What does the Bible say about promiscuity / being promiscuous?

In the marriage relationship there is complete freedom in this respect but outside marriage this is forbidden as we can clearly see from our scripture. The world does not see this distinction and the holiness and purity that God intended is destroyed. This relaxation of God's standard where physical relationships are entered into wherever and with whoever one chooses, can only bring guilt and misery.

The whole of Scripture is full of the errors of fornication (Acts 15 v 29) and adultery (Exodus 20 v 14). The first is sexual relationship outside of marriage and the second sexual relationship with a married person. We must clearly state that physical affection is only intended by God for one man and one woman and that within the confines of marriage and to a very limited extent by a couple committed to marriage (see previous chapter).

With the current attitude of the world to these things we must ensure that our standards are not lowered so that the old nature within us is allowed to work and make us prey to the temptations we will face. Remember Joseph and Potiphar's wife. Genesis 39 v 13.

According to Scripture, the sin of fornication not only refers to prostitution, but to any pre- or extramarital intercourse. We saw this earlier when we considered verses 27-30. Fornication is also adultery when at least one of the persons involved is married. Here the general term, "fornication," is used, although the verse deals especially with adultery. It seems rather far-fetched to interpret "fornication" here as implying immoral behaviour before the marriage, of which the husband learns only after the wedding.

In God's sight immoral behaviour is so abominable that Paul had to write to Ephesus: “But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints” (Eph. 5:3). This means that we should not mention these things frivolously and so make little of them. The Bible speaks very clearly as to God's judgment about these sins. Holy Scripture not only calls prostitution fornication, but all extramarital intercourse, even where there may be the intention to get married, and even if it is done only once (cf. Gen. 34 and 38). In the world today the word fornication is only used in connection with the first meaning. In the New Testament, however, extramarital intercourse in general is called fornication, that of married persons is called adultery, and both are condemned as abominable sin (Matt. 15:19; 1 Cor. 6:9; Heb. 13:4).

In the Old Testament, adultery, unfaithfulness towards the spouse for the satisfaction of lust, was to be dealt with most severely. According to the law of Sinai this sin had to be punished with death (Lev. 20:10; Deut. 22:22-24). In the first place the law contained God's regulations for the outward and social life of His earthly people, and for this reason only the accomplished offence was to be punished, even though the tenth commandment forbad the coveting of the neighbour's wife (as well as all his possessions. Ex. 20:17). If a Jew kept the commandment not to commit adultery, he was acting according to God's will and contributed towards the maintenance of the people's community according to God's order. Fear of the punishment threatened certainly contributed to this. However, the mere outward observance of this and all the other commandments could not justify him before God.

In God's sight immoral behaviour is so abominable that Paul had to write to Ephesus: "But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints" (Eph. 5: 3). This means that we should not mention these things frivolously and so make little of them. The Bible speaks very clearly as to God's judgment about these sins. Holy Scripture not only calls prostitution fornication, but all extramarital intercourse, even where there may be the intention to get married, and even if it is done only once (cf. Gen. 34 and 38). In the world today the word fornication is only used in connection with the first meaning. In the New Testament, however, extramarital intercourse in general is called fornication, that of married persons is called adultery, and both are condemned as abominable sin (Matt. 15: 19; 1 Cor. 6: 9; Heb. 13: 4).

In the Old Testament, adultery, unfaithfulness towards the spouse for the satisfaction of lust, was to be dealt with most severely. According to the law of Sinai this sin had to be punished with death (Lev. 20: 10; Deut. 22: 22-24). In the first place the law contained God's regulations for the outward and social life of His earthly people, and for this reason only the accomplished offence was to be punished, even though the tenth commandment forbad the coveting of the neighbour's wife (as well as all his possessions. Ex. 20: 17). If a Jew kept the commandment not to commit adultery, he was acting according to God's will and contributed towards the maintenance of the people's community according to God's order. Fear of the punishment threatened certainly contributed to this. However, the mere outward observance of this and all the other commandments could not justify him before God.

On the other hand, God has expressed His will in His Word as to many things that have to do with our practical, daily lives. Do we rejoice in His expressed will as to what our conduct should be? These things we may know absolutely also, as for instance, "This is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality." Many other scriptures show us clearly what kind of conduct is right and becoming. Let us be well acquainted with these through reading and meditation.

On one thing especially was the apostle urgent, the personal purity of those who bore the name of Jesus; and the more so as the Greeks utterly failed in it. Their habits and their literature, their statesmen and their philosophers, all helped on the evil; their very religion conduced to aggravate the defilement by consecrating that to which depraved nature is itself prone. Few can have any adequate notion of the moral horrors of the heathen world, or of the insensibility of men generally to pollutions so shameless Christ changed all for those who believe in Him, leaving an example that they should follow His steps. "For this is God's will, your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication; that each of you know how to possess himself of his own vessel in sanctification and honour, not in passion of lust even as also the Gentiles that know not God, that no man over-reach and wrong his brother in the matter; because the Lord is an avenger of all these things, even as we told you before and fully testified." Holiness, of course, goes far beyond freedom from sensuality. Still to stand clear of that which was everywhere sanctioned in ordinary life was no small thing. Nor is the apostle satisfied with the negative duty of abstinence, but calls on "each of them to know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honour," instead of letting it drift loosely into sin and shame, "not in passion of lust, even as the Gentiles also that know not God." Acts 15 is proof positive on scripture testimony of that day, painfully confirmed by the disclosures of Pompeii and Herculaneum, to the moral degradation that pervaded even the most civilized portion of the heathen world. When God is dishonoured, man is reprobate; and God, in forgiving and rescuing from the wrath to come through Christ's death and resurrection, gives also a new life in Christ on which the Holy Spirit acts by the word so as to produce fruits of righteousness by Him to God's glory.

The first application of the apostle is to meats, which he deals with in terms so curtly contemptuous as to decide the question for every godly soul. "Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats, but God will bring to nought both it and them;" He then points out an analogy as forcible as it is surprising and withal no less true: they mutually suit one another, and both perish under God's dealing. They are but temporary. It was the more striking, as coming through one who had been a Jew to those who had been Gentiles; and all know the place meats had in Judaism. But Christianity brings in the light of God and of the future for our present guidance; as we see in the second case still more at length. For "the body is not for fornication but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body." If the belly is put down to its true and passing use, the body is exalted to a place of which philosophy knew nothing. As it was not formed for unhallowed or promiscuous indulgence, so it is for the Lord and the Lord is for it.

It is not merely that our spirits go to be with the Lord in heaven; our bodies shall be raised like His at His coming, as many bodies of the saints which slept arose and came out of their graves after His resurrection. For if death shows man's weakness, resurrection displays God's power. The actual spiritual effect of this is immense. Not our souls but our bodies are declared to be members of Christ. Those who descant on the soul only may claim a superior elevation. But it is never really so in practice or in theory. On the contrary the immortality of the soul is easily perverted to man's pride; not so the resurrection, which not only exalts God and humbles man but delivers from present ease and indulgence where it is held in faith. Of this the Holy Spirit is the earnest, who joins us to the Lord and constitutes our bodies members of Christ. Hence the enormity of fornication. (Vers. 15, 16.) How basely inconsistent with such intimacy, yea union, is impurity with a harlot! It was the more needful to urge this on a city more than any other noted for this sort of licence, besides the broad fact that the heathen in general regarded fornication as an indifferent act like eating and not as in itself a sin. "The two, says he, shall be one flesh; but he that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit." (Vers. 16, 17.)

But its incongruity with our relation to Christ is not all that the apostle urges. Fornication he would have avoided earnestly, because of its peculiar character, differing as it does from every other sin in this that it is against the body itself, while others are external to it. How dreadful then to think not merely of the body so misused, but the Christian's body, temple of the Holy Spirit as it is! not from any mere consecration to Him but from His being in us, and this from God, on the ground of purchase by Christ's blood. Therefore the apostle's appeal to glorify God in their body.

Indeed, as God raised up the body of the Lord Jesus from among the dead, so will He raise up our bodies. The care of our bodies then is in the power of His own hand, and it is for us now to use them rightly, not to abuse them. In fact, the striking statement is made that "our bodies are the members of Christ." What a dignity is this given to the body! In its present state, of course, it is subject to decay and death, but this is only temporary, and it is to be honorably and properly treated for the Lord's sake. How grossly wrong to take the members of Christ and make them the members of an harlot! It is a practical denial of what is actually true. In practice the joining of two bodies together makes them one, as God declared when He created the woman for the man. "But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit." It is a higher, more precious, and eternal unity, and though spiritual, yet the believer's body is to share in this blessing for eternity.

"Flee fornication." In this one is not told to fight, but to keep far from it, as Joseph fled from the wife of Potiphar. Other sins may not involve the body in this way, but this is sin against one's own body. And as well as our bodies being the members of Christ, now we are told, "Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost." The Spirit of God dwells within our body in order to display in us the precious reality of His character in our practical lives. Notice that it is not said that our spirits or souls are His temple, but our bodies. So that when we are told, "Ye are not your own," we cannot regard this as being merely in regard to our spiritual interests, but fully applicable to our bodies. Being bought with a price - a price so infinitely great - certainly we are totally the property of the Living God; and it is only right and becoming that we should glorify God in our body.