Given how topsy-turvy is our society’s understanding of marriage and sexuality, I very nearly preached a standalone sermon on Hebrews 13:4: “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.” Yet since I intend to teach through Christopher Gordon’s excellent New Reformation Catechism on Human Sexuality in January, I ultimately decided to keep to my original plan and preached Hebrews 13:1-6 as one sermon. The following is a point of application from verse 4 that I left out due to time constraints.

---

Keeping the marriage bed undefiled is the chief means of upholding marriage as honorable. For all people marriage is a sacred institution, for it is not a social construct but a divinely bestowed honor upon His image-bearers. And while marriage is far more than the marriage bed, the marriage bed is the core of the whole. Indeed, we rightly say that a marriage is consummated through the sexual union of the husband and his wife. Just as all of Israel was a holy nation to God yet the tabernacle was erected at the center of their camp of as the most holy place, so too is all of marriage to be upheld as honorable and holy but the marriage bed is the most holy place of its institution. Indeed, just as the tabernacle was decorated with garden imagery to remind Israel of Eden, so too does Song of Solomon speak of sexual intimacy with garden imagery. Here is how Song of Solomon 4:16-5:1 poetically describes the marriage bed:

SHE: Let my beloved come to his garden, and eat its choicest fruits.

HE: I came to my garden, my sister, my bride, I gathered my myrrh with my spice, I ate my honeycomb with my honey, I drank my wine with my milk.

This is why the marriage bed is to be kept undefiled. It is to be kept pure and holy. For just as the tabernacle was glimpse at being in communion with God again, so too is sex a glimpse of once again being naked without shame. Sexual immorality and adultery are not merely disobedience; they are a defilement of what is holy. Just as the Lord judged Nadab, Abihu, and Uzzah for defiling the tabernacle and the ark, so will God judge all who defile the marriage bed.

Allow me now to make two specific applications.

First, notice that in the passage from Song of Solomon above, sex itself is not called a garden; rather, the wife is her husband’s garden. The marriage bed is the act of the wife giving herself as a garden for her husband to enjoy and of the husband enjoying his wife as a garden. Both husbands and wives would do well to meditate on that imagery. Previous generations rightly called the cultivation of home and garden the art of husbandry. Indeed, that is the work of the husband. A neglected garden may certainly still produce fruit, but we should not expect it to be plentiful nor surprised to find it surrounded by thorns. Indeed, a husband should not be surprised to find his prayers hindered if he neglects and defiles the garden that God has given him to tend. A garden that is nourished and cherished and watered with God’s Word will yield abundant and delightful fruit.

Second, we must also keep the marriage bed undefiled by keeping it private. John Piper writes:

The world should not have its nose or its cameras in our bedroom. Sex is not a spectator sport–in spite of the billion-dollar industry designed to make it one. Which means that the drama of Christ and the church in the life of husband and wife has its private scenes. The part of the drama has an audience of three: husband, wife, and God, who sees all.

Works 7:614

I hope that all Christians would agree with Piper. To bring anyone else into the marriage bed is to make what is sacred pornographic. Yet while many Christians would recoil at livestreaming their marriage bed for their best friends to see, the notion of talking about one another’s sex lives is often done without thought. Although it is not visual, how is casually talking about one’s sexual experiences with people other than one’s spouse not a defilement of the marriage bed? Of course, I understand that we live in a world that is broken and marred by sin, so there may be times when a couple need to talk through some matters of the marriage bed with a professional, Christian counselor. But simply sharing about each other’s sex lives is not building a deeper community (as some might argue); it is defiling what is holy by treating it as ordinary.