7 Truths About Marital Sex

The covenant of marriage makes a man and woman one flesh. Sex within marriage profoundly embodies and represents this one flesh reality. As such, it’s sacred and set apart for marriage among all human relationships, just as marriage is unique and sacred among all human relationships.

Paul points to the way in which sexual intercourse represents and embodies one flesh in his condemnation of sexual immorality. He makes it clear that this is part of the meaning of the Genesis “one flesh” passage (2:23–24): “Do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one flesh with her? For as it is written, ‘The two will become one flesh’” (1 Cor. 6:16). Put more positively, Bible scholars agree that sexual intercourse is clearly tied to a one flesh marital union.

The one-flesh reality has implications for how married people are to view their bodies. Just as our bodies belong to Jesus Christ, who purchased us with his own blood, joining us to his body, the church (1 Cor. 6:15–20; Gal. 3:13), so the bodies of a husband and wife each belong to the other. Marital sex is perhaps the most profound and intimate way in which this powerful truth is lived out within our marriages (1 Cor. 7:3–4). Man and woman, united in the covenant of marriage, cleave together and yield their bodies to one another in love. This is beautiful, far more lovely than sex as we see it portrayed in most of modern culture today.

All of this means that sex within marriage is sacred, just as marriage itself is sacred. This doesn’t mean that we have to approach it in exaggerated piety or super-spirituality. Sex between a husband and wife is earthy and physical, just as our bodies are. And yet the symbolism of marital sex is deeply spiritual.

Marriage embodies the relationship of Christ and his people in ways that are profound and mysterious (Eph. 5:32). Because it’s bound with the one-flesh reality of marriage, sex must inevitably do the same. This means that passages like Ephesians 5:22–33 apply to so much in our marital relationships, including how we approach sex as husbands and wives. Spouses ought to love one another as their own flesh, and their relationship should resemble the relationship between Christ and his church.

Throughout the Bible, God often describes his relationship with his people in marital and sexual terms. Where this is applied to their faithlessness, disloyalty, and fickleness, the sexual language used to illustrate this can be powerful, even disturbing. For example, Jeremiah 2:24 describes the idolatrous Jews as being like wild donkeys in heat. Their going after other gods is often compared to adultery (Hos. 4:12–14; Jer. 3:20; Isa. 57:8; Ezek. 6:9).

But we also see marriage imagery used positively. For example, in sexually suggestive ways, God describes himself with his people as a husband spreading his garment over his wife to cover her nakedness, bathing and anointing her, dressing her with fine clothes and jewelry in Ezekiel 16:8–14. It’s an image of a husband who delights in his wife and wants to admire her beauty. This metaphor give us a picture of how a married couple’s sexual relationship can image the love between Christ and his church in its tenderness, generosity, and delight. These images not only show the loveliness and goodness that can be realized in the physical relationship between husband and wife rooted in godly mutual love, but also how this reflects deep and enduring spiritual realities.

All I have just said about sex being one flesh and pointing to Christ as marriage does means that a husband and wife should never become mere objects of sexual gratification for one another. Just as it’s wrong to use an unmarried person to gratify our lust, so it is with our spouses. There ought to be mutual consideration, tenderness, sacrificial love, the desire to please and delight the other more than to be served, and so much more in the sexual lives of married Christians. This doesn’t mean that it can’t and won’t be physically delightful. Rather, it means our deepest sexual pleasures will be found in satisfying, honoring, and loving each other.

So much of modern culture is at war with the Christian understanding of marital sex. Exposure to porn, which many men and women have suffered both before and sometimes during marriage, undermines godly marital sex. Casual sex on prime-time television makes selfish ways of thinking about sex as natural to modern people as breathing. This is often carried into their marital relationships. A quest for powerful physical sexual experiences even in marriage can become consuming, leading to sin. For example, many worldly sex manuals encourage couples to enhance their sexual relationships by viewing erotic films together. The powerful orgasm becomes something like the Holy Grail. When this happens, sex is treated not as an act of love that’s also pleasurable and fulfilling but as an end in itself. When we do this, sex becomes more like an illicit drug than the beautiful experience God gave married men and women to enjoy.

On the other hand, yes, there ought to be joy in marital sex, even laughter at times, along with many other earthly goods such as comfort and release. The Bible doesn’t give us a dour, stingy, only-your-duty view of marital sex. In Genesis, when Abimelech looks out his window, he sees Isaac enjoying what appears to have been some kind of sexual intimacy with Rebekah (which is why he concluded that Rebekah wasn’t Isaac’s sister). The English Standard Version renders it “laughing with” her, while the King James Version uses the term “sporting” (Gen. 26:8).

The Song of Solomon presents us with powerful sexual desire and anticipation between a groom and his intended bride. In the first chapter alone, we find every one of the senses called upon for this. In fact, in the English Standard Version the subtitle “Solomon and His Bride Delight in Each Other” following verse seven refers to the anticipation of physical, sexual intimacy in marriage. Consider this stunning passage, in which the groom is speaking to the bride:

How beautiful are your feet in sandals, O noble daughter! Your rounded thighs are like jewels, the work of a master hand. Your navel is a rounded bowl that never lacks mixed wine. Your belly is a heap of wheat, encircled with lilies. Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle. Your neck is like an ivory tower. Your eyes are pools in Heshbon, by the gate of Bath-rabbim. Your nose is like a tower of Lebanon, which looks toward Damascus. Your head crowns you like Carmel, and your flowing locks are like purple; a king is held captive in the tresses. How beautiful and pleasant you are, O loved one, with all your delights! Your stature is like a palm tree, and your breasts are like its clusters. I say I will climb the palm tree and lay hold of its fruit. Oh may your breasts be like clusters of the vine, and the scent of your breath like apples, and your mouth like the best wine. (7:1–9)

The Puritans are often viewed as cheerless people who wouldn’t have encouraged the enjoyment of marital sex as something good in itself. Nothing could be further from the truth. One Puritan minister said that, in sex, husband and wife should “joyfully give due benevolence one to another; as two musical instruments rightly fitted to make a most pleasant and sweet harmony in a well-tuned consort.” Another urged that sex in marriage should be enjoyed with “good will and delight, willingly, readily, and cheerfully.” Both gave excellent pastoral advice.

Footnotes

• We sometimes also see “caressing” in various translations.

• Both quoted in Leland Ryken, Worldly Saints: The Puritans as They Really Were (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986), 44.

Along with many joys and blessings, life in a fallen world brings many sources of grief and sorrow. As we will see further in the next chapter and we touched on in the last, marriage is a source of strength and support in such times. It’s a bulwark against loneliness as well, a source of intimate companionship that, in a good marriage, is steady and reliable.

Though we rarely think about it this way, marital sex can be part of the means by which a husband and wife provide comfort to each other. This is something we find often in talking to people who have been married for a long time. Psychologists have known this for years.

This is at least part of what we find going on in one of the most beautiful love stories in the Bible—the story of Isaac and Rebekah. “Then Isaac brought her into the tent of Sarah his mother and took Rebekah, and she became his wife, and he loved her. So Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death” (Gen. 24:67).

We see this in less dramatic ways in day-to-day married life. Sex to alleviate anxiety. Sex even as a way to relax together and usher each other into slumber. The close physical intimacy and release that comes from sex can sometimes be like medicine. It’s one of the ways that husbands and wives help one another through the rough roads of life.

Footnotes

• See for example Stephanie A. Sarkis, “5 Things They Don’t Tell You About Grieving,” Psychology Today, November 23, 2015, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/here-there-and-everywhere/201511/5-things-they-dont-tell-you-about-grief. The problem with psychological advice about this is that most don’t affirm that sex is appropriate for coping with grief only within marriage.

When Paul encouraged married saints to maintain a regular sex life (1 Cor. 7:3–5), he didn’t set an age limit. We don’t find here or anywhere in the Bible that marital sex must end with old age.

That said, it’s certainly true that beyond a certain age, it’s normal for sex drives to cool. Sexual relationships between married persons become less frequent as they enter old age, and most couples are perfectly happy with this. Still, there are a lot of misperceptions, and there’s a lot of room for variation among couples as they age. For example, in the General Social Survey over the last decade combined, over 68 percent of married people ages 60 to 69 had sex at least monthly, with 21 percent doing so two or three times a month and a quarter doing so weekly or more. Among those in their 70’s, well over half had sex monthly or more often, with almost 30 percent doing so two to three times per month or more often. Even after 80, many couples still have sex, about 35 percent monthly or more.

All that said, this isn’t a contest nor is it right to judge your own sex life relative to any such statistical benchmarks. There isn’t a right or wrong amount of sex for married people at any age if both are content and not neglecting this aspect of their marriage unnecessarily. Regular sex should be a part of most marriages through most of a couple’s life together, though what that means can legitimately vary across marriages.

Certainly, serious illness and disability can put an end to sex altogether. Advanced age makes that a lot more likely. There may sometimes be other situations that prevent sex for very long periods of time, as may occur with military duty or, among the persecuted, imprisonment. Some people may become too old and frail for sex. Although such difficulties may bring sex to a halt, it should never mean that sexual faithfulness or the marital covenant itself ends. The vows we made at marriage are for as long as both shall live, no matter what terrible events overtake us. At such times, if a remaining spouse continues to desire sex, God will give them the grace to be faithful to their vows.

We social scientists have known for a long time that a healthy, regular sex life is associated with higher marital happiness. This is as we would expect from the Scriptures. God knit marriage with sex by design, placed it at the core of marriage, and made it pleasurable and unifying. Thus, the sexual relationship will contribute positively to the marital one.

He also made the marital bond ideally and naturally a deep, mutually supportive companionship between a man and a woman. It stands to reason that to the extent that husbands and wives love, serve, and enjoy the company of one another, they will not only be happier in general and in their marriage, but they will also more readily embrace sexual relations.

So, when I demonstrate that regular sex and marital happiness are statistically related to each other, I’m often asked, “Is it sex that leads to marital happiness, or marital happiness that leads to sex?” My reply is, “Yes.” The relationship between these two things is mutual. In the General Social Survey for the last decade this is clear. Among married people, as sexual frequency increases, the percentages that say their marriage is “very happy” also rises dramatically. This holds for older age groups, not just those who are younger.

Over the course of any marriage, a couple will experience periods of difficulty in their sex life, just as they will in other aspects of their marriage. Illness, pregnancy, childbirth, living with newborns, stress and exhaustion, and the impact of medication and surgery are among many obvious reasons a couple may have “down times” sexually. There will be disagreements about sex just as there will be about so much else. Communication, compromise, commitment, and love will normally see couples through those times. Considering how relational issues outside of sex may be impacting the quality of a couple’s sexual relationship is critical. Knowing that such periods are normal helps too.

If and when a couple needs to seek education and counseling for extraordinary sexual difficulties, sometimes beyond what their pastor or others in their life are able to provide, they will need to pursue this with care. Most sexual “experts,” whatever good they might do, approach sex from a worldly perspective, and may provide instruction and advice contrary to biblical morals. Many so-called Christian counselors are not much better. Investigate any prospective sexual helper thoroughly, and don’t settle for anyone who is not committed to a biblical sexual ethic.

A Note in Closing: When the Going Gets Really Tough

As in other areas of marriage, some sexual problems may be rooted in deep-seated and complex realities that defy easy answers, even from sound, biblical counselors. What help is there for people who struggle with shame, perhaps about their bodies, perhaps relative to some earlier sexual trauma or abuse? What about believers struggling to be faithful spouses, including sexually, in unions that are deeply unhappy, perhaps with partners who are selfish, emotionally distant, or even abusive? What happens when these problems go on for a long time? Another common area of difficulty is spouses who make inappropriate or uncomfortable sexual demands. These kinds of issues seem to be increasingly common due to the expressive individualism of our culture and the expectations fueled by exposure to pornography.

In a fallen world in which every marriage involves two sinful human beings, often with broken sexual histories, these kinds of issues will come up in many Christian marriages. Like any powerful, central aspect of God’s creation, sex that is misused can do great damage. Lisa Fullam’s observations are accurate, even for Christian married couples: “Sex can be everything from a . . . transaction without emotional meaning, to a profound experience of loving union . . . Sex can be tender or violently abusive; it can heal and deeply wound.” There isn’t space here to provide detailed counsel on this difficult range of issues, but I hope the following will help.

First, it’s important to rely on, remember, and apply the core teachings of the gospel to the sexual challenges we face in marriage. For both you and your spouse, “the law of the Spirit has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:2). For both you and your spouse, “he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6). For the guilt so many of us have over our sexual pasts: “as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us” (Ps. 103:12). The same grace to love and forgive that we enjoy from God can, by his grace, be exercised toward our spouses.

Reviewing 1 Corinthians 13 on the attributes of true love can also be helpful for spouses struggling sexually. This can be true for both parties, but especially for the spouse being selfish and demanding. After all, love is “patient and kind,” not “arrogant or rude.” It “does not insist on its own way,” neither is it “irritable or resentful” (v. 4–5). If I can’t forego something I want that my spouse tells me he or she finds harmful or offensive—even if it’s not clearly sinful to me—how does this square with biblical love? Conversely, at times the compromise will go in the other direction, as when one partner accepts the sexual advances of the other even when he or she is not “in the mood.” If both partners are committed to loving each other in ways consistent with true biblical love, many differences can be worked out.

Next, it’s important not to go it alone. We’re not designed to walk out any aspect of our Christian lives, including our marriages and sexual relationships, by ourselves. Jesus has placed us into his body, the church (1 Cor. 12:12, 27; Rom. 12:4–5). He’s given us pastors, elders, trusted friends, and older saints. They can encourage us, pray for us, advise us, even help us sit down with our spouses for difficult conversations. We must not hesitate to avail ourselves of this kind of help, especially when things seem impossible or have hit a dead end.

As Hollinger notes, many sexual issues plaguing married couples simply require better communication skills. We may just need help improving these. Fortunately, good teaching and training focused on improving marital communication is widely available. Competent counselors, pastors, and marriage mentors can help couples with this.

Meanwhile, commit your marriage and your sex life to God, the one who designed both. He’s faithful and delights in the godly sexual relationships of his people in marriage. He who saved you by his own blood won’t abandon or forsake you (Heb. 13:5).

Footnotes

• As quoted in Hollinger’s The Meaning of Sex, 12.

• Hollinger, The Meaning of Sex, 153.