Paul called the union of a husband and wife the “great mystery” in Ephesians 5:32. However, because of the perversion of the world, the Church has made it the “unspeakable mystery.”  God created the union between a husband and wife to be a beautiful act, not only physical, but spiritual.

The world has made sex all about lust, selfish desires, control, shame, guilt, a burden, a bargaining chip, a reward or punishment. However, God instituted marriage first and said, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24) The Bible actually has instructions about sex and specifically commands that a husband and wife not to abstain from each other.

“The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights (goodwill, kindness, and what is due her as his wife), and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have [exclusive] authority and control over her own body, but the husband [has his rights]; likewise also the husband does not have [exclusive] authority and control over his body, but the wife [has her rights]. Do not refuse and deprive and defraud each other [of your due marital rights] (I Corinthians 7:3-5a AMPC)

If you look at cultures and history around the world, sex was used in worship and in acts of domination and conquering. The temples had prostitutes for the act of becoming one with the god being worshipped. I Corinthians 6:16 spells it out as “do you not know and realize that when a man joins himself to a prostitute, he becomes one body with her? The two, it is written, shall become one flesh.” When invaders come, they rape women and men as an act of power and control. When Absalom tried to take David’s kingdom, one of the acts he did was to make a tent of the roof and have sex with David’s concubines in the sight of all Israel (2 Samuel 22). It was a statement of conquering, but also humiliating his father. 

Hebrews 13:4 says “Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled, but fornicators and adulterers God will judge.”

Thus the marriage bed becomes a covenantal altar, a holy place, a place of honor, of giving and receiving, a place to bind two together as one. It is a place of vulnerability and surrender to each other and a place to lay down worries, fears, burdens and exhaustion and enter into peace. The more a married couple esteems and honors their marriage bed, the more they are united as one and the more favor they obtain from the Lord.

The marriage bed becomes the great mystery because the more we study the Godly intimacy, surrender, and commitment of the pure sexual act between a husband and wife, the more we understand the relationship we can and should have with our Lord Jesus Christ.