Heb 13:4 Sex and marriage
Intro:
From the beginning to the end of Hebrews, the abiding concern of the author has been to so instruct the tiny Hebrew church that it would stay afloat on the increasingly hostile seas of first-century Roman culture. Their ship was a microscopic dot on the massive billows of the official pagan/secular enterprise—and eminently vulnerable. It appeared to outside eyes that the external forces could sink it at will.
But the author knew that the internal threat to the church was far more deadly. In fact, he knew that it could ride out any storm if things were right on the inside. That is why, in our preceding study (vv. 1–3), the preacher so strongly emphasized ecclesial ethics, instructing his people on how to treat those on board the ship—the church. Specifically, he advised, first, brotherly love, then hospitality, and then the necessity of sympathetically identifying with those in the church who were undergoing suffering.
As you read this last chapter in Hebrews, you get the impression that the writer had a great deal of miscellaneous matter to discuss and saved it till the end. In Hebrews 12, we were rejoicing on Mt. Zion; and now we are discussing such everyday topics as hospitality, marriage, church officers, and who was the last one to be released from jail.
But in the Bible, there is no division between doctrine and duty, revelation and responsibility. The two always go together. The emphasis in this last section of the book is on living by faith. The writer presented the great examples of faith in Hebrews 11, and the encouragements to faith in Hebrews 12. In Hebrews 13, he presented the evidences of faith that should appear in our lives if we are really walking by faith and not by sight. There are four such evidences.
Enjoying Spiritual Fellows
The Epilogue can be distinguished from the body of the epistle in that the latter contains only broad, general admonitions, while the Epilogue contains specific ones. In some ways these specific instructions suggest ways “to worship God acceptably” (cf. 12:28). The Epilogue also contains the writer’s personal comments to his readers and his farewell to them.
The author of Hebrews points us to the superiority of Jesus Christ. He is superior to the prophets (1:1–3), superior to the angels (1:4–2:18), and to Moses (3:1–4:13). He provides a superior priesthood on the basis of a superior covenant (4:14–10:31). Not only is Jesus superior to the foundational aspects of Judaism, but He also is superior to any aspect of contemporary religion. This means that Jesus is not just one good option among many ways of drawing near to God; He is the only way. Because of the superiority of Jesus we must not neglect such a great salvation that He has provided with His sacrificial death (2:3; 10:1–18).
Jesus, the superior Savior, is also the superior Priest. We can come to Him in times of trouble, suffering, and struggle. In Him we will find a sympathetic Priest (4:14–16) who offers grace in time of need. Thus we can and should draw near to Him in worship (10:19–25), live by faith (11:1–40), persevere to the end (12:1–29), and live a life of love (13:1–25).
But Hebrews does not ultimately look to these old covenant heroes for motivation to run the race; rather, we are to run “looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (v. 2). Jesus, as Mediator of the new covenant, is the supreme example of a faith that endures to the end. He suffered the ultimate martyrdom—the holy Son of God on a Roman cross—to save us from our sins. His struggle and victory are ours—he alone is “the founder and perfecter of our faith,” the champion who brought faith to its complete expression and as such is also our ultimate example of bearing up steadfastly under unjust suffering (cf. 1 Pet. 2:19–23).
13:1–25 Final Exhortations
Christians have practical duties with one another. They must show sympathy to those in prison, and they must avoid all immorality. God has promised never to leave Christians, and that promise helps to banish greed (13:1–6).
Many ancient writers spoke of honoring the “(marriage) bed” (the “bed” was an idiom for intercourse); one story goes so far as to emphasize a virgin’s purity by noting that no one had ever even sat on her bed. Male sexual immorality was rife in Greco-Roman society, which also accepted prostitution; pedophilia, homosexual intercourse and sex with female slaves were common Greek practices until a man was old enough for marriage. A few Greek philosophers even thought marriage burdensome but sexual release necessary. The writer accepts not typical Greek values, but God’s values represented in Scripture and also upheld by Jewish circles in his day.
From love for the badly treated the author turns to love within the marriage bond. We should probably understand the opening expression as an imperative: “Let marriage be held in honor” (RSV). “By all” (en pasin) might be masculine, “among all men,” or neuter, “in all circumstances,” probably the latter. Some ascetics held marriage in low esteem, but the author repudiates this position. “The marriage bed” is a euphemism for sexual intercourse. He considers the physical side of marriage important and “pure.” Contrary to the views of some thinkers in the ancient world, there is nothing defiling about it. Over against honorable marriage he sets “sexual immorality” (pornous; the word is usually rendered “fornicators”) and “adulterers” (moichous, used where violation of the marriage bond is involved).
All forms of sexual sin come under the judgment of God. This was a novel view to many in the first century. For them chastity was an unreasonable demand to make. It is one of the unrecognized miracles that Christians were able not only to make this demand but to make it stick. The word “God” comes last in the Greek and is emphatic. Sexual sinners are likely to go their way, careless of all others. But in the end they will be judged by none less than God.
5:3 fornication … covetousness. In absolute contrast to God’s holiness and love, such sins as these exist (also in v. 5), by which Satan seeks to destroy God’s divine work in His children and turn them as far away as possible from His image and will. As do many other Scriptures, this verse shows the close connection between sexual sin and other forms of impurity and greed. An immoral person is inevitably greedy. Such sins are so godless that the world should never have reason even to suspect their presence in Christians.
5:6 deceive you. No Christian will be sinless in this present life, but it is dangerously deceptive for Christians to offer assurance of salvation to a professing believer whose life is characterized by persistent sin and who shows no shame for that sin or hunger for the holy and pure things of God. They are headed for wrath (2:2) and believers must not partner in any of their wickedness (v. 7).
5:8 darkness … light. “Darkness” describes the character of the life of the unconverted as void of truth and virtue in intellectual and moral matters (cf. 1 John 1:5–7). The realm of darkness is presided over by the “power of darkness,” (Luke 22:53; Col. 1:13) who rules those headed for “eternal darkness” (Matt. 8:12; 2 Pet. 2:17). Tragically, sinners love the darkness (John 3:19–21). It is that very darkness from which salvation in Christ delivers sinners (see notes on John 8:12; Col. 1:13; 1 Pet. 2:9; cf. Ps. 27:1).
Fornication is committed by unmarried persons and adultery by married persons. (However, in the New Testament, the term “fornication” can refer to many kinds of sexual sins. See Acts 15:20 and 1 Cor. 6:18.)
How does God judge fornicators and adulterers? Sometimes they are judged in their own bodies (Rom. 1:24–27). Certainly they will be judged at the final judgment (Rev. 21:8; 22:15). Believers who commit these sins certainly may be forgiven, but they will lose rewards in heaven (Eph. 5:5ff). David was forgiven, but he suffered the consequences of his adultery for years to come; and he suffered in the hardest way: through his own children.
In these days, when sexual sins are paraded as entertainment in movies and on television, the church needs to take a stand for the purity of the marriage bond. A dedicated Christian home is the nearest thing to heaven on earth, and it starts with a Christian marriage.
Anyone who imagines that unrepentant adultery and sexual immorality will go unpunished is in La-la Land. It is happening right now from every angle, and in addition a terrible judgment awaits, for all unrepentant sinners will stand before God, who is a “consuming fire” (cf. 12:29; 10:27).
But what does this have to do with the survival of the church? Everything! I can think of no more efficient way to sink that ship than through adultery and sexual immorality. The reasons are elementary. Immorality perverts theology. I have seen this time and time again with preachers—famous and unknown. They become involved in a secret affair (perhaps several) and yet keep on preaching. But over time an amazing phenomenon takes place—they unconsciously detach themselves from truth. Like the ancient Averroists, they divide truth, so that there is a truth for them and another truth for others. They may not articulate this, but they become practical relativists, and their relativism so eats away at their belief that many, after the trauma of discovery, leave the faith. Tragic shipwreck!
However, the main attacks today are mostly libertine. For many, “marriage” is at best a provisional arrangement between two people (sexual orientation is irrelevant) that can be dissolved whenever one wishes, for any reason. To be sure, conventional attitudes toward marriage are not as extreme, though there is a growing skepticism regarding love and marriage. As one person sarcastically put it, “Love: temporary insanity curable by marriage.”
The word “honor” (timios) connotes “respect” or attributes “preciousness or value” to someone or something. For example, timios can be used of valuable material possessions (e.g., 1 Cor. 3:12), a respected teacher (Acts 5:34), the promises of God (2 Peter 1:4), or even the blood of Christ (1 Peter 1:19). As used in Hebrews 13:4, the word suggests that marriage, rather than an arrangement to be treated lightly, should be esteemed as of great worth.
But for those of us who live under the authority of God’s Word, marriage is an ordinance of God. Genesis proclaims, after God gave Eve to Adam, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh” (2:24). Marriage is patently heterosexual and indissoluble. As Jesus said, “Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate” (Matthew 19:6). Jesus honored marriage by performing his first miracle at a wedding (John 2:1 ff.). The Holy Spirit further honored it in Ephesians 5 by using it to portray the relationship of Christ and his church (vv. 23–32).
The bed—the sexual relationship—is an altar, so to speak, where a pure offering of a couple’s lives is made to each other and to God.
This was radical stuff in the pagan context—and Christians lived it out. When Pliny was sent by the Roman Emperor Trajan to govern the province of Bithynia and looked for charges against the Christians, he had to report back that on the Lord’s Day, “They bound themselves by oath, not for any criminal end, but to avoid theft or adultery, never to break their word.…” Christian sexual morality was unique in the pagan world and a source of wonder. And it has become increasingly so today in a world that considers adultery irrelevant, purity abnormal, and sex a “right” (however and with whomever one may get it) and that has invented the egregious term “recreational sex.”
We Christians are called to be outrageously pure—to be a source of wonder and even derision to this glandular world.
That we are called to radical purity is nothing to trifle with because the call concludes, “for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral” (v. 4c). This means that everyone—ostensible Christians and non-Christians alike—will be judged for adultery (extramarital sexual relations) and sexual immorality (other illicit sexual relations, including perversions). Further, those who have taken up adulterous lifestyles and remain unrepentant will suffer ultimate judgment and damnation, for despite their insistence that they are “Christians,” they are self-deceived. God’s Word is terrifyingly clear:
Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders… will inherit the kingdom of God. (1 Corinthians 6:9, 10)
For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a man is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient. (Ephesians 5:5, 6)
It is God’s will that you should be holy; that you should avoid sexual immorality.… The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you. For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. (1 Thessalonians 4:3–7)
But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death. (Revelation 21:8; cf. 22:15)
(4) Hold marriage as honorable and keep the sexual relationship pure (13:4). Another motif common in early Christian ethical teaching was the need to keep the marriage relationship in proper perspective. The institution of marriage was assaulted from two sides in the ancient world. Some felt chastity in marriage was unreasonable. For example, in some corners of Greco-Roman culture men were expected to take mistresses as their confidants and sexual partners. Others felt marriage stunted spiritual devotion and thus held asceticism as the ideal. As the verse develops, it is clear that the former, rather than the latter, error is in view.
13:4 honorable. God highly honors marriage, which He instituted at creation (Gen. 2:24); but some people in the early church considered celibacy to be holier than marriage, an idea Paul strongly denounces in 1 Tim. 4:3 (see notes on 1 Cor. 7). Sexual activity in a marriage is pure, but any sexual activity outside marriage brings one under divine judgment. God will judge. God prescribes serious consequences for sexual immorality (see notes on Eph. 5:3–6).
Correspondingly, the marriage bed (koite), used here as an idiom for the sexual relationship, is to be guarded or “kept pure.” The defilement that the author has in mind is expressed in the explanatory “for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.” The former word, “adulterers” (moichoi), is more focused than the latter, referring specifically to those who betray their marriage vows. The latter, “the sexually immoral” (pornoi), refers to all those involved in sexual activity apart from the sanctity of the marriage relationship. Together the two words cover the gamut of illicit sexual behavior. For those so involved in dishonoring marriage and defiling the marriage bed, the judgment of God awaits.
