Are we married through sex "bible."

Having sex "makes you one flesh", and that is something that should be reserved for marriage.

As for Mark 10: "a man shall...be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh". That's two things that should happen, not one.

The Bible says that marriage happens when “a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). It is the “one flesh” aspect of marriage that has led some people to assume that, if an unmarried couple has sex, then they are married in God’s eyes. Is it as simple as that? Or is there more to marriage than the physical act of sex?

Sexual intercourse is the sign God has given between a husband and a wife—hence “one flesh” in Genesis 2. Now if you really press this issue, most Christians will admit that the Bible teaches that sex is the covenant sign of marriage. We know this because we speak of sex as “consummating” a marriage.

Sex and marriage have become radically separated in modern society. It is now commonplace for men and women to sleep together, live together, and even have children together without ever “getting married.” Sex often is seen as a meaningless bodily act, and marriage is viewed as a piece of paper that one signs for government benefits.

Nothing could be further from the truth, yet many Christians have adopted this same mindset. Sadly, the majority practice of pastors today is to advise unmarried couples engaged in sexual relations to separate (repent), abstain from sex, and then marry months down the road if both parties are Christians (instead of marrying quickly).

And if one party is not a Christian, the pastor typically advises the couple to break up permanently (making the sex act meaningless). This line of thinking has gotten to the point where pastors will even tell a pregnant woman to not marry the father because he is not a Christian ( John Piper and Tim Challies address this question).

The problem with this advice is that it has no biblical basis. God views marriage as a covenant, and He views sexual union as a binding covenantal act. Sex either makes, breaks, or renews the marriage covenant. This is not how secular culture views things, and it is not how most Christians view things.

But we should want to follow God’s ways and not our own. Due to the culture’s changing sexual and marital practices, it is more important than ever that we develop a sound theology of sex and marriage.

What Is Marriage?

In order to view marriage the way God views it, we must go to the Bible. And the first thing we learn about marriage in Scripture is that God instituted it as a one-flesh relationship between a man and a woman. God made both male and female in His image (Genesis 1:27), and He made male and female for one another:

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh (Genesis 2:24).

God made man and woman to complement each other in marriage, with the woman as a “helper” for the man (Genesis 2:18). This relationship is for our good, and it provides companionship, children, and holiness.[1]

Notice, however, that Genesis 2 never mentions the word “marriage.” Instead, Genesis defines marriage as a “one flesh” relationship between a man and a woman. The reason it does this is that the Bible views sexual complementarity as central to the marriage relationship. Men and women are sexual beings, and this affects them in their entirety—how they speak, think, act, dress, etc. Marriage therefore takes place when a male and a female come together in monogamous sexual union.

This centrality of sexual union to marriage should be obvious, but both our secular culture and the modern church seek to separate sex from marriage. The culture does it to justify its promiscuity; the church does it to perpetuate its dualistic rejection of the physical world.

Marriage as a Covenant

In order to elaborate on this concept, we must understand that marriage is a covenantal relationship and thus has a covenant sign. What is meant by a “covenant”? A covenant is a relationship of obligation sealed with an oath. A covenant is similar to a contract, though a covenant is bound specifically by an oath before God. The covenantal elements of marriage are seen in Genesis 2.

Marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman, and it entails the obligation to become one in all they do—physically, spiritually, and relationally.

Marriage is explicitly identified as a covenant in Malachi 2:14:

Because Yahweh was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant.

The man here is said to be “faithless” to the “covenant” he made with his wife, a covenant to which God was “witness.” Proverbs 2:17 also speaks of an adulteress woman as forsaking “the companion of her youth” and forgetting “the covenant of her God.”

So marriage is a covenant . And all covenants have signs—the rainbow in the Noahic covenant, circumcision in the Abrahamic covenant, baptism in the new covenant, etc. So what is the covenant sign in marriage? You guessed it. It is sex (not the wedding ring!) Vows are not sufficient to make a marriage, as a couple that makes vows and never has sex can still get the marriage annulled, both by the church and by the state.

Sex as Covenant-Inauguration

Sex is the sign of the marriage covenant, and the act is necessary for marriage. However, this raises a pressing question—what is the place of marriage vows? Most Christians today, including most pastors, claim that people enter the marriage covenant through marital vows in a wedding ceremony. But where does the Bible say anything about vows at a wedding ceremony?

The answer is nowhere. Some will respond that a covenant is ratified by an oath, and this is true. But if no text stipulates a verbal oath, then we must assume an oath-sign, which Genesis 2:24 shows is the “one flesh” union of a man and woman.

Not only does the Bible teach that a verbal oath or vow is unnecessary to the marriage covenant, but it also teaches that sex is the covenant-making sign of marriage. In other words, the Bible regards sex as a covenantal and thus marital act. The following are examples in Scripture where sexual union is considered a covenant-inaugurating act that alone makes a couple married:

In Genesis 24:67, Isaac brought Rebekah into the tent “and took Rebekah, and she became his wife.” Their sexual union, not a ceremony, made Rebekah the wife of Isaac.

In Genesis 29:23-25, Jacob intended to marry Rachel, and a feast was thrown for Jacob and Rachel. However, Laban tricked Jacob that night by bringing him Leah, and Jacob “went in to” Leah (a euphemism for sex) and was now her husband. Though Jacob intended to marry Rachel, he never questioned that Leah was now his wife and not Rachel.

In Deuteronomy 21:10-14, the law is given that if a man sees a beautiful woman among captives and he desires to take her as his wife, he must allow her to mourn for one month. After this, he “may go in to her and be her husband, and she shall be [his] wife” (v. 13). The man’s “going in to her” is the only thing mentioned in the marriage process.

Deuteronomy 25:5 gives instructions for a Levirate marriage, in which a brother is to marry his deceased brother’s son-less wife. The brother “shall go in to her and take her as his wife” ( Gen 38:8). Again, “going in to her” is synonymous with becoming married.

Ezekiel 16:8 speaks of a marital “vow” (or “swore an oath”) as a metaphor for which God “entered into a covenant” with Israel. At first this appears to be a verbal vow, but the context shows that the vow is the act of sexual union, as the woman is at “the age for love” and the passage uses euphemisms for sex.

It should be clear from these passages that the Bible views sex as covenantal. Sex is a meaningful act, as it is invocational and calls God as witness to the covenant made between a man and a woman. A wedding ceremony is not where the covenant sign takes place, for vows do not make the covenant. The covenant is made through the oath-sign of sexual union.

Premarital Sex as a Covenantal Act

This brings us to the issue of “premarital” sex. If sex is covenantal, then is there such a thing as premarital sex? Well, yes and no. If all sex is covenantal, then no, in one sense there is no such thing as “premarital” sex. Sex either makes, renews, or breaks a covenant. Two virgins who have sex are engaging in a covenant-making act.

Certainly they should have parental consent and walk down the aisle first, but their sexual intercourse it not “premarital”—it is covenantal and thus marital.

But in another sense, there is still “premarital” sex in that a man can have sex with a virgin woman without the permission of her father. This is a sin against the woman’s father, who is her covenantal authority. There are in fact cases of such “premarital” sex in the Bible, in which very practical commands are given.

(Sadly, these passages are almost always left out of any discussion of “premarital” sex.) Since a father had covenantal authority over his daughter in the Old Testament, the Mosaic law provided a possible annulment if the father absolutely refused the marriage:

If a man seduces a virgin who is not betrothed and lies with her, he shall give the bride-price for her and make her his wife. If her father utterly refuses to give her to him, he shall pay money equal to the bride-price for virgins (Exodus 22:16-17).

If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found, then the man who lay with her shall give to the father of the young woman fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife, because he has violated her. He may not divorce her all his days (Deuteronomy 22:28-29).

Exodus 22 is an example of a man who seduces an unbetrothed virgin and has sexual intercourse with her (“lies with her”). The case here seems to be consensual on the woman’s part (the man “seduces” her), and while Deuteronomy 22 uses stronger language (“seizes her,” “violated her”), it was still likely consensual.

Either way, the Exodus passage requires the man to marry the woman he had sex with, unless the father of the woman absolutely refuses the marriage. In this case, the marriage is annulled and the man must still pay the bride-price for the woman as compensation, as the woman’s marriage value has diminished since she is no longer a virgin. The Deuteronomy passage does not mention the father’s option of refusal but rather requires the man to pay the bride-price and marry the woman and never divorce her.

In both cases, there were serious consequences for sexual intercourse between legally unmarried persons. The man could not just “love and leave” the woman but had to take responsibility for his actions. That the only way out of a legally recognized marriage was a strong objection from the girl’s father shows that marriage was usually the best option for a couple that engaged in “premarital” sexual intercourse.

There are several reasons for this: (1) The two had already become “one flesh” and covenanted before God; (2) A child could be born from their union; and (3) Their actions would be damaging to a future marriage with someone else.

Scripture teaches that sexual union is not to take place outside of parental permission and legal and cultural formalities. However, once sexual union does occur, it is covenantally binding on a man and a woman . The principle is “you touch it, you buy it.” A man who has sexual relations with a girl is covenantally bound to her and must be held responsible for his actions.

Some will respond that the New Testament prohibits “premarital” sex under the Greek word (porneia), which is usually translated “sexual immorality.” But there is no specific use of the word porneia in this way in Scripture. Rather, porneia is a generic word for immoral sexual behavior, and it usually has adultery and prostitution in view, not sex between virgins.

A man having sex with a virgin woman is not the equivalent of a man visiting a prostitute (as in 1 Corinthians 6:15-20). Instead of referring to “premarital” sex as sexual immorality, the Bible sees it as a marriage-constituting act (as long as it has consent—both mutual and parental in the case of dependent daughters).

It is therefore time for the church to stop condemning “premarital” sex and instead teach that God regards sex as covenantally binding. Of course, this is radically different from how most of us today view sex, and it therefore has significant implications. First, teaching that sex is covenantal should keep young people in the church from promiscuity, as they will understand potential sex to bind them to that person for life.

They must know that there really is no “recreational” or “premarital” sex.

Second, viewing sex as covenantal should lead pastors and the church to handle “premarital” sex cases quite differently. Instead of telling people who have slept together that they need to repent and break up for at least six months, we should follow the principle of Exodus 22 and tell them they must take responsibility for their actions.

They should formalize the marriage right away, unless the woman’s father absolutely refuses the marriage or a greater evil would result. This is the best way to handle a bad situation. This was how the church used to approach things, including pastor Richard Baxter (1615–1691), who said, “Where it can be done without a greater evil than the benefit will amount to, the Fornicators ought to joyn in marriage. Exod. 22.16” (A Christian Directory [1673], 205).