"If there is a man who marries a woman and her mother, it is immorality; both he and they shall be burned with fire, that there may be no immorality in your midst." (Lev 20:14)

"If there is a man who takes his sister, his father’s daughter or his mother’s daughter, so that he sees her nakedness and she sees his nakedness, it is a disgrace; and they shall be cut off in the sight of the sons of their people. He has uncovered his sister’s nakedness; he bears his guilt." (Lev 20:17)

"You shall also not uncover the nakedness of your mother’s sister or of your father’s sister, for such a one has made naked his blood relative; they shall bear their guilt." (Lev 20:19)

"But Dale, this is Old Testament stuff!"

Is it? What does the New Testament say on the subject? Jesus said the following:

"But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders. These are the things which defile the man." (Matt 15:18-20).

In Evangelism on the field I have had people say to me that there is nothing in the Old Testament which teaches you cannot live and have sex with someone outside the bounds of marriage. What does the Old Testament teach on the subject? Exodus 22:16 states the following: "And if a man seduces a virgin who is not engaged, and lies with her, he must pay a dowry for her to be his wife." The Bible is clear, if you lie with a virgin, you must marry her, take her as your wife. Others will say that what Moses means here is only if they are not engaged. This is not what Moses is saying. In Hebrew Culture to be engaged was the same as marriage except for the consummation of the marriage: sexual intercourse. If a woman was engaged, she was to be treated the same as a married woman having sex with someone other than her spouse. The penalty for both consenting parties was death by stoning (Lev 20:10). Exodus 20:14, number 5 of the 10 commandments, states the following, "You shall not commit adultery."¹⁶⁶

Matthew records in the book of Matthew that when Joseph found that Mary was pregnant with child that he sought to put her away. He sought to put her away because he had not had sexual relations with Mary and therefore knew the child was not his. As he was contemplating this Matthew tells us that an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and told him to not be afraid to take Mary as his wife because she was not pregnant because she had committed fornication with another man, but that her conception was through the Holy Spirit. As a result not only did Joseph take Mary as his wife, but kept her a virgin, did not have sexual intercourse with her, consummate the marriage, until after Jesus was born (Matt 1:24-25).

What is the point of all this? Moses in Exodus 22:16 tells us plainly that if you have intercourse with a woman you are to marry her. She is now your wife. Joseph did not have relations with Mary until after they were married and he did not have sexual intercourse with her before they were married. That was why he was going to put her away because he knew he had not had sex with her so the child had to be someone else’s.

"Or do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, shall inherit the kingdom of God." (1 Cor 6:9-10)

"For this you know with certainty, that no fornicator or impure person or covetous man, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience." (Eph 5:5-6, see also Galatians 5:19-21)

"Let marriage be held in honor among all; and let the marriage bed be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge." (Hebrews 13:4).

"For you know what commandments we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God; and that no man transgress and defraud his brother in the matter because the Lord is the avenger in all these things, just as we also told you before and solemnly warned you." (1 Thess 4:2-6)

"For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain terrifying expectation of judgment, and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries." (Hebrews 10:26)

The Bible clearly condemns any kind of sexual intercourse other than that which is between a married man and woman; but, Inside of Marriage the playground is free. Enjoy.

God’s intent for man was that his soul was to be motivated and controlled by the Holy Spirit through his human spirit, not through his soul, his intellect and feelings, or through his body, his appetites and desires). When we are ruled by the Holy Spirit through our human spirit, we are motivated and controlled and walking in the moral righteousness of God.

It was because Adam and Eve were created in God’s image, ruled by their spirits through the Holy Spirit, that they were able to walk with God in the garden and have fellowship with Him. There was no moral unrighteousness in them, no disobedience or rebellion to prevent this pure holy relationship with God.

What does this all mean? It means that there was a time in History when there was no evil in man. There was a time in history when man was not divided in his soul: good and evil promptings. More importantly, this means that what man is today is not normal. Death is not normal. Before Adam and Eve sinned, there was no death in the world, in man or in the animal kingdom. Death is the result of Adam and Eve’s sin. This means also that because there was no death in the world that there were no fossils before the Fall of man. Fossils are the result of man’s sin and God’s judgment of man through the cataclysmic Flood taught in Genesis. We are not what God originally created us to be. The evil and death we see in the world is not what God originally intended.

If God created man in His image, which meant that man was perfectly holy as God is, what happened to man that destroyed his relationship with God and produced the evil side of his soul? Being created in God’s image involved a second factor: It involved man having a free will to choose whether he wanted to have relationship with God or not. Having a relationship with God means allowing God to rule over us which means choosing to walk in obedience to God. When God created man He created man as a free will agent who had the ability to choose to have relationship with God by choosing to obey him or by choosing not to have relationship with God by choosing to disobey Him. This was the significance of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden. Genesis 2:16-17 states,

"And Yehovah Elohim commanded the man, saying, you may eat from any tree of the garden for eating; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it dying, you shall die."

The expression "dying you shall die" meant that if they ate of this tree they would instantly experience spiritual death—separation from God; and then secondly, as a result of this separation, death of the body through slow corruption as well. While food prolongs our physical life in our state of corruption, only the life of Jesus can sustain our physical life forever. Physical death would then automatically lead to the death of the soul since it is only through our physical body that we are able to give our soul’s expression which is why the promise of the resurrection.