Here are some examples I’ve received of the intimacy question:
The only thing I’m struggling with is that it is not sexual but spiritual … but my mind due to my past has been extremely tainted, and even for me to think of intimacy it takes a conscious effort for me to not look into it physically …
Another woman I know put it this way:
I struggle with the sex issue too. Does intimacy = sex? … How many of us have husbands we can be truly intimate (non-sexual) with. So, most of us don’t know what intimacy is or how to be intimate.
And one wrote this:
I asked you about the nature of your relationship with Jesus, whether it is sensual etc. I guess in my head I can’t tell the difference between sensual and romantic. … so I think I consider romance to be sensual. Or then I just don’t know the real definition of “sensual”?
I can understand how this can get confusing, since 1) we use marriage terminology in referring to our relationship with Jesus, 2) many of us haven’t experienced a healthy marriage, and 3) sometimes, for various reasons, we have a deep-seated need for physical love. Jesus can feel like a safe man to give it, especially if we’ve suffered at the hands of human men, or lacked a healthy relationship with one.
Sex is only a small part of a physical marriage. We won’t have our physical bodies in heaven. They are merely a temporary container holding our soul and spirit, and at death they will become dust. Yes, we should take care of them and respect them. We should keep them healthy and pure in order to live out our lives on earth in the best way possible. While our physical body is all we can see in the mirror, Jesus is looking directly at who we really are (soul and spirit), and what our heart is for him.
Therefore, the intimacy image God uses is a metaphor, a picture or representation of the Biblical “two-become-one.” For a human in a physical body, sex was created to be the most intimate a couple could be in their physical bodies, being merely a part of the whole—body, soul, and spirit—of intimacy. Therefore, sex isn’t needed in a spiritual marriage. Jesus does not need our physical bodies to be intimate with us, he goes straight to our hearts, souls, and spirits.
I have been asked, referring to my bedchamber story in my book The Wild Romancer, what part the bed played in the bedchamber. It symbolizes the spiritual intimacy we are to have with Jesus. It also represents a place of intimacy as opposed to public places. The bedchamber is about a man and woman in marriage, heart and spirits as one.
Again, here’s where we each have to draw the line in how far this metaphor goes without sexually getting us in trouble. For some of us this line is close, for others it is further away. I just guard against getting in a place where my physical body gets involved. If I feel like I’m getting close then I change what I’m doing, so I can emotionally pull away from them.
In my vision of the bedchamber the bed merely pointed out how I was in a place of intimacy with Jesus, “intimacy” meaning that we could get to know each other emotionally and spiritually. I have a friend who has also been in Jesus’ bedchamber. There was a huge four-poster bed but all she did was walk around the room looking at things and eat off a little table with food and fruit.
A young woman who wrote me expressed it this way:
You know… the nakedness of the husband and wife…I feel like are symbolic of trust and love and being real, raw and showing each other their true selves, loving each other completely for who we are and will become. And so for me as far as Jesus and I are concerned, it stems from that. For me, it isn’t sexual. To someone else it might offend or gross them out but for me, I love it because I know the heart behind it.
Jesus is so sweet and good, he’s strong and noble and kind. We laugh a lot and he will tease and push my boundaries, letting me know that he’s not satisfied with how much he has of me, and he wants more. However, he’s not after my physical body, he’s already way deeper than that, he is within my heart. He is so loving and so much fun and so overwhelming that I want to become more and more who he wants me to be.
Here’s another good example of the physical representing the spiritual and it not being sexual. I know someone who had an experience in Jesus’ bedchamber, where they were on the bed together (in the Spirit). My friend had on layers and layers of petticoats and Jesus was tugging on them, teasing her to take them off. While that sounds sexual, she didn’t feel it that way. Instead, it spiritually represented how Jesus was saying to her that he wanted to see her for who she was, without her masks. It’s as if he was saying “Drop everything that hides your vulnerability and let me see the REAL you. Just be you with me, not who you think I want to see.” Most physical things are metaphors or representations of the spiritual.
I love how Helene G. Brenner, in her book, I Know I’m in There Somewhere, expresses this need for intimacy.
Most women desire intimate contact, and it’s not essentially about sex. It’s about getting past the barriers to where two people are not hidden from one another. It’s about knowing someone and being known in a way that takes the edge off the aloneness of life. And it’s intensely satisfying. There is so little opportunity for such intimate contact in our culture, so little space to be safe and undefended. Is it any wonder we want to find that tender place in an often lonely and callous world?
Here’s another good example from a woman who shared this dream about Jesus.
The thing that I remember most about this dream was how totally comforting it was to be held by this man, to snuggle up in his arms and let him hold me. And how totally accepting of me he was, and unconcerned – about my mistakes or lack of attention to detail, and walking through the puddle, etc. When I woke up I couldn’t figure out why I’d have a dream about “another” man and asked God who it was and what came to my mind was that it was Jesus. I’d been feeling so distant from him that I had told him I wanted another special time with him last time I prayed. This was more special than I could have imagined. … Also, even though we were arm in arm and it felt so natural and comfortable and comforting at the same time, it was not sexual. It was very intimate, but not sexual.
And another example from a woman:
You won’t believe what happened one day,” she said. “Jesus came and we walked through a beautiful garden and you won’t believe what he told me. He said we were already married! And then you won’t believe what happened. We consummated our marriage! But it wasn’t about sex, not at all. It wasn’t like that. He came inside of me until he totally filled me up, until we were both totally each other. It was so awesome, so beautiful. It wasn’t about sex.
The thing about physical words representing the spiritual is like God giving you a dream where you are pregnant, which means that He is about to birth something in you, like a ministry. As my niece Jenn says, “We talk about God birthing things in our lives but we’re not imagining details of labor and delivery.” It’s also like saying, “I’m covered by the blood of Jesus, forgiven, and redeemed.” I don’t imagine myself covered in blood every time I say that.
The physical union is what we were given as humans to get as close to another as possible. It merely represents the ultimate, spiritual union. It is a picture of it, a representation of intimacy, not just a bigger and better sexual experience. We are married to Jesus, and the Bible gives us the wedding vows in Hosea 2:18-20.
We don’t need sexual aspects of intimacy with Jesus, married sex only represents the awesome, wonderful intimacy we can have spiritually, until we get to heaven and can experience whatever God has in store for us.
