Sexual Freedom?

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. Romans 1:24

This is one of the most frightening verses in the entire Bible.

It reveals the action that God has taken in response to humans suppressing the truth about God and constructing physical or mental images of false gods in his place.

The verse states that "God gave them over". At the beginning of this section of the letter, Paul states that the problem facing the human race is that God's wrath is being revealed against human sin. Now, in this verse, we learn how this wrath is being expressed and outworked. It's happening in and through the moral breakdown of human society.

What does it mean for God to give people over? In essence, it means that God actively abandons people to the sinful way of life that they have chosen to live. Specifically, Paul highlights the action of God in giving society over to "sexual impurity". It is important to stress that God is not portrayed here as actively causing human beings to sin; rather he is active in releasing them into the sin they have chosen to commit and allowing them to experience its full and awful consequences.

Here we find a radically different - indeed a truly prophetic - perspective on the sexualised society many of us live in. While people in such a society often claim that widespread sexual activity outside of traditional lifelong heterosexual marriage is a wonderful and mature state for a society to be in, here the ancient wisdom of the apostle Paul provides a totally different view. A society which has reached the degree of sexualisation that is true for many western countries is not a society that is free and at peace with itself: rather, it is a society that has been given over by God to a downward spiral of self-destruction.

The fruit of such a society is graphically portrayed in this verse: it degrades people. When a woman in California (or anywhere else) sets up a web cam at home and charges men to watch her perform, that action degrades her and those who watch her. It destroys them - another way of saying degrade. When people have sex with animals, it degrades them. When a man hires a prostitute because he is away on business and no-one will know, he is degraded, as is the women he pays. When a college guy sleeps around with multiple partners, those involved are not liberating themselves: they are degrading themselves. They are gradually destroyed morally and spiritually. Their awareness of God disappears. Their conscience becomes insensitive. They cultivate selfishness as a lifestyle.

The body is designed for many functions. Sexually, it exists to express the covenant love of a man and a woman who are joined for life. In this context, sex is a beautiful, passionate and majestic act. When taken out of that context and used casually, it causes the bodies of those who engage in it to be degraded.

God's wrath is not revealed by lightening bolts striking individuals. More disturbingly, it is revealed in the falling apart of a society that has given itself over to immorality. Tragically, most people mistake that social collapse as "freedom."

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. Romans 1:24