Premarital sex is not the worst of sins, nor is it something to be winked at. The severity of the sin, I suggest, arises from the nature of each situation.
The entirety of Scripture is bound up with the notion of covenant. Though not strictly speaking a covenant theologian, I nevertheless recognize the importance God places on covenants. From the Abrahamic covenant in Genesis Chapter 12 to the new covenant in the blood of our Savior in Luke Chapter 22, there is a wealth of revelation in the Judaeo-Christian Scriptures about covenants. Important terms and expressions surrounding the Scripture's teaching on covenant would have to include,
- the "I wills" of God (e.g., Genesis 12:2-3 and 7)
- promises made and kept (or not kept)
- oaths taken and honored (or not honored)
- vows made, received, and fulfilled (or not fulfilled)
- fidelity (or its opposite, infidelity)
The above elements of covenant have found their way into the marriage ceremony
from the very beginning, when Adam recognized the wonderful thing God did in creating especially for him a fit helper ("an help meet," Genesis 2:18 KJV). Adam said,
"This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman because she was taken out of man" (Genesis 2:23).
As a follow-up to Adam's words, the author of Genesis then said,
For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh (v.24).
Jesus himself gave his imprimatur to the above words of Scripture, and he added the following truth for the benefit of his audience who came to him with a question about divorce,
"What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate" (Matthew 19:6b).
Inherent in the above information (which I've given only surface treatment!) are the concepts of exclusivity, faithfulness, intimacy, oneness, sacredness, permanence, and more.
All to say, in a biblical context premarital sex is tantamount to putting the cart before the horse. Sticking with this homey aphorism, if the horse is the covenant, then the cart would have to be the enactment of the covenant. Put differently, the covenant is the ideal and the becoming one flesh is the appropriate behavior in keeping with the ideal. Beliefs give rise to behavior; attitudes give rise to actions.
If, then, the beliefs and attitudes of the man and the woman prior to the public giving and receiving of vows are congruent with the biblical ideal, I suggest the "severity" of the act of premarital sex is one magnitude less than premarital sex which is the product of mere passion (or even lust) with little or no intention to fulfill the promise that the act entails.
I am not hereby saying that premarital sexual union is sanctioned by Scripture; quite the opposite, in fact. As my esteemed colleague in another answer observed, 1 Corinthians 7:1 makes perfectly clear that the sins of immorality include premarital sex between two single people who are not yet husband and wife. Paul’s advice to them is simple: Get married (7:2)!
In conclusion, we live in a time when marriage is both honored and dishonored. On the one hand, there is the LGBTQ community which insists they should not be deprived of this noble and time-honored institution and all the perquisites derived therefrom. On the other hand are the thousands of opposite-sex couples who claim they don’t need a marriage certificate to prove they love one another, so they live together (or “play house,” as Judge Judith Sheindlin puts it), thus depriving themselves of both the costs and the benefits of a spiritually and legally sanctioned marriage. What is wrong with this picture?
A saying I grew up with but which is still valid today goes, “First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in a baby carriage!” Sounds like the correct order to me. What thinkest thou?
