The short answer
God created us as sexual beings so that love could be given and received between persons, and so that human beings could share in His own power to bring new life into the world. Our maleness and femaleness is not a biological afterthought or a concession to weakness; it is placed by Scripture at the very heart of what it means to be made in God’s image. Through it two people become one, a family begins, and the lineage God longed for is carried forward. Far from being the most suspect part of us, our sexual nature is among the holiest gifts God gave — a power meant for love within His design.
The question is a live one. When the apologist Cliffe Knechtle fielded students’ hardest questions at a 2026 campus gathering, sexuality came up as insistently as the existence of God itself — evidence that a generation is asking not just what the rules are but why we were made this way at all. That deeper question deserves a deeper answer than a list of prohibitions. The Christian answer, read through the Divine Principle, begins not with restriction but with purpose: God made us able to love, and sexuality is one of the ways that love was meant to become fruitful.
Male and female in the image of God
Scripture ties human sexuality directly to the image of God: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (Genesis 1:27). The division into male and female appears at the exact point where the text speaks of bearing God’s image. That placement is deliberate. Our sexual difference is not presented as the animal residue in an otherwise spiritual creature, but as part of how we reflect the Creator. One mainstream Christian summary puts it plainly: in “creating ‘man in His own image’ as male and female, God created human sexuality” (Christianity.com).
The Divine Principle deepens this by teaching that God Himself possesses dual characteristics — internal nature and external form, and the harmonised qualities of masculinity and femininity. Human beings, male and female, are the substantial reflection of those paired characteristics. This means the attraction and complementarity between man and woman is not a flaw to be transcended but an echo of something true about God. To be a sexual being is to carry, in the body as well as the spirit, a created likeness of the One who made us. For the fuller picture of this paired nature in God, see the dual characteristics of God and what it means to be made in God’s image.
Sexuality and the Three Blessings
God’s purpose for our sexual nature is set out in His first words to humanity: “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28). The Divine Principle reads this single verse as three great blessings: to mature as an individual, to multiply a God-centred family, and to exercise loving dominion over creation. Sexuality belongs to the heart of the second blessing. It is the God-given means by which a man and a woman become one flesh and bring forth children, turning a couple into a family and a family into a lineage. The command to “multiply” was not an add-on; it was spoken into a world God had just called very good, before any shadow of sin had fallen.
This reframes the whole conversation. If the first blessing is to grow into a mature person whose heart is centred on God, then sexuality is meant to be expressed by someone who has first become whole — not a hunger to be fed at any cost, but a mature gift one person makes to another. And if the second blessing is a true family, then the right home for sexual love is the covenant union where that family can be built. Seen this way, God’s boundaries around sex are not arbitrary fences; they are the shape of the blessing itself. For the fuller exposition, see the Three Blessings of Genesis 1:28 and God’s design for marriage.
A shared power to create life
In sexual love God entrusted human beings with a share in His own defining act — the creation of life. Of everything God made, only to humanity did He give the capacity to call a new eternal person into being. A husband and wife who conceive a child do something no other creature does in the same way: they participate in creation itself, and in doing so taste a small measure of the joy God knew when He made us. This is an astonishing dignity. It means the sexual relationship is not merely about pleasure or even companionship, real as those are, but about the continuation of life and love across generations.
Mainstream Christian teaching recognises the same purposes — procreation, the deep one-flesh union of husband and wife, and sexual love as a good gift of God (FamilyLife). The Divine Principle adds a further note: because this power carries God’s own lineage forward, it is the most consequential power we hold. Through it, love either becomes incarnate in a God-centred family or is squandered. That is why Scripture traces the drama of salvation through lineage — from Adam’s line to Abraham’s, and finally to Christ. On why that thread runs through the whole Bible, see why lineage is central to salvation.
Why the Fall centred on this gift
Because sexuality was so central to God’s hope, it was also central to how that hope was broken. The Divine Principle teaches that the root of the Fall was a misuse of love — the most precious of human powers turned against God’s order rather than fulfilled within it. One quiet detail in the text points in this direction: when Adam and Eve realised they had fallen, they did not cover their mouths or their hands but sewed aprons to cover their sexual parts (Genesis 3:7). People instinctively hide the place of their guilt, and theirs lay precisely in the gift that was meant to be their glory.
This does not make sexuality itself evil — the opposite is true. It was targeted because it was holy. The power meant to multiply a godly lineage was the very power that was first misused, premature and self-centred rather than mature and God-centred, and the consequences passed down the generations ever since. This is why so much shame clusters around sex: not because the gift is shameful, but because humanity has carried the memory of its first misuse. Recovering God’s view of sexuality is therefore part of the larger work of restoration. For the fuller account, see what the real sin in the garden was and why we inherit Adam’s sin.
Recovering a reverent view of sexuality
The right response to all this is neither to worship sexuality nor to despise it, but to hold it with reverence as a sacred trust. Two errors pull in opposite directions. One treats sex as merely a drive to be satisfied, stripped of meaning and consequence; the other treats it as inherently dirty, something the truly spiritual rise above. Scripture and the Divine Principle refuse both. Sex is neither a god nor a defilement; it is a holy power given for love within the design God set, and like every holy thing it is honoured by being used rightly and dishonoured by being used carelessly.
Practically, this means reclaiming the word “purity” from mere negation. Purity is not the absence of sexuality but the keeping of it for its true purpose — the mature love of husband and wife, offered to God and open to life. It means teaching the young not only what to avoid but what the gift is for, so that restraint is understood as guarding something precious rather than fearing something shameful. And it means trusting that God’s boundaries are the walls of a garden, not the bars of a cage. When sexuality is lived inside the love it was made for, it becomes what God always intended: one of the clearest earthly images of the union, fruitfulness and joy at the heart of His own nature. On that heart, see what true love is.
Frequently asked questions
Why did God create us as sexual beings?
God created humanity male and female so that love could be given and received, and so that human beings could share in His own power to create life. Sexuality is not an accident of biology or a concession to weakness; it is woven into the image of God in us. Through it, husband and wife become one, a new generation is born, and the lineage God intended is carried forward. Rightly understood, our sexual nature is one of the holiest gifts God gave, meant for love within His design.
Is sexuality part of being made in the image of God?
Yes. Genesis says, “So God created man in his own image… male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). The division into male and female is placed at the very point where the text speaks of the image of God. In the Divine Principle this reflects the dual characteristics of God Himself — masculinity and femininity, internal nature and external form — so that human sexual difference is a created reflection of something true about the Creator, not a lesser or merely animal feature of us.
Is sex itself sinful or shameful?
No. Sex within God’s design is good, blessed and commanded — “Be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28) was given before the Fall, in a world God called very good. What the Bible treats as sinful is the misuse of this gift outside the love and covenant God intended, not the gift itself. The shame people often attach to sexuality comes largely from the Fall, which bent a holy power toward selfish and premature use. The answer is not to despise sexuality but to recover its original, reverent purpose.
How does sexuality relate to the Fall of man?
The Divine Principle teaches that the root of the Fall was a misuse of love — the most precious human power turned against God’s order rather than fulfilled within it. This is why Adam and Eve, after they fell, covered their sexual parts rather than their mouths or hands, and why lineage runs through the whole biblical story of sin and salvation. Sexuality was central to the Fall precisely because it was central to God’s hope: the very power meant to multiply a godly lineage was the power that was first misused.
What is the purpose of sexual love in God’s design?
Sexual love is meant to complete the union of husband and wife in true love, to give them a share in God’s joy as Creator, and to carry forward a lineage rooted in Him. It is the meeting point of the first three blessings — individual maturity, a true family, and dominion of love over creation. Within that purpose it is not merely permitted but holy; outside it, it loses its meaning and wounds those it was meant to bless.