3 Biblical Reasons Spouses Are Commanded to Have Sex

Sex is a commanded choice (1 Corinthians 7:1-5). In that way, sex is just like love. We are commanded to love others (Matthew 22:37-40). However, true love is a choice. In that same sense, spouses are commanded to have sex. But sex must never be forced. It must always be a voluntary choice.

But why does the Bible command spouses to have sex? Here are three biblical reasons why sex is so important in a marriage.

1. Sex in Christian Marriage Is Meant to Be an Expression of Love

It’s one thing to love your spouse. It’s an entirely different thing to express that love to your spouse.

How can you help your spouse feel the love you have for them in your heart? Gifts, acts of kindness, words of affirmation, and quality time are all very important. However, these are expressions of love that you can give to anyone, not just your spouse. Even physical touch can be done in appropriate ways, such as through a hug.

Sex, however, when used biblically, is one way to express love that only a husband and wife get to experience together. This special relationship deserves a special way to express love.

God blessed a husband and wife with a beautiful outlet for the love that is within them. Sex is far more than a physical exercise. In marriage, it is meant to be a place where the inner love for your spouse can be expressed physically, so the person feels it. Sex is the place in marriage where the spiritual meets the physical in a beautiful expression of love.

Here are some Bible verses that show us that sex is so important in a Christian marriage because it is an expression of love.

Proverbs 5:18-19 states, “Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love.” Notice the connection between enjoying each other’s body and being “intoxicated in love.”

Another example that shows how sex is an expression of love is Song of Solomon. In Song of Solomon 7:6-9, for example, the husband states:

How beautiful and pleasant you are, O loved one, with all your delights! Your stature is like a palm tree, and your breasts are like its clusters. I say I will climb the palm tree and lay hold of its fruit. Oh may your breasts be like clusters of the vine, and the scent of your breath like apples, and your mouth like the best wine.”

In Song of Solomon 7:10-13 the wife responds:

It goes down smoothly for my beloved, gliding over lips and teeth. I am my beloved’s, and his desire is for me. Come, my beloved, let us go out into the fields and lodge in the villages; let us go out early to the vineyards and see whether the vines have budded, whether the grape blossoms have opened and the pomegranates are in bloom. There I will give you my love.”

The woman doesn’t just say, “There I will give you my body.” She said, “There I will give you my love.”

I also think it’s worth pointing out that God ordained sex to be the means by which a husband and wife create a child together. God could have made the process of procreation totally different. He could have made the process of getting pregnant very sterile and formulaic, like filing your taxes.

Sex, however, is one of the most pleasurable human experiences that exists. And naturally, through God’s design, only through this means can children be born. Sex isn’t just about procreation. It’s about love, and love always creates life.

2. Sex in Christian Marriage Bonds You with Your Spouse

Another reason sex is so important in Christian marriage is that sex is meant to bond you with your spouse.

Genesis 2:24-25 explains, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.”

Here we can see that when a man and woman get married, one of the first acts God has them commit is to have sex. Why does he do that? Because this man and woman are leaving their families and creating a new family together. They are breaking one bond and creating a new bond. Sex is a big part of this bonding process.

You can see the power of sex to bond two people in a negative example as well. In 1 Corinthians 6:15-16, it states:

Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, ‘The two will become one flesh.’”

Sex is so important in Christian marriage because it helps nourish the bond of a husband and wife. God did not create our bodies to crave sex one time. The desire keeps coming back. I think God designed the body this way because he wants a husband and wife to have sex often so that they will be continually strengthening their bond with one another.

3. Sex in Christian Marriage Is a Safeguard Against Sexual Sin

There are many more reasons why sex is so important in a Christian marriage. One reason that is explicitly mentioned in the Bible is that having sex in marriage will protect you from pursuing sexual immorality outside of marriage. To overcome the bad, we must pursue the good (Romans 12:21).

Sex with your spouse is not the only way to overcome sexual sin, but in 1 Corinthians 7:2-5, Paul clearly states the importance of sex in marriage:

But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.”

In summary, we must remember how powerful sex is meant to be in the context of a healthy Christian marriage. We have to respect the power and responsibility that comes with sex because when used improperly, this powerful gift can become a weapon, doing damage to the heart.

God made sex, and sex in marriage is very important.