Body: | Is Birth Control Sinful?
The sexual desire was created by God, and it is good. However, like every
good thing, it must be kept in its proper place. Marriage is the only
proper place for sexual relations, and if they take place outside of the
marriage, they are sinful. In this connection, please also study the
message titled "Sex Before Marriage".
We will find the answer to the birth control question when we find from the
Bible the purposes of sexual relations in marriage. Soon after God had
created Adam, God said, "it is not good that man should be alone, I will
make a helper fit for him". Or, in other words, God saw that Adam needed a
helper to be a more complete person. (Genesis 2:18).
The notion that the bearing of children is the only God-given purpose for
marital relations is wrong. The Bible stresses the true purpose; that God
made man and woman to complete one another and to fulfill each other's
needs. The following reading from the New Testament, I Corinthians 7:2-5,
summarizes these teachings. "Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every
man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. Let the
husband render unto the wife due benevolence; and likewise, also the wife
unto the husband. The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband:
and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife.
Defraud you not one the other, except it be with the consent for a time,
that you may give yourselves to fasting and in prayer; and come together
again, that Satan tempt you because of you lack of self control." This
passage very clearly teaches that the purpose of sexual relations is to
fulfill the natural biological urge and thereby avoid fornication.
Thus, the doctrine that the only God-given purpose for marital relations is
for the purpose of having children is wrong. Opposition to birth control is
based on this false assumption. Many good people who have misunderstood the
teaching of the Bible on this point, have mistakenly assumed that Genesis
1:28 applies to Christians today, when it says, "Be you fruitful and
multiply and fill the earth and subdue it." This, however, was, obviously,
a command given to Adam and Eve, not to all mankind today. Not every
command given to every individual in the Bible applies today; we are not to
build an ark because Noah did, neither are we to stone adulterers because
the Jews did. No Old Testament command applies today, because the Old
Testament was fulfilled and replaced by the New Testament at the death of
Christ. Study Romans 7:6; Galatians 3:23-25; Hebrews 9:15-17.
Those against birth control say that since the bearing of children is the
only God give purpose for marital relations, it is a sin to have such
sexual relations while purposely avoiding the possibility of bearing
children by using birth control. God plainly teaches, in the passages
mentioned, that husband and wife should fulfill one another's sexual needs.
This necessitates regular marital relations. God has-given us the good
sense to know how to accomplish this without necessarily having children.
If some precautions are not taken, a couple will normally produce about one
child a year. Too many children creates other problems about which the
Bible speaks. The Apostle Paul says in I Timothy 5:8, "If a man provide not
for those of his own house, he has denied the faith and is worse than an
infidel." There are two ways a man could fail to provide for his own. One
would be not to work. The other would be to generate so many children that
he could not provide for their needs. If we insist that couples neither
deny themselves sexually nor take precautions against conception, but
simultaneously insist that the children be supported, we are (for most
couples) insisting both on an impossibility and upon a contradiction of
plain Bible teaching. The only alternatives the opponents of birth control
give mankind is either abstinence, with its pressures toward fornication,
or 20 to 25 children for the average couple. The Bible denies both of
these.
It is sad that many people have been caused to suffer because of an
arbitrary religious conclusion that does not reflect the teaching of the
Word of God. This should be an encouragement to each of us to study the
Bible for ourselves; this is how God has always intended that His word be
studied.
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