A husband and wife are partners in pleasure.  Sex is part of that, but so is watching the sun set together or tearing into a loaf of hot bread from the oven or walking barefoot on the beach or lying in the hammock admiring the paint job you worked on together on the deck.  Rich or poor, educated or uneducated, beautiful or ordinary, all married couples can enjoy the wonders and delights of sexual love.

Another purpose for sex is bonding.  The act of sexual intercourse is intended by God to act as superglue in the relationship, bonding two people together.  We become attached to someone when we experience physical touch and pleasure in a loving way.  Sex is so much more than the joining of body parts.  Sex unites souls.

In Genesis 4:1 (ESV), we read, “Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain.”  The first time I read this, I figured the writer cut out the spicy stuff to make the Bible PG-13.  But to know is a rich word in Hebrew that means to deeply know in a full and total way.  Adam knew her sexually but also emotionally and spiritually.  To have sexual intercourse is to share a secret, and the secret bonds the partners together.

An additional purpose for sex is the creation of new life.  Sexual intercourse sometimes results in pregnancy.  In the context of this loving union, a place is made to bring new life into the world.  The overflow of the love a man and woman have for one another spills out and pours into the life of a baby.

The first command God gave people is found in Genesis 1:28, “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.’”  God restated this to Noah and his family after the flood.  This is the only command in the Bible that we have done well at following.  Children are a gift from God, to be received with joy, awe and thanksgiving.  Psalm 127:3 says, “Children are a heritage from the LORD, offspring a reward from him.”  Children are intended by God to be one of life’s greatest blessings.

Fourth is communication.  Sexual intercourse is a wordless way of saying, “I love you; I’m giving myself to you.”  It’s a deeper-than-words message, a beyond-words way to communicate with another.  As we channel our passion to the other, we celebrate who they are and our delight to be in union with them.  To be naked with a marriage partner is a wordless declaration of honesty, trust and self-giving.

A fifth purpose for sex is transformation from being self-absorbed to being other-centered.  Sex pulls us out of our self-absorption to unite us with another human being.  Jesus gives an indication of his unity when he says, “The two will become one flesh” (Mark 10:8).  Marriage is a laboratory to learn how to love.  Philip Yancey writes, “I went into marriage thinking love would hold us together.  I learned instead that it required marriage to teach me what love means.”¹  Sexual love allows us to practice mutual submission where the desires and pleasure of another become as important to us as our own.