Church of God, New World Ministries

Why Does Sex Exist?

“Vive la difference!” someone once said. And starting from early childhood we all begin to notice there is indeed a difference. We become increasingly aware of it as we grow up. Not only is sex a factor in human relationships, but animals, birds, fish, insects, even plants utilize it.

In the last several decades, though, especially in the Western world, simple awareness of sex and natural interest in it has given way to overwhelming preoccupation.

Today’s society is saturated with sex. It’s in the movies, magazines, books, music and even commercials. It’s accentuated in clothing styles and fashions. It is used to advertise everything from automobiles to zippers. It screams out from newsstands and magazine racks. Bold references to it are emblazoned on T-shirts and bumper stickers; it is blatantly vulgarized by graffiti in public places.

In case you ever do manage to move the subject of sex to the back of your mind, you have only to open an ordinary newspaper, or overhear an average conversation; before you know it, your attention is once again dragged back to the subject of sex. Everyone is aware of sex, but few have any idea why sex exists.

Evolutionary scientists have no adequate explanation for the existence of sex. According to the theory of evolution, the first minute life forms reproduced nonsexually. Sex was not involved. They just divided, producing identical copies of themselves. It was, comparatively speaking as simple as that.

Somehow along the way, though, things got complicated as sex entered the picture. This is a problem for evolutionists, because, according to natural selection, complications are not supposed to be rewarded with success. Yet sexual reproduction, so much more intricate, and sometimes ungainly, than nonsexual reproduction has become predominant among living things.

Think of all that is involved! Sexual reproduction in the animal kingdom requires two independent individuals of the same species to find each other and then, at the appropriate time, to mate.

Highly specialized internal and external organs are needed. Through an intricate process a sperm from one individual must locate and unite with the ovum or egg from another. The fertilized egg, which in the mammalian world begins to grow, must then be protected and nourished over an extended period of time until it develops into an independent living entity.

Reproduction in the plant kingdom is hardly less intricate. And birds have their own unique problems in hatching their eggs.

Why would sexless life forms that were successfully and efficiently reproducing nonsexually turn to a much more complicated method? Indeed, how could they turn to it, for they were only able to reproduce identical sexless copies of themselves?

If, somewhere in the eons of time, the idea to reproduce sexually occurred to a nonsexual life form, as absurd as that may sound, how would it go about acquiring the complex, yet necessary, equipment, to say nothing about convincingly communicating the concept to at least one contemporary, who would have to develop the complementary equipment, as well as passing on the idea to succeeding generations? And what if no one else was interested?

Remember that sex would not have been required in order for life to exist. Proof of this is that sexless life forms were already successfully existing and reproducing. So successfully in fact that nonsexual reproduction is still the method used by thriving minute life forms that have remained basically unchanged since the beginning.

Why sex then? This perplexing question is one of the nagging enigmas evolutionary science cannot adequately explain. Neither is the explanation adequately forthcoming from educators or specialist in sexual matters. They, with few exceptions, must take for granted that sexual differences somehow evolved and, starting at the unproved point, they attempt to deal with those differences.

Naturally, the educators and experts who assume sex is the result of evolution do not speak in terms of specific moral laws regulating the use of sex. They presume mankind is merely a higher form of animal life, except that humans are more intelligent and therefore should be able to utilize sex in a “responsible” way.

That’s as near as they can come to formulating a comprehensive and workable guideline for sexual conduct. After all, to clearly define right as opposed to wrong, sexually speaking, would be to risk offending some in one’s audience when it comes to personal preferences or “life-styles.”

But what does “responsible” mean? Responsible to whom? To God? No, for God and the Bible are left out of the picture so as not to offend anybody’s personal beliefs concerning religion.

Responsible, then, to other humans? The concept sounds lofty but is unworkable and undependable as a guideline because morally most people let themselves be responsible to other people to the extent that they themselves stand to tangibly benefit from the arrangement. When you get down to it, to prescribe no more than that moral conduct, be “responsible,’ basically means that each individual is free to make up his or her own mind concerning morality.

The fruits of this kind of thinking are everwhere evident. Sex crimes are rampant. The statistics would be far worse than they are were it not that so many crimes go unreported and that so many acts of sexual misconduct are not even categorized as crimes like they truly deserve to be.

People in too many cases are behaving themselves in a manner unbecoming to animals. Sexual conduct is regulated by whim and caprice. Adolescents and, increasingly, preadolescents freely and unashamedly indulge in sexual play.

Unfortunately, traditional Christianity has been of little help in the matter. Far from speaking with a united voice, some theologians branded sex as only tolerable; they have had to endorse it, but in marriage only; some limit it solely for the purpose of having children; some few modern and ancient religious spokesmen say it is permissible outside of wedlock. There have even been some who have urged followers to participate in unrestrained communal sexual activity, all in the name of religion.

What confusion! No wonder so many of the educated of the world have laid aside what they have assumed to be Christianity and consequently the Bible, and sought to explain biological reality by means of what they consider to be the only alternatives; philosophy or evolutionary science, as inadequate as they are.

But wait! Just because traditional Christianity has erred in comprehending the Bible, let us not make the mistake of overlooking the fact that it is God’s handbook of instruction about life, including sex, to the Creator’s highest physical creation; mankind. Science does not know that. Religion has not understood what that means.

In the Bible we discover that sexual differences did not evolve. God created sex. And the Bible explains why.

The Bible reveals that God created the first human beings. They were naked and not ashamed. God was pleased with his handiwork. But God planned to greatly increase the number of human beings on earth. To accomplish this he could have created each additional one with his own hands just as he had created Adam and Eve, giving to them the breath of life (Gen. 2:7). It would have taken time, but God has plenty of time.

Or, in a less personalized way, could the Creator not have merely commanded, so great is his power, and the elements themselves would obediently have come together, producing humans as they had so recently yielded plants, animals, fish and fowl (Gen. 1:11, 20, 24).

Or, why not have each person produce a seed or an egg that did not need fertilization? Out of it would develop a tiny human that would grow into an adult.  Nature is not lacking in examples to show that reproduction is possible without sex.

But such is not the way God designed human beings or, for that matter, most living things. We can be glad, for had it been otherwise, we certainly would not have the pleasure of sex nor behold the rich variety that exists within each species; living things today would be pretty much genetically identical to the originals.

The Bible describes the origin of sex among humans. God created a second human, a female, different in many important ways from the first human, a male, and yet the two perfectly complemented each other.  The Scriptures proclaim, “Male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, be fruitful, and multiply” (Gen. 1:27-28). Verse 31 records how God looked approvingly at what he had created and pronounced it, sexual differences and all, “very good.”

What so few understand, and yet what is clearly revealed in the Bible, is that God is also capable of reproducing Himself. God is a family. There is God the Father (I Cor. 1:3), and Jesus Christ, the Son of God (v. 9). Furthermore, it is God’s purpose to expand his family, to add to the number of beings in it.

Why this truth should surprise even theologians is difficult to say. The Scriptures plainly declare that, through Jesus Christ, God is “bringing many son unto glory” (Heb. 2:10). Jesus is “the firstborn among many brethren” (Rom. 8:29).The Bible calls converted Christians, men and women “brethren” of Jesus Christ (Heb. 2:11-12, 17), “children” of God the Father (Rom. 8:16-17), God’s “sons” and daughters” (II Cor. 6:18).

And the mother is the Church of God. This is a family relationship of awesome magnitude.

Exactly how is God producing children? By divine fiat? By commanding and they come into being? By some spur-of-the-moment religious experience, such as is felt by those who believe they are suddenly converted and “born again” as God’[s children? No, nowhere in all of nature are offspring produced instantaneously.

God starts the process of producing children by begetting them. He joins his Holy Spirit (the sperm or seed) with the spirit (the nucleus) in a person’s mind (the ovum or egg). The result is a spiritual “embryo” – not yet a born child of God.

That embryo must grow and develop. The new spiritually begotten child must be protected and nourished for an appropriate length of time in the womb of the “mother” - the Church (Heb. 12:22-23; Gal. 4:26), until it grows to the point where it is ready to be born in the resurrection as a spirit being (John 3:6) – a member of God’s family.

This is the method God is using to bring forth additional children for his spiritual family. It is the method reflected by sexual procreation at nearly every level of the biological realm and especially in human beings, who are created in God’s very image (Gen. 1:27).

But there is more. For, viewed from another aspect, the male-female relationship portrays the special relationship Jesus Christ has with the Church; It is a marital relationship, Christ being the husband and the Church of God his bride-to-be (Eph. 5:22-32; Rev. 19:7-10).

Sex did not evolve. Sex was created by God not only for reproduction, but for attracting humans to one another so they would form families. Sex was created not only to render pleasure in the marital relationship, but also to keep us humans mindful of the awesome purpose the Creator God is working out.

Sex was given to be used exclusively in the confines of marriage to solidify the family unit, because the God family is solidly united. Sex was given to produce children, because God is producing children. It becomes all the more evident, that, in view of the great purpose for which God created sex, how great an evil is its misuse!

 
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