Why Sex Is Not Love Nor Proof Of Love
A lot of times, you hear people telling their opposite others to prove their love by having sex with them. It is alarming that many people confuse sex with love, and some do not know the difference between love and lust, or they choose not to acknowledge it.
For this reason, we are going to see why sex is different from love, and why one should not confuse sex with love.
In this generation when things that were frowned at years ago have become societal norms, people no longer have values for virtues. One of such areas of moral that has seen so great a decadence in our generation is the issue of sex.
What is more appalling, is the fact that people are confusing the act of sex with love. Hence, a girl claims she loves a man; hence, she slept with him. While this may be true to some extent for some, it is not generally true; and where it is true, it only portents the eros kind of love – a physical kind of love which from a biblical view point, is instituted for, and expected for marriage consummation. Hence, where this is carried out outside of God’s injuction – the will and purpose of God for it, it cannot be called love, but rather, lust.
According to the Oxford dictionary, lust is a strong sexual desire. However, the definition of lust goes further than that. Merriam Webster dictionary defines lust as a usually intense or unbridled sexual desire.
Ligolier.org gives a better definition of the term lust. Let us see what it says:
But epithumia is often used to refer to sinful desires, so epithumia is also rendered as “lust” and “passions,” as well as “desires.” Lust is the desire for anything that is sinful, such as illicit sex, intoxication, ill-gotten gain, revenge, or anything else that God forbids.
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 17 By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world.
God instituted love, because God is love, love is godly and it is beautiful. If love is exhibited according to the principles and injunctions of God, then it is true love. But love which is outside this principle, reason, will and injunction of God is fake love. It is lust.
The devil has found a way to adulterate almost every good thing that comes from God. Hence, there are fake visions, fake prophecies and prophets, fake healings, fake miracles, etc. That something looks like the original, doesn’t make it original. While money is good and there is real money, there is also fake money. It takes insight, discernment, carefulness and wisdom to detect a fake note from a good one.
If sex were to mean love, what would you say about prostitutes who hardly have any feelings, connections, intimacy, fondness, or even good knowledge of most of their clients?
If sex were to mean love, what would you say about men and women who rape their victims? Would you say they raped them because of the love they have for them? If that were so, then it would be devoid of the attributes or qualities of love adduced in 1Corinthians 13:4–7:
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
You see how an act of rape defies the above. The act of lust and infatuation also defy these attributes of love given above.
For instance, love is patient. Hence, a man or woman who truely loves you, would be patient with you till the right time to have sex according to the plan and purpose of God.
Lust, infatuation, and rape are all self-seeking. They want to gratify their orgies and fleshly desires. They don’t consider the emotions, state, desire, purpose, wish, good or feelings of the other party. As long as they are satisfied, they are okay. That’s not love.
Lust, infatuation and rape delight in evil because it is evil in its own way. The delight of what is evil, is evil itself.
Lust, infatuation and rape dishonour their victims because they do not care or border about their victim’s feelings nor do they wish to know if the act was right or wrong for the other party.
Most often than not, infatuation does not persevere. There are breakups in a lot of relationships these days because their is lack of perseverance, patience and trust. The spirit of fighting it together, and making it work amidst all odds is devoid in most intimate relationships today. How could one claim the same thing that has attributes that are opposite of the original, to be the original itself? It is not possible!
Why you can see that the above scripture was talking about the attributes of love, it never mentioned sex. The above qualities are the qualities of Godly and Christian love. So where does the idea that sex is the same as love or sex portents or is a proof of love comes from. This notion is a great fallacy and deception from the pit of hell.
Even sex between a man and his wife is not mentioned as one of the attributes or qualities of love, how much less sex that is done outside the plans and purposes of God.
I think this wrong notion comes from the way society names and labels things. When people have sex, society says ‘they make love’. The idea of giving an euphemistic meaning to this thing, is giving people the wrong idea of what love is. This makes it possible for satan to deceive so many people today to think that having sex is an act of love. Hence, even professing Christians are guilty of this. Christians no longer consider chastity as a Godly and moral virtue that must be protected. Even Christians are defending their lustful acts of sex, quoting scriptures about love to back up their evil activities. Until this shroud is removed from the eyes of people and even those that name the name of the Lord, then people, and even God’s people will continue perishing out of ignorance. Hosea 4:6 says:
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.
What would you say about the mating act of animals? would you say that because dogs are mating, they are making love? That would be wrong according to English etymology and semantics right? so why do men apply this thing to intimate acts between humans just because they want to feel comfortable with evil.
On sex being proof of love, supposing someone tells you to stab your own mother to death to prove that you love them, would you do that? You wouldn’t because it is sinful and evil. The one asking you to do that couldn’t be said to love you either because he/she wants harm done to your own mother to prove your love for them.
How much more, someone tells you to kill your own soul to prove a point that you love them. That is how sin is; it kills the soul. When sex is consumated in marriage of course, it can be a proof of love, because love gives, hence as scriptures says to married couples not to withhold from each other (1Cor 7:3-5), giving sex to your husband or wife, would prove that you love them, but it is not the act itself that is the attribute of love, but the reason behind it, which is, ‘giving’. It is a giving that is done based on the reason, purpose and injunction of God. Hence, it connotes love relationship between a husband and a wife. This is what eros love is. But wherever bible mentions and tells us to love one another, to love as God loves, bible is simply talking about Agape love which is the Godly, unconditional kind of love.
While there is also Phileo love, the kind of love the bible tells us to portray is agape in nature.
Even when Jesus was asking Peter: ‘do you love me more than these’, He was asking ‘do you agape me more than these?’ Jesus asked this two times. It was only the third time He changed it to ‘do you Phileo me?’ (John 21:15-17) because Peter couldn’t get it.
Phileo love is a kind of love that exists between brothers and sisters, parents and their children. This kind of love is also good, but the highest and unselfish among them all is agape love. This is a kind of love that gives not based on the reason that one is qualified, nor because of any good thing that one has done. This kind of love is not self-seeking but solely consider the good of the other party. This is the kind of love that God gave us that even while we were yet sinners, He gave us His own beloved Son. Even phileo love may sometimes be self-seeking, but agape love is never self-seeking.
Do not be deceived; sex is not love. It is not a proof of love. So when someone deceives you that you have to prove your love for them by having sex with them, be strong in the faith that you profess. Ignorance is never an excuse to commit sins or do evil.
May the good Lord give you understanding and firm standing to resist sins and stand strong in the days of evil in Jesus name. Amen.