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.
Marriage and Divorce
65-0221M §84
And you, some of the women put on these nasty clothes, eat out here to ... throw yourself before men. Jesus said, "Whosoever looketh upon a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart." Then who's guilty, the man or you? He's a male, made so he could take this act. See? And you're the female that ought to refuse. Now, why do you put yourself out like that? It ain't for comfort. You know it can't be, when you're half froze to death with them shorts on. Can't be for comfort. Then what...
Marriage and Divorce
65-0221M §70
...else was introduced. Now, this is going to shock you. (Are you tired? Just sit still just a little longer.) Then when the double covenant was made by man and woman through sex (another covenant altogether; not the original covenant, but another covenant), now what's introduced? Polygamy in all. Then after the beginning, polygamy was introduced both in man and in beast, after the beginning, the fall. God now secondarily sets a new nature again by sex. God created the first without sex. Do you believe that? Now it's...
A blushing prophet
56-1125E §16
Did you realize that when you dress yourself like that and walk down the street and men look at you in the wrong way, that at the judgment... You may be as pure as a lily before your husband, but at the judgment you'll be guilty of committing adultery with the guy that you presented yourself to. No wonder it would make a person blush. No wonder... What must it do to God when the Bible said in the beginning that it grieved Him that He made man. It grieved the heart of God when He looked upon, in the days before the...
Marriage and Divorce
65-0221M §76
...Matthew 5, Jesus spoke here of something that's really of a vital importance. We want to see it. Matthew 5. I wrote on my ... I marked out some of the things I was going to say just to the men, so had quite a little time saying it just before our sisters. But I want to go out here now before... Now, sister, I want to put you into the place where God's Word promised you. And you see then, you stay in that place too. Matthew 5:32. I want you to notice here, to support this same idea of one and many. Matthew 30... I t...
Marriage and Divorce
65-0221M §18
...hatever the Lord has... If this isn't the thing that He prophesied of, of Malachi 4 and also of Luke 17, and many other Scriptures that's to happen in this last day---may I say this in closing---it's laid the foundation for the man when he will come. So, I am very thankful that God Almighty, if it be that way, has let me do a little something in my uneducated condition to show my appreciation of His love to me, my love to Him, and our love to the people. Therefore, in sincerity, I approach this subject of "Marriage...