Over in the comment section at “Rape, Abortion, and Marriage” I defended the biblical teaching that sex is the Act of Marriage. Alas, though, my argument was not well received by the resident Roman Catholic commenter Cameron. So rather than try to figure out how to make a more convincing argument, I found this comment which does a pretty good job explaining it. I doubt it will be taken any better, but, at the very least, it’s an interesting alternative explanation.
As far as I can tell from reading God’s Law and Scriptures there are two ways to become “married”. One is through sex consummating a union of two flesh into one, and the other is from a betrothal agreement made whereby a groom secures the legal right to his wife. To take a virgin who is already legally betrothed to another man is adultery according to God’s law. That seems to be the only addition to the simple Sex = Marriage paradigm.
God seemingly operates outside of time, even while He recognizes that we humans must order and live our mortal lives within the constraints and unidirectional flow of time as we experience it. So, it is often difficult from a human viewpoint to pinpoint when God does a particular thing.
Was I saved from before the foundation of the world when God wrote my name in the book of life and sealed it? Was I saved when Christ’s blood was shed for me? Was I “saved” from my mother’s womb (like the Psalmist claims) when I, as one of God’s elect, was born into this world? Was I saved when I (around 5) repented of my sins and called upon the name of Jesus Christ to save me and become my Lord? Was I saved at my tweenaged baptism? Was I saved at one of the points in my adult life where I dedicated myself to serving God rather than myself? Will I not be saved until I have endured faithfully to my end, since the Scripture says that is necessary? Or am I not saved until my future judgement in the kingdom of God? God seems to speak as if those are all potential time points of salvation, leading me to believe that my salvation also transcends time, and allows God to speak of any of those points as being salvific events.
My point being that I don’t know exactly when Jesus becomes united with his elect, nor whether it is through a process that functions as a better metaphor for insemination (accepting His spiritual seed, or perhaps figuratively ingesting some of the body of Christ) or for betrothal (having been pledged to Him by the Father of all spirits and all flesh).
In my Biblical view of “marriage”, it is impossible to have “premarital” sex. If you weren’t betrothed by your agreement to shag her, you are certainly united/married by joining together into one flesh. And if she was already betrothed or physically taken by another man, then it is an adulterous union that you make.
Back before the Renaissance era church decided to shoot their squid ink onto the subject of marriage folks who spoke English linguistically understood that you were by definition coupled through copulation.
Copulation: “a coupling, joining, uniting, the coming together of male and female in the act of sexual union”
“Copulation” is an English term of Latin origin. No doubt originating from the church. Obviously from before the early-modern church decided that only they could perform the coupling through a fancy new church invented “sacrament” which sham-ceremony would readily be performed for a fee or gratuity.
Nowhere does God ever tell the church to perform weddings nor is there any Biblical record of weddings ever being performed by the church. “Church weddings” are a grift, wrongheaded squid ink turned into pageantry to mislead the masses into acquiescence to the usurped authority of a “Mother of Harlots” over the natural created works of the One she was once betrothed to.
The church’s false teaching of “premarital sex” was seemingly designed by the devil to hide the subsequent adultery of passing those women on to other men.
We don’t live in a “premarital” generation. God speaks regarding us as an “adulterous generation”. And He should know the truth better than the rest of us.