It is wrong to draw an analogy between the torture which Jesus suffered on the cross and sexual intercourse between husband and wife. Drawing an analogy between the Cross and the marriage bed plays right into the agenda of abusive husbands.
Warning — This post contains concepts and descriptions that may trigger survivors of abuse, especially sexual abuse.
Quotes from my poem are in purple. Click here to open the poem in a new tab.
What Jesus did on the Cross must not be likened to the sexual act in the marriage bed. The Cross represents the betrothal where Jesus paid the bride price. The Cross does not represent the bed where the marriage is consummated. Christy Hemphill explains this superbly:
In Ephesians 5:26-27, there is a long subordinate purpose and result clause describing what Christ the groom’s sacrificial love for the church his bride accomplishes. Christ sanctifies and cleanses his bride to present her to himself holy and blameless. The gospel is full of inversions of what people expect and this is a beautiful one. The ancient audience would expect the groom to pay a fair bride price so that a guardian will ensure the bride is kept pure and present her to him blameless on his wedding day. Here, Christ, the groom is the guardian and he pays an unimaginable bride price even though the bride isn’t blameless. But he loves her so much and his love is so powerful he makes her pure.
For all those people sexualizing the relationship between Christ and the church, no, just no! Christ makes his bride more virginal, he does not ravish her! The church is not the wife in a bridal suite. The church is the pure, spotless bride, waiting for the eschatological wedding day when God unites heaven and earth and she is presented to her groom blameless, sanctified by the most powerful love earth has ever seen and bought with the most costly bride price ever paid. It is not a sexual image at all.
— How Things Go Wrong with Metaphorical Reasoning in Ephesians 5, by Christy Hemphill
Let me now show you a quote from Josh Butler’s book Beautiful Union. Strong trigger warning for the following words by Josh Butler.
Jesus commits to us, then unites with us. His final words upon the cross, as he prepares to give up his spirit and bow his head, are, “It is consummated.” Saint Augustine pictured it this way:
Like a bridegroom Christ went forth from his chamber…. He came to the marriage-bed of the Cross, and there, in mounting it, he consummated his marriage. And when he perceived the sighs of the creature, he lovingly gave himself up to the torment in place of his bride, and joined himself to [her] forever. [19]
We are united through his death. This is the one-flesh moment that seals the covenant. This may sound spooky, but don’t get creeped out — it’s not necromancy. It’s the deeper reality sex points to. (Beautiful Union, Kindle loc. 2189)
That word “mounting” is going to trigger many victims. “Mounting” connotes animal sex. Abusers treat their victims like animals or worse than animals. For example, most abusive men do not strangle their pets or farm animals, but some abusive men strangle their female partners.
I changed nothing in the above quote from Beautiful Union. The stuff in square brackets ([her] and [19]) is original. Endnote 19 in the book says: “Saint Augustine. Sermo suppositas; 120:3”.
So I did some digging. I tried to find whether Saint Augustine really said what Josh claims he said. It was a many-passaged rabbit burrow, with no definite end. I found Roman Catholic websites and authors who used the same wording that Josh used, and most of them attributed that wording to Augustine. For example, Fuller John Sheen attributes this quote to Augustine on p 60 of his book Through the Year with Fulton Sheen: Inspirational Readings for Each Day of the Year (see p 60 link here). But none of the Roman Catholic authors I found cited the quote properly. They seemed to be just recycling a so-called “quote from Augustine” without properly citing it so readers could check whether Augustine actually wrote or spoke those words. So I asked for help from theologians and Augustine experts. Aaron J Hann replied: “Difficult to search b/c of varying translations, but I do see multiple refs to blood & water that combine Psalm 19:5 and John 19:34 that include themes of the cross, the church being born from Christ’s side, or alternatively Mary’s womb being the bridechamber. Will DM quotes.”
I am indenting what Aaron DM’d me.
Based on the following quotes, it seems possible that quote in Beautiful Union is from Augustine, but obviously not definitive. These could have been commonplace patristic allegorical interpretations.
Sermon 218:14 That his side, struck by a lance, poured out blood and water on the ground: without a shadow of doubt these are the sacraments by which the Church is formed, as Eve was fashioned from the side of the sleeping Adam, who was the model of the one to come.
Sermon 147A:2 Listen to it in the holy book which is called the Song of Songs. Holy love songs are to be read there, the bridegroom and the bride, Christ and the Church. And that whole book is a kind of wedding song, such as they call an epithalamium, but one sung at a holy, a chaste bridal chamber. For in the sun has he pitched his pavilion, that is to say in the light of day, in public, where it would be plain to see, and not hidden away. And he like a bridegroom has come forth from his chamber (Ps 19:4-5); he has taken to wife, you see, human flesh. His bride-chamber was the virgin’s womb, that’s where he wedded the Church, to fulfill what had previously been foretold: And they shall be two in one flesh (Gn 2:24).
Sermon 5:3 There you have the price paid for you. What was it, after all, that flowed from his side but the sacrament which the faithful receive? The Spirit, the blood, the water (1 Jn 5:8). The Spirit which he gave up, the blood and water which flowed from his side. The Church is signified as being born from this blood and water. And when did blood and water come from his side? When Christ was already asleep on the cross, because Adam too fell into a deep sleep in paradise, and that is how Eve was produced from his side. So there you have the price paid for you. Imitate the humility and follow in the footsteps of your Lord, and don’t say “Who ever does such a thing?”
Therefore, the best I’ve been able to ascertain is that Augustine may have said or written something like what Josh Butler claimed he said, but we can’t be certain. It seems that Josh was recycling a quote that many Roman Catholics have attributed to Augustine, but Josh didn’t check to verify that Augustine really said it. Josh has borrowed a lot of his thesis from John Paul II’s Theology of the Body and Christopher West’s popularisation of that book. Here is Christopher West giving a supposed quote from Augustine:
Why would Josh Butler (and TGC) be promoting and recycling Roman Catholic writings that do not meet scholarly standards?
The mystery of iniquity is deep, and it has been at work for a very long time.
Likening the Cross to the marriage bed is sickening. Crucifixion was and is torture. Violent, brutal, grotesque, humiliating, painful torture. — Emma Friesen
Likening the torture of the Cross to the marriage bed is all too reminiscent of the sexual torture done to victims of sexual abuse. I know about sexual torture because I’m a survivor of terrifying sexual abuse. And in case anyone thinks I hate men because I’m a survivor of sexual abuse, it was a female who sexually abused me when I was a child. In my sleep, as she was entering the room, I sensed the evil spirit that was motivating her. The damage remains in my nervous system to this day.
Sexual torture can be done by inflicting physical pain during the sex acts.
Sexual torture can also be done by causing the victim to become sexually aroused against their will. This kind of torture is psychological: it induces fear and terror in the victim. Her body is becoming aroused, maybe even to orgasm, but she does not want to be sexually aroused because the person doing it to her is evil and she has not consented. The torturer uses the natural responses of her body against her. It is a very deep kind of betrayal.
The primary goal of the abusive man who seeks a long-term female partner is to get his sexual needs met without having to negotiate. These men thrive in an environment that tells women carry their own cross and submit to their husbands. In the church, those messages are given in how wives submit to your husbands and carry your cross are applied, including in the pastoral office to women who are being abused by their husbands. This results in the church being a happy hunting ground and playground for domestic abusers and sexual abusers.
I’m actually grateful for Josh’s book,
for it puts on display
in the light of day
the distorted beliefs which eviscerate women,
the marriage-bed-Cross that sells women a lemon.
For all our benefits, let me re-word and correct that horrible quote from Beautiful Union which I showed near the top of this post with a big trigger warning.
When he perceived the sighs of his creatures from all the oppression and suffering that is in the fallen world, Christ came to the Cross and lovingly gave himself up to the torment in place of his bride (men, women and children), and promised himself to her forever.
I hope that helped cleanse your palate, dear reader.
Where in the Bible does it indicate the husband is making a “sacrifice” when he orgasms in his wife’s vagina?
The only place where that is hinted at in the Bible would be the rare instances of Levirate marriage where the husband of the deceased brother did not relish marrying his brother’s widow, but he did so in obedience to the Law of Moses to raise up offspring for his deceased brother. By marrying his deceased brother’s widow, he would commit to providing her with a home and life-long protection, which you could construe as him making a sacrifice. But the sacrifice he makes is not chiefly him putting his semen in her vagina, it is the life-long financial burden he takes on in providing for her and any children the marriage might produce.
Coerced sex is common in abusive marriages. When sex is coerced there is neither generosity nor sacrifice on the part of the man; there is only his manipulation and exertion of power to oppress and control the woman for his own sexual gratification. Given that a sex-buyer and a prostitute become “one flesh”, wouldn’t an abusive man coercing sex from a woman also result in “one flesh”? Following this logic, wouldn’t rape also result in “one flesh”?
Butler proclaims that rape and prostitution are wrong, and that sex in marriage should always be mutually consensual, so he thinks he has put up guardrails against illicit sex and rape. But by giving that (supposed) quote from Augustine, he smashes right through the guardrails because the quote likens the marriage bed to torture and makes women think that to be godly Christian wives they ought to be willing to suffer sexual torture.
Let me lay this out in bullet points.
Tortured logic (put on your spiritual armour before reading this list)
- Butler says that when a husband has an orgasm in his wife’s vagina, he is making a “sacrifice”.
- The Bible says that when Christ died a torturous death on the Cross, he was making a sacrifice.
- Butler maintains that “one flesh” means sexual intercourse / coitus.
- In Butler’s iconic view of sex, there are aspects of the icon that apply specifically to wives and to husbands:
- The wife is hospitable.
- The husband is generously sacrificial in that he penetrates and deposits his semen at the door of his wife’s womb.
- The Bible says marriage is somehow analogous to Christ’s love for the Church.
- The Bible says wives are to submit to their husbands as to Christ.
- The Bible says husbands are to sacrifice themselves for their wives.
- Butler says husbands are making a sacrifice (sacrificing “their very presence” — their seed, their semen) by having an orgasm inside their wives’ vaginas.
- The Bible says prostitution results in “one flesh”. By extension, all coitus must result in “one flesh”.
- Therefore, when an abusive husband deposits his semen in his wife’s vagina, he is making a “sacrifice” and the result will be “one flesh”.
- As Christians, we are all urged to “carry our Cross”.
- Christian wives who are being abused can “carry their Cross” by submitting to coerced sex and rape from their abusive husbands.
- Since Christ suffered torture on the Cross, wives can become more Christ-like by suffering coerced sex and rape in the marriage bed.
Josh Butler has increased full of vain imaginations. Romans 1:21-23 (NMB) — inasmuch as when they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, neither were thankful, but increased full of vain imaginations, and their foolish hearts were blinded. When they counted themselves wise, they became fools, and turned the glory of the immortal God into the similitude of the image of mortal man…
“Mercy is granted to the simple, but those who are in authority will be sore punished.” — Book of Wisdom 6:6, Apocrypha of the 1549 Matthew Bible. (I copied this from page 338 of my leather-bound copy of the NMB. To find out more about that Bible version, click here.)
Jude 1:8, 10, 17-18 (NMB) Likewise these dreamers defile the flesh, despise rulers, and speak evil of those who are in authority. … these speak evil of those things that they do not know. And the things they know instinctively, as do animals that are without reason, in those things they corrupt themselves. … But you, beloveds, remember the words that were spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, how they told you that there would be beguilers in the last time, who would walk after their own ungodly lusts.
***
Further reading
“…hyper-spiritualized, hyper-sexualized language can be used by would-be abusers to justify and rationalize their sins against women and children. It’s not out of bounds to reflect theologically on sex and how it connects to the Christ-church relationship, but it’s something we should do very carefully in these days of evangelical crisis and scandal.” — Zachary Wagner, We should be more careful with sex typology for Christ and the church.
“A friend told me that reading the article made her feel ‘violated by God.’ She felt that way, because the article violated the truth about God.” — Beth Felker Jones, Protestant bodies, Protestant bedrooms, & our furious need for a theology thereof.
“When rightly understood, both metaphors in Scripture — God as our husband and God as our Father — work against a fundamental problem that must be avoided: a crude male sexualization of God and its corollary, a divinization of male sexuality. This is the mistake that Butler made in his interpretation, which parallels how ‘Christ penetrates his church with the generative seed of his Word’ with the sexual intimacy of a bride waiting in the honeymoon suite.” — The Bible’s Marriage Metaphor Doesn’t Belong In the Bedroom, by Amy Peeler.
Internet Archive link to How Things Go Wrong with Metaphorical Reasoning in Ephesians 5 by Christy Hemphill, in case the original vanishes.
A Cry For Justice 
Barb,
The title of your post The torture which Jesus suffered on the Cross must NOT be likened to sexual intercourse between husband and wife says it all.
….although I’m sure I’ll have more comment(s) to add later. 😊
Adding on to my own comment of 3rd July 2023….
From the Christy Hemphill quote in the original post:
(The bold was done by me.)
That.
In the Christy Hemphill quote I quoted, I would have changed the lowercase “h” in the word “he” that refers to Christ to an uppercase “H”, but the quote isn’t mine.
From the Christy Hemphill quote in the original post:
That.
From the Christy Hemphill quote in the original post:
(The word “= force” in brackets was added by me.)
That. And in the Christy Hemphill quote I quoted, I would have changed the lowercase “h” in the word “he” that refers to Christ to an uppercase “H”, but the quote isn’t mine.
From the Christy Hemphill quote in the original post:
(The bold was done by me.)
That.
Barb, having the Christy Hemphill quote placed where it is — before the place where you re-wrote the quote from Josh Butler’s book Beautiful Union — is excellent.
In her original post, Barb re-wrote Josh Butler’s quote:
(The bold is from Barb’s original post. And in her quote I quoted, I would have changed the lowercase “h” in the word “he” that refers to Christ to an uppercase “H”, but the quote isn’t mine.)
From Barb’s original post:
Yes. 😊
Adding on to my own comment of 4th July 2023….
From Barb’s original post:
(The phrase “Book of Wisdom 6:6, Apocrypha of the 1549 Matthew Bible” and the title “New Matthew Bible” in brackets were added by me.)
I went to my paperback copy of the New Matthew Bible to read the entire quote from which Barb quoted. I’m writing it here for any readers who might be interested.
The bold in the above quote is from the original, it is not mine.
While I am not strong enough to navigate / read your insights due to the triggering of life-long PTSD, I am grateful for your courage to bring this serious, sickening subject into the light. When Josh’s book was first announced, red flags and sirens immediately began soaring within me. May God continue to allow the erosion of male religious leaders until the contemporary churches have to turn out the lights and a newness as we are not able to imagine it, will spring forth.
I love your comment, Seeing Clearly! It speaks to me tenderly and truly. And it confirms to me that you and I share a similar understanding of what God is doing in sifting the church — bringing the false church ship down and rescuing those who are truly His own.
Bless you for composing your comment.
Barb,
You wrote to Seeing Clearly (3rd July 2023):
That. And pardon the pun on the word “composing” 😊 ….in my reply to Seeing Clearly, I commented about Seeing Clearly’s comment sounding poetic….it could also sound musical. 😊
And bless you, Barb, for writing your post(s), and everything that went (and goes) into writing your post(s).
Seeing Clearly,
You wrote (3rd July 2023):
(The bold was done by me.)
That. And I’m so sorry, Seeing Clearly, that you still trigger due to life-long PTSD. 😢
You wrote:
(The bold was done by me.)
That. And the words of yours that I just quoted, Seeing Clearly, sound poetic 😊 ….even if they are about an ugly subject.
And, Seeing Clearly, I thought I’d add — so many of your ACFJ blog comments sound poetic, although the topics might or might not be beautiful, ugly, painful, evil, etc. 😊
Barb and Finding Answers, I find it refreshing to be in conversation with you. The much needed “drawing away” for Barb left a void in our opportunity for shared insights. The other, earlier ACFJ, was the very first site that I actually posted / shared my own thoughts and experiences. It required a vulnerable courage. I am much healthier and self-aware and Barb, I am forever grateful for your dedication, wisdom and passion for truth.
Seeing Clearly,
You wrote (10th July 2023):
Thank you, Seeing Clearly. And I find it refreshing to be in conversation with you and Barb. 😊
You wrote:
That.
You wrote:
(The bold was done by me.)
That. And I’ve read most (if not all) of what you wrote, Seeing Clearly. I’m so glad you’re much healthier and self-aware. 😊
You wrote:
That.
Wow. I can’t fathom how someone came up with this idea. Anyone who has been raped or sexually abused knows that mixing sex with torment is straight from the pit of hell. That is a truly sick idea.
Since when is a man having sex a sacrifice! Please. I’m sorry, but that is just idiotic.
Whenever I’ve read Ephesians 5, I have thought of a husband who upholds his wife’s beauty and honor and dignity, a husband who defends and protects to the point of death. I honestly never had any thoughts of a sexual union.
When that passage mentions being one flesh, I think of two things. One, we are members of His physical body (also in Ephesians) by His Spirit. And two, in that union we can produce fruit and even children by sharing the Gospel with those who become children of God as a result.
That was a very disturbing post. Extremely degrading to Jesus who made us pure! My reaction was to bow down and thank Him for His purity and that He is not dirty like our abusers were. They made us feel dirty, Jesus made us clean and pure.
Wanted to reply to Jessica:
I’m not in a place where I could read this post (I SO appreciate Barb’s trigger warnings!), but I did manage to read your comment and it spoke so well without sharing too many details from the post.
I’ve been struggling with nightmares on a consistent basis for about….6 years now I think? I am “okay” in terms of being functional, but it does take a toll on a person’s mental health. So I try to “tip toe” carefully in terms of what I read, and a lot of it is a guessing game on my part. I feel differently on different days, so I try to just go with my gut instinct. I decided to bypass this post, which is a bummer because Barb is an excellent writer! But your comment was so encouraging, and I was able to read it without at all feeling triggered or re-traumatized.
Just for full disclosure’s sake: I’ve never been sexually abused. That being said, this line of yours still spoke volumes to me:
I also appreciated these lines of yours!:
There are many Christians I used to keep company with, who I can now safely say: “I don’t understand your profession of Him, or your confession about Him.” I often feel like I escaped their influence by the skin of my teeth. I WISH I could say that for certain, that I would NEVER equate torture on the cross with intimacy in the bedroom, but I cannot honestly say that for sure. I CAN say, that my mind may have raised a red flag, but I am not sure how I would have responded to it.
Much of my wrongness, which I am still working through, I believe came from one or more of these sources: ignorance, immaturity, inexperience, and / or idiocy. The parable of the four soils speaks well to this. My “soil” was either too soft, too thorny, or too hard. Once some of those areas were “tended to”, I noticed different results. In the parable, the seed that fell was always the same. Only the kind of soil it fell on, made any sort of difference.
A good seed that falls on good soil is guaranteed to yield a beautiful crop. With patience, of course. Now, that is my prayer: please tend to my soil so that a good seed will fall on good soil. I think our soil is in a never-ending process of being tilled and weeded accordingly, but it is worth it, and it is a work He is worthy of.
I have been physically abused, however. In order to be slapped or beaten, your abuser has to come in pretty close contact with you. Very much violates your personal space. You can make the case that the “beatings” that He endured for our sake (previous to Him being nailed to the cross), are similar to the “beatings” that I endured. That that pain being inflicted on me is someway, somehow — justified. That something “good” comes out of it, so don’t see it as entirely “bad”. It runs on a parallel track with what this post is likely speaking of (I say “likely” since I didn’t read it!).
There is a kind of bond formed with the one who physically abuses you — but it is not a bond of beneficial closeness, it is sheer bondage. He had a lot of “contact” with me that spoke of hate, and I did not receive any “contact” with him that spoke of love. His hands and arms did not hug me in comfort or compassion. His hands and arms got close to me, but only to hurt me, and ironically, the more he violated me in such close vicinity, the more disconnected I felt from him relationally. The more connected to him I felt by bondage. And the less I felt connected to him by any sort of real, mutually relational bond. I viewed him more as a monster, not a man. Monsters only live to scare you, a man can live to care for you. He wasn’t capable of being the latter because he was too busy indulging in the former.
My abuser was my dad. It absolutely affects how you approach physical contact with other boys / men in any relational way, including and especially romantically. It is simply all I knew from my primary male example and influence. It can and does and did mess me up big-time, in how I thought of sexual relations. Should I take a cruel word or action to mean a compassionate, caring gesture?
It can be very hard to dissolve a bond between two people, but dissolving bondage inflicted by one person onto another? That is a different story I think. I now believe that absolutely nothing but shame and suffering came from being abused. The wages of sin are death, and I paid a price for a bill that I did not personally incur.
To end on a positive note: YES, the Lord makes beauty out of ashes! But that is not meant to justify the existence of those ashes. He takes something that never should have happened, and turns it into something only He can make happen.
Helovesme,
You wrote (8th August 2023):
I’m so sorry, Helovesme. 😢
You wrote:
That.
You wrote:
That.
You wrote:
(The word “victims” and the phrase “endure and” in brackets were added by me.)
….what is taught and / or believed by many “Christians”.
You wrote:
Your words that I quoted above, Helovesme, leave me without adequate words to express myself in reply to you.
You wrote:
(The words “earliest” and “people” in brackets were added by me.)
That.
You wrote:
(The bold was done by me.)
That.
Just wanted to thank you for your incredibly kind and generous reply. It always encourages me and means a lot that you take the time and effort to do so!