The Sin of Fornication

I Corinthians 6:18: Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.

Fornication is the sin of engaging in sexual intercourse with someone without first being married to them. All sexual activity outside of marriage is sin (see Hebrews 13:4). This sin is described in many ways and with various terms throughout scripture (e.g., “lying carnally”, Leviticus 18:20; 19:20; Numbers 5:13; “chambering,” Romans 13:13; “whoremongering,” I Timothy 1:10). The procreative/sexual desire is natural (Genesis 1:27-28), and the temptation to pervert and unrightfully abuse God’s physical blessing to married couples is common to man (see I Corinthians 10:8, 13). The Bible could not be clearer in its sweeping condemnation of fornication (see I Thessalonians 4:1-8); God explicitly and repeatedly commanded against it (Deuteronomy 23:17; Exodus 22:16-17; Acts 15:20, 29; Revelation 2:14, 20; see the lists, Matthew 15:19/Mark 7:21; Romans 1:29; I Corinthians 6:9; Galatians 5:19; Colossians 3:5; Revelation 9:21).

Biblical Reasons not to Commit Fornication

God encourages us think through our behavior (Haggai 1:3-7). When we take time to ponder the things we will do and the results that will ensue, doubtless many times we will say of the sins we desired to commit, “it is confusion” (see Leviticus 18:23). We will lament further with the psalmist, “So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before thee” (Psalm 73:22). There are powerful reasons why we should not engage in fornication.

  • Fornication is neither Necessary nor Beneficial.

The Bible warns us against being “hardened through the deceitfulness of sin” (Hebrews 3:13). Through our natural desire towards the opposite gender, the devil comes to us with two significant deceitful temptations, that it is necessary to fornicate (that is, you have to do so) and beneficial to fornicate (that is, it will be to your betterment and advantage to do so). But these are horrid lies from hell.

Fornication is not a necessity. While we do have a natural inclination to have physical relations with the opposite gender, it does not have the same purpose as our other desires. Our desires for food, for drink, for warmth/clothing, and for sleep (see also Psalm 127:2) are all closely connected to our own survival, but the sexual desire is not necessary for our own individual survival. The fact that many people in the Bible lived productively but ultimately died as virgins (e.g., Daniel, Jesus, Paul) demonstrates that there is “no necessity” to fornicate (see I Corinthians 7:37). Never think you “just can’t” live without fornicating. God would not tell us to do things we cannot do, and the fact that God commands us not to commit fornication proves we can (the “ought-implies-can” principle, II Corinthians 8:12). The Corinthian argument that we have to fornicate because “meats for the belly, and the belly for meats” (I Corinthians 6:13) assumes that we have to give to the flesh whatever the flesh lusts for, that we are obligated to “obey it in the lusts thereof” (see Romans 6:12). However, as children of God who “have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts” (Galatians 5:24), we do not owe our flesh anything. The argument is further flawed, because, just as one may have desires for things which are neutral in and of themselves (e.g., sleeping on a bed as opposed to the ground, or eating chicken rather than beans), they oftentimes will have good reasons why they should not fulfill their desire, and will therefore not do so. How much more, then, when the desire we have (in this case, to commit fornication) is entirely evil.

Romans 8:12: Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.

Fornication is not beneficial. The strong lust that someone has will also deceive them by enticing them (James 1:14) with the prospects of being benefitted. Beyond the silly rationalizations of fornication (“I need to make sure the woman can produce children,” but see Hosea 4:10; “I want to physically try out him/her before I commit to them”), there is the very immediate thought that by fornicating, one’s lust will be satisfied. However, the Bible says the exact opposite (see Ezekiel 16:28-29). Paul writes that a sin like fornication is “not expedient” (I Corinthians 6:12a), meaning that by so doing it, one will not receive the satisfaction they are looking for. Someone who fornicates does not do so only once, but repeatedly, ad infinitum.

  • Fornication is Filthy and Unholy.

Fornication is filthy. The Bible often speaks of a person who walks according to God’s precepts as being “clean” (e.g., Job 33:9; Psalm 18:20; II Peter 2:18; I John 1:7; see also Psalm 51:2; Ephesians 5:26; James 4:8), and one who lives sinfully as being “filthy” (Job 15:16; Psalm 53:3; II Peter 2:7; Revelation 22:11). Talking to the disobedient priests of the captivity, God threatened that he would “spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts” (Malachi 2:3). This is how we should view fornication, as an act that completely corrupts and defiles us. To fornicate is to “defile the temple of God” (I Corinthians 3:17), which temple we are. The most well-known Old Testament story of fornication is when the children of Israel went in to the daughters of Moab (Numbers 25), and many years later, the congregation of Israel said of that sin that “we are not cleansed until this day” (Joshua 22:17)––fornication will lastingly defile you. It is a sin against your own body (I Corinthians 6:18).

Fornication is unholy. Another related distinction is between holy and unholy (see Leviticus 10:10; Ezekiel 22:26). To be “holy” means to be separate (see Numbers 6:8; Hebrews 7:26), to be consecrated or set apart from the common things of the world. Unbelievers ought to notice a big difference between the way they live and the way believers live (I Peter 4:3-4). God commands us to be holy (Leviticus 11:44-45; 19:2; 20:7, 26; I Peter 1:14-16). Whereas studies show that the vast majority of people have engaged in pre-marital sex by age 20, as Christians, we should be as “a brand plucked out of the fire” (Zechariah 3:2), and should gladly let God’s precept of abstaining from fornication pull us out of the fire of his fury, “hating even the garment spotted by the flesh” (Jude 23). One who commits fornication is, in God’s sight, a whore/whoremonger; a woman who has a physical relationship with someone that she is not married to is “playing the whore/harlot,” even if the person is one you are intimately involved with as a “girlfriend”/“boyfriend” (see Dinah in Genesis 34:1-2; Tamar in Genesis 38; see also Jeremiah 3:1; Deuteronomy 22:21; Ezekiel 16:17-36).

  • Fornication is Foolish.

Those who, as a man, follow a whorish woman to the bed of fornication, or who, as a woman, give in to the seduction of the “evil man” (see Proverbs 29:6), are described as a “fool” who follows the judge to “the correction of the stocks” (Proverbs 7:22; see also 26:3). Our body was not created for the purpose of fornication (see I Corinthians 6:13b). God created Eve to be a committed life-long companion for Adam, not a tool for physical gratification (Genesis 2:18-25; see I Corinthians 7:3-5; see also I Corinthians 11:8-9; 11-12). Eve was created as Adam’s “wife” (Genesis 2:25), not his “girlfriend” or “concubine.” As temples of the Holy Spirit (I Corinthians 6:19-20; see also Ephesians 1:13-14; II Corinthians 1:22), our bodies should be used to glorify God, not to fulfill the lust of the flesh. Fornication enslaves you, robs you, and devalues you. Only fools fornicate.

Fornication enslaves you (see I Corinthians 6:12b). Committing sin makes you a servant of sin (John 8:34; Romans 6:16; II Peter 2:19). Those who engage in fornication typically became obsessed or engrossed into a fornicating lifestyle. They pass a great deal of their time in lasciviousness and lust (see I Peter 4:3).

Fornication robs you. Those who wait to have sex until marriage find much greater happiness and fulfillment in their spouse, and have a higher respect for themselves. Simply put, fornication is the exchange of long-term, lasting joy for short-term, temporal pleasure (see Hebrews 12:15-17; compare with the story of Esau, Genesis 25:27-34). Whereas one could have had clear and pure water “out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well” (Proverbs 5:15), the fornicator has chosen to take, so to speak, “the bitter water that causeth the curse” (see Numbers 5).

Fornication devalues you. Fornication is akin to concubinage: someone who sleeps with a person that they are not married to is worthless. A concubine is a woman who acted as a secondary wife to a man, without the legal or emotional commitment of marriage. Today, the equivalent might be a co-habiting girlfriend. If a woman acts as a concubine…

  • They are being used (see the first concubine in scripture: Hagar in Genesis 16).
  • They are not special (see Ahasuerus and the concubines: Esther 2).
  • They are not loved (see the Levite and his treatment of his concubine: Judges 19; see also the law on concubinage: Exodus 21:7-10).

God’s Judgment against Fornication

Someone who commits fornication is likened to an ox that calmly follows the butcher to the slaughterhouse, or as a deer unknowingly wandering into the marksman’s line of sight, or as a bird hastily flying to the baited snare, and “knoweth not that it is for his life” (Proverbs 7:22-23). Fornication is a very severe sin which should not be even “once named among you, as becometh saints” (Ephesians 5:3). Those who fornicate are as a person who will “take fire in his bosom” or who will “go upon hot coals”––they are sure to be burned (Proverbs 6:27-28). There are a swath of punishments God can and will bring upon those who live licentious, impure lives.

  • Judgment on Physical Life: Fornication can take away your life and health (I Corinthians 10:8; cf. Numbers 25:1-9).

God has killed many people for various sins, among which is the sin of fornication. It is not implausible that God can literally end the life of someone who lives in fornication, either by some seemingly unrelated means (e.g., a car accident), by a health curse (e.g., HIV; see Proverbs 5:11-13; Deuteronomy 28:21-22, 27, 35, 59-63; see also Ezekiel 23:3), or even directly (e.g., an angry father/boyfriend/spouse, Proverbs 6:34-35).

Proverbs 7:24-27: Hearken unto me now therefore, O ye children, and attend to the words of my mouth.25 Let not thine heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths.26 For she hath cast down many wounded: yea, many strong men have been slain by her.27 Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death.

  • Zimri (Numbers 25:1-9)
  • Samson (Judges 16)
  • David’s son (I Kings 15:5; II Samuel 7)
  • Christians in Thyatira (Revelation 2:20-23)

 

Judgment on Social Life: Fornication can take away your reputation and quality of life (Ezekiel 23:10).

Probably the greatest lie about fornication (especially as done by a dating couple) is that it will bring one closer to the person they sleep with, and express as well as deepen their love one to another. According to scripture, fornication results in the exact opposite: sleeping with someone before being married to them will totally ruin your relationship with them (Ezekiel 23:17-18, 22, 28). Instead of an espousal praise of the beauty (Song of Solomon 4:7), there will, more often than not, be an eventual hatred and discarding of the whore/whoremonger (compare II Samuel 13:4 with vv. 14-15; compare Proverbs 30:20 with Proverbs 6:26). The fornicator will lose respect both for themselves and for the one(s) they sexually defile (see Lamentations 1:8; see also the connection between nakedness and shame, Exodus 32:25; Isaiah 47:3; Nahum 3:5). In formal or unfamiliar settings, people are naturally ashamed of their sexual sins, and, if known by others, they are a cause of great infamy (Reuben, Genesis 35:22, 49:3-4; David, II Samuel 12:14; the Corinthian fornicator, I Corinthians 5:1). Thus, while it may be “fun” to fornicate (however much the pleasures of sin for a season may be called “fun”), it is certainly not fun to be a fornicator.

Proverbs 6:33: A wound and dishonour shall he get; and his reproach shall not be wiped away.

  • Judgment on Religious Life: Fornication can take away your part in church (see I Corinthians 5).

While we are commanded to congregate with the fellow believers (Hebrews 10:25), having a part in a particular local church is a privilege, not a right. Those who willfully and unrepentantly live in a fornicating lifestyle ought to be immediately and publically removed from the church unless and until they repent––“with such an one no not to eat” (I Corinthians 5:11).

  • Judgment on Economic Life: Fornication can take away your financial stability.

Depending on the kind of fornication being committed, one can become financially indebted by so sinning. The most repulsive and economically deleterious form of fornication would be a regular harlot cycle, using the physical services of prostitutes (see Proverbs 29:3; see also Luke 15:30). However, even a more common boyfriend-girlfriend fornicating relationship can (and often does) produce children (see Hosea 2:4; Proverbs 5:10), which can be costly in many senses.

How to Avoid Fornication

The Blessing of Virginity

Proverbs 6:26: …the adulteress will hunt for the precious life.

II Samuel 13:18: And she had a garment of divers colours upon her: for with such robes were the king’s daughters that were virgins apparelled….

  1. Virginity is Valuable––A virgin has a higher value.
  • Moral value (Genesis 24:16).
  • Financial value (Exodus 22:17; Deuteronomy 22:13-21).
  • Spiritual value (Matthew 1:18-25; I Corinthians 7:25; Revelation 14:1-5).
  1. Virginity is Purity––A virgin is clean and undefiled.

One who commits fornication is…

  • “Defiled” (Genesis 34:2; Revelation 14:4; Hosea 6:10).
  • “Unclean” (II Corinthians 12:21; Galatians 5:19).
  • “Filthy” (Revelation 17:4; Ezekiel 16:36).
  1. Virginity is Chastity––A virgin has self-control (see I Corinthians 9:27).

II Corinthians 11:2: For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.

  1. Virginity is Simplicity––A virgin is not tempted to commit fornication to the same degree that a fornicator is (see Romans 16:19).
  • Heathen virgin women are spared from judgement (Numbers 31:35; see also Judges 21:12).
  • The high priest was supposed to marry a virgin (Leviticus 21:13-14).
  1. Virginity is Attractivitiy––A virgin is more easily married (see the law of divorce, Deuteronomy 24:1-4; Deuteronomy 22:13-21)

 

Advice on Fleeing Fornication

The Bible commands us to “flee fornication” (I Corinthians 6:18), which means to literally run away from it (see the story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife, Genesis 39). A multi-faceted defense against the sin of fornication is needed to prevent it.

  1. Get Married (I Corinthians 7:2-5, 9).

Marriage is the proper channel that God has given to mankind to express their physical desires to one another. It is the only honorable, loving, long-term, and safe place to do so.

  1. Do Not Lust (Matthew 5:27-28)

The Bible talks of “the lust of the eyes” (I John 2:16), showing us that it is a sin to look at or think about certain things. Job made a “covenant” (or, an agreement) with his eyes not to even “think upon a maid” (Job 31:1). Though it may seem harmless to look lustfully at the opposite gender, it is actually a serious sin in God’s sight (see Romans 7:7). Recognize that “the eyes of man are never satisfied” (Proverbs 27:20; see also Ecclesiastes 1:8), and one, two, three, or even ten thousand inappropriate looks will not fulfill your lust. We ought to control our eyes (Matthew 6:22-23), and, therefore, our mind (see Romans 12:1-2). Instead of meditating on our lust (see Job 20:11-13), and projecting images or playing out scenes in our mind, we ought to meditate on and quote the scriptures (see also Psalm 119:9-11; Matthew 4:1-11):

Psalm 119:36-37: Incline my heart unto thy testimonies, and not to covetousness.37 Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity; and quicken thou me in thy way.

A related but more sinister aspect to the lust of the eyes is the use of pornography and the often connected abuse of oneself sexually. It is fascinating that the Bible mentions a kind of pornography negatively as the impetus to fornication (Ezekiel 23:14-17). A Christian should be repulsed when sexually explicit/suggestive images/videos are seen by, or shown to, them. One must further exhibit the greatest caution when alone in the privacy of their home, as this is often when such sins take place (see Psalm 101:2-4). While there may be tips which can be offered to help one prevent the sin of pornography in their life (see Romans 13:14), ultimately, it will simply require old-fashioned self-restraint (Matthew 16:24; see James 4:7; I Peter 5:8-9).

  1. Do Not Be Idle

When someone is not properly occupied in life, they will have abundant time to be tempted and to wander into sin (e.g., II Thessalonians 3:11; I Timothy 5:13). Particularly with reference to fornication (and other lusts of the flesh), it is dangerous to be idle (see Ezekiel 16:49). The idleness of David caused him to commit adultery (II Samuel 11:1-4). We should keep ourselves busy with a variety of things, ranging from our secular tasks, to our ministerial tasks (e.g., soul-winning), to our devotional tasks (e.g., Bible reading, prayer). When people do not utilize their time for productive purposes, they are said to be “fools” and “unwise” (Ephesians 5:15-17), because an idle mind is the devil’s workshop, and idle hands give the devil pleasure.

  1. Be Selective/Careful in Courtship

II Timothy 2:22: Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

  • Date for marriage––Only date others when you are ready to marry them (I Corinthians 7:36-38; see also Abraham seeking a wife for Isaac: Genesis 24)
  • Beware of the strange woman/strange man––Only date righteous persons: contrast the virtuous woman (Proverbs 31) and the strange woman (Proverbs 5-7)
  • Behave as if your dating partner is your brother/sister––do not engage in pre-martial petting. “Petting” is touching and caressing the opposite gender in a physically provoking/stimulating (or, sexual) way (called “sporting,” Genesis 26:7-10).
  • Kissing––For married couples (Song of Solomon 1:2), not for unmarried couples (Proverbs 7:13).
  • Intimate hugging––For married couples (Song of Solomon 8:3; 2:6), not for unmarried couples (Proverbs 5:20).
  • Intimate touching––For married couples (Song of Solomon 7:7-8; 1:13), not for unmarried couples (see I Corinthians 7:1).

The sin of pre-marital petting                                    

  1. Purity––Pre-marital petting is impure (I Timothy 5:1-2; I Timothy 4:12).
  2. Selflessness––Pre-marital petting is selfish (Luke 6:31; Philippians 2:22; see also I Thessalonians 4:3-6).
  3. Honesty––Pre-marital petting is dishonest (Romans 13:13; II Corinthians 13:7).
  4. Wisdom––Pre-marital petting is foolish; it leads to fornication (Romans 13:14; Proverbs 6:27-28).