Virginity.

Saturday, I was pretty bored at work.  I started reading random articles online.  I came upon some articles concerning courtship or biblical dating; consequently, I was led to an article concerning the amount of knowledge one should seek concerning the sexual past of a potential spouse.  It was an article that held my attention to its end.  The final line of the article was thus: “Jesus was a virgin. His Bride wasn’t. He loved us anyway.”

The line stopped me.  Jesus was perfect, free of sin.  I was not free of sin.  Scripture teaches that I was a whore.  I was an enemy and hater of God.  Christ loved me despite my past.  In fact, one could say he loved me even because of my past.  Jesus himself said that he didn’t come to love perfect people.  He didn’t come to save spiritual virgins.  He came for the very men and women who had gone full throttle after the idols of their own hearts.  Hosea was told by God to take a wife of whoredom, a prostitute.  And isn’t that exactly what Christ did?

And so this line hits me doubly hard.  It hits me with the gospel force of the salvation Christ came to bring.  It also hits me with the force of the gospel lived out in the relationships we have with one another.

It reminds me that the only virgin, spiritual or otherwise, was Christ.  It reminds me that sexual virginity must take a back seat to spiritual virginity.  When I approach any relationship, I must recall that Christ has loved me despite my lack of chastity.

As I consider relationships with others, particularly courtship or dating, I must keep the gospel at the forefront of my heart’s and my mind’s activity.  It is bold faced hypocrisy if I demand of others what I have not done in myself.  The sexual past of a potential spouse is not without importance, but it is nothing in comparison to the profundity of the gospel and it’s implications in relationships.

What is more important: my sexual past or the way I regard it now and the way I look to the future of my physical body?  Is it more important to me that a possible wife be a virgin or that she understand the weight of her spiritual infidelity to God?  Oh, how often I ask the wrong questions!

“And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.  This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.  He disarmed the rulers and the authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.”  Colossians 2:13-15

If Christ has not held the sins of my past against me, then who am I to hold someone’s past against them (or they against me)?  I do acknowledge that sins are not without consequences, one of which being the baggage we carry with us.  The time must come when that baggage is dealt with, but not before its time and certainly not without the gospel as the context in which we deal with it.

Chastity unto Christ must be the most important consideration when looking at a potential husband or wife.  Is this person pursuing holiness and living for the glory of God?  If the answer is an undeniable yes, then fret not over the baggage of the past.

“Jesus was a virgin.  His Bride wasn’t.  He loved us anyway.”

Be humbled.