Yes, of course it is. That we don’t treat it that way is a sign of our worldliness, not a lack of clarity in the Bible. It seems that sometimes we like to think that all sins are equally bad. That way when we sin big we can equate our failure with failing to tithe on our herb garden. Other times we’re happy to affirm some sins are worse that others, so that we can claim our own sins are the little ones and those of others the big.
The Bible teaches that sex outside of marriage is wrong. Homosex adds to that sin an assault on nature. It adds perversity. Adultery avoids the perversity charge, but carries with it the betrayal of the spouse. From that perspective, having neither perversity nor betrayal, why should fornication be considered so bad? One could argue in certain circumstances it’s little more than getting things a bit out of order, a cart before the horse failure. And if marriage actually follows, doesn’t that erase the problem?
No, it doesn’t. Fornication is common among unbelievers. It is not supposed to be among believers. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, citizens of a city drenched in sexual immorality,
I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner—not even to eat with such a person (I Cor. 5:9-11).
How serious does the Bible take this sin? Believers are not to so much as share a meal with someone professing to be a Christian who is practicing this sin. How seriously do we, even those not practicing fornication, take this sin? Not very. What would happen to those fornicating believers if the rest of us believers refused to keep company with them? Our sin in failing to obey God in how we respond to professing believers who openly practice fornication includes us in our own guilt.
It, however, gets worse. In the very next chapter Paul writes,
Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God (I Cor. 6:9-11).
It’s bad enough not being invited to dinner. But Paul tells us those who practice such things will miss out on the marriage feast of the Lamb, that they will be on the outside of paradise looking in. The list, of course, includes more than mere fornicators. But it does not exclude them. The list, happily, is not about those who have ever committed any of these sins. Such is true of every one of us. It is the “practice” of these sins that serves as evidence of a lack of saving faith. To “practice” these sins is to embrace them without repentance. It isn’t to fall in a battle of temptation, but to plan and plot, to establish a pattern, to grow comfortable with the sin.
Whole swaths of the formerly evangelical church are now openly embracing the culture’s embrace of sexual perversity. Many that have stood firm, however, have already given up addressing the sin of fornication for fear of losing audience. Paul not only knew such fear, but commands of all of us that we press on, that we, for the sake of practicing fornicators who profess to believe, tell them the hard but loving truth that it can’t be both. Relationships will be broken, to be sure. But God and His Word will be honored. He is right, always, while we, in not agreeing with Him, are wrong.
I appreciate you taking the time to write against this commonly accepted sin, which should be horrifying rather than winked at.