I personally cannot quote where in the bible it says that sex is a gift from God. It may or may not say that but either way it is easy to come to the conclusion that it is in fact a "gift".
In Genesis 2 we see the first ever so called "marriage".
The Lord God said, 'It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him'...and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, 'This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman,' for she was taken out of man.' For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.
I think its safe to conclude from this account in Genesis that marriage is God's idea, designed and instituted by the Creator. In these verses we also discover that at the heart of God's design for marriage is companionship and intimacy. Sex is the ultimate form of intimacy between a husband and wife. Not to seem barbaric or anything but lets face it, sex feels good and not only that it allows for the miracle of life in the form of a new human being created by the father and the mother. If you can't call that a gift then I don't know what to call it.
I personally cannot quote where in the bible it says that sex is a gift from God. It may or may not say that but either way it is easy to come to the conclusion that it is in fact a "gift".
In Genesis 2 we see the first ever so called "marriage".
The Lord God said, 'It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him'...and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, 'This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman,' for she was taken out of man.' For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.
I think its safe to conclude from this account in Genesis that marriage is God's idea, designed and instituted by the Creator. In these verses we also discover that at the heart of God's design for marriage is companionship and intimacy. Sex is the ultimate form of intimacy between a husband and wife. Not to seem barbaric or anything but lets face it, sex feels good and not only that it allows for the miracle of life in the form of a new human being created by the father and the mother. If you can't call that a gift then I don't know what to call it.
Bear with me as I quote from Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, pp. 549:
" Do we need sacraments? You can't unite men in a religion unless they share visible symbols or sacraments keeping them together. Mankind's salvation requires sacraments. They suit man's nature: he comes to know the spiritual world that only mind can grasp by way of the physical world he perceives with his senses. They also suit man's state after sin: he has subjected himself to an affection for the physical, and the remedies he needs must be applied to the place where the wound is. And finally they suit man's leanings toward external activities, offering him salutary alternatives to superstitious observances and worship of idols. It is true that purely external practices are not of much use, but sacramental practices are not purely external: they signify and cause something spiritual. And though Christ's sufferings are enough to save man, that doesn't make sacraments unnecessary. It is Christ's sufferings that give them their efficacy, and which they apply to men: All of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death.
Sacraments were not needed in the state of innocence either as remedies for sin or as means of achieving knowledge adn grace in the soul. Though Adam needed grace in that state, he acquired it spiritually and invisibly, not throught external perceptible signs. but after Adam's sin, the highest parts of man's sould need to receive their perfection through the physical world. Marriage, it is true, was instituted in the state of innocence, but for the sake of its natural function, not as a church just as everthing else thta proceeded Christ prefigured him. . . ."
This state of innocence, really no need of a marriage and there was no marriage mentioned. No rules of marriage, no commandment to marry. "Heterosexual union and procreation are not definitive factors of being human." "They have two responsibilities; procreation and dominion as "male and female". It is in the totality of "male and female" that the responsibility for procreation exists. That totality does not necessarily imply that all, individual males and female must procreate. It is human relationality and not procreation that highlights the uniqueness of humankind in creation, as created in "the image of God"." Considering the often cited biblical texts on homosexuality.
The emphasis here is the "image of God" that not only relates to virtues and vices as in other threads in this forum; it is also about spirit, about morality about what the Bible is all about, the human condition. I took a class on Revelation from a Catholic priest with a Ph.D in theology and he taught that heaven is on earth. Life is what you make of it. It is relational. Your life effects others so your morality, other's morality, is what makes you life on earth, heaven or hell.
So there is no where in the Bible that orders up marriage. There are verses about the relational aspect of marriage. There are some marriage ceremonies. There is symbolism about marriage. Pick up a concordance and research marriage in the Bible.