The secular, biological, relativistic view of sex says: Sex is an instinct, and as long as we don’t hurt anyone, we should go do it. If we are hungry, we should eat. If we are thirsty, we should drink. The moralistic view of sex says: Sex is dirty or leads to sin, and if you really want to be spiritual, you should avoid it. The biblical view of sex is neither.

The Bible celebrates the beauty of sex; but, it also calls us to engage in it in the context of marriage only. Why? Because sex is beautiful and God wants us to understand and fully appreciate its beauty. What makes sex so beautiful? (1) Sex has the power to co-create human beings who are created in God’s image; (2) sex is the act of one-flesh union, an act that glues people together as one; and (3) sex shows us Christ’s love for us.

But, human beings have made something that is beautiful into something ugly. We have made it into an idol—a means to life and significance. Sex is beautiful, but it is not a means to life and significance. Only God is that.

What is the power to fix it? We must acknowledge our failure and mess; we must admit that we cannot fix it on our own; we have to look to the sin beneath the sin and identify the idol that motivate us; and we must, by God’s grace, seek God for life, meaning, and intimacy.