The Bible is quite clear on God’s basic will for sexual behavior; adultery, for example, is prohibited, and sex is seen to belong within marriage. Does the Bible also forbid birth control, as some Christians argue?
Evangelical home-schooling advocate Mary Pride has stirred up controversy by claiming, in books like The Way Home, that it does. She notes that God commands humans to “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth” (Gen. 1:28). She and a handful of other writers have argued that any practice of birth control goes against this biblical “commandment.”
There are many things that can be said in response, but only one comment is essential, because it is utterly decisive: Genesis 1:28 is not a commandment, but a blessing. Thus it does not refer to what humans must do to please God, but what God does for and through humankind. The text says, “God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply.’ ” Blessing is something that God does: “I will indeed bless you, and I will multiply your descendants’ ” (Gen. 22:17). Fertility is an essential aspect of God’s blessing to animals, as we see in Genesis 1:22, and to humans alike; it is his gift to his creatures.
In English, of course, the blessing of Genesis 1:28sounds like a command. This verse and its context (Gen. 1:26–30) are often called the “cultural mandate.” Instead, we should call it the “cultural blessing.” A look at a parallel passage will make clear why. In Genesis 24:60, Rebekah’s family is about to send her off to marry Isaac: “And they blessed Rebekah, and said to her, ‘Our sister, be the mother of thousands of ten thousands; and may your descendants possess the gate of those who hate them!’ ” Here again, the first part of the blessing (“be the mother …”) sounds like a command. But for obvious reasons, it is not. As a human blessing, it appeals to God to make Rebekah and her descendants fruitful.
The Hebrew grammar of blessing in this passage is identical to that of Genesis 1:28. But in English, the blessing aspect is seen more clearly in the second clause of Genesis 24:60: “may your descendants possess.…” In Genesis 1:28, of course, it is God who declares and himself fulfills the blessing, so it would be inappropriate for the English translation to read, “May you be fruitful.”
What is the upshot of all this? God does not command humans to be fruitful. Rather, he himself will bless his creatures and see to it that they are fruitful. He has provided for this by making us male and female, by investing our humanness with sexuality, and by ordaining marriage.
We must beware of confusing matters. God gave this blessing to the human race as a whole. He does not direct it to everyone. Some couples are barren, and their earnest prayers for children are not fulfilled. Others, like the apostle Paul, are called to life without marriage. If Genesis 1:28 were a blessing (or a command!) to be applied to every individual, then Paul would have been disobedient in his apostolic singleness. Everyone would be obligated to pursue marriage and to order their marriage in a way that would produce many offspring.
Beyond Legalism
The issue has to do with more than how we interpret specific passages in Scripture, however. Many who categorically prohibit birth control seem to have fallen prey to legalism, to imposing on believers burdens never intended in Scripture.
Ever since Eve, humans have been tempted to exaggerate God’s strictness and to confuse human words with God’s Word. Eve told the serpent, wrongly, that God did not even want her to touch the forbidden tree, when eating was God’s concern. Except for the limits placed on the one tree, Adam and Eve were free to enjoy all the fruit of the garden (Gen. 2:16–17; 3:3).
When Jesus came on the scene, his constant battle was with religious leaders who subverted the freedom God intended. Some of his greatest enemies were those who considered themselves guardians of God’s law. But Jesus said of them (quoting Isaiah) that they taught “as doctrines the commandments of men” (Matt. 15:9).
Even in the early church, legalism was a perennial problem. The apostle Paul chided the Colossian Christians, “Why do you submit to regulations, ‘Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch’ … according to human precepts and doctrines?” (Col. 2:2–22). In Galatia, the legalism of the circumcision party misled sincere Christians by its appearance of godliness. But it separated them from God’s free grace in Christ—and from the freedom to which they had been called (Gal. 5:1–2, 13–17).
Those like Mary Pride, who legislate against all forms of birth control, impose a legalistic burden. One might not use such harsh language in Pride’s case, but for her own statements that she believes birth control is against God’s commands as expressed in the Bible. When a personal reading (or misreading!) of Scripture is identified with God’s Word and imposed on fellow Christians as God’s command, then we are back in the world of a legalistic Pharisaism.
Usurping God’S Sovereignty?
Pride has raised still another issue. If God is sovereign in blessing humans with children (Pss. 127, 128), do we “usurp God’s sovereignty” by spacing the children we bear or limiting their number? Are we thus “limiting God’s opportunities to choose the best children for us” as Pride claims?
This surely is a mistaken notion of God’s providence. If God can use even evil to accomplish good (Gen. 45:5–8), he can certainly use human actions that are morally neutral. God’s sovereignty works in and through human actions and, if necessary, in spite of them. To suggest that birth control is evil or perverse because it undermines God’s sovereignty is to underestimate God’s sovereignty. Of course, human choices ought to be made in the realm of freedom set within the limits of God’s law. But where there is no law, our choices are free (Gal. 5). They can neither defeat God’s purposes nor subvert or usurp his sovereignty.
Within the limits of faithful marriage, sex is one of the good gifts of God’s creation, whether or not it seeks in every instance to be fruitful in a procreative sense. Within the appropriate boundaries God has set for sex, there is much room for responsible Christian freedom, for what God has made is very good indeed.
By Raymond C. Van Leeuwen, professor of religion and theology at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
