"Reforming Marriage"

Reforming Marriage looks at the institution of marriage through the lens of Ephesians 5, and Wilson teases out what that marriage looks like in a world bent on self-fulfillment, sexual expression, and self-gratification. The majority of this book lies in application; i.e., “This is our theology of marriage, now how do we live that out?” There’s so much commendable about this book, but the chapter I liked the most was the chapter on “Christian sex.” I’ve read lots of different works by various people regarding sexuality in Christian marriage, and I appreciate Wilson’s exposition of 1 Thessalonians 4.3-5 and the way he draws that out in practical ways. While most Christian books say something along the lines of, “Sex is a gift from God to be enjoyed only in marriage, so enjoy it as much as you can when you’re married,” Wilson takes it a step further, asking, “What does sexuality within marriage look like if it is to be God-honoring and God-pleasing, since sex itself is an expression of the church’s union with Christ?” Such a question begs the thought that Wilson may be a Victorian prude, but he argues hotly against those who wish to “snuff out” sexuality, making it only about procreation and rejecting any sort of sexual enjoyment and discovery of your spouse. Here are some quotes from that chapter:

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1 Thessalonians 4.3-5: Each one of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God. This expression of the will of God is one which many Christian men need to learn. Many have not learned how to take a wife in a pure and honorable way. They come to the marriage bed with the same kind of passionate lust which is characteristic of unbelievers. But Paul tells us here that Christians are to be different in how they love, not just in whom they love.

Modernity has sent us all off on a frustrating search for the perfect sexual experience, and this vain quest, this sexual snipe-hunt, has even ensnared many Christian married couples. We are told, and not just by non-Christians, that we have an obligation to have “dynamic sex lives.” This has (at least) two results: It can lead us into a frenzied hunt for the ultimate sexual experience, and it can lead to an acquiescing frustration and dissatisfaction with “normal” sex.

If everything is special, then nothing is. If everything is ‘dynamic,’ then the dynamic becomes ordinary. We must continue to seek some new thrill in order to keep up with the ‘dynamic imperative’. Christian men have not learned how to take a wife in a pure way; they do so with the passionate (and frustrated) lust of the nonbelievers. This frustrating search for the Perfect Orgasm Every Time has ensnared many Christian marriages.

We are finite creatures and, consequently, our capacity for sexual pleasure has set limits. But lust, by its very nature, is incapable of realizing such limits. Lust demands from a finite thing what only the infinite God can provide. Therefore, when someone in the grip of lust comes up against the wall of his finitudes, he demands alternatives. This unwillingness to submit to the finitude of sexual pleasure has produced all manner of sexual perversions. Consequently, Paul tells us to guard the marriage bed against the philosophy of such lusters. Everything about sexual lust is futile and grasping after wind.

The central problem with lust is the steadfast refusal to tolerate limits. Lust is the desire to receive from a finite thing what only the infinite can provide. It seeks to elevate the created (sexual activity) to the level of God. Because we are indeed finite, our sexual pleasures are also finite. This means that there has to be an end to it. But lust is incapable of saying “enough.” There must always be something else, something more. There is pleasure—but never satisfaction. It is for this reason that lust will always lead to various perversions. Once all the possible pleasure has been squeezed out of the finite sexual limits given to us by God, lust demands new territory. The fact that this territory is hostile to true sexual pleasure does not deter the person controlled by his lust. He charges ahead, little knowing that he is destroying the things he worships. For those in the grip of lust, the created thing they idolize is sexuality. And the fate of this created thing is the same as all other created things promoted to ‘Deity.’ Incapable of becoming God, it only becomes a twisted creature, which is then worshipped and served by its devotees—other twisted and bent creatures. But this idol, like all idols, will then topple and fall. It will have eyes that cannot see, ears that cannot hear, and hands that cannot love.

Frustration with finitude, seeking to supply sex with a continual ‘high octane kick’, will ultimately destroy sexual pleasure. A man and woman who accept their finitude and who seek to honor God in how they love each other will of course enjoy themselves sexually. But that enjoyment will have the normal range that is to be expected from any physical pleasure. Sometimes they will enjoy a “steak dinner,” and it really will be extraordinary. Other times it will be quite ordinary—macaroni and cheese—but still enjoyable. Should they enjoy extraordinary sexual experience? Yes, of course! But at no time should they accept the lie that sexual pleasure is subnormal unless it matches the standards set by humanistic sexual therapists.

While sexual pleasure is threatened by the unbelievers who would stampede through it, it is also unfortunately threatened by “decent” people who, frankly, are afraid of it and run away in the other direction. We must not seek to be “liberated” by the world and its lusts, and we must not be “disciplined” by vestigial Victorian prudishness in the church. BOTH are anti-scripture.

Sexual pleasure is limited, whatever those who are dominated by lust may say or demand. But this is not to say that our capacity for sexual pleasure is small. The rejection of the frenzied pagan rush after a constant sexual high does not exclude a disciplined Christian cultivation of sexual enjoyment. The Bible teaches us that lovemaking is to be honored among Christians; to honor something means to esteem it highly. Those Christians who have reacted to public immorality by retreating into a blue-nosed prudishness in their own bedrooms are very much a part of the problem.

“What do we find in the erotic love poem The Song of Solomon?” The lovemaking in the poem is pervasively sensual, meaning that it involves more than just the sense of touch… The woman does not just say that her love is like tasting; she says that her lover is tasted. At the risk of belaboring the obvious, this tasting does not occur with pursed lips. Neither the woman nor the man are drinking this wine through a straw… The man knows the same pleasure in tasting her as well; he knows that her mouth is a well of delight… The woman is a garden, but there is an inner garden within this garden. This is what her lover is drawn to the most, and she is eager for him to come and enjoy himself fully… The woman’s lover is drawn to her entire body. It is obviously lawful for a godly husband to admire, kiss, taste, and caress his wife wherever he pleases, and vice versa… The lover speaks openly about his admiration for her. He compares her to a palm trees, and her breasts are like the clusters of the vine. He resolves to climb the tree in order to reach that fruit. He ascends her body in order to reach and taste its clusters. He comes to her mouth which has the fragrance of apples, and then tastes and drinks the wine which is there. The woman is clearly pleased to be such a tree, and for her mouth to be a goblet.

The liberated modern, with the furrowed brow of a frustrated technocrat, wants to talk about the various positions of sexual engineering, accompanied by charts, diagrams, and technical manuals—along with stern and graphic lectures to all of us repressed Puritans. As Christian lovers, despite what the world might think, our enjoyment of lovemaking is to be deep and lasting. The joy of sex, about which the world talks much and knows very little, is a gift to us from God. Because God is good to us, the man gives and receives, and the woman receives and gives, tremendous pleasure.