How Sex Points to God

There’s a difference between gratitude and adoration. Gratitude is when I say, “thank you for this, God.” Adoration is when I ask, “how does this reveal an attribute of God that I can admire him for?” Gratitude goes as far as saying, “thank you for sex, God; it is a good thing”; adoration takes it further, asking “what does sex reveal about God’s nature and narrative?”

Putting God and sex in the same sentence can seem awkward, which I think reveals how much we are creatures of our culture, and how powerfully Satan uses sex to drive us towards shame, instead of pointing us towards God.

J.L. Packer writes about how sex is a signpost to God: now if you camp under a signpost you’re not going to get much of anywhere. If you’re driving down I-64 and camp under the sign that says “Virginia Beach, 60 miles” and say, “we’re here, honey!” you won’t get there. Yet that’s what we’re doing: our appetites are so habitually inflamed as to distract us, or our shame is so great as to paralyze us, from moving on to the destination.

So how does sex point us to God?

It points to one way in which we were made in his image. God is one God, but in three persons, and at the center of the Trinity is a state of mutual, self-giving love. C.S. Lewis calls this the “great dance”: a dynamic, pulsing activity in which the Father, Son and Holy spirit pour love and joy into one another continually, and sex mirrors that.

Sex points to what it will be like to be with God in heaven. In Ephesians 5:31-32, Paul writes, “the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” This is why, I think, sex can never be just about the body—it involves the heart, mind, soul, all of us—because it is meant to point to the wholeness of union we will have with Jesus one day for all of eternity. That is the story God is writing us for, and sex now is somehow just a faint foretaste of it.

Sex points to the gospel in involving the ability to create new life. After all, God didn’t have to create sex for procreation. I can think of a few alternative ways of mingling genomes. But God chose to have a covenant act of self-giving bring new life, a life that we cannot take credit for masterminding, and I can only think that it points to the gospel.

Ultimately, I think sex makes us realize we are creatures with needs that only Jesus can meet. If I dig deep enough, I see that sometimes underneath the need is a desire for connection, meaning, understanding, and identity that ultimately only Jesus can satiate. As Isaiah 54:4-5 says, “Fear not, for you will not be ashamed; be not confounded, for you will not be disgraced; for you will forget the shame of your youth, and the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more. For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer.”