The word chastity is not the same as the word abstinence and the words fornication and premarital sex aren’t interchangeable. This isn’t merely a matter of impatience, as though the marital act misfired at the wrong time. Fornication is, both spiritually and typologically, a different sort of act from the marital act. It pictures a different reality than that of the mystery of Christ. It represents a Christ who uses the church without joining her, covenantally, to himself. It’s not just “naughtiness.” To use another word Christians find awkward and antiquated, it’s blasphemy. That’s why the
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