What the Marital Act Really Means

By Gerald Odonnell

When it comes to the marital act, the discussion with young adults, and even young teens, instructs that it is an intimate activity that should be reserved for marriage. Adults separate the activity out from marriage, making it just another act on the lines similar to telling a young person, not of our faith, to not drink alcohol until they are at least of age and being disappointed with them if they drink earlier. That act should have been described as something intimate, saved for adulthood.

What is about to be revealed biblically is not designed to be an attack on a role exercised by ministers but an instruction for the guarding of our children. And if you happen to have been a person who did not wait to engage in marital activity until “getting married” and, in fact, may have had more than one partner, please set aside the impact that this article may have on that thought process and follow the Biblical connection. To justify a position different from what is about to be shared to lighten the meaning in one’s own life is a selfish act, especially if the proper understanding was withheld from a young person, which could have saved them from heartache as well as making a serious mistake.

It has been my experience that there are two camps when it comes to the meaning of intimacy in marriage. A number of years ago, using the “exception” as the basis of their position, a popular social media Seventh-day Adventist couple (an irregular line minister and his wife) did a message on this topic and basically stated that despite the Biblical content you are about to read, marriage is simply two people who love each other and are willing to give themselves to each other, not necessarily sexually, especially since there are people out there, for one reason or another, who cannot be intimate. As I said, their argument is based on the small percentage of married couples who are unable to conduct the marital act. In reality, the vast majority of married people are sexually intimate. There is no doubt that those who do fall into the exception that cannot engage in this activity are still considered married in the eyes of God. But setting that argument aside, let us look at one situation brought to our attention a number of years ago.

What is interesting about this content that may be eye-opening to some is that secular television has known about the truth of the matter more so than Christians have. In many sitcoms, the proper meaning of the marital act is very much made a laughing stock. For instance, on May 1, 2015, the Big Bang Theory television show had a supposed religious person known as Mary Cooper state the proper understanding. [Yes, it was necessary to search for the transcript so as to accurately portray this one of many examples of where Hollywood makes this matter an extreme joke.] Mary was in conversation with a character known as Penny, who was actively engaged in the marital activity with her boyfriend, Leonard, though he was not in the conversation at the time. However, Leonard’s atheistic mother, Beverly Hofstadter, was also among the people in conversation. Mary Cooper spoke up and stated, “The moment a man lays with a woman, they are married in the eyes of the Lord.” This dialog would continue as Beverly takes to task against Mary for uttering such “nonsense”. Mary said that it is Bible! And she is right.

According to historians, the first marriage, using an official, dates back to Mesopotamia in 2350 B.C. Several hundred years later, it would evolve into something ancient Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans would embrace. And it would not be adopted by the Christian church until after the Protestant Reformation. It was eventually made canon law in the Catholic Church only as of 1563. [Resource provided by The Week publication, religious section.]

But all of that is not important because we do not take secular or religious/secular sources as gospel, however, it was presented to let you know that what we accept in society as always having been, is not so. This is only several hundred years old. Now, the reason such evidence does not matter is because we take our position from the scriptures.

Now, before we go any further, let us hear what Ellen White has to state on the matter:

“God celebrated the first marriage. Thus the institution has for its originator the Creator of the universe. “Marriage is honourable”; it was one of the first gifts of God to man, and it is one of the two institutions that, after the fall, Adam brought with him beyond the gates of Paradise. When the divine principles are recognized and obeyed in this relation, marriage is a blessing; it guards the purity and happiness of the race, it provides for man’s social needs, it elevates the physical, the intellectual, and the moral nature.” {AH 25.4}

She stated that God celebrated the first marriage, which is an act found in various books of the Bible, but she does not mention that God was the first minister to conduct a marriage ceremony, but even if Ellen White were to have stated such, where in the Bible is the second minister to conduct a wedding service? Neither is actually found throughout the whole Bible.

Now, this is not meant to belittle the practice of having a church wedding, a minister officiating, and the papers being signed. Today, there does need to be a bit of official regulation so as to protect the parties involved, grant certain privileges like that of medical decisions, etc.

So let’s examine the scriptures to see what they actually say about the marital act.

The first occurrence of becoming married is found in Genesis 2:24, which says, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” The simple act of leaving one’s mother and father and joining with their spouse to live together is what we see. The verse does not declare, “and the two shall see a minister and be declared as one flesh.”

That means the whole notion that couples who “live in sin” before the eyes of God are actually living in marriage. What makes it sinful is the lack of commitment, in which if either party gets tired of the other, they can just move on since there is no piece of legal paper involved. This is what Jesus saw instead of the high divorce rate, which is an inaccurate measurement to begin with. “They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all” (Luke 17:27). People marrying, separating, and becoming married to someone else is really fulfilled in those who jump from one “living together relationship” to another, which is Biblically called fornication.

And Jesus reaffirmed the verse in Genesis by stating, “Have ye not read, that he which made [them] at the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder” (Matthew 19:4-6). Even Paul reiterates the statement: “For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh” (Ephesians 5:31).

And for those who especially label women unfavorably (but it is also applicable to men) who jump from one “living together relationship” to another or simply engage in marital activity often, this is what the Bible has to say about those who indulge in such promiscuity: “What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh” (1 Corinthians 6:16). Is there need to state any more evidence given that even conducting the activity with a prostitute is considered “one flesh”, as in being married, in the eyes of God? But we shall continue on the positive side of the subject.

We shall skip all of the verses that simply declare that couples were husband and wife because nothing is mentioned or hinted at concerning how they became such, but here are notable incidents where the Bible shows what defined these unions as marriage.

“And Sarai Abram’s wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife. And he went in unto Hagar, and she conceived: and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes” (Genesis 16:3–4). We see from these verses that the marital act allowed Abram to have a second wife.

“And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her: and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s [death]” (Genesis 24:67). For Isaac to “take Rebekah” means that the marital act was performed. What was the result? – “She became his wife.” There is no mention of a minister being present in that tent.

Now let us have Jacob, not only once, but four times, show us that engaging in the marital act is not an act reserved for marriage, but actually “is marriage.”

The first of the four acts was the trick, or deception, perpetrated by Laban. “And Jacob said unto Laban, Give [me] my wife, for my days are fulfilled, that I may go in unto her. And Laban gathered together all the men of the place, and made a feast. And it came to pass in the evening, that he took Leah his daughter, and brought her to him; and he went in unto her” (Genesis 29:21–23). To “go in unto her” was the marital act. Upon learning of the trickery, Jacob could not simply hand Leah back to Laban, for the act had made them married. Jacob would have to go through a divorce process, which had not existed as of yet. The “bill of divorcement” would not come into existence until the time of Moses (Deuteronomy 24:1). Further, he knew that Leah would then not be marriage material since she was “laying” with a man, and not wanting to shame her, he decided to keep her.

Genesis 29:28–30 shows the process for obtaining the second wife. “And Jacob did so, and fulfilled her week: and he gave him Rachel his daughter to wife also. And Laban gave to Rachel his daughter Bilhah his handmaid to be her maid. And he went in also unto Rachel, and he loved also Rachel more than Leah, and served with him yet seven other years.” To “go in also unto Rachel” is the wording for the marital act.

For the third wife, Genesis 30:4 states, “And she gave him Bilhah her handmaid to wife: and Jacob went in unto her,” and the fourth wife, Genesis 30:9 tells us, “When Leah saw that she had left bearing, she took Zilpah her maid, and gave her Jacob to wife.” Alright, so the fourth wife is not so clear with Jacob  actually conducting the marital act, but the third one is with the words “went in unto her.”

Now, let us look at a law that was in practice in war situations. “And what man [is there] that hath betrothed a wife, and hath not taken her? let him go and return unto his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man take her” (Deuteronomy 20:7). As long as there is no marital activity, a woman was considered only betrothed or engaged. Oh, it was a serious engagement that would involve divorce proceedings, but nonetheless, she was not his married wife until he had engaged in the marital activity with her. Basically, all those who were engaged were allowed to use it as an excuse for not going to war.

So, the bottom line is that we need to be educating our youth properly, biblically, and just maybe it would reduce the number of youths engaged in such activity while thinking that it is nothing more than premarital activity. “Oh, well, it’s not like anyone is being murdered.” Sure, it would still be considered fornication, an act condemned by the Bible, but it has far more serious repercussions if we teach our youth that if you lie with a person, you are married.

This is why the rape in Genesis 34 was so serious, causing all kinds of rules to be broken. In short, Dinah was raped by Shechem, a heathen. Exchanging sons and daughters with the heathen was at least verbally understood as being forbidden, yet an agreement was reached between this heathen group because of the incident. This did not sit well with Simeon and Levi, who knew that as long as Shechem lived, Dinah could not be married to someone else. Even Romans 7:1-2 states, “Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to [her] husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of [her] husband.” The final result was a surprise slaughter attack, freeing their sister from the obligation of being married to a heathen.

And for those who were curious about the statement about the erroneous divorce rate, let us briefly address it. The way the divorce rate is calculated is that in one particular year, all requests for marriage licenses are compared to all the requests for divorces back to the beginning of all marriages conducted and are still alive. What is unfair about the calculation is that the divorce requests are based on all marriages over all the years as compared to only those married in a particular year. A better calculation would be to add up all existing marriages and see how many ended in divorce. According to the little unknown method of doing it properly, instead of reporting a 50 to 60 percent rate of divorce, it is more like 5 to 6 percent. In our day and age, the vast majority of adults “live together” instead of filing paperwork with the government. It is definitely an inaccurate way to track the divorce rate.

But get this: according to other statistics, most people who do get married through the proper paperwork, be it a church wedding or justice of the peace, 93% have already engaged in marital activity and not with the person they are getting married to. Before the 1960s, a woman especially, would not be participating in such activity as women were protective of their reputation. Today, with both men and women, if they do not engage in the activity by the third date, it is time to move on. Clearly, this activity fulfills Jesus’ prophecy, as spoken of earlier.

Again, we are doing a disservice to our youth by trying to teach them not to engage in marital activity through the simple means of saying that such an act is to be reserved for marriage. It makes much more of an impact if we tell our youth that engaging in marital activity is actually making a marital commitment.

God help our youth!

Gerald Odonnell
Four Angels’ Messages Ministry
info@fourangelsmessages.com