Biblical Sexuality Part 2: Marriage

Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

The time for minced words and gentle footnotes is over. Too many men have failed to state the plain truth of scripture for too long and our civilization is now in shambles. The rainbow flag flies over embassies, public schools, and now over far too many professing churches. Polygamy is being openly rehabilitated by conservative commentators who think it a lesser evil than sodomy. Pastors who once thundered against sexual immorality now whisper that “same-sex attraction” is a cross to be borne rather than a sin to be mortified.

Love compels us to speak with the full-throated clarity of Scripture itself. What follows is one unified, lengthy declaration of biblical truth on marriage, sex, desire, and the doctrine of man. This isn’t a new idea, biblical anthropology has been defended for half a century by men who have long been ignored. Man is not an autonomous bundle of desires; man is the image of the Triune God, and that image is irreducibly, gloriously, ontologically male and female.

Everything stands or falls in Genesis 1–2. Lose the meaning of male and female there, and you have already lost the gospel.

I. The Ontological Binary of the Imago Dei

(Genesis 1:26–28; 2:18–25; Matthew 19:4–6)

Genesis 1:27 is not decoration. It is the charter of humanity:

“So God created man in his own image,

in the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them.”

Look at the deliberate Hebrew parallelism:

• in the image of God → he created him
• male and female → he created them
• and he blessed them and called their name “Adam” (אָדָם)

The image is not borne by generic humanity. The image is borne in the difference-in-unity of male and female. The man alone is not the full image. The woman alone is not the full image. Only in covenantal, one-flesh reunion do they together constitute the full Adam, the full image-bearer.

This is why the dominion mandate (“be fruitful…fill the earth…subdue it”) immediately follows the declaration of sexual differentiation. Culture, family, worship, and dominion all flow out of the binary glory of the imago Dei.

Genesis 2 drives the nail deeper. God parades the animals before the man and declares:

“But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him” (2:20).

The Hebrew is צֶלֶע—“side,” not merely “rib.” God splits the original Adam in half and from one side builds (בָּנָה) the woman. When the man sees her he bursts into the first poetry in Scripture:

“This at last is bone of my bones

and flesh of my flesh!”

Jesus Himself ties this text to the foundation of creation:

“Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife [singular], and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate” (Matt 19:4–6).

Jesus quotes both Genesis 1 (male and female) and Genesis 2 (one man, one woman, one flesh). He does not say “two or more,” “persons,” or “spouses.” He says male and female, man and his wife, the two.

God could have made Adam and Steve. God could have made Adam and Eve and Rebekah and Sarah. He did not. He made Adam and Eve. Every deviation (homosexual, polygamous, polyamorous, transgender) is a bodily declaration that the Triune God got creation wrong.

II. The Universal No of the Seventh Commandment

(Exodus 20:14; Leviticus 18; Hebrews 13:4)

The Seventh Commandment is not a narrow prohibition against cheating on your spouse. In biblical categories, “adultery” (נִאוּף) is any sexual activity outside the one-man-one-woman-for-life bond.

Leviticus 18 is Holy Spirit commentary on the Seventh Commandment. It lists:

• every form of incest (vv. 6–18)
• adultery proper (v. 20)
• homosexual acts (v. 22)
• bestiality (v. 23)

Every single one is labeled תּוֹעֵבָה—“abomination,” the same word used for idolatry. The chapter is framed by the warning that these are the sins for which God vomited the Canaanites out of the land (vv. 24–30). Sexual ethics are not private; they are covenantal and covenantal judgment is national. It’s the reason for much destruction not only from God but within nations.

III. Same-Sex Desire Itself Is Sinful

(Romans 1:18–32; 1 Corinthians 6:9–11; Matthew 5:28)

The Side-B dodge (“I can be same-sex attracted as long as I don’t act on it”) collapses under Scripture.

1. Romans 1:24–27 God gave them up ἐν ταῖς ἐπιθυμίαις τῶν καρδιῶν αὐτῶν—“in the lusts of their hearts.” The judgment is the desire itself. Paul uses ἐπιθυμία, the same word forbidden in the Tenth Commandment and condemned in Colossians 3:5. They “exchanged the natural function” (τὴν φυσικὴν χρῆσιν)—the very function defined in Genesis 1–2.
2. 1 Corinthians 6:9–11 μαλακοί and ἀρσενοκοῖται will not inherit the kingdom. Verse 11 is aorist: “and such were (ἦτε) some of you”—past tense, not ongoing identity.
3. Jesus in Matthew 5:28 “Everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” If heterosexual lust in the heart is adultery, then homosexual lust in the heart is homosexuality. There is no neutral “orientation.”

We do not tell the angry man he is an “anger-oriented Christian, just don’t hit anyone.” We do not tell the covetous man he is a “greed-oriented Christian, just don’t steal.” We call him to repent of the desire itself. Same-sex attraction is concupiscence, not cross.

IV. Polygamy, Polyamory, and Every Other Counterfeit

(Genesis 2:24; Malachi 2:10–16; Ephesians 5:22–33; 1 Timothy 3:2, 12)

Unsurprisingly, the macho man end of Christianity has decided to awaken the same unbiblical position to attempt to solve these problems, claiming polygamy is the conservative fallback position. It is not.

1. Genesis 2:24 uses singular nouns: “his wife,” not “his wives.”
2. Every polygamous narrative in Scripture ends in bloodshed and tears (Abraham → Ishmael; Jacob → tribal hatred; Gideon → Abimelech; David → Absalom; Solomon → idolatry and divided kingdom).
3. Malachi 2:14–15 indicts Israel for treachery against “the wife [singular] of your youth.”
4. New Testament office-bearers must be μιᾶς γυναικὸς ἄνδρες—“one-woman men” (literally).
5. Ephesians 5 quotes Genesis 2:24 and declares marriage a μυστήριον μέγα picturing Christ and the church—one Husband, one Bride.

Polygamy is covenantal adultery against the picture of Christ.

V. The Telos of Marriage: Christ and His One Bride

This is the final, decisive argument. Every question of sexual ethics is answered by Christology and ecclesiology.

• Christ has one Bride, not many.
• The Bride has one Husband, not many.
• The Husband laid down His life for His one Bride.
• The Bride submits to her one Husband in everything.

Two men cannot picture this. Two women cannot. One man and five women cannot. Only one man and one woman, covenanted for life, forsaking all others, can display the great mystery “Christ and the church.”

VI. Repentance, Mortification, and Glorious Hope

To every person reading this who bears same-sex desire, polygamous desire, polyamorous desire, or transgender confusion: hear the gospel.

You are not your desires. You are a creature stamped male or female with the image of God. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, sinners desires to be reclaimed and retrained. He saved the murderous Pharisee Saul. He saved the sexually immoral Corinthians (“and such were some of you”). He is mighty to save you.

• Confess every desire that contradicts Genesis 1–2 as sin.
• Put it to death daily by the Spirit (Rom 8:13; Col 3:5).
• Flee to Christ, marry a believer of the opposite sex to train your desires to be in line with Gods creation.
• Surround yourself with a church that loves you enough to tell you the truth.

There is no third way. There is no “gay Christian” identity compatible with the gospel. There is only Christian (male or female) being conformed to the image of the Son.

Run to the Bridegroom who is coming for His one spotless Bride.

For the crown rights of King Jesus over every square inch of creation, including our bodies and desires.

In Him
Brandon Charbonneau