We’ve been working our way through the Beatitudes. After dealing with anger, Jesus turns His focus to another important subject.

27 “You have heard that it was said, Do not commit adultery. 28 But I tell you, everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to go into hell. (Matthew 5:27-30)

The first thing I want you to see is that Jesus affirms the Bible’s teaching about sex. Remember: Jesus is the fulfillment of the law. He’s not come to loosen or invalidate or “abolish” it in any way. He’s all about the law because the law is all about him. So it’s not surprising that the first thing Jesus does is affirm a biblical view of sex. Look at v. 27.

27 “You have heard that it was said, Do not commit adultery.

When Jesus affirms that married people should not have sex outside of their marriage, he is affirming sex within marriage and how important it is for a marriage. 

Makes sense right? The fact that Jesus is PROHIBITING sex OUTSIDE of marriage is, more positively put, an AFFIRMATION of the importance and beauty and goodness of sex WITHIN MARRIAGE.

You don’t have to read your Bible too carefully to see this. 

Do you remember when God brings Eve to Adam, and Adam starts singing a love ballad? “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” And let’s not forget that they are both nude at this time. No sooner has the universe come into existence than does a naked man sing a love song about his naked wife.

Search through the book of Proverbs. You’ll find PLENTY of passages to help you celebrate and enjoy marital “relations.”

Song of Solomon ….. Where do I even begin with the Song of Solomon?! Your Bible translators lose their nerve when translating some of the Hebrew in the Song of Solomon that celebrate sex within marriage. 

So you see, the Bible has a very positive view about sex within marriage … and because it has such a positive view about it in marriage, it has a very NEGATIVE view of it outside of marriage.

Jesus … the Bible … understands something about sex that the world at large desperately needs and even intellectually understands … but simply can’t find its way to accept. I love the way Tim Keller puts it so well, I’m just going to say it like he says it: “Sex is a COVENANT good, not a CONSUMER good.”

We’ll look at this more in our next post.