How Premarital Cohabitation Destroys Marriage and Distorts The Gospel

In a recent post, Glenn Stanton of The Line: Bringing Focus to the Single Years, writes about what cohabitation does for marriage.  In writing this, Stanton shows, even statistically, the many downfalls that often accompany premarital cohabitation.  While the majority of these couples, some 75% of them, see cohabitation as an aggressive step toward marriage, the reality, however, is that this decision is actually proving to be an aggressive step toward abuse and even divorce.

The many warnings from Scripture, along with the undeniable sociological statistics, should prove to be a guard and guide for singles (as well as married couples) in an over-sexualized culture.  In other words, the more we are bombarded with false depictions of the “glorious life in premarital cohabitation” via television, radio and other media, the more we need to hear the truth that those who choose to live this way are in rebellion against God, and are, in reality, relational train wrecks.  As said above, the reasons for this are ultimately theological.  Consider a few points.

First, that we may not, and should not, allow the clear distinctions between lust and love to be blurred.  A couple who decides to partake in the glories of marriage before vowing to commitment in marriage are more in lust than they are in love.  A man who decides to rebel against God in pursuing his lusts cannot possibly love the woman he is lusting after as Christ loves the church. 

Second, the bed that the couple shares in cohabitation is not the bed that they will share in marriage.  It is a common saying that lust seeks to fill the bed before the vows and then to empty it after them. Sex before marriage is nothing but selfishly taking from another individual.  This is very different from the biblical picture of sex described as two people selflessly giving to each other.  Lust is not a passive, lifeless reality; but one that is actively rebellious, desiring to kill and destroy.

Last, those who desire to have the consummation before the commitment ultimately distort the gospel.  The saying is true that “love waits.”  True, gospel-centered love, is content with the commitment that is now, and with the promised consummation that is not yet.  The life in-between is one of patient endurance, by the power of the Holy Spirit, that clings to the promise in faith and looks with great expectation to the hope that is to come.   But those who would have the consummation now communicate that there is no future hope, and that there is no Risen Christ who is trustworthy, good, and worth waiting for. 

There is a right way to become married that glorifies the Christ who both ordains it as well as communicates through it (Eph 5).  This same Christ, however, will not allow His Name to be profaned by a pseudo-union that is superficially bound by selfishness and lust.  When two people, on the other hand, commit to each other, consummate the commitment, and move forward to live in a glorious marriage, they proclaim the Lord who selflessly and sacrificially died for His Church, who will come again in the great consummation, and who will live with them forever in glory.