If you are married and enjoying the rewards of a sexually fulfilling covenant marriage, then this post will merely be interesting. But if you’re a single adult who finds yourself caught between the convictions of your faith and the desire of your flesh, you will want to linger awhile longer. Abstinence is a major dilemma, but its message isn’t just for minors.

When one’s sexual identity is under construction—say, at age sixteen—abstinence is a much easier sell. We know, of course, that our culture encourages early sexuality, but most adults—Christian or not—agree with the abstinence message, a message that promotes maturity, self-respect, good health, and responsible decisions. The most mature teenagers will recognize these traits as persuasive selling points.

Yet while mature teenagers gravitate toward abstinence, mature adults do not. In fact, the selling points begin to reverse. What arguments can there be against consenting adults enjoying each other’s bodies? How can abstinence possibly work, for example, for two divorced adults who are re-entering a second phase of grown-up sexuality? What if you’re no longer a teen using sex as juvenile recreation, but a decent man or woman who simply wants to express love to another human being? How does abstinence work then? 

It doesn’t.

Abstinence by itself is a secular construct, a strangely objective word that suggests an act of willpower. Abstaining means to shun, curb, or do without. These synonyms suggest a gritting of the teeth, a fist-clenched I resist. If you think that such a notion will consistently work for you as an adult, it probably won’t. Before long, some relationship will take you to the edge of your convictions and encourage you to leap over the cliff. Your arguments will sound justifiable and very grown-up.

Yet fidelity to Jesus Christ does not ask for secular abstinence. The Holy Spirit and his mysterious work compels a Christian to obey God’s commands, but not through denial or willpower alone. The book of Galatians says it this way: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn't work. So I quit being a "law man" so that I could be God's man. Christ's life showed me how, and enabled me to do it . . . We know very well that we are not set right with God by rule-keeping but only through personal faith in Jesus Christ. How do we know? We tried it—and we had the best system of rules the world has ever seen! Convinced that no human being can please God by self-improvement, we believed in Jesus as the Messiah so that we might be set right before God by trusting in the Messiah, not by trying to be good.

There might be some secular reasons for saying no to extramarital sex as an adult, but most people ignore them when the clothes start to come off. Christians, however, have a different motivation, one that makes little sense to everyone else. To trust in the transforming power of Jesus Christ is to trust in miracles—not only the blind-man-can-see miracles, but also the sexual kind that makes an unattractive husband desirable to his wife in a thirty-year marriage. The kind that prevents a faithful man from seeking an affair with the woman on the second floor of the office. And the same kind that keeps two followers of Christ from pretending they’re in sexual covenant when they’re not.

Of course, resisting isn’t made of magic. Philippians adds some sweat to the equation: Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear. For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.

Good behavior and the pride that accompanies it doesn’t mean much. It will only last so long. Grown-ups who have outlived the youth pastor guilt trips and stay-pure Bible studies will have to depend on something else to stay faithful to biblical mandates. It starts with abiding in the vine, a metaphor for the mind-blowing connection that our spirits share with the living God: “Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.”  

Without a compelling spiritual context, the abstinence message is only as good as your junior high health class. Abiding in Christ isn’t a minor message. It’s the joy of living well, the wholeness that comes from obedience, and the faith that God can perform miracles whether you’re fifteen or forty.