Journal: Eikon
Volume: EIKON 03:1 (Spring 2021)
Article: The Beautiful Meaning Of Marital Sexual Intimacy
Author: Rob Lister

Eikon 3.1 (Spring 2021) p. 30

The Beautiful Meaning Of Marital Sexual Intimacy

Rob Lister

Rob Lister serves as Associate Professor of Theology at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University

In light of all the church has to oppose these days with respect to matters of marriage and sexuality, it seems useful to spill some ink in an attempt to paint the very positive portrait of what, in fact, the divine design of marital sexual intimacy is meant to express. It is true, of course, that as the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, we withstand worldly ideologies (a la Col. 2:8) that undermine the gospel and trample upon the meaning and dignity of human personhood. And yet, it is not merely the case that we are opposed to worldly ideologies in the abstract. Rather, we stand opposed to such ideologies, because what God has designed us for and called us to, in matters of marriage and sexuality, is more compelling, more beautiful, and more humanizing than what the world offers.

The problem, in short, with the sexual revolutionaries is that they simultaneously ask too much and too little of sexuality and gender. On the one hand, they expect too much, in that they ask sexuality to bear nearly the entire weight of our personhood to the point that persons, by this definition, are reduced to patterns of appetite. On the other hand, they settle for far too little, because they fail to see and delight in the robust and holistic meaning of sexual intimacy.1

Eikon 3.1 (Spring 2021) p. 31

While it is true that these worldly ideologies concerning human sexuality serve to short-circuit and diminish the divinely ordained meaning of sexual intimacy, I have found that shortcomings in grasping the meaning of marital intimacy sometimes come from more well-intentioned sources as well. My wife and I have done a fair bit of pre-marital counseling over the years, and the topic of sexual intimacy is always a part of those discussions. As we try to communicate wisely and biblically with these couples, we have found that there is no shortage of Christian literature on sex in marriage. Much of this literature, while well-intentioned, seems to revolve around the topic of sexual technique.

To be clear, technique as a consideration in marital sexual intimacy is not irrelevant; godly couples will desire to serve and please one another physically, so those matters warrant our attention too. But what often gets overlooked with reductionistic emphases on technique is the defining feature of God’s design for sex, which should ground subsequent considerations of technique. And so, over the years, we have tried to respond to this need by starting further back, in a mu...