Is Living Together Before Marriage a Sin?
I have seen this question come up time and time again, and, shockingly, the answer seems to change a little each time. In my last article, we discussed whether or not homosexuality is still a sin [click here to read now]. Since there seems to be a lot more confused Christians out there than I thought, I think it’s time to go back to the basics and address a few other “complicated issues” within the Church.
So! Is living together before marriage a sin? The short answer: Yes.
There are a number of people who call themselves Christians who think it is okay to live together before getting marriage as long as they don’t have sex. They say things like, fornication is a sin—not living together. Or, as long as we have separate rooms, it will be alright.
We’re going to get into this question pretty deeply and address these sorts of arguments from a biblical perspective. My goal is to demonstrate to you, through Scripture, that living together before you get married is a sin, even if you don’t sleep together.
The Body of Christ needs to WAKE UP! We shouldn’t be arguing over these childish things today. We are living in the end times and people are STILL confused about whether or not they can shack up and play house. However, I cannot use the platform God has given me to beat people over the head. If Christians are confused, I thank you Lord for the opportunity to spread the truth.
Now, let us begin.
Why is it a sin to live together before you get married?
I’ll admit right now that Bible does not explicitly say that two people in a romantic relationship cannot live together before getting married. It never explicitly says that shacking up is a sin. And it never explicitly addresses living together as a couple being a sin. I’d also like to point out that the Bible also never explicitly says you can’t do crack cocaine but, hey, we all understand how that’s sinful, right? Imagine living in a society where you have to tediously explain, scripture by scripture, how sexual immorality is a sin…
Anyway …
Just because the Bible doesn’t explicitly say something is sinful, doesn’t mean it isn’t sinful. When we are faced with an act that isn’t explicitly detailed in the Word, we are expected to find an answer to that dilemma through the examples of how Christ and other Believers of the Bible lived.
Now, I think the best example of marriage and dating in the Bible is earth’s very first couple. Adam and Eve.
Eve was created in Genesis 2:22 NIV, Then God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. What’s really important about this passage is further down in verses 24 and 25.
That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
The point I want to drive home in this biblical passage is that Eve is referred to as only Woman when she is first created. But once she is taken to Adam, she then becomes his wife. And only after she is called his wife does Adam mention sex—that is, they become one flesh.
This order of events speaks volumes to what is expected of us as Believers when we are dating. Not only do we see a demonstration of a Christian couple—the first couple ever—getting married before having sex, but we also see this Christian couple getting married before they live together.
Now, Adam and Eve faced every issue modern Christian couples face today, but they still did what was righteous before God.
It is cheaper and more convenient to pay one rent. So, we’re going to live together.
It probably would have been more convenient to just live together in the Garden too. Why bother God Almighty and gather all the angels for a silly ceremony? But Adam and Eve got married anyway.
We want to make sure we are compatible and can live together before we get married.
Yeah, well Adam and Eve got married literally right after Eve was created. If they didn’t have to do a compatibility test, then neither do you.
We will have separate rooms, so we won’t have sex before marriage.
Adam and Eve could have split the Garden in half and lived on separate sides of Eden. I mean, God was right there with them, I can’t think of a better chaperone than Him. Yet, Adam and Eve got married instead.
The Bible doesn’t actually say living together before marriage is a sin.
Adam and Eve didn’t even have a Bible to explicitly tell them that fornication or shacking up was wrong. Yet, they got married first.
My friends, there is no excuse here. Living together before marriage is wrong—and besides, if you truly love this person and want to move in together, why not just get married? It doesn’t have to be a big ceremony; you can do it downtown with a single witness. God honors big weddings and small weddings too. But what He doesn’t honor is sin.
God brought Eve to Adam and married them right away. He didn’t allow them to burn with lust or risk falling into temptation. In fact, it isn’t until after Adam and Eve both sinned that Eve received her name in Genesis 3:20. Until then, she is simply Woman or Adam’s wife—not girlfriend, not roommate, not fiancé. The person Adam lived with was his wife. This is the example we are expected to live by in our dating life.
Living together is not the sin. Fornication is the sin but living together leads to fornication.
Friends, please understand this statement is not true at all. Yes, fornication is a sin, and yes, living together can lead to fornication. But living together before marriage is a sin whether you fornicate or not.
I Corinthians 6:18 NIV says, Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body.
The King James Version of that scripture says to flee fornication. Why was that word changed to sexual immorality in the NIV? Before you jump to conclusions, this isn’t a discrepancy at all. You have to remember the Bible was originally written in Hebrew and Greek—the Old Testament in Hebrew and the New Testament in Greek. Given that I Corinthians is in the New Testament, we would have to translate that sentence into Greek to properly understand it.
In Greek the word used in I Corinthians 6:18 is actually Porneia. It is defined as illicit sexual activity, sexual immorality, or, more specifically, sexual activity outside of marriage—which is the definition of fornication.
So, the NIV is actually correct in saying flee sexual immorality as much as the KJV is correct in saying flee fornication because the actual word used (porneia) includes both meanings.
You can also refer to I Corinthians 7:9 NIV, But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
What does Paul mean when he says they cannot control themselves? Control themselves from what? And what passion are they burning with?
To understand the context of this conversation, and plug in the proper activities, you must read from the beginning of the chapter.
I Corinthians 7 NIV opens with this text: Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman. But since sexual immorality [fornication] is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband.
Notice here that Paul is addressing SEX… so in verse 9 when he says people “cannot control themselves” and are “burning with passion” –keeping the topic at hand in mind—we are to understand that he is still talking about SEX.
In fact, Paul directly instructs men and women to have sex with their spouses—not their girlfriends or boyfriends or fiancé. So, even though it is not explicitly said to abstain from premarital sex in this passage, we can still conclude from the implicit details, that sex outside of marriage—and even burning with passion—is an act of sin.
Now that we know premarital sex is a sin, What makes shacking up sinful if you truly aren’t engaging in premarital sex?
What I love about this question is that it requires you to fight sin with sin. What I mean by that is, making a conscious decision to live with your significant other before marriage means you are telling God that you are strong enough to resist the temptation of sex before marriage all on your own. That is sinful behavior.
How?
Remember I Corinthians 6:18? Flee fornication.
The Bible gives us very clear instructions in that verse; flee fornication—that means run! Get away from it! If you consciously decide to live with the one person you want to sleep with, you are not fleeing fornication.
Furthermore, Matthew 4:7 NIV says, Jesus answered him, It is also written: Do not put the Lord your God to the test. This came in response to Satan telling Jesus to throw himself off a cliff because angels would come and rescue Him. Christ’s response is so powerful because, if there was anyone who could throw themselves from a cliff and fully expect angels to come rescue him, it would be Jesus. Yet, Christ Himself responds by saying, Do not put the Lord your God to the test.
Do you know why it is sinful to test God? Because it places you above Him. When you hold a gun to your head and say, God protect me, as you pull the trigger—you are forcing God’s hand. In the same way, living with someone who could cause you to sin is wrong. Because you are deliberately placing yourself in a sinful situation/environment and then placing an expectation on God to make it un-sinful.
So, when you decide to place yourself in a situation where fornication can easily occur, you are testing God. To live with the one person who makes you burn with passion and then pray to God to lead you not into temptation, is testing God. It is the exact same thing as jumping off a cliff and expecting God to send angels to save you. Because you are awesome little you.
Another scripture I love to use for this topic is Philippians 3:3 NIV, For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by His Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh.
There are two things in this verse that I’ll use to address shacking up. First, Paul says we serve God by His Spirit. That means we are expected to live our lives under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. So, when you sat down with your girlfriend and decided to rent an apartment together, did the Holy Spirit take part in that discussion? Were you led by the Spirit to buy a house with your fiancé and live together before you got married? Really…?
Secondly, Paul also says we—Christians—put no confidence in the flesh. This means when you decide to share a home with your significant other, before you are married, and you think it is justified as long as you don’t have sex, you are putting confidence in your flesh. You are trusting your flesh, the part of you that wants to sleep with your significant other before getting married, to do the right thing. And, according to Paul in Philippians chapter 3, putting confidence in the flesh is not how Christians are supposed to live.
Let’s also look at I Corinthians 10:23-24 NIV, I have the right to do anything, you say—but not everything is beneficial. I have the right to do anything—but not everything is constructive.
Paul is talking to the Corinthians about whether or not it is sinful to eat food that was sacrificed to an idol. His response is that, sure, you can eat the food—you can eat whatever you want! But when you do eat food sacrificed to idols, what are you telling others? You can do anything, but not everything is beneficial.
Let’s say I’m wrong about everything I said earlier. Shacking up is not a sin at all. I’d like to point you to the above verse: You have the right to do anything, but not everything is beneficial.
In a society where living together before marriage is widely considered shameful, if not sinful, as a Christian—why would you do that? Why would you put yourself in a position to shame the Body of Christ and bring ridicule to the Church by living together? As Paul has said, don’t you know your body is not your own? You were bought at a price [I Corinthians 6:19-20].
That means you don’t get to do whatever you want, just because you can. We as Believers have a job to do here on this earth, that is to spread the Gospel of Christ and live the Word through example. What example of Christ are we living while shacking up? What message about Christ are we spreading while shacking up?
So, even if living together before marriage is not a sin (which it is) how does it glorify God?