Masturbation and the Old Testament

[Faithful]

Reading with interest the threads this morning and this topic caught my eye. A topic which I have studied and for which I can find no teaching in the Old Testament to confirm it being a sin which would require a blood sacrifice or a scape goat to cleanse.
It comes under being ritually unclean for a day or so. So not a sin but like touching a dead body made you ritually unclean but was not a sin.
So I read with interest the thread and thought it is time to put all I have learned to the test.

The NT tells us that the OT is the marker for truth in the NT.

With that in mind and the teaching of the OT let us come together in the love of the LORD to seek his truth.

For me the body will not be changed till Christ returns and resurrection has taken place.

On the basis that an emission of semen is not a sin but a ritualistic cleansing matter who is going to start us off.

faithful

 

[Faithful]

O Lord,

You said unless there is a great falling away then the man of perdition cannot rise.
No longer in the letter of the law but only by the power of thy Holy Spirit.
Let those with humble and living spirits find this thread and may your will be done.
Let those who are not able to see your work remain off this thread.
In all things thy will be done here. In Jesus Name. Amen.

 

[martinlawrencescott]

I guess it could fall into the "not everything is beneficial" category. I belong to God and my body belongs to him. My body also belongs to the wife I will one day marry. I have an idea of the kind of person I would like to marry and I don't think that person would appreciate the habit. The loving thing for me to do would be to derive that need for intimacy by drawing close to God and by other means he has given me like exercise, creating things, and being socially active and not spending too much time in the house.

It could also fall in the "avoid appearance of evil" category and it would probably be the loving thing to do not to cause anyone to question the root of that kind of behavior by avoiding it since it is not a necessary method to our survival as believers. I don't think I would want to perform any unnecessary private function (necessary: taking a crap, unnecessary: masturbation) that wouldn't also be beneficial and approved in public except in the context of marriage. An example of a private function that is acceptable in public is our private lifestyles of worship as seen in the psalms. We pour ourselves out before God in our private times with complete vulnerability. We are then encouraged to take that same vulnerability before God and do the same publicly which helps everyone else worship corporately.

 

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Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey the lusts thereof:
Rom 6:12

Is not masturbation a form of lust, except that it is a lust for one's self?

neither present your members unto sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves unto God, as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.
Rom 6:13

Here is the clearest admonition AGAINST masturbation I have ever read or heard, that one ought not yield one's members, including private parts unto unrighteousness.

for if ye live after the flesh, ye must die; but if by the spirit ye mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.
Rom 8:13

Is this a hint that yielding to the flesh in an unclean way may lead to some sort of destruction or untimely death?

Modern society sniggers at masturbation as a sort of innocent sex, but is it really?
If the world approves of it, that ought to be an automatic caution to those of us who live by the spirit.