How About Masturbation Within Marriage? Is It Right Biblically?
Question: I read your article titled, 'Masturbation - Is It A Sin According To The Bible? If It Is, How To Overcome It?'. Please need more Biblical information on masturbation between a husband and wife in the marriage bed.
Answer: Greetings in Jesus wonderful name!
According to God he has clearly instructed the married people saying, "Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral." (Heb 13:4, NIV).
We know for sure that the marriage bed to be kept honorable before God, humans and one another, the married people should keep themselves not only from adultery but also from thoughts that are sexually immoral. As people of our generation find easy porn, dirty talking, flirting as nothing immoral, they come to decide for themselves that a little dirty thinking and a little fetish way of relationship with the spouse and further a little sexual fatasies are perfect ok with God.
Is it really? Have God changed a bit in our generation? Has his demand of holiness from his children have been reduced to a lesser degree in our generation?
By no means God has changed one bit, the same God of the Bible who said in the Old Testament times, "You must be holy because I, the LORD, am holy. I have set you apart from all other people to be my very own." (Lev 20:26), have repeated this in the same way without any change in New Testament through the apostles of Jesus Christ saying, "You must be holy because I am holy." This shows that God's standard of holiness and His demand for it in his children have not decreased but rather have increased as it was physical adultery in the Old Testament times that the Law prohibited, but in our New Testament times Jesus increased the demand for holiness saying, "...whosoever looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart." (Matt 5:28). In fact, the Old Testent considered the last commandment "Thou shall not covet" as the least of the commandment, but Jesus pointed to people that God wants a perfect heart of purity in his children and that is why even the last commandment cannot be neglected to be the leaset but rather should be kept as a whole and also should teach to others (Matt 5:19). In other words, the bottomline that Jesus conveyed to God's children is that, a heart change can only bring out of us a life that is pleasing to God. A cleased heart by the blood of Jesus through faith is a precursor to a clean heart and a pure one, that has not been lifted up towards impurity of thoughts and emotion and will, that has the potential to please God (Acts 15:9). Regular confession of sins day by day is a very much needed ingredient to a clean heart of faith (1 John 1:7, 9).
From this we can clearly see that God wants the marriage bed to be free from porn because lust is always involved in pornography, he wants the marriage bed to be free from masturbation in isolation which is called as solo-sex because it seeks its own desire and not the other partner to please them in any way possible (Prov 18:1; Isa 56:11) and also he wants a married person to be completely free from flirting and so called dating before marriage because at the least it involves emotional fornication and even gets to become physical if the emotions are not kept in check. Love within marriage should prevail and lust should have no place at all (1 Cor 13:1-13) as "3 God's will is for us within marriage and outside of it is to be holy, so we must stay away from all sexual sin [i.e. which includes pornography, masturbation, flirtation, fetish and fantasies of any kind is a no no within marriage strictly]. 4 So that each of us will learn to control his own body and live in holiness and honor 5 not in lustful passion [i.e. a stong lustful desire to see porn, masturbate, flirtate, create a idolic fetish and fantasize over those with craving that look for opportunity to fulfill it physically] like the pagans who do not know God and His ways." (1 Thess 4:3-5, NLT). In others words, the difference between a person who lust and a actual person who fornicates and commits adultery is the opportunity that comes in between them. In the world, every man who craves and desires for something first always makes that which He lusts to become the idol of his heart and life, so that this desire will start to rule his life instead of God which is an absolute idolatry that God hates to see his children involved with.
Can a person masturbate without lust involved in it within marriage bed?
I believe that it is possible to love a person only when we put the happiness of the spouse before ourselves. Especially with in marriage, that is why apostle Paul said, "The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife." (1 Cor 7:4, NIV). Thus mutual masturbation is acceptable biblically then, but not exclusive masturbation in isolation. Mutual promotes love, exclusive masturbation promotes more lust.
One person asked me whether they could masterbate using the video or photograph recorded during previous sexual acts within marriage, because of the non availability of the spouse on day to day basis as he is working far from the home and returns once in a while when vacation is given to them to visit their home?
This is a very serious and a complicated situation within the marriage bed where the nonavailability of the spouse to fulfill the desire of the other as instructed by the Bible cannot be fulfilled (1 Cor 7:5). This is not a ideal situation for marriage to thrive, and therefore the idea of a strong fulfillment through seeing the spouse's recorded photo or video might become a idol to create a craving to go beyond the boundary of marriage in to seeing the nakedness of other strangers and the sexual acts of theirs which might come in to our life outside of marriage covenant boundary which is defiling the marriage bed instead of honoring it. The flesh desires for more and therefore will never say no and will never get satisfied until more and more of such videos of greater variety be supplied to it regularly which will lead to emotional and sometimes even physical infidelity when a opportunity arises to fulfill the lust of our own body. So it is wise to totally avoid exclusive masturbation, which leads to pursuing one's own desire of lust rather than to supply the spouse's desire in love against the will of God which is love and not lust to operate freely within marriage. The world says if there is a will there is a way. How much more if there is a will within the Kingdom of God, there is much more a way to practice self-control without the way of using solo-sex which is exclusive masturbation (1 Cor 7:7, 9). It is better to marry and have sex within marriage than to burn with passion and lust, because continuing like the worldly people in passion and lust will create a opportunity to fall in to fornication and adultery and for the enemies of the Lord to speak badly in a derogatory manner the great name of the Lord so easily over a period of time (1 Cor 7:9).
There are numerous other ways to please each other within the marriage bed, so it can be done honorably according to the desire of the spouse, which means love gives oneself to spouse while lust uses the spouse to fulfill its own desire through physical acts within marriage bed. The self-giving love within marriage is what glorifies God and his institution of marriage (Gen 38:9-10), all other lust for fulfillment glorifies self and perverts the purpose of marriage that is set by God.
May God help us all to fulfill His will for us in marriage and child rearing for the Glory of God!
Much Blessings....
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment