Chastity, Passion, and Sex

 

“But chastity means passion." So Mustapha Mond told the Savage of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Huxley painted a picture of a future where pleasure is king and sex is cheap: a world where God made Himself known by His absent and where man made himself independent of the need for God. It was in 1932, that Huxley created his Brave New World. And to a frightening degree, many of the attributes of his fictional world have come to play in the reality we know in modern America.

  In Huxley’s world the family was abolished and sex became a pastime. Human modesty was stripped away at an early age: everybody belonged to everybody. The modern world has not come so far, it is true. We do, though, live in a day and age where promiscuity is accepted as a part of life. Sex has by and large been degraded to nothing more than fun. Many of the past consequences associated with promiscuity can be covered up now in ways they could not be in the past. So while there are no consequences, “eat, drink and be merry; for tomorrow we will die.”

  In the face of such blatant sin, many Christians avoid the subject of sex altogether. They say it is necessary in marriage and evil anywhere else. Then they address it no further. The Bible reiterates over and again that sex outside of the context of Biblical marriage is wrong, but it also says that within the context of marriage sex is a good thing. In I Corinthians 7:3-4, Paul says to husbands and wives, “The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband’s body does not belong to him alone, but also to his wife. “The book Song of Solomon is about the relationship between a wife and husband, and a large part of the relationship portrayed is physical. In The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis says of the physical relationship between a husband and wife, “…this is the body’s share in marriage which, by God’s choice, is the mystical image of the union between God and Man.”

  With the fact that marriage is picture of Christ’s relationship with the church in mind, sex becomes a holy thing. It becomes something valuable, something worth protecting. Christians know, unlike the lost, that sex is more than fun. And in a world where God is abandoned and sex is devalued, it is important for believers acknowledge its worth. Contrary to what society thinks, purity does mean passion. Chastity is not just for nuns living in convents. It is for believers who know the beauty and value of a physical relationship. It is for believers who know that God commands them to be sexually pure, and because of their knowledge honor the marriage bed. Being a human being makes sex a good thing. Being a Christian makes it great.