Delighting in One’s Spouse

The Ten Commandments serve as the foundation for all the other laws that we find in Scripture, as seen in their prominence in the Old Testament (see Ex. 20; Deut. 5) and repetition in the New (Rom. 13:8–10). Consequently, each of the commandments in the Decalogue, or the Ten Commandments, establishes a principle that is then applied to other situations with other regulations. The extensive laws against incest, homosexuality, bestiality, and so forth that we find in places such as Leviticus 18 make sense only in light of the fundamental axiom that the proper context for sexual behavior is the marital relationship of husband and wife. All other sexual sins can become prevalent only if our confidence in the truth of the seventh commandment is weakened.

In the seventh commandment’s prohibition of adultery (Ex. 20:14), we find a commendation of adultery’s opposite—namely, chastity. Today, many people think that chastity refers to complete abstinence from sexual activity in every context, but that is not accurate. To live a chaste life is actually to view sex in its proper context and to live according to God’s law in the area of human sexuality. Thus, all people are called to chastity; it is just that chaste living looks different for married people than for the unmarried. Married couples who enjoy sex only within the context of their marriage and single people who refrain from sexual activity are both following the principles of chastity as given in Scripture.

The seventh commandment gives the positive duty of chastity, and in the marriage relationship, chastity includes enjoying sexual activity. Historic Protestantism especially has understood this well. Within the Reformed tradition, the Puritans, contrary to popular belief, are known for celebrating the sexual union of husband and wife. In so doing, they turned to passages such as Proverbs 5, where the instruction to the young man to avoid adultery includes the command to enjoy sex with his wife. The right response to our temptation to sexual sin involves not only abstaining from forbidden sexual acts but also encouraging marriage and channeling sexual desire toward one’s husband or wife. In fact, the Apostle Paul commands spouses to give one another their conjugal rights (1 Cor. 7:1–5). Sex is God’s good gift to provide intimacy and pleasure and to strengthen the union of husband and wife, so let us each delight in the wife—or husband—of our youth.