Sex Is a Blessing in Genesis

In my last blog, I wrote about God blessing Adam and Eve with the responsibility of being fruitful and multiplying.  This is what I would like to emphasize:  Procreation is a blessing from God which he gives to human beings. 

When Jesus was asked by Sadducees about marriage in heaven, he clearly stated that there was no marriage in heaven because we will be like the angels (Matthew 22:28-33 - found in Mark and Luke as well).  Even though this makes little sense to us today, Jesus was using the logic found in the Book of Enoch which was probably known to Jesus (his brother Jude quotes from it in Jude 1:14-15).  The argument in 1 Enoch 15:5-7 simply goes as follows:

1.  All angels live forever.
2.  All humans die.
3.  Humans must procreate in order to continue their species.
4.  Angels do not need to procreate in order to continue their kind, because they never die.
5.  God did not give angels the ability to procreate because they live forever.
6.  When we die, we will live forever, so there is no longer the need to procreate.
7.  Because there is no more sex, there is no marriage in heaven.

Even though there will be no procreation in heaven, there is here on earth for the reasons mentioned. For those reasons, God blessed us with the responsibility of procreation.

God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth... (Genesis 1:28)."

Furthermore, God not only blessed the act of sexual intercourse, he blessed the desire that we have toward members of the opposite sex in that it leads us into procreation.   Desire is celebrated in the book called Song of Songs or Song of Solomon.  If it were not a blessing; if it were not holy, then Song of Songs would not have been part of the canon of scripture, and it would not be blessed on the sixth day of creation.

PERVERSIONS

Now for those who have to say, "Yes, but...,"  I will definitely admit there are perversions to desire and there are perversions to the act of sexual intercourse.  Genesis mentions some as does the rest of the Bible. 

In Genesis alone there is date rape (Dinah and Sechem), homosexual rape (Sodom), sexual intercourse between "sons of God" and "daughters of men," attempted adultery (Potipher's wife and Joseph), and shaming the father by having sex with the step-mother (Reuben and Bilhah).  There are also other possible perversions such as prostitution (Judah's affair with Tamar -  although Tamar did right, Judah thought he was having sex with a prostitute).  I say this is possible only because it is not commented on at all in Genesis, and the context does not suggest that what Judah was doing was wrong. 

Now this could be a very interesting moral issue.  If prostitution was deemed a sin in Genesis, then Tamar, who posed as a prostitute in order to deceive Judah into doing what was right, caused Judah to sin, but in doing so got him to do what was right.  Sounds like a good discussion for Ethics class.

CONCLUSION

Back to the point - God blessed sexual intercourse and He blessed the desire that leads to proper sexual union.  Some focus too much on the perversions and not enough on the blessings of intercourse.  In fact, some focus so much on the perversions, that it seems like sex is no longer good.  It's no longer holy or a blessing that God intended it to be.  Rather than celebrating the awesome union between a man and a woman, their own personal struggles or the perversions of others dictate their disgust and hatred of God's gift to humanity.

To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted (Titus 1:15).