What Does the Bible Say About Sex Before Marriage?
1) Direct answer
Sex before marriage is sin. The Bible calls it fornication. God reserves sexual intimacy for a man and a woman joined in the covenant of marriage. Anything outside that covenant brings judgment, not blessing.
2) Scriptural explanation
- Marriage is honorable... and the bed undefiled, but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge (Hebrews 13:4).
- Flee fornication... he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body... your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost (1 Corinthians 6:18-20).
- This is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication (1 Thessalonians 4:3-5).
- To avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband (1 Corinthians 7:2).
- Fornicators... shall not inherit the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9-10).
- A man shall cleave unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh (Genesis 2:24).
- Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart (Matthew 5:28).
3) Simple clarifying logic
Now notice, God joined “one flesh” to a covenant, not to casual desire. You see, love keeps God’s Word; lust breaks it. Engagement, feelings, or promises do not replace the marriage covenant. The Spirit doesn’t say “experiment and see”; He says “flee fornication.” Our bodies belong to the Lord; intimacy is holy when the vow makes two one. Outside that vow it wounds the soul, the body, and the testimony.
4) Reinforcing statement
There is mercy. If you’ve fallen, repent and turn from it now. The blood of Jesus cleanses when we confess and forsake our sin (1 John 1:9). Walk clean, guard your heart, and honor God’s pattern: purity before marriage, faithfulness within marriage.
Ask a Follow-up Question
What did the Laodicean Church Age (our age) Angel (- messenger) Say about this?
Ranked passages from the local William Branham sermon and Church Age Book database. Relevance is relative, not a statement of doctrinal certainty.
The Marriage of the Lamb
62-0121E §103
The devil's just got such a hold on the church until it's just wallowing in the muck of the world. Don't do that. Your own life proves that you haven't got what you're saying you've got. Then why not confess it? "He that will confess his sin shall have pardon: he that hides his sin shall not prosper." You can't hide it. God knows all about it. And if you see and know that you're not living right, then why not confess it, and come out, and let it be clear? Some people's sins go before them; some follow. Let mine go...
Marriage and Divorce
65-0221M §60
...-the oncoming of that church pulling itself away from the Word. Also, we can see here plainly these vulgar, ungodly, filthy programs that we have on television of Hollywood sex queens. We can see the filth of this city as these kids, little old girls walking up and down the street here with little bitty tight clothes, twisting around, and it cold enough to freeze them to death. They don't know that that's the devil doing that! They are possessed of an evil spirit and don't know it! You don't see a female dog doing...
The Marriage of the Lamb
62-0121E §80
And do you know, my sister...? (I ain't saying that joking. Don't get me wrong.) Listen. I'm saying this: you act like that, and at the day of judgment you'll be counted as an adulterer. Right. Jesus said "Whosoever looketh upon a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her in his heart." When that sinner has to answer for committing adultery, who is it? You. Who caused it? You. That's right. If you put yourself out there to look ... before men, to be like the world, and dress like the world... I said...
The flashing red light of the sign of His coming
63-0623E §73
Jude in his little big book I call it, in the 7th verse, let's just read it. I want to read this, Jude in the 7th. This is the last Book before the Book of Revelation. I've got it marked down here, Jude 7---verse 7. Men and women bringing marriage vows---breaking them, going after strange flesh... Listen. And as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, give themselves over to fornication, ... going after strange flesh, ... [See? Oh!] ... fornication, ... going after strange flesh, are set forth...
Will the Church go before the tribulation?
58-0309E §2
...g with the 26th verse. And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the floods came, and destroyed them all. Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they build; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom ... fire and brimstone rained from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall...