Intimacy

-Nate Archer

Intimacy... What comes to your mind when you think of intimacy?  For most of us, the ideas we have about intimacy are shaped by what we see on TV, or in movies, or read about in books.  We usually think of intimacy as something to do with romance or even sex.  Certainly, intimacy is a part of these things, but is it the same thing?  Can we have intimacy outside of a dating relationship?  Can a person have appropriate intimacy with someone of the same gender?  Are there times when intimacy is either good or bad, and what makes the difference?

Letting People See "The Real You"

 I think that a story from the Bible has a lot to say about intimacy is the story of Adam and Eve from Genesis, the first book of the Bible.  Adam and Eve were the first human beings that God created.  If we all went back far enough, we would find that Adam and Eve were our great, great, great, great, great… grandparents.

 In Genesis 2, it says that God had created Adam, but then God saw that “it is not good for man to be alone.” God said, “I will make a suitable helper for him.”  So God brought all of the animals that he had created to Adam for him to name.  Adam did that, but found that none of the animals were a suitable companion for him.  So the Bible says that God caused Adam to fall into a deep sleep.  While he was sleeping, God took one of his ribs and fashioned a woman from it.  God brought this woman to Adam who responded by saying, “This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh.  She shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man.”  The Bible then says, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh” (Genesis 2:23). 

God created us all with the need for intimacy… for companionship.  We need someone who can relate to us and connect with us on a deep and personal level.  That is why none of the animals were an appropriate helper for Adam.  As much as you might love your cat or dog, Fluffy can’t give you the same type of relationship that another person can give you.  We all need connection with other people… this is how God made us.

 The Bible goes on to say that, “The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.”  If there is one thing that people remember about Adam and Eve, it’s that they were naked!  You might picture them wearing leaves, but that comes from the part of the story after they sinned.  You see, at first Adam and Eve were completely innocent!  They had never sinned and sin was not a part of the human race yet.  This is something that is not true of us; we were born as sinners.  Originally though, God created humans as totally innocent.  

I think that nudity is actually a pretty good metaphor for intimacy!  Think about it, if someone sees you naked, they are seeing THE REAL YOU!  At least physically, nudity is showing off the real you, with nothing to hide.  That’s what intimacy is like.  When you are intimate with someone, you are letting them see the real you.  When you share your deepest thoughts and feelings with someone, that is intimacy.  When you share your dreams and fears and struggles, that is intimacy.  Adam and Eve were not ashamed to let each other see the “real self” because they had nothing to be ashamed of.  Remember, they were created totally innocent.  A lot of the reason that we aren’t intimate with people is because we don’t want them to see our real “me”.  We aren’t sure that people will WANT to see the real me.  Letting people see the “real you” makes you vulnerable.  It is devastating for someone to see the real you and not like it.  But Adam and Eve were not ashamed… until they sinned.

 When God created Adam and Eve and put them in the Garden of Eden, He told them that they were free to eat from any tree in the garden, except for one tree, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  After Eve and Adam rebelled against God and ate the fruit, the Bible says that they ran and hid from God.  They also suddenly didn’t want to be naked, so they make coverings for themselves out of fig leaves. 

 This shows two things that are true about intimacy.  First, when we sin, we often end up running and hiding from God.   Sin produces guilt.  Guilt produces shame.  Shame is being embarrassed by “the real you.”  When we feel shame, we don’t want to let people see our real self, so we run and hide.  This is important for you to realize, because there will probably come a time in your life when you get out of step with God.  When this happens, you will feel a strong tendency to run and hide from God in order to get away from your feelings of guilt.  You may not even realize that you are doing it, but it happens all the time.  You will want to push away from anything that makes you feel guilty, such as Christian friends, pastors or youth leaders, youth group or even church itself.  Even if these people are being completely nice, you may tend to run and hide from them just because they remind you that there is something in your life that is between you and God that isn't right.  Sometimes people jump from church to church so that people never get to know them intimately. 

 The second thing that we see is that Adam and Eve made coverings for themselves from fig leaves.  We do this all the time ourselves!  We try to cover ourselves so that people cannot see the real “us.”  We try to create a new image for ourselves that we think people would be more impressed with.  We cover over the embarrassing areas of our life.  We try to justify our own sins by explaining them away with excuses. 

 Covering our own sins in not the way to deal with our guilt and shame.  Yes, because we are sinners, the real “you” is no longer a purely wonderful thing to see!  Something needs to be done about it.  However, making our own covering isn't the answer.

 Now that Adam and Eve had sinned, they were no longer innocent and it was no longer appropriate for them to be naked.  They were no longer able to let their real self be seen without shame.  They needed to be clothed, but clothing themselves was not the answer.  God didn’t accept their fig leaf clothes.  Instead, the Bible says that “The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.”  Merely forgiving them and letting them go naked wasn’t the answer.  They needed to have their real selves covered by God’s righteousness.  Let me explain… It is really significant that God made their clothes from animal skin.  If God made them clothes out of animal skin, it means that animal had to shed it’s blood and die in order to provide their covering.  You see, the Bible says over and over that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin.  (See Hebrews 9:22.)  The sacrifice of these animals to make Adam and Eve’s clothes was a foreshadowing of the One who would one day come and shed His blood to take away the sin of everyone who will put their faith in Him alone as their savior.  The blood of animals in the sacrifices in the Old Testament were never able to take away sin, but the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ when He died on the cross as our substitute IS able to take away our sin!  Hebrews 9:26b-28 states, “But now He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of Himself.  Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sin of many people; and He will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for Him.”

That is the true answer for our shame!  Not running and hiding...  Not covering ourselves...  We need to have ourselves covered by the righteousness of Jesus who died for us.  If you have never put your trust in Jesus asking Him to be YOUR Savior, that is the most important thing in your life for you to do!  And if you are a believer but you are shamed by sin, what you need to do is to confess and repent.  1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”  Once you’re saved, God will not forsake you, but if you have sin in your life, you find yourself wanting to run and hide.  Stop!  Admit to God that what you are doing or thinking is wrong, and make the changes you need to.  Admit that God is right, and turn back to Him accepting His forgiveness.

Physical Intimacy

God made us all with the desire for and need for intimacy.  We need to connect with someone who we can show the real “me.”  Unfortunately, people try to substitute other things for real intimacy.  People often confuse physical intimacy for emotional or spiritual intimacy.  People often try to fill their need for intimacy with sex.  Girls especially are wired with a high need for intimacy and will often put out in order to feel loved and intimate.  It has been said that guys will use “intimacy” to get sex, and girls will use sex to get intimacy.  

But is sex always intimate?  On an episode of Ally McBeal, one character exclaimed, “You slept with her!?”  The other character responded by saying, “Don’t worry, it wasn’t intimate.”  

Is this possible?  Can sex be non-intimate?  On the other hand, is sex always intimate?  I think the answer is that sex is always intimate… at least in two senses.  First, sex is obviously very physically intimate.  It doesn’t get more close and personal than that!  Also, according to the Bible, there is always a spiritually intimate aspect to sex, even if it is cheap sex that doesn’t seem intimate at all.  In 1 Corinthians 6:16, Paul writes, “Do you not know that he who united himself with a prostitute is one with her in body?  For it is said, ‘the two will become one flesh.’”  You see, God designed sex in order to unite a man and a woman together forever.  When two people have sex, there is a spiritual “glue” that bonds these people together at the soul.  That is why we see so many people in lousy relationships that can’t seem to break up even when they know the relationship is terrible.  Breaking up after having sex is a nasty experience.  Imagine supergluing your hands together and then ripping them apart.  If you’ve ever used superglue, you know that you don’t use superglue on something unless you want it to be permanent.  If you superglued your hands together and then ripped them apart, it would be really painful!  You would have little bits of one hand torn of and stuck on the other hand, and vice verse.  That’s what happens when people break up (or get divorced) after having sex.

Now, this does NOT mean that if you have had sex with someone that you should stay with them!   Because you have already had sex outside of marriage (which the Bible says is sin) it is going to be almost impossible for you to back things up and have a non-physical relationship.  What you probably need to do is break up.  (yes, I know it’s terrible, but that’s what sin does.  Sin wrecks things.)  Definitely what you need to do is to confess to God and stop having sex.  Ask God to help you be a “renewed virgin” and begin saving yourself for marriage from this day forward. 

Although some people think cheap sex is okay, even most non-Christians will admit that sex without commitment is wrong.  Because sex is so deep and personal, sex without TRUE intimacy and REAL commitment is always cheap and hollow.  Intimacy makes you vulnerable, that’s why you need commitment.  Some people THINK they are committed to each other, but really, how committed are you when you could break up tomorrow?  If you are TRULY committed, it’s okay to have sex… but what does it mean to be truly committed?  Is telling your girlfriend, “I’ll always love you.  I’ll never break up with you,” when you’re alone in your car true commitment?  I think not.  To be truly committed, you need to publicly declare your PERMANENT commitment before your friends and family, before God, and before the law.  We have a word for this… marriage.

(Another survey found that people who engaged in sex before marriage were SIX TIMES more likely to have an affair once married.) 

The same thing is true for us!  Intimacy is good, but there is a time and a place to be naked!  You have to choose carefully who you want to be emotionally naked in front of.  Some people can misuse or abuse intimacy.  There are also certain things that just don’t need to be shared with everyone!   You don’t need to stand in front of the whole youth group and share details about your struggles with lust.  This is also a strong reason why you need someone of the same gender to open up to.  If you’re a guy, it would be completely inappropriate for you to share about your struggles with pornography with a girl!  If you’re a girl, if would be insane for you to tell a guy that you are tempted to have sex in order to fill your need to feel loved.  (Especially if he’s your boyfriend!  Duh!)  And if you’re dating, you NEED friends to help you keep your relationship healthy.  Movies and TV may tell us that “true love” is when you throw you heart completely at someone and can’t survive without them.  That is not true love… that is co-dependency!  Call me crazy, but I honestly think that in addition to having physical boundaries in a dating relationship, people need to have emotional boundaries also!  The Bible says, “Above all else, guard you heart, for it is the wellspring of life.” (Proverbs 4:23)  Until you’re married, you might not want to totally give your heart away… you might want it back!

Of course, if you are dating and looking for the person you want to marry, you DO want a relationship with healthy intimacy.  Too many people base their relationships on the wrong things… looks, popularity, possessions, status.  A person might seem like a great catch on the surface, but be a complete looser once you get to know them!   Healthy intimacy in dating is getting to know the real “me” of the other person.  But instead, most dating is a masquerade designed to KEEP people from knowing the real you.  We try to figure out what the other person wants, and then we try to be that person.  People date like this, and then end up wondering how they ended up marrying an alcoholic jerk who beats them.  Maybe if we actually GOT TO KNOW the people we date, and were willing to break up with them, so many people wouldn’t end up in terrible marriages and wanting divorces.  Hmm… Maybe?  Maybe things would turn out better if we looked for things like CHARACTER and DEVOTION TO GOD in the other person, instead of just how they look or how “fun” they are or how they will increase our social status?  Maybe…?

Intimacy with God

God created us all with a desire for intimacy, but we often try to fill it with cheep substitutes. We need intimacy with other humans, and we can fulfill much of our need for intimacy in that way.  Ultimately though, we need intimacy with God to truly meet our need and desire for intimacy.  No one can know you as intimately as God can.  No one can love as unconditionally as God can.  No one can fill that void in your life like God.

 God desperately wants to be intimate with you!  In Revelation 3:20, Jesus says, “Here I am!  I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with Me.” If you’re not a believer yet, I urge you to put your trust in Christ as your sin-bearer and Savior.  If you are already a Christian, don’t leave Jesus shut out of your heart.  Sometimes we get so distracted by the things of this world that we forget about God.  Sometimes we shut Him out of our life because we want to do things our own way.  Whatever the situation, open up your heart and let Jesus back in.  In the Biblical word, to eat with someone was to have intimate fellowship with them.  Let Christ in your heart and look to Him to fill your need for intimacy and connection.

 Remember though, although God wants to be deeply intimate with us, don’t forget that He is MORE than just a friend.  Don’t make your idea of God cheap by thinking of Him as your little buddy.  He is also Lord and King.  He is also holy and above us.  Christian theology makes the point that God is both near and far.  I think the best way to think of God and His intimacy is with the image that the Bible uses over and over again for God… that of being our FATHER.  As a believer, God is your perfect father who wants to love you intimately.

 “For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship.  And by Him we cry, ‘Abba Father’.” -Romans 8:15

BULLET POINTS:

•Intimacy is closeness and connectedness with another person.  Intimacy is when you share the “real you” with another person.

 •God made all human beings with the desire and need for true intimacy.

 •We don’t want people to see “the real me” so we run and hide.

 •People try to substitute other things for true intimacy. 

 •Intimacy is not the same thing as sex, but sex is always intimate… in a sense.  However, sex without REAL intimacy and TRUE commitment is always hollow.

•All intimacy is not physical or sexual intimacy.  We need quality intimacy with other people of the same gender.

 •We NEED intimacy with other Christians to grow spiritually

 •You need some other Christians who see the “real you”

 •We need to stay CONNECTED in the body of Christ (see 1 Corinthians 12)

•Intimacy is good.  But that doesn’t mean there aren’t boundaries.

 •Sometimes intimacy can be inappropriate.

 •Some things don’t need to be shared freely!

 •Some TIMES and PLACES make certain types of intimacy inappropriate.

 •Some intimate things are especially INAPPROPRIATE for the OPPOSITE sex.

 •Don’t confuse intimacy with real love and commitment.

 •Some people can use intimacy to manipulate or control other people (this can happen a lot in dating relationships).

 •Guys often use “intimacy” to get sex.  Girls often use sex to get intimacy.

 •In dating, we need physical boundaries AND emotional boundaries! “Above all else, guard you heart, for it is the wellspring of life.” –Proverbs 4:23

 •True intimacy requires TRUST and COMMITMENT.

 •TOTAL intimacy requires TOTAL and PERMANENT commitment.  This is called “marriage.”

•Although other people can fulfill much of our need for intimacy, only God can truly fulfill our deepest need for intimacy.

 •God desperately wants to be intimate with you.  “Here I am!  I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with Me.” -Revelation 3:20

 •God desperately wants to be intimate with you… but don’t cheapen that by thinking of Him as your equal.  Think of Him as your Father.  “For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship.  And by Him we cry, ‘Abba Father’.” -Romans 8:15