I have recently been studying the "Sermon On The Mount" that is found in Matthew chapters 5-7. It is probably the most famous sermon ever preached and Jesus gave this sermon towards the start of his ministry.
As I studied it this time, I noticed how much Jesus really blasted the Pharisees. Israel at that time was really fractured in their beliefs. You had the Essenes, the Zealots, the Sadducees, the Herodians, not to mention the Hellenistic Jews ( Jewish people who had adopted many of teh Greek/Roman beliefs and practices of that day). but probably the most respected group of all of them were the Pharisees. The Pharisees had dedicated themselves to the study of what we call the Old Testament and all of its laws. As I look at what they believed and practiced, I notice that their theology was better theology than all of the other groups. They also so practiced obeying the law to the extent that Jesus himself admitted that they appeared to be blameless.
So seeing how Jesus blasted the Pharisees in this sermon really stood out to me this time through the passage. Jesus tells the people that the righteousness of the Pharisees (the people who dedicated themselves to the law and appeared as being perfect) wasn't good enough to get into the Kingdom of God. Jesus would go on and say that the Pharisees taught certain actions, but Jesus declares that a person with a desire to do those actions is guilty even if they do not commit those actions. Jesus then tells how the Pharisees missed it on their theology of divorce. oaths,retaliation, loving enemies, as well as doing charity, and praying, and fasting to be seen - as opposed to honoring God, as well as judging others.
However there is one section that really stood out to me. Actually there was this one word of this section that stood out to me The section is verses 21-23 of Matthew chapter 7. This is what it says: "21 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven."22 "Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?'"23 "Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'"
The word that stood out to me is the word "knew". The word "knew" here is not knowledge of a person. It is to know that person intimately and completely. That word is also used to describe sexual intercourse.
So now I have told about the connection between the first two words in my title and now I will try to connect them to the third word. When the Bible says that a man "knew" a woman, he was spreading his essence within that woman. So when Genesis tells us that God told Adam and Eve to to be fruitful and multiply, he was telling them to have sex and by having sex, they had a symbolic foreshadowing of what God would do at Pentecost when He poured out His Spirit to fill up Christians. From that day of Pentecost, Salvation was no longer based on circumcision, but on whether or not you had received the gift of the Holy Spirit.
This is why I do not see sex as just a physical act, but an act that carries spiritual connotations.
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