Sexual abstinence outside marriage
Whether sexual activity belongs exclusively within the covenant of marriage (chastity outside, faithfulness within), per the consistent biblical sexual ethic (1 Thess 4:3, Hebrews 13:4, 1 Cor 6:18-20). The historic position of every major Christian tradition. Some churches have become permissive about premarital sex / cohabitation. "Affirms" = the historic view that sex belongs in marriage; "denies" = a permissive position. Look for explicit teaching on chastity, "sex within marriage", "purity" vs. de facto silence + welcoming language toward cohabiting couples.
This doctrine distinguishes traditions but is not a boundary of orthodoxy.
Who binds this (creedal)
Every affiliated congregation inherits its denomination's position. Follow a chip to see the confession's language.
Key scriptures
- 1Cor 6:18 — Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.
- 1Cor 7:2 — Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.
- 1Pet 2:11 — Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;
- 1Thess 4:3 — For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication:
- Col 3:5 — Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:
- Eph 5:3 — But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints;
- Exod 20:14 — Thou shalt not commit adultery.
- Gen 2:24 — Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
- Heb 13:4 — Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.
- Lev 18:20 — Moreover thou shalt not lie carnally with thy neighbour’s wife, to defile thyself with her.
What the confessions say
Articles of the historic confessions that address this doctrine.
- Reformed Heidelberg Catechism Q109 — Does God in this commandment forbid nothing more than adultery and similar shameful sins?
- Lutheran Augsburg Confession Article 23 — Of the Marriage of Priests
- Roman Catholic Council of Trent (Canons) On the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist · Canon 9 — On the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist
- Anglican Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion Article 32 — Of the Marriage of Priests
- Lutheran Augsburg Confession Article 16 — Of Civil Affairs
- Reformed Westminster Confession of Faith 24.3 — Of Marriage and Divorce
The Church Fathers
The earliest Fathers who commented on the Scriptures above.
Abstain thou from fleshly and worldly lusts.
In like manner, let the young men also be blameless in all things, being especially careful to preserve purity, and keeping themselves in, as with a bridle, from every kind of evil. For it is well that they should be cut off from the lusts that are in the world, since "every lust warreth against the spirit;" and "neither fornicators,…
For it is not one thing which dies and another which is quickened, as neither is it one thing which is lost and another which is found, but the Lord came seeking for that same sheep which had been lost. What was it, then, which was dead? Undoubtedly it was the substance of the flesh; the same, too, which had lost the breath of life,…
For the devil tempting us, knowing what we are, but not knowing if we will hold out, but wishing to dislodge us from the faith, attempts also to bring us into subjection to himself. Which is all that is allowed to him, partly from the necessity of saving us, who have taken occasion from the commandment, from ourselves; partly for the…
There were more ribs in Adam, and hands that knew no weariness in God; but not more wives in the eye of God. And accordingly the man of God, Adam, and the woman of God, Eve, discharging mutually (the duties of) one marriage, sanctioned for mankind a type by (the considerations of) the authoritative precedent of their origin and the…
Fornication in the strict sense is consorting with prostitutes. Impurity is the generic name, in the maelstrom of our bodily existence, not only for adultery and pederasty but also all the other inventions of sexual licentiousness in all their many and diverse practices. Greed can be taken either straight-forwardly or, as I have…