Over the past couple of months, I have seen the collective younger church point out that the church has had this weird obsession with purity. However, I would say that the modern-day church has never had a focus on purity but virginity.
Purity and virginity cannot be used as interchangeable terms. Purity is so much bigger than virginity. When the purity ring phase came in full force, that was not a promise to stay pure. It was a promise to stay abstinent until marriage. However, you can be a virgin and be the least pure person in the room.
Psalm 24: 3-4 says, “Who may climb the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? Only those whose hands and hearts are pure, who do not worship idols and never tell lies.”
Purity from a biblical standpoint means we do not worship idols, we do not take part in lies, gossip, poor business practices, and yes-reserving sex until marriage. There are a couple of problems that can arise with thinking purity only means virginity.
1. You feel ashamed to have sex with your spouse because you will no longer be “pure.” Scripture tells us sex is pure in the marriage relationship and was created by God. You are not losing anything but gaining something God intended for you.
Mark 10:7-9 says, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
God created sex for a husband and wife to be one flesh, to come together in pure unity.
2. You can hide behind your abstinence. You may sexually be “pure,” but your thoughts and actions in other areas of your life are far from pure. Can you really be practicing purity if you have hate in your heart? Can you be pure if you lie, steal, or spread rumors? Putting your purity in one area of your life is not what is intended for us.
Matthew 15:18 says, “But the words you speak come from the heart—that’s what defiles you.”
How we talk is a reflection of what is in our hearts. Is your speech reflecting a pure heart?
3. You believe you can never be pure again because you have sex outside of marriage and all of your purity weighs on that. This is perhaps the most common and heartbreaking lie we can tell ourselves. Let me remind you, there is nothing you can do that will make you unchangeable, untouchable, damaged goods, or too broken for God.
2 Corinthians 7: 8-10 says, “For the kind of sorrow God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation. There’s no regret for that kind of sorrow. But worldly sorrow, which lacks repentance, results in spiritual death.”
When we are convicted for something we have done, that sorrow is what leads us to God and deepens our relationship with him. So there is no need to dwell and live in the past that you have moved on from. There is no regret for your sorrow because your sorrow is what led to your salvation.
May we be a church that strives to be pure in all areas of our hearts, knowing that despite our sin, God can make all things new.