How your boyfriend responds to sexual sin in your relationship reveals what kind of husband he will be.
Some Christian men and women feel locked into a dating relationship, even when it’s dysfunctional, and especially after they sin sexually.
Why are unhealthy dating relationships so hard to end, especially after a couple has compromised morally? And how should Christian couples respond if they sin sexually?
God requires that men feel a peculiar responsibility for protecting and caring for women.
He calls men and women to pursue holiness, to guard the marriage bed, to do all things for his glory, including courtship, marrying, and pursuing sexual purity. He calls both men and women to protect and serve one another in complementary ways, but from the beginning, he lays a heavier burden on men.
Eve ate first from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and she enticed her husband to eat with her — and she received a curse for her sin (Genesis 3:16). But after dealing first with Satan, and then with Eve, God’s words of judgment culminated with Adam (Genesis 3:17–19). The woman would have pain in childbirth; the man would suffer “all the days of your life till you return to the ground” (Genesis 3: 17, 19). God expected the man to obey his voice and lovingly lead his wife to do the same — and for the man to own the greater responsibility for their failure.
To his shame, Adam not only did what God had explicitly forbidden, but then blamed Eve (and God!) for his sin: “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate” (Genesis 3:12). Men, if you fail sexually in a relationship, I am pleading with you not to respond like Adam did, but to own your failure, and grieve it, and do whatever necessary to repent, protect your sister in Christ, and prepare yourself to pursue marriage with complete purity (1 Timothy 5:2).
The apostle Paul writes, “We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day” (1 Corinthians 10:8). In Numbers 25, the shameless sexual sin of one couple (who was righteously speared to death) led to the death of thousands more. Did God overreact? Was the punishment excessive? We may recoil because we’ve so grown too comfortable with sin, and too indifferent before the holiness of God.
Paul says elsewhere, “This is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God. . . . The Lord is an avenger in all these things” (1 Thessalonians 4:3–6). Sexual sin is the opposite of God’s will for you. So, if temptation comes, run the other way. Flee as quickly as possible (1 Corinthians 6:18).
If you commit sexual sin with your girlfriend, consider taking a meaningful break from the relationship for the sake of your soul and hers, your current relationship, and your future marriage.
Reconcile with God and pray more to be sure the relationship is God’s will before you decide on the next step to take.
