My aunt is getting married, and according to Mom she’s having the darndest time finding a pastor to officiate. Seems she and her fiance are “living in sin,” and the pastors don’t approve, so they won’t officiate because they disapprove of premarital sex.
Every time I bring this up, I get in trouble, but it’s a biblical idea, so here goes… There’s no such thing as premarital sex. All sex is marital. Scripture is quite clear that whenever people have sex, they’re considered married; all the consequences they suffer have to do with formalizing the union. In the case of adultery (which is prohibited for that very reason) the consequences deal with the dissolution of the previous marriage, and the formalization of the new one.
Western culture—heck, all culture—has argued that there should be a distinction between sex and marriage, and have tried to structure their societies that way. Thus the idea, and acceptance of the idea, of premarital sex. But it’s not an idea found in the bible. Pastors and parents, largely unaware of this, rightly say that sex should be confined to marital relationships, but never deal with the fact that scripture says nothing for or against premarital sex because there is no such thing.
The bit I still don’t understand is this: We have these two people “living in sin,” and they want to rectify the situation… and the pastors tell them no, leaving them to continue in “sin”? It’s as if we had two drug addicts, and they can’t enter a treatment program because they failed a urine test. This doesn’t sound logical… nor does it sound like the sort of grace that the church should be offering people.
Comments…
So “New_and_unimproved” still felt there’s a distinction between sex and marriage.
…Marriage is a sacrament, of which sex is the consummation. I would guess that people have some sort of sacramental idea of marriage in mind, and thus a ceremony in mind, when they talk of “premarital sex.” For them, and for me personally, sex before the ceremony is putting the cart before the horse. Thus, I would hesitate to say that sex makes a person married any more than baptism eternally secures my salvation in heaven. The words “do not have sex before you are married” are not found stated so plainly in the scriptures—but how ’bout that? Neither are the words “When you have sex, you will be married.” It does talk about fornication, which is sex outside the confines of the sacred, covenantal relationship that is marriage. Furthermore, St Paul says that it is better to marry than to burn with lust. Add to this two millenia of Church teaching, and your new and innovative ideas on what marriage is really don't have much basis in spiritual reality.
Of course, I object to the statement that my ideas are “new and innovative.” They don’t happen to match the culture’s interpretation; they might not even match that of the Church Fathers (“New_and_unimproved” being a fan of them) but I believe they’re an accurate interpretation of the scriptures.
Marriage, as expressed by a wedding ceremony, and baptism are both sacraments. But a baptism doesn’t guarantee salvation, and wedding vows don’t guarantee a happy marriage. Both only foreshadow what is meant to follow. A wedding foreshadows the marriage and cohabitation; a baptism foreshadows death and resurrection. Putting “the cart before the horse” renders both sacraments moot—having the wedding after the sex is like having the baptism after a death.
Unfortunately, in our original discussion, I put it “Baptism doesn’t save,” and we got into a long and obnoxious discussion about how wrong I was to say that.