Category: Holiness

top view of a family praying before christmas dinner

Notes on Venema’s “Children and the Lord’s Supper,” Part 3, Children in the Old Testament.

On December 1, 2024

In Bible, Church, Covenant, Holiness, Reformed Theology, sacraments, Worship

Venema fails to account for the nature of the transition from the Old to the New Testament.

I pass over some of Venema’s other work as it stands or falls based on other assumptions. However, it is worth examining some of Venema’s assumptions as he walks through the Old Testament. He mentions a number of things concerning the Old Testament that he believes paedo-communionists have not adequately thought through in applying the Old Testament to the New. I found it helpful that he points these out, because in reflection on these, we have a better basis for paedo-communion and how it ought to be practiced than we would otherwise.

I find Venema’s discussion of the Old Testament quite interesting because he recognizes the weakness of a credo communionist argument from the Old Testament. He continually appeals to New Testament realities. Much of his time is spent seeking to undermine paedo-communionist appeals to the Old Testament, but he doesn’t build much of a case for his beliefs in his chapter on the Old Testament.

Venema seems to believe that a great deal of the paedo communion approach is based on an understanding of the Old Testament, mostly focussing on the Old Testament practice around Passover. Considering the time in which it was written; this is probably fair.

However, I am surprised that Venema does not acknowledge that a prominent paedo communionist like Tim Gallant makes his primary argument from the New Testament.

Yet even so, if the Old Testament is paedo communion and the New Testament is credo communion, there must be clear evidence that the New Testament is breaking from the Old Testament. Meanwhile, if the Old Testament is credo communion and the New Testament is paedo, there must also be some good evidence for the move in that direction as well.

However, Venema gives us some limited arguments for his position from the Old Testament. Venema’s arguments focus on the natural limitations and exceptions that were prevalent among Israel; he also argues from the hierarchies of holiness that existed among Israel, allowing only priests to participate in some meals, along with laws about cleanliness that would have only permitted some to participate in various feasts, and finally, Venema argues from historical records, that demonstrate it was not necessarily common among the Jews to have small children participating in many of their festivals.

Evidence for natural limitations that caused exclusion

Israel’s men are commanded to attend the three main festivals in Deuteronomy, while the women and children do not have to come. This is important to Venema because the children are not commanded to come.

Venema fails to understand how communities work.

Sometimes, natural limitations prevent the immediate obedience of a command. God does not ignore the ability of individuals when he calls them to obedience. He does not assume that we are superhuman. The law of God assumes ordinary ability, the measure of grace that is in you. When Israel is spread throughout all the land, even though all have the right, they do not all have the necessity of coming. It is those who have the most natural ability to come to the feasts who are commanded to come. Yet all Israel still has the right to those feasts even if it is the men who are commanded to come.

It’s similar to a tiny suckling baby. The baby does have the right to the table, but not the ability.

Let me give an analogy. When you are circumcised, we are told that you are bound to the whole law, everything in it, yet some of the laws do not make sense to even command a two-year-old. “You shall not commit adultery” means nothing at that time, and yet the two-year-old is bound to the whole law anyway. He cannot tithe, and he cannot observe the Sabbath, but he is taught to tithe and observe the Sabbath as soon as possible, when he is physically able to do those things because he is bound to the whole law. I could go on.

The point is that there is not some special ritual he has to go through to participate in these things, but he is taught all along according to his capacity to obey these things. He is not barred because he does not entirely understand their significance yet. He does not need training to practice these things; he is taught to practice these things as soon as he can. He is taught through practice and participation, not in order to participate.

It is the same with Baptism. Paul says in Romans 6 that in baptism, we are bound to Christ and his righteousness. Therefore, we are bound to believe and to act according to belief. Therefore, babies are bound to the call “to pray without ceasing. We don’t force babies to pray before they can speak. But as soon as they can speak, we teach them how to pray. And we consider their prayers real. They matter to God.

It’s similar to the table: we don’t force the baby to eat or drink before he can drink, but as soon as he can eat or drink, we encourage him to come to the table. And yet that means something different to a 2-year-old, a 10-year-old and a 25-year-old. The 60-year-old potentially understands the significance of this far more than the 30-year-old and yet ultimately, each one is a baby in obedience compared to the fullness of the righteousness in Christ.

The question follows: We bind our children to righteousness in baptism, but we dare not give them the spiritual food God has provided, to strengthen them in the faith that produces righteousness?

The point is, God knows our human limitations when he binds us to himself. His instruction takes into account those human limitations. That is the point in the exceptions that are given for the feast in the Old Testament. We don’t need to travel to Jerusalem anymore to participate in temple feasts. Jesus is in heaven and is available everywhere through his Spirit, the same limitations do not apply. Yet even then, he is patient and tells us to live in obedience according to the measure of grace given to each individual and to the physical abilities that through his grace he has given to each member of the church.

The problem with the Jews’ historical application

The fact that Jews used these limitations later to refuse the children participation in various feasts is no point in the favor of a Profession of Faith. Yet Venema uses the history we know of the intertestamental Jewish people to demonstrate a line by which he will prove the good of Profession of Faith.

Do you ever wonder why Jesus had to teach his disciples to receive children in Matthew 18 and 19? It wasn’t because the Jews had decided to stop circumcising children. They knew they were in the covenant just as the reformed do. And it’s possible that just like the reformed, they were not taking that seriously. The reformed saw the natural limitations of a child’s expression of faith and decided they could not be at the table. The Jews saw the exceptions for limitations in the Old Testament and turned that into a rule.

Divisions of Holiness and Baptism

That brings us to our final point here, the way Venema uses the lines of holiness within Judaism to demonstrate his point. Holiness was hierarchical in Judaism. The priests had to go through endless washing and sacrifices to remain pure before God so that they could represent the people. God spoke through persons because the work of the Spirit and holy spaces and holy persons were more limited.

The New Covenant brought an end to these distinctions between groups. The priests’ food is now available to all. In Hebrews, we are even told that we eat of a sacrifice they (old covenant believers) had no right to eat. The author is likely referring to the offering on the day of atonement, which was a sacrifice that was not eaten. Christians have a right to that offering. Christians have a right to everything in Christ. The distinctions that divided high priests from priests from Levites and Israelites are gone. The distinctions that divided men from women and Gentile believers from Israelites are gone. The Eunuch and the Gentile, through faith and baptism, may find flourishing in Christ.

One significant aspect that Venema misses is baptism itself. He makes the same mistake that some paedo communionists make in too strongly correlating the Passover and the Lord’s Supper, with the institutions of circumcision and baptism. Yes, baptism replaces circumcision, but baptism has its own story in the Old Testament. Baptism is going through the flood and through the Red Sea. Baptism includes all the washings of the Old Testament. Baptism incorporates all the various anointings and purifications.

Thus, baptism is an anointing, “You have been anointed by the Holy One, and therefore you know all things.” You are a holy priesthood. That means even more now, than in the Old Testament, because, we are all priests now. There is no division between one group of people that is ritually more holy and another group that is less holy. We all have the anointing of prophet, priest, and king, though babies do not yet exercise it in the same way adults do.

Baptism is a purification that does not need to be repeated. While Israel had to go through all types of washings to prepare herself for various festivals, we only need one washing. Yes, we must continue to live in repentance, but objectively speaking we have the one washing that proclaims forgiveness for all our sins, and declares that we are part of the New Creation. Yes, we must respond in faith. That is something we must continue to do all our lives.

In Old Testament Israel, the need for cleansing was a limiting factor in attending feasts. The Israelite had to go through various washings in order to attend the feast. When we say that washing happens once ad for all in, that means that the one who is baptized into Christ is always clean, always ready to participate in the feast. What are we doing when we deny the full reality of that baptism by refusing those who have not expressed their faith yet to join in the feast. They are washed! In Christ, all things and all persons are clean! “As many as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ!”

Yet Venema is very cautious in affirming these aspects of the New Covenant. And that seems to have more to do with his desire to preserve the ritual of profession of faith, rather than a desire to deny these aspects. He wants to use these Old Testament divisions to bring in some formal divisions into the new covenant, divisions between two groups among the people of God, albeit in a much milder form. With him, we affirm that there remains a division between those who are people of God and those who are not people of God, and with him, we affirm that those who, by their belief and practice, deny God ought not be brought to the table. The church is to purge the evil one from their midst.

Why does he need to add another division? We will shortly discover why in our last point, but for now, the onus is on him to find this other division in the pages of the New Testament.

So we see that reflection on Venema’s questions about the exceptions made for festivals, the holiness divisions in the Old Testament, and the history of the application of the Old Testament in Jewish Communities, actually strengthens the case for a fuller welcome to all members to the meal of God, including small children.

Another side note

Venema suggests in certain places that the paedo-communionist approach will produce a laxity of discipline in the church. I would argue that discipline will be more effective. For here, the discipline of the church, especially in separating you from the table, is questioning your status in Christ; that is what removing you from the table is. Yet in a church that practices Profession of Faith, you always have a group within the church who do not have access to the table and yet are marked as Christians. This is strange.

The significance of communicant membership means that the leaders of the church have to take it seriously and use it well. That means the man or woman who receives discipline has to take it seriously.

Too often people are disciplined for not being reformed when they should be disciplined for not being Christian. Discipline is not about whether you have access to one sect of Christianity, it is about access to Christ. It is the opening and closing of the kingdom of heaven.

From a paedo-communion perspective, removal from the table and ex-communication is far more significant than it is for many today. In a credo-communionist setting there is always a group who has some sort of halfway status, whether it is children and sometimes Christians from other traditions. The table is no longer Christ’s table but the table of some sect.

Abram’s Righteous Deception

By James

On September 10, 2024

In Freedom, Holiness

An excerpt from a Sermon on Genesis 12.

Here, we come to the most controversial part of this text: whether Abram should be praised or blamed for his deception. He plans to evade potential tyranny on the part of the Pharoah through a deceptive stratagem. When we consider God’s blessing of Abram and that the text gives us nothing upon which to suggest that Abram was wrong to prepare this deception, we can confidently say that Abram was righteous in planning this deception of Pharoah.

We want to be careful, however, in emboldening Christians to speak all sorts of lies, and so we ought to carefully define what is a legitimate use of deception on the part of a Christian and what is not. We want to preserve our character as a people of the truth and yet recognize there are appropriate ways to deceive a tyrannical and vicious enemy so that we may advance the church’s mission.

Let us get into the details. “When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai, his wife, “I know that you are a woman beautiful in appearance, and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, “This is my wife.” Then they will kill me, but they will let you live. Say you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared for your sake.”

So, what is Abram doing? Is he demonstrating a lack of trust in God? Is he lacking in a desire to protect his wife? There are several reasons to believe that neither suggestion is true. First, he must have heard through reports from those around him about the oppressive nature of the Egyptians and how they take what they want. He also knows that God has promised that he would be a great nation and that the promise certainly cannot be carried out in his death. So, he wisely strategizes in a difficult situation and trusts that God will protect him as God sees fit.

We might still object that he fails to protect Sarai, but that ignores the brother’s role toward his sister. It seems likely that the brother was the primary protector of his sister and the one through whom marriage with the sister was negotiated. This would certainly be true if the father had not been in the picture. We see this in the story of Rebecca and Isaac, where the servant of Abraham negotiates for Rebecca’s hand in marriage with Laban, the brother of Rebecca. So, calling Sarai his sister gave Abram a couple of advantages. If the Egyptians were tyrannical, as he had heard, Sarai would be taken either way. One way, he would immediately be killed, and the other way, he would live, and perhaps God would intervene. Potentially even tyrannical Egyptians would have followed the usual conventions about brothers and sisters, allowing him time to work out what to do next. If the Egyptians were not tyrannical, he would potentially enter into negotiations with them, and they would not have concluded until he was safely away from them.

With these things in mind, we can observe how this would have been a lesson to successive generations of Abram’s children on how to deal with tyrannical Pharaohs. So, Abram would use this deceptive stratagem twice. Isaac would use it once, and the midwives would use a similar strategy when the Egyptian Pharaoh sought to kill the baby boys of Israel.

Yet, because our hearts are often hard and easily misled, we need to discuss this very carefully. The Christian does not go out and say, “Oh yes, you can lie to your enemies anytime you want. “Christians are called to love the truth and characterize their lives by speaking it, especially to fellow Christians. In telling the truth, we also show love to our enemies. So, it is helpful to establish some principles from scripture for when we are authorized to deceive.

First, it must truly be a tyrannical situation. Abram is going to a place where the king will seize any woman he wants to be his bride. Where to do so, they will even kill the husband of the woman. This is an ugly tyrannical nation, that has lost respect for the natural bonds between men, likewise, with the command to kill the Hebrew children in Exodus 1. These acts represent a deep wickedness. We should be careful when identifying this sort of tyranny; the word gets thrown around a lot today. That doesn’t mean it is not true; it is just that we must be cautious in identifying everything we don’t like as tyranny, and not every act of tyranny is of the same weight either.

Tyranny, in general, can be identified in laws or leaders who do not recognize the rights we have to our bodies and property and ignore the traditions and boundaries that have been established between men or groups of men over time.

Second, as Christians, we keep in mind the church’s mission. Abram understood the importance of his life in God’s plan. He is to be the father of a nation. Christians are focused on the spread of the word and setting up places of worship throughout the world. Recognizing the difference in the mission means we are less focused on the promise of the Seed, for the Seed has been revealed. It is Jesus Christ. Instead, as the church, we are focused on bringing all things under the Lordship of Christ through the means appointed: the word of God and the establishment of the worship of God. That means there is a certain truth we will never deny. In light of this mission, the New Testament reveals that the Christian should never deny his Lord. Peter does so, and he weeps, so we should be careful not to deny our service to Christ. Further, binding by an oath also calls us to speak the truth. So, Jesus Christ declared who he was when bound by an oath by the High Priest. However, Christians have often used deceptive stratagems to spread the scriptures throughout the world, such as hiding Bibles and sneaking through borders. Christians have also met in secret and worshipped in many places, hiding themselves from tyrants using all sorts of measures to undermine the Christian calling to serve God.

Third, we act according to the law of love. We may deceive to protect life. And so we have the example of hiding Jews from the Nazis during WWII and deceiving the Germans about their whereabouts. This applies to acts of war as well. There is room for deception to preserve the men of an army. Remember the actual form of the ninth commandment: “Thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor.” This is not a direct attack against all forms of deception but a warning against using lies to hurt and destroy your neighbor. This is against words spoken in hatred and malice. As Paul says in Romans 13, “owe nothing to one another except to love one another.”

We ought to be careful that we are not motivated by anger, vengeance, pride, or any of the many other fleshly lusts that can lead Christians into ungodly action.

Even in our deception, however, we ought to be careful in directly contradicting the truth. We are creatures of habit and want to build up the habit of speaking the truth. In this sense, Abram uses the truth to deceive. We find this out later, but there is a sense in which Sarai is his sister, his half-sister actually, so even here, he is careful in his plan so he doesn’t have to develop the habit of contradicting what he knows is real. In the words of Jordan Peterson, “tell the truth” or “at least don’t lie.”

We can also make the point of Rod Dreher’s book “Live Not by Lies,” in which men and women in Eastern Europe and Russia avoided any affirmation of the Marxist establishment in the USSR as much as possible. In the same way, Christians rightly reacted with horror to those who offered incense to the emperor, for they participated in and affirmed the lies that kept the Roman Empire in bondage and so went directly against the mission of the church.

Finally, we must trust in the work of the Spirit of God. As Paul says, nobody judges me except for God. We trust that God works in various persons. This is not a “get out of jail free” card, for, of course, you answer to God, and if you are not careful about transgression in little things, you will follow up with transgressions of boundaries that clearly go against the word of God.

Some, including great men like John Calvin, disagree with the interpretation of this passage. Yet, even those who disagree, like Calvin, would allow for deceptive stratagems in the spread of the gospel.

Unfortunately, many go further, and deny the saints any Spirit-led wisdom in deceiving tyrants. Those who deny the right of the bride to deceive tyrants leave the bride defenseless against tyrants. Their supposed love of purity and righteousness undermines the love we owe to one another, our neighbor, and the Lord.

I have spent some time explaining this, and I hope in doing so, I have clearly shown my love for the fullness of God’s revelation of his righteousness. I take seriously the examples of scripture where the people of God are blessed in their use of deception, but I also take God’s call to be a people of the truth seriously, being careful never to deny the name of the one who bought us.

Live Peaceably with All?

By James

On July 5, 2022

In Church, Freedom, Hermeneutics, History, Holiness, The Basics, Witness

Another contextual clue to Paul’s teaching in Romans 13 is the words that come almost immediately before Romans 13, “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” The call to submit to the Roman civil magistrate is part of the call to “live peaceably with all.” Our living peaceably with all depends on our ability to obey God; to live according to our calling before him. We are to honor God before men.

What does it mean, “if possible, as far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all?” There are a lot of ways to apply those words to today. Does that mean we are to do everything for the sake of peace?

A good understanding of these words begins with an understanding of the church’s mission. The mission of the church, the mission of Christ, informs what it means to live peaceably with all. Our goal is nothing less than the reconciliation of all things to Christ. The church’s work in fulfilling that mission can bring times we are offensive to the world around us. In fact, says the scriptures, “to those who are perishing we are the smell of death.” Jesus says, “the world will hate you as they hated me.” This is a reality, but within that Paul wants us to work our best to live peaceably with all, including the civil magistrate, as much as possible.

But when the magistrate interferes with the mission of the church whether in her worship or in her call to love one another, the church is called to stand up to the civil magistrate. But even so, she does not do this in a way that is malicious, angry, or threatening. She does this in a way that continues to keep the peace, recognizes the importance of law and order, and seeks the city’s good.

The good of the city is our ultimate goal. It is a good that is defined by the gospel of Jesus Christ. This good has two aspects. First, the righteousness and order of Jesus Christ: those in Christ and out of Christ have two different value systems. We want to bring the value system of Christ to the world as a whole.

The second aspect of this good is how it defines our resistance of evil in this world. Or we might say how we seek to bring Christ’s value system into our world’s value system. It is a spiritual war, not a physical one, which we fight. We do not seek to destroy our enemies. No, we love our enemies and aim to transform them by putting away our desire for vengeance and ultimately seeking their good. We seek peace with our enemies by continuing to do what is good, thus heaping burning coals on his head. This action is all according to the law of love and in line with Christ’s act of obedience to our Father in heaven.

Our ability to live peaceably with all depends on our ability to live according to the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Living according to the righteousness of Jesus Christ is not only about the things we don’t do, but also about the things we do. An example of the first might be where the government commands us to give a pinch of incense to Caesar or commands us to kill somebody who is innocent. An example of the second might be things that interfere with our worship or our call to love one another, basically anything that interferes with our three-fold office of prophet, priest, and king in Jesus Christ.

We must recognize that we have a duty toward the government as those who bear the sword for vengeance. According to this calling, they are to defend the righteous and condemn the wicked. We are called to give due honor, due obedience, and due monetary support, with regard to that calling. That is part of the righteousness and order of Christ. Some could argue that those things interfere with our ability to fulfill our duty as Christians, but they are also part of our duty as we seek the good of those in authority over us. Ideally, they also secure the peace and order of the community of God.

But when the civil magistrate begins to use its monopoly on force to deny or undermine our duties, then we ought to start to think through where we might owe obedience to God before we owe obedience to the government. I say start because there is an important place for patience and for conversation before action.

Here I want to discuss a bit the use of prudence in these things in making that decision about how best to respond to various types of tyranny. The very command “as much as it depends on you, be at peace with all men” assumes a call to prudence. Our goal is the peace of God, but at the same time, faithfulness can disturb the peace. Ahab calls Elijah “A troubler of Israel.” Zechariah 1 describes a type of peace that is not due to faithfulness but due to unfaithfulness. The Apostle Paul is accused of “turning the world upside down.” He too is a disturber of the peace.

So is it time to be an Elijah or a Paul, or is it time to be quiet and patient? How do we accomplish the goals of the kingdom in our station of life? Paul is not a revolutionary, he desires to transform from within. Just as the Spirit comes into a person and crucifies the flesh and brings to life the new man, so those moved by the Spirit transform from within society with deeds of love and mercy. We look to the Spirit to apply the wisdom of scripture in our current situation.

Part of this prudence is in recognizing your situation. If the evil done to you comes from those who are positioned over you, the response is different than to one who is your equal or under you. You owe greater honor and patience to the civil magistrate than to your average citizen because of the nature of their role in society. You will also have a different response as a pastor, plumber, farmer, policeman, or nurse. Each of those comes with varying factors of risk. It also matters whether you have dependents or not. Paul sees the importance of the work of providence in giving us each a different vocation in our lives. That is why he tells us in 1 Corinthians 7 to “Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him.”

Another part of that prudence is discerning what you are willing to risk or what hill you are willing to die on. The natural way of the Gentiles is to lord it over one another and we should expect that they will try to lord it over the church as well. The natural way of our hearts is to lord it over one another. Therefore, the first attitude toward the rise of tyranny is one of patience.

In terms of Covid, which is the apparent reason for writing these articles, I would argue that most Christians responded with patience. Still, beyond initial patience, Christians had different metrics for deciding when civil disobedience was necessary and different understandings of the severity of the pandemic, understandable because of the lack of open conversation about these things in the public square.

Yet even when we decide that it is necessary to ignore government mandates, we must still seek peace with all men as much as possible. That doesn’t mean we can’t be sarcastic or confront the authorities. After all, Christ gives us examples of precisely this type of action. But we must, in all this, prioritize mercy and justice. In all this, we must follow the way of Christ. “Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good.” “Bless those who curse you,” says the Lord. God gives us this truth generally and this is where prudence and the leading of the Spirit come in. We’ll come to this more in our next article, where we will discuss resisting the government God’s way.

Paul and Sexual Immorality

By James

On January 5, 2019

In Holiness

Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. Paul tells us this in the context of a warning against sexual immorality. As Christians, the Spirit joins us to Christ, body and soul, as the Catechism so often tells us. That means Christ cares for and protects both body and soul. What we do with our body in this life is just as important as what is done for our soul. Though distinct our soul and our body are not truly separate from each other. What we do with our body affects our soul. I want to tease out a number of implications here of Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians 6:12-20. I am a bit all over the place, but I hope it is helpful.

Holiness and sexual immorality have a lot to do with each other. It is interesting where murder, and stealing and lying are dealt with in the five books of Moses vs. sexual immorality. It is the book of Leviticus that deal with sexual immorality, especially chapter 18, the book that emphasizes the holiness of God. Sexual activity is tied to uncleanness. Reproduction is tied to uncleanness. Certain sexual practices are abominations. They defile the land of Israel. Now uncleanness is not the same as sin, but certain sins create uncleanness in a different way than others. This is highly suggestive. Our bodies are to reflect the holiness of God.
This is all the more true, when our bodies become home to the Spirit of God. We corrupt our relationship with God when we become one with a prostitute because we cannot be one with both God and a prostitute.
Eating and sexual immorality have a lot to do with one another. It is interesting that the Westminster Catechism connects, drunkenness, idleness, and gluttony with sins against the 7th commandment. Both the desire for sex and food stem from the lower parts of our bodies. This means that the warnings over drug use using “Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit” are not entirely unjustified. You are connected to Christ and your body is to be used to his glory.
Paul has a really interesting line in 1 Corinthians 6: 18, “Flee sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.” Sexual immorality is a sin against God. It is a sin against others, but first and foremost you are sinning against your own body. In committing this sin, you are corrupting your own body. For fallen man this continues to be true. He hurts himself when he participates in sexual immorality. For the Christian this is even worse for he sins against the dwelling place of the Spirit of God. Rather than be one flesh with the prostitute you are to be one spirit with the Lord.
This is not just because God does not want you to have fun. The fact that God wants your body to be holy, is suggestive for the future of your body. God has a specific purpose for your body as well as your soul. God knows your body better than you do and God wants what is best for it. As we’ve already noted sexual immorality is a sin against the body. It corrupts and destroys the body. When you participate in sexual immorality you might not immediately know why and if everybody participates in sexual immorality it is even harder to know how that works. We need to depend on God’s word about our bodies.
One thing to note is the nobility of chastity. Chastity, even if the world does not honor it, is honorable and glorious before God. We can think of Revelation 14 where God pictures faithfulness to him as virginity. When we think about this it becomes clear, for chastity both in and outside of marriage reflects the holiness and the faithfulness of God.
None of this undermines the goodness of marriage and sex. Chastity is both in and outside of marriage. Marriage reflects God’s holiness and faithfulness just as much as singleness does. It is true that a person’s body belongs to their spouse in marriage, but this does not take away from the fact that they may truly be one with the Lord. Ultimately, marriage is not a sin against the body, while fornication and other forms of sexual immorality are. This is because marriage fulfills the exclusive connection with another being that our bodies need.

I think the most important thing to remember here is that we want to reflect the holiness of God in recognizing holy boundaries. The Heidelburg Catechism refers to Marriage as holy marriage and this reflects the truth that it is the true boundary for intimacy. It reflects the exclusivity of marriage. We need to be faithful within out individual holy boundaries whether that is boundary of singleness or marriage.