Lovemaking is the enjoyment of physical oneness that God permits for heterosexual married couples alone. It is God who made us male and female for sexual pleasure, God who said it was not good for us to be alone, and God who created and blessed both marriage and the sexual enjoyment it provides. Furthermore, it is God the Holy Spirit who inspired the writing of Scripture that provides great freedom in the marriage covenant and encourages the pursuit of pleasure within marital intimacy. Examples of this include the very liberated book Song of Songs, as well as various other Scriptures, such as the following:

• "Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed." (Genesis 2:24–25)
• "Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love." (Proverbs 5:18–19)
• "The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control." (1 Corinthians 7:3–5)

In our age of rampant sexual sin, God intends for us to learn the spiritual discipline of sexual chastity while we are unmarried. However, God also blessed marriage as the holy outlet for sexual desire and one means of protection from the temptation to engage in sexual sin.

Free Sex

Married couples who do not have free and frequent intimacy together are warned by Paul that they are leaving themselves vulnerable to Satan’s temptations to either sexual sin or bitterness. Therefore, God’s answer to our desire for oneness and pleasure is to overcome our shame and fear through the gospel so that we can give ourselves in every way to our spouse, and also receive them as God’s gift to us.