(upbeat music) Welcome to the Ask Pastor John Podcast. We close out the week with two important questions we commonly receive on the topic of marital intimacy. And they are, of course, intended for a mature audience. The first question comes from Kyle in Kansas City. He has a follow-up question.

Dear Pastor John, my question is a follow-up to episode number 475. Is sexual attraction essential for marriage? There you said no. So if sexual attraction is not essential to marriage, why does it seem so essential to the Song of Solomon? It sure wouldn't be much of a song if you took out everything in it that has to do with physical pleasure, now would it?

Pastor John, what do you have to say to Kyle from Kansas City? So let's clarify the question I was answering. I mean, that's true. Yeah, all right, good question. Let's clarify what I was answering. The question I was answering was not, is sex essential? But is sexual attraction essential for marriage?

I answered no for cultural reason and physical reasons. Culturally and historically, lots of true marriages have been put together by parents without the physical desire being there at the beginning for the couple, arranged marriages. Physically, there are seasons of life as you grow older where those pleasures rise and fall, come and go.

If you said that sexual attraction were the essence, then aging would be the gradual end of marriage, which it isn't. Some of the greatest glories, I think, happen in marriage in the absence of sexual desire. So let's clarify then what I am saying and what I'm not saying when I say sexual pleasure is not part of the essence of marriage.

What I'm saying is that marriage really exists without it. The absence of pleasure in sexual relations does not make a marriage no longer a marriage. The Bible mandate for sexual relations is there, 1 Corinthians 7, 3, but even lengthy interruptions do not turn marriage into something other than marriage, as when a husband or wife is in prison for 10, 20 years, or when seafarers went on a two-year whaling expedition.

That's what I am saying. Marriage is still marriage when pleasures rise and fall, can be expressed, cannot be expressed, or when they completely disappear, which happens sometimes for purely physiological reasons. A real marriage, indeed a happy one, can exist when those pleasures are not part of the joy. Now what I'm not saying, and this is what Kyle picked up on, I hope.

I mean, he may not have picked up on it. Now I hope he will. What I'm not saying is that the Song of Solomon can be the Song of Solomon without sexual pleasure. The Song of Solomon, he said, wouldn't be much of a song if you took out everything in it that has to do with sexual pleasure.

That is absolutely right. It is an utterly sensual song. It is a lavish celebration of God's gift of sexual pleasure in marriage. I'm glad it's in the Bible. So what I'm not saying is, if something is not essential to marriage, it can't be hugely important and spectacularly wonderful. Too many negatives in that sentence.

Let me try again. I'll say it this way. If something is not essential to marriage, it may still be hugely important and spectacularly wonderful. So Kyle is right. If you take away sexual pleasure from the Song of Solomon, it is no longer a celebration of sexual pleasure. And I'm not in any way commending pleasure absent sexual relations.

I regard such experiences as a very sad reality that some must live with. The loss of sexual pleasure in marriage is not the ideal. It's not the goal. In fact, let's take it a little further. Since God designed marriage in its one flesh union to be a parable, a drama of his relationship to the church and the church to him, the absence of deeply loving pleasure in the act of one flesh union is less than the complete drama of the intensity of the joy between Christ and his church.

I mean, it is amazing to me to think that God knew exactly what he was doing in creating sex as part of marriage and all of its exquisite pleasures. And he had in mind Christ in the church when he did it back in the beginning. We know that from Ephesians 5, 32 and so on.

So even though marriage can exist without this pleasure, yes, it can, it's not of the essence, nevertheless, the fullest and most complete portrayal of the ultimate meaning of marriage is not possible without that pleasure. You can have a real marriage that is an imperfect portrayal of Christ and his church.

But Song of Solomon is right to celebrate sexual pleasure in marriage because one of the reasons that sexual pleasure in marriage is so wonderful and so important is because it completes the picture of how intense the pleasures of knowing Christ will be forever. So conclusion, no, it's not essential, but yes, staggeringly important and wonderful.

Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for the follow-up question, Kyle. And behind this episode was episode number 475, is sexual attraction essential for marriage? You can find that in the podcast archive. And if you have a question for Pastor John, he'd like to hear it. Keep it short, keep it to the point, and send it to us via email at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.

Tomorrow we close out the week with yet another follow-up question from episode 475. I'm your host, Tony Reinke. We'll see you then. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)