way toward her, and it wasn't long thereafter that he then invited her to sleep with him, and they did so sometime after that. He impregnated her several months later, he left her for another woman. And of course, this was utterly devastating to her, and only this past week that she rededicate her life to Christ, coming back in the ministry of the Lord in the sense of forgiveness. And it made me realize this is not slavery, this is freedom. There were others who questioned why did I not use better judgment in choosing a passage other than the very troubling passage that I used, which was the account in 2 Samuel 13 of Amman and Tamar. One brother wondered whether that was because the Bible actually has precious little to say about the subject of pre-marital sex. And by way of response, I would have to say that I think we have to honestly acknowledge it's true the Bible is not cramped with admonitions on this subject. And we might wonder why. Is it the case that God is taking an attitude of relative indifference, that it's perfectly fine, whatever goes on between a couple, so long as they love each other? Or is it rather the case that maybe in the biblical world men and women were wired a little differently than they are now, and that they frankly didn't have the temptations that we face with respect to pre-marital intimacy? Well, my answer I suggest for you to consider is actually neither of these things are true. God has a very strong opinion about our sexual behavior. Your body is not your own. You're bought with a price. You belong to Christ. Whatever you do with your body you're implicating Jesus in it. So yes, he cares very much about how we live. We can't just be dismissive and say it's my body. I can do with it as I please. If it's your body you're in deep trouble because that means you don't belong to Jesus Christ. His blood did not buy you body and soul. But if you do belong to him, then it matters. But neither is it the case that the Bible is suggesting as I say that somehow people were immune from temptation in the biblical world. I think the answer is just very simply this. That for cultural reasons pure and simple. Opportunity for pre-marital sex in the biblical world was virtually nil. We know for example from Roman law that the minimum age for marriage for women was 12 and for men 14. In the Jewish Talmud some centuries later, likewise the minimum ages are the same 12 for women and 14 for men. Now of course those are minimums. Those aren't averages. But averages we have plenty of attestation for. We have tons of marriage documents that have survived from all over the ancient Near East. Going back to the third millennium BC all through the second millennium and first millennium and down into the New Testament period. And throughout all that period it is uniformly the case that women and men typically men but women in every case got married in their mid teens. There are some variations with respect to men. It's true. We know for example in the neo-Babylonian period. The neo-Babylonian documents from the seventh centuries to the third centuries depict for us and give us evidence of women going into marriage starting at age 14 and no older than age 20. And the men were roughly a decade earlier than that. And the reason for that in the neo-Babylonian period was that men waited until their own fathers had died and they were able to enter into marriage with the benefit of the inheritance that they enjoyed. Likewise later on among the Greeks some of you may be aware that again the women would all get married ages 14 to 20 but the men would put off marriage until after compulsory military service. But other than those rare exceptions where the men in a certain number of cultures would postpone marriage until their 20s. The vast majority of cases men and women both were getting married in their mid to late teens. And so no wonder the Bible is far more preoccupied with the subject of adultery than it is with the matter of premarital intimacy. There just was not anything corresponding to our modern practice of dating. Having said that it's not the case that the Bible leaves us in a quandary as to God's opinion on the matter. There are a number of absolutely crystal clear texts that guide us in this matter. One for example and I'd like to have you turn to it because we'll walk through it with a little more care is Exodus chapter 22 verse 16 and 17. Exodus chapter 22 beginning at verse 16. If a man seduces a virgin who is not pledged to be married and sleeps with her, he must pay the bride price and she shall be his wife. If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him, he shall still pay the bride price for virgins. Let me first point out the obvious that what we have here is an example of what's called case law rather than apodictic law or a categorical imperative like love your neighbor or something like that. This is a case law. It's an if then clause. It's a case. It's a specific case that the biblical reader is supposed to mine and explore and discover the underlying principles and then apply them much more broadly. So for example you don't go crazy insisting on all the conditions of the case to be met. For instance if in your situation your girlfriend happens to be an orphan, the text here mentions how the father has a right to refusal, you don't say okay this doesn't apply to me, we can just go ahead and sleep together. No you apply the principles and see what is intended by the text so let's walk through it and see what is intended. First of all the first stipulation is seducing if a man seduces a virgin. How the language of seducing does in fact imply that the man is taking the initiative in this relationship and perhaps because of that assumption he then is required to take the initiative in repentance. He's the one who's supposed to pursue a marriage as a response to the commitment that has been depicted in bed. In other words the woman is not supposed to feel that it's her responsibility to beg the man to live up to this marital ideal of the one flesh love that has been solemnly depicted before God. What is perhaps more important in the language of seduction is this assures us that the woman has given her consent. In other words this differentiates this case from one of rape. The Bible is not making this requirement in the instance of coerced sex. What we are talking about is consensual relations even if that consent is one through seduction. Secondly the next stipulation if a man seduces a virgin the text stipulates it's a virgin. This word is probably the best we can do in English but it is surely misleading. This is not in case you're interested. This is not the word that appears in the prediction in Isaiah chapter 7 of the virgin birth of the coming Messiah. That's another word. This word is a word that designates an age category. Technically it has nothing to do with implying chastity as such or technical virginity. What it means is a woman who is a marriageable age up until she becomes a mother. For example in Joel chapter 1 this very word appears where we read more like a virgin in sackcloth grieving for the husband of her youth. You're not talking about technical virginity there but what you are talking about is a woman who's not yet a mother. It's a category a status age status in your life. Here is the terrible sorrow of a woman grieving for the loss of her husband before they've had the pleasure of having a child to carry on his name or to be of comfort to her. In any case the text then is insisting by this stipulation that this woman is of sufficient age to be able to give willful consent. She's got the capacity to agree rather than some bear child. On the other hand the text goes on and the legal crafting I think is something that is exemplary here. To then stipulate that this virgin is one who's not pledged to be married. Now why would that be added? Well of course the point is in this case to exclude the possibility of adultery. So now on the one hand because it mentions seducing we know it's not rape and on the other hand because this woman is eligible she's not engaged to be married not the trove then it's not a case of adultery. It may help you to be aware that in the biblical world their engagements were a little bit more like our wedding vows. That is they were in fact the trove by virtue of an engagement and during the period of engagement the man would be called the husband and the woman would be called the wife even though the marriage hadn't been consummated. This is the case for example in the New Testament where Mary and Joseph are called husband and wife even though their marriage hadn't been consummated. Nevertheless the Old Testament law views that relationship as an already committed one and therefore protects it by the laws of adultery. So any infidelity would be viewed as adulterous against your fiance. Now maybe even in our culture we would hold that high standard for fidelity in our engagements. Case then the text goes on and gives us the hypothesis the then clause. Okay so what happens if all this happens if if a man seduces of woman who is of maturity sexually mature available not married to another and sleeps with her then he must pay the bride price and she shall be his wife. Now I know in our modern context this we take a certain umbrage at this language of pay the bride price this seems very demeaning to women from our perspective it reduces them we would think to a commodity doesn't it strike you that way. But unfortunately the real problem is again in the English it's associations we might have with the word bride price I prefer calling it a marriage present because what it was was not purchasing the woman it's the very opposite of that it's a marvelous provision that assures everyone of the honorable intentions of this man. And what it was was a gift that the man would make that would first go to his future in-laws to his father and mother-in-law and then on the wedding day they would add to that wealth whatever further inheritance they would like to pass on to this daughter who's getting married and they would bundle it all up in what's called the dowry you may have heard that expression. The dowry would then have all of this money that came from the husband plus additional money that would now go to the wife and you say well why does the man do that why not just give it directly to her well you see this eliminates any dispute in the event of the breakdown of a marriage it provides a marvelous financial disincentive for divorce. It protects the wife in the aftermath of a breakdown of a marriage the husband can't say oh wait a minute no that was my CD player no no the Honda's mine and all the house's mine to instead the husband the suitor the the man before the marriage passes it all through the hands of the father and mother-in-law so it's a matter of public record. That the assets have been transferred to the legal ownership of the wife their hers and if the husband should die they are his her insurance policy the dowry reverts to the wife and will be the basis for her ongoing care and so on. So I would I'd liken it a little bit to a prenuptial agreement only the opposite most people do prenuptial agreements in order to protect their assets. The biblical prenuptial agreement is in order to turn your assets over to your spouse make it clear just how much she is stolen your heart how much you love her and how therefore secure this relationship will be for her well then we go on and there's a subsidiary clause in verse 17 if her father absolutely refuses to give her to him then what well of course he still has to pay the money. So why this this possibility of forbidding the marriage well the Old Testament law his fathers and mothers protective custody guardianship over their children numbers chapter 30 just as a general principle a father can disallow any vows made by his minor children by his daughters if they sign up for an encyclopedia set by a traveling salesman or whatever they can say all bets are off. This is done not to be mean about to serve the interest to protect the interests of the daughter and I would assume that's the case here too that the father wouldn't just be nasty and say no you can't marry him but would assess whether in fact his daughter who may be of legal age but might be of diminished mental capacity. And might therefore out of protective concern say no this was not willful consent or there were other extenuating circumstances that had this relationship come about or maybe the father is thinking in noticing in a way that he can see more objectively than a love struck daughter that the man in question is not genuinely repenting he's just acting out of guilt feelings or social pressure because he thinks you're supposed to have a shotgun marriage at this point any father worth assault is going to prohibit such a marriage the only kind of marriage that ought to follow this kind of repentance is what we see exhibited in the narrative of she comes a relationship and seduction of dyna you know the text we talked about before this in genesis 34 when she come saw this beautiful daughter dyna of daughter of Jacob he took her and had his way with her just like in this text an exodus but afterward his heart clove to dyna the daughter of Jacob the very same word genesis uses to describe marital commitment she wasn't meddling him you know you got to make me an honest woman or something so his heart was smitten with her committed to her and he loved her the text said any spoke tenderly to her and then by the way he fast up and spoke to his own father and then he told her father and her brothers and said I'll pay any marriage present you ask only please let us get married that's the kind of response God requires not shotgun marriages but shot gun love a marital love that lives up to God's appointed depiction in sexual union in the one flesh bond where you prefer the interests of this other person to your own you love her with all your heart well now how might we apply these things to ourselves you say well my my father I'm not sure I trust his judgment or you may wonder maybe don't even have an ongoing relationship with your parents or something like this and I hear I with great dividends would suggest the possibility that that protective responsibility devolves onto brothers and sisters in Christ if you don't have parents that can can show her it after all we all need we need this kind of protection in safeguard for our decisions don't we because you and I all have an almost infinite capacity to dilute ourselves when it comes to matters of the heart we'd love to believe that he loves us with all his heart when it's far from clear to anyone else and so I'd say fine maybe within the body of Christ we provide appropriate checks and balances for one another but nevertheless to my knowledge nowhere does the Bible set aside this ideal or this understanding of an appropriate repentance last Sunday as you know I use second Samuel chapter 13 as my text and I recognize that it is more problematic it's very difficult to work your way through the psychological layering of the text because there is an element a strong element in the passage of coercion on the part of Amman one email that came to me and again I read these only with permission one email said my parents who out to be non Christians came to visit last weekend and thought your sermon on what is sex wasn't their words the best they'd heard on the subject I don't know I didn't know there were that many that are out there but anyway so thank you for breaking down some stereotypes of Christianity in their minds yesterday sermon however bothered me I agree with the old were all message I think it's an important one but you should have picked an example but you should have picked another passage statistically speaking many of the women in this congregation have been sexually abused in some way and the implication by the choice of second Samuel 13 that marrying the person who abused you is generally in God's will was very hard to listen to you've got to clarify this in the coming weeks well that's why I by the way skipped my plan shelved it to preach on divorce this morning because I'm trying to clarify that misunderstanding you're absolutely right the story of Amman and Tamar could not be more forthright in condemning everything about Amman what he did to Tamar is of course rape now I know Amman claims that he loved her he says to his body I'm in love with Tamar my brother apslam sister and so on but the world is filled as we all know with people who claim to do things in love when really it's just hate masquerading as love are there a lot of folks who will even bring correction or try to point out your faults lovingly when in reality they're just trying to rip you to shreds or setting you up to tear you up down or whatever we know about that kind of hatred that master aides itself as love the Bible not surprisingly takes the most strenuous view with respect to rape given its positive view of sexual intimacy and marriage you the two just fit hand and glove because it sees sexual intimacy is such a sacred thing naturally the abuse of that could not be more firmly punished in a second Samuel 13 and 14 we go on to read in fact how God arranged for the execution of Amman for what he did this is entirely in keeping with Deuteronomy 22 that stipulates that where there is a rape the appropriate punishment under Old Testament law was in fact death one of the more interesting and I think encouraging aspects of that legislation incidentally in Deuteronomy 22 25 is the way the Bible takes the woman's viewpoint in this matter takes her side of course everything in a rape depends on consent the presence or lack thereof and you say well what about in the case where there are no witnesses how do you establish whether the woman gave consent or not the biblical the biblical view on this matter based on this law is that if the woman says the sexual advances of her attacker were unwelcome then you know what they were unwelcome and if they were unwelcome if she does not give her consent then that person is liable to the punishment of capital execution the law itself reads this way if out in the country a man happens to meet a girl pledge to be married and rapes her only the man who has done this shall die the point here is to differentiate this case from one of adultery she gets off of course free because she's done nothing wrong do nothing to the girl she's committed no sin this case is like that of someone who attacks and murders his neighbor I think that's a wonderfully therapeutic insight there in our situation it's true that very often a women who have endured this unspeakable abuse often are left to feel terrible shame one of my dear friends told me how her parents would keep asking why did you go out on that lonely trail in the woods of Gloucester when you know that's such a dangerous thing and to her it kept coming across as you had it coming the Bible couldn't take a more diametrically opposite viewpoint it tells us no this case is like that of someone who attacks and murders his neighbor if something has been done that is repulsive in shameful it's what the murderer has done not what the victim has had to endure it's the murder who's guilty before God of course Tamar does in fact speak of her experience of disgrace if we looked at the text you would see that but it's the undeserved false sense of shame that comes from someone who's been humiliated not because she's done anything wrong it's the sense of degradation from being used and then thrown out and it's this sense of shame that our Lord Jesus most wonderfully can minister to because he's been there the Bible tells us we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses but one who in every way has been tested as we are yet was without sin it's no accident that when Jesus was abused by his accusers and by those who were about to crucify him that they exposed him to the humiliation of nakedness they degraded him they crucified him naked on the cross the scripture describes it is how he endured the cross scorning its shame Jesus uses the words of Psalm 69 with reference to himself and in verse 19 it says you know how I am scorned disgrace and shamed all my enemies are before you of course Jesus would minister to that one woman wrote that being said please know that God worked in me powerfully through the service yesterday the pain it brought up allowed me to cry afterwards about issues relating to a sexually abusive relationship I experienced during high school I've been dealing with my past over the last few weeks but very numbly and a good cry was exactly what I needed as usual our amazing father works miraculously through all circumstances here's one woman who was listening to the sermon that was preached from that pulpit above I pray that you too will listen to the spirit's message he who touches you touches the apple of his eye so then what is the lesson of amnon and tamar certainly not to approve of the horror of rape but neither should we criticize tamar for anything she says it seems to me she says sending me away would be a greater wrong than what you have already done to me tamar had no moral obligation whatsoever she had no obligation to say such a thing she had every right to just walk out of that room and consign amnon to the punishment that was his due as a rapist I want you to hear that she had no obligation to say this nevertheless she still considered it his obligation amnon's obligation to repent of his sexual act with marital love that wasn't her obligation that's his and I argue that if this is what tamar's view of the situation is in that terribly painful circumstance how much more does this apply where there is a much greater degree of consent of course ideally intimacy should always be the expression of self giving love it should always be a way of showing the other that you prefer their interest to your own it should never be motivated by just self gratification the way it was with amnon of course but even if less worthy motives are behind it God's view of it is not to just wash his hands of it but to hold you accountable to live up to that standard that he has the apostle Paul and the text I read in first Corinthians 6 says do you not know that he who unites himself with the prostitute is one with her in body for it is said the two will become one flesh you can't get less committed relationships than that it is purely a commercial enterprise for self gratification yet Paul uses the language of marriage to describe what wouldn't hypothetical circumstances take place you know it's true also even within marriage one man shared how he and his girlfriend were chased right through their entire dating and honeymoon I mean not not a honeymoon engagement sorry almost threw us off here I'm strict but not that strict but then on his honeymoon night for reasons he can't even explain he was far too aggressive in coming to his virgin bride and the result for her was to be utterly terrorized by the experience it was months before they recovered a happily they've now been married for more than 30 years and have a wonderful marriage but you see the point is everywhere in all of our marital relations we are never free from this requirement to consider the interests of the other before our own into live up to that one flesh bond well there were more than 50 emails I'll post some of the questions and answers on our web page if you're interested in hearing some of them I try to respond as well as I can maybe just a couple others quickly what do you do if you slept with your girlfriend or boyfriend and he has no interest in marriage now what and I just say well then you're like Tamar Tamar's response once and then slam the door was not the camp outside the door and knock until he had a change of mind no Tamar instead expresses her experience in terms of all the gestures of a widow who's lost her lover she feels like a death has taken place Tamar put ashes on her head tore her long sleeve garment that was on her and put her hand on her head and went the way crying aloud as she went and like any widow of course she is perfectly qualified from this point on to enter into another marriage another question that somebody asked what if you had a long string of boyfriends and girlfriends now what well the Bible tells us for sure confession is always mandatory therefore if you're offering your gift at the altar and there remember your brother has something against you leave your gift there go first be reconciled to your brother then come and offer your gift there may be many you have injured in your past and if God brings these to your heart your conscience by his Holy Spirit it's never wrong to confess to those who may be holding something against you but the Bible insists that what counts is now in terms of your ongoing behavior David should never have married Bathsheba he should never have committed adultery he should never have murdered her husband but once all that is taken place now when Nathan the prophet speaks to him now the job at hand is to love Bathsheba as Christ loves the church you don't go back and try to undo all the past you could never unravel the mess you start with obedience right now and maybe finally one asked what if it's too late she wrote things just seems so horribly messed up and I feel like my mind is poisoned from it all so that I have to battle daily against my mind being dragged back into the pit later she says maybe I'm just not capable of having a godly relationship with anyone it's never never too late to repent when the woman taken adultery was brought before Jesus he said not now your life is ruined but neither do I condemn you go now and sin no more the scriptures could not be more infantic on this point the creator of the universe spoke he said let there be light and what was the result there was light the creator of the universe now the one through whom all things have been created incarnate in Jesus Christ says to you you are now clean and when he says you're clean you're clean you possible and first Corinthians 6 says sure the sexually immoral will not inherit the kingdom of God and that's what some of you were but you were washed you were sanctified you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our God if anyone's in Christ he's a new creature the oldest gone the new has come Apostle Paul speaks of Christ work using this marital imagery in Ephesians 5 he says yes husbands love your wives as Christ love the church as Christ love the church you and me every one of us think of who we really are those who have failed so miserably to live up to his holy and righteous standards nevertheless the Bible tells us that Christ love the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy cleansing her by the washing with the water through the word and to present her to himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish but holy and blameless he has made us to be his virgin bride even though our own past is anything but righteous and virginal and so may it be for all of us that we would receive his word of cleansing let us pray our Father in heaven we thank you for that work the Savior has done we thank you that we are not our own but we were bought with a price the price of the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ even as a lamb without spot her blemish and we pray then that from henceforth we would live as those who know they belong to you and would honor you Lord Jesus with our bodies we pray in Christ name Amen