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Question: "What does the Bible say about sex before marriage / premarital sex?"


Answer: Along with all other kinds of sexual immorality, sex before marriage / premarital sex is repeatedly condemned in Scripture:

Act 15:20
but that we write to them that they (new believers in Yeshua) should abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood.

What is “fornication”? According to the Dictionary:

Fornication
NOUN: Sexual intercourse between partners who are not married to each other.

Sex before marriage has become so common for many reasons. Far too often we focus on the “recreation” aspect of sex without recognizing the “re-creation” aspect. Yes, sex is pleasurable. God designed it that way. He wants men and women to enjoy sexual activity (within the confines of marriage). However, the primary purpose of sex is not pleasure, but rather reproduction. God does not outlaw sex before marriage to rob us of pleasure, but to protect us from unwanted pregnancies and children born to parents who do not want them or are not prepared for them. Imagine how much better our world would be if God’s pattern for sex was followed: fewer sexually transmitted diseases, fewer un-wed mothers, fewer unwanted pregnancies, fewer abortions, etc. Abstinence is God’s only policy when it comes to sex before marriage. Abstinence saves lives, protects babies, gives sexual relations the proper value, and most importantly honors God.

In the Scripture (the Old Testament), parents kept as proof of their daughter’s virginity the blood-stained garment or sheet from the wedding night. If the husband ever accused his wife of not being a virgin when he married her, the bride’s parents would produce the stained cloth. From this the man would be proved guilty of slandering his wife. So seriously is virginity taken that the prescribed punishment for making such a scandalous false accusation was for him to be physically whipped, severely fined and by law forbidden to ever divorce his wife as long as she lived. If, however, the bride had not been a virgin upon marrying, she would receive the same penalty as any man or woman guilty of adultery (Leviticus 20:10), that is:

Deu 22:13-14, 20-21

If any man takes a wife and goes in to her, and despises her, (14) and makes shameful charges against her, and brings up an evil name on her, and says, I took this woman, and when I came to her, I did not find in her the tokens of virginity (20) But if this thing is true and tokens of virginity are not found for the girl, (21) then they shall bring the girl out to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones so that she dies, because she has done foolishness in Israel to play the harlot in her father's house. So you shall put evil away from among you.

Note how it is assumed the girl went straight from her father’s care to marriage. People probably married so young in those days that sex before marriage was a less prevalent temptation than adultery. This would explain why the Bible mentions adultery more often than fornication (sex between unmarried people).

This is also mentioned in the “New Testament” for those who believe that the “Old Testament” is abolished. Paul makes it very clear that fornication (sex before marriage) is not to be found among true believers and is sin and will be punished.

1Co 10:8-9

Nor let us commit fornication, as some of them fornicated, and twenty-three thousand fell in one day. (9) Nor let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted Him and were destroyed by serpents.

Gal 5:19-21
Now the works of the flesh are clearly revealed, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lustfulness, (20) idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, fightings, jealousies, angers, rivalries, divisions, heresies, (21) envyings, murders, drunkennesses, revelings, and things like these; of which I tell you before, as I also said before, that they who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

Col 3:5-6
Therefore put to death your members (bodies) which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness (which is idolatry), (6) on account of which things' sake the wrath of God is coming on the sons of disobedience,

Jud 1:7
as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them, in like manner to these, committing fornication, and going away after other flesh, laid down an example before-times, undergoing vengeance of everlasting fire.

We are called as children of God unto holiness and sanctification, which results in a pure life that does not look like the world. You can only shine God’s light if you look different to the way the world does things. The unbelieving people follow their fleshly desires and do what their instinct tells them to do, Paul warns us not to do things the way worldly people do things.

1Th 4:3-7
For this is the will of God, your sanctification, for you to abstain from fornication, (4) each one of you to know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor (5) (not in the passion of lust, even as the nations who do not know God), (6) not to go beyond and defraud his brother in this matter (because the Lord is the avenger concerning all these, as we also have forewarned you and testified). (7) For God has not called us to uncleanness, but in sanctification.

Eph 5:3-4
For let fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness not be once named among you, as becomes saints, (4) neither baseness, foolish talking, jesting, which are not becoming, but rather giving of thanks.

Paul goes as far as to say that if you call yourself a believer and do such things, that you are not suppose to have fellowship with them or eat with them.

1Co 5:11
But now I have written to you not to keep company with someone calling himself a brother (in faith) and is either a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such a one not to eat.

Paul also said that if you do not do these things but you approve of it or delight in it, that you are as guilty as doing those sins yourself because of the immoral standards within you that is contradictory to His Will and His Word.

Rom 1:29-32
being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; being full of envy, murder, quarrels, deceit, evil habits, becoming whisperers, (30) backbiters, haters of God, insolent, proud, braggarts, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, (31) undiscerning, perfidious, without natural affection, unforgiving, unmerciful; (32) who, knowing the righteous order of God, that those practicing such things are worthy of death, not only do them, but have pleasure (approve of) in those practicing them.

If you have realized that fornication is wrong and you have done it out of ignorance, now is the time to repent and choose to do what God prescribes for His Children and not do it again. You can find a lot of ways to disprove the Word of God but there are more than enough evidence that fornication leads to destruction and brokenness within people and children born in such relationships. Choose life and choose to honor God’s Word with a meek heart and out of love for Him. If you say that you love God, do what He asks you to do:

Joh 15:10
If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love, even as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love.

2Co 12:20-21
For I fear, lest somehow coming I might not find you as I wish, and that I shall be found by you such as you might not wish; lest somehow there be strifes, envyings, angers, contentions, backbitings, whisperings, proud thoughts, tumults; (21) lest in my coming again my God will humble me with you; and I shall mourn many who have already sinned, and not repenting over the uncleanness, and fornication, and lustfulness which they have practiced.

God designed marriage and sex is to be found within the protective boundaries of marriage so that the woman and the children may be protected form the dangers that lies within a lifestyle of fornication. God’s principles are there to help us and protect us so that we can live a safe and better quality of life and that we can live according the will of God; a holy pure life.

1Co 6:18-20
Flee from fornication. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits fornication sins against his own body. (19) Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit in you, whom you have of God? And you are not your own, (20) for you are bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.1Co 7:2-4But, because of the fornications, let each have his own wife, and let each have her own husband. (3) Let the husband give to the wife proper kindness, and likewise the wife also to the husband. (4) The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband. And likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife.

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