Sex and sexuality are important aspects of what it means to be human, but exactly how these aspects affect each individual throughout the course of one’s life is as unique as the life itself. Despite this, though, certain truths and realities regarding sex and sexuality are constant. God created humans as sexual beings, and He had specific intentions in mind when doing so. It is the position of this paper that sexual intercourse is the sign of the marriage covenant, and its act metaphysically creates the one flesh relationship described in sexual union. If this is true, then it is important to develop a comprehensive understanding of sex and sexuality.
If sex is the sign of the marriage covenant, then a proper understanding of covenant is necessary—sex …show more content…
It is intended to encapsulate the essential nature of the covenant; therefore, it must always point beyond itself—to the covenant that it “signs.” Since every covenant is different, each covenant has its own specific, unique sign. Throughout the Bible, God demonstrates a pattern of “unilaterally choosing what seems to Him to be a fitting symbolic physical expression for each covenant.” To explicate upon this, it is helpful to analyze Christ’s command to “remember” the new covenant in him through the Eucharist, found most overtly in Luke 22:19-20. In this command, Christ did not mean “remember” in the manner that twenty-first century Western cultures would assume. It is not an intellectual effort to call up the past. Instead, this word has an entirely different meaning to ancient culture: by commanding his followers to “remember” the covenant, Christ was commanding them to “re-create the past event” and actively take part in the renewal of it. Within the context of covenant, then, to remember the covenant through its sign is to have genuine belief and trust of both the covenant partner and the acting-reality of the covenant itself. This is seen in the Eucharist, an act done by believers in faith of Jesus. An immediate question regarding the sign of the covenant is why it is necessary to have a sign of a covenant in the first place. If a
If sex is the sign of the marriage covenant, then a proper understanding of covenant is necessary—sex …show more content…
It is intended to encapsulate the essential nature of the covenant; therefore, it must always point beyond itself—to the covenant that it “signs.” Since every covenant is different, each covenant has its own specific, unique sign. Throughout the Bible, God demonstrates a pattern of “unilaterally choosing what seems to Him to be a fitting symbolic physical expression for each covenant.” To explicate upon this, it is helpful to analyze Christ’s command to “remember” the new covenant in him through the Eucharist, found most overtly in Luke 22:19-20. In this command, Christ did not mean “remember” in the manner that twenty-first century Western cultures would assume. It is not an intellectual effort to call up the past. Instead, this word has an entirely different meaning to ancient culture: by commanding his followers to “remember” the covenant, Christ was commanding them to “re-create the past event” and actively take part in the renewal of it. Within the context of covenant, then, to remember the covenant through its sign is to have genuine belief and trust of both the covenant partner and the acting-reality of the covenant itself. This is seen in the Eucharist, an act done by believers in faith of Jesus. An immediate question regarding the sign of the covenant is why it is necessary to have a sign of a covenant in the first place. If a