What Is Better Than Sex In Christian Marriage?

Where is God taking us in our marriages? Otherwise, what is his will for the union of two into one?

Such questions are primary for all of us who appreciate the sanctity of Christian marriage in devotion to our spouse for the life now and all of that which is to come.

What must God want for us to think and say and do in our marriages? How are we to discharge our ‘rights’ of the other person (1 Corinthians 7:4)? How are we to forego our own body’s rights? What does it mean that our spouse has claim on us?

These, and so many more questions, are the substance of Christian marriage. Only a union of two, themselves, are able to lay claim to the answer of such questions.

But here it is — the Summum Bonum of marriage — at least from a Christian standpoint. God’s will is that we would give to the other to the extent that we are able to remain in love with our spouse — that the quotient of our love would superintendent the past, and we would become lovers of our lover in the present.

God wants us to be in love with our spouse. He wants us to do what we need to do to remain in love.

Too many marriages are rent asunder because of our inability to remain in love.

And so many marriages might be predicated on not being in love in the first place.

Men, if we are able to remain in love with our wives, other women — albeit their inherent attractiveness to us — will always remain at a distance from our hearts. It is bad enough that we might partake in an attraction from time to time, but to take part in fantasy is to extinguish our marital love. We would fall out of love.

The key to falling back in love with the spouse of God’s choice for us is to be in love — to the point that our spouse becomes, as they were, the consuming focus of our lives.

It cannot be equalled in the realm of marriage under God — to be in love with our marriage partner. Satisfaction is redoubled into contentment because of God’s affirmation for our faithfulness; hardly a better, more assured state of heart and mind any person could achieve through grace.

***

Better than sex in Christian marriage is to be in love. Being in love is the pinnacle of blessing that amounts to an overflow of blessing in our spouse’s life.

Being in love is the precursor to the best sex life, but is never conditional on it.

© 2015 S. J. Wickham.