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Masturbation (Endnotes)

1. The text says “the Lord” put Er and Onan to death, but it was really the work of the Adversary, not God. The tactics of the Devil were not revealed to Israel, and God employed various figures and idioms to hide the activities of the Devil with whom, not having holy spirit, the Israelites were not prepared to do spiritual battle. Hebrews 2:14 states that the Devil holds the power of death. The Adversary worked very hard on Er and Onan to lead them astray from God and away from God’s protection so he could kill them. See Don’t Blame God!, an extensive study of the problem of evil, sin and suffering, available from CES. Close

2. Peter C. Craigie, The New International Commentary on the Old Testament: The Book of Deuteronomy (William B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, MI, 1976), p. 299. Close

3. The fact that sexual intercourse made the couple “unclean” contributed to the myth that God considers sex “dirty.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Close

4. This record is definitely “XXX” and is not suitable for all audiences. Writing about sex in the Bible presents an interesting dilemma: we want to be honest with the text and with what the Bible portrays, but we do not want to be crass and use detail that is not necessary to communicate the text. Close

5. We are using the word “independence” in its literal sense, “without dependence, without need.” Many people think they can get along without depending on or needing anybody. That just isn’t true, however, because God did not create us that way, and so we live in a society of very lonely, “independent” people. Close