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THE BIBLE RECORDS SEXUAL HORROR WITHOUT CALLING IT HOLY

By John Domino Sanchez Asis

Some of the darkest pages of Scripture are not there for you to imitate. They are there to show you what sin does when human beings stop trembling before God—and why our only final hope is Jesus Christ.

There are passages in the Bible that make you want to close the book.

Not because they are boring.

Because they are horrifying.

A woman is violated.

A sister is betrayed by her own brother.

A vulnerable person is handed over by men who should have protected her.

Bodies become objects. Power becomes predatory. Families fracture. Leaders fail. Silence protects the guilty. Grief turns into rage.

And then comes the question some believers are afraid to ask:

Why is this in the Bible?

Maybe someone has thrown these passages at you as an accusation.

“Look what your Bible contains.”

Maybe you have secretly wondered the same thing.

Maybe worse—you have survived something that makes these stories almost unbearable to read.

So hear this carefully:

The Bible recording sexual horror does not mean the Bible is calling sexual horror holy.

Description is not endorsement.

Narration is not celebration.

And one of the most dangerous ways to read Scripture is to assume that everything a biblical character does must therefore be something God approves.

Sometimes Scripture shows humanity at its best.

Sometimes Scripture shows humanity with the mask ripped completely off.

And what we see underneath can be terrifying.

That is precisely the point.

The Bible does not sanitize human depravity to protect our religious feelings.

It tells the truth.

Consider Tamar.

Second Samuel 13 introduces us to a daughter of King David whose own half-brother Amnon becomes obsessed with her.

But Scripture refuses to romanticize his obsession.

This is not presented as beautiful forbidden love.

Amnon manipulates circumstances until he can isolate Tamar. She realizes what is happening and pleads with him.

She tells him no.

She calls what he intends to do wrong.

She warns him about the consequences.

She tries to stop him.

But Scripture says:

“However, he would not listen to her.”

Then comes the terrible sentence.

The Hebrew of 2 Samuel 13:14 includes:

וַיֶּחֱזַק מִמֶּנָּה וַיְעַנֶּהָ

Vayyechezaq mimmennah vay‘anneha.

The sense is devastating: he was stronger than she was, and he violated/humiliated her.

The verb behind וַיְעַנֶּהָ — vay‘anneha comes from the Hebrew root ענה (‘nh), which in this context carries the idea of afflicting, humiliating, or violating.

The language does not turn Amnon into a romantic hero.

It exposes what he did.

And what happens immediately afterward destroys another dangerous lie about predatory lust.

Amnon suddenly hates Tamar.

Second Samuel 13:15 says his hatred became greater than the “love” with which he had supposedly loved her.

That detail is chilling because it reveals that what Amnon called love was never biblical love.

Love does not destroy the beloved to satisfy itself.

Love does not overpower another human being and then discard them.

Love does not say, “I need you so badly that I am entitled to use you.”

Scripture later gives us one of the clearest descriptions of genuine love:

“Love does no wrong to a neighbor.”

—Romans 13:10

Amnon did wrong.

Therefore whatever emotion consumed him, it was not the holy love God commands.

Tamar is left devastated.

And the Bible does not pretend otherwise.

Second Samuel 13:19 describes her putting ashes on her head, tearing the special garment she wore, placing her hand on her head, and going away crying aloud.

The victim's grief is not erased from the story.

Her devastation is allowed onto the sacred page.

That matters.

Because sometimes Christians become so anxious to defend the Bible that they rush past the suffering of the person inside the Bible.

We should not.

Tamar matters.

Her tears matter.

Her protest matters.

Her dignity matters.

And the wickedness committed against her does not become righteous simply because it appears between Genesis and Revelation.

The Bible contains another account that is, in some ways, even more disturbing.

Judges 19.

It is one of those chapters that should never be handled casually.

A woman is abandoned to brutal abuse through the night and dies in the aftermath.

The Hebrew description in Judges 19:25 contains these words:

וַיֵּדְעוּ אוֹתָהּ וַיִּתְעַלְּלוּ־בָהּ

Vayyede‘u otah vayit‘allelu-vah.

In context, the men sexually violate her and abuse her.

The text is horrifying because the event is horrifying.

But Judges has already given us the interpretive atmosphere surrounding stories like this.

Again and again the book tells us that Israel is collapsing morally and spiritually.

And near its conclusion comes the haunting refrain:

“In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”

—Judges 21:25

That is not applause.

It is an indictment.

Judges is showing what happens when covenant faithfulness collapses and human beings enthrone their own desires.

Read the darkness as darkness.

The sexual violence, betrayal, vengeance, tribal bloodshed, and moral chaos are not presented as God's beautiful design for humanity.

They reveal how far humanity can descend.

The Bible does this repeatedly.

It tells us Noah became drunk.

It does not command drunkenness.

It tells us David committed adultery and arranged Uriah's death.

It does not command adultery or murder.

It tells us Peter denied Jesus.

It does not command cowardice.

It tells us Judas betrayed Christ.

It does not command betrayal.

And when Scripture records sexual violence, exploitation, incest, coercion, prostitution, adultery, lust, or abuse, the mere presence of the event in the narrative does not transform the event into divine approval.

This sounds obvious until someone encounters a difficult passage and unconsciously assumes:

“If the Bible tells me somebody did this, God must have been okay with it.”

No.

The Bible is brutally honest about its human characters because the Bible is brutally honest about sin.

That honesty begins almost immediately.

Genesis opens with goodness.

Human beings are created in the image of God.

Male and female possess God-given dignity.

Sexual union belongs within the covenantal reality of marriage.

There is intimacy without shame.

Then rebellion enters.

And almost immediately relationships begin breaking.

Shame.

Blame.

Domination.

Jealousy.

Murder.

Exploitation.

Violence.

Human beings who were created to reflect God begin using one another.

That distinction changes how we read the darkest stories.

The horror is not evidence that God's design is evil.

The horror reveals what human beings do when God's good design is corrupted by sin.

Genesis 34 provides another painful example.

After Dinah is violated, her brothers react because, according to Genesis 34:7, a נְבָלָה — nevalah has been committed.

The word communicates something disgraceful, outrageous, morally reprehensible.

The narrative then becomes complicated because the brothers respond with deceit and horrific vengeance of their own.

That is another uncomfortable biblical reality:

A person can respond to one evil by committing another.

Victimhood does not automatically make every subsequent action righteous.

Anger at injustice does not sanctify revenge.

The Bible refuses to flatten human beings into cartoon heroes and villains.

Instead, it exposes a world in desperate need of redemption.

And this is where these stories eventually force us to look beyond themselves.

Toward Christ.

Because Christianity does not teach that humanity merely needs better manners.

We need rescue.

We need forgiveness.

We need transformed hearts.

We need a King who is actually righteous.

We need Jesus.

Look carefully at how Jesus treats vulnerable people.

He does not view women as disposable objects for male appetite.

He publicly speaks with women whom society would rather ignore.

He receives the despised.

He confronts hypocrisy.

He refuses to reduce people to their worst moments.

He touches those considered untouchable.

He welcomes the broken.

And at the same time, Jesus never solves suffering by pretending sin is harmless.

Grace does not require calling evil good.

Jesus can forgive sinners precisely because He takes sin seriously enough to bear its judgment.

That brings us to the cross.

Christianity's ultimate symbol is not a sanitized world where evil never happened.

It is an instrument of torture upon which the innocent Son of God suffered at the hands of sinful men.

The Gospel does not say:

“Human beings aren't really that bad.”

The cross destroys that illusion.

The Gospel says something far more shocking:

Human sin is so serious that redemption costs the blood of Christ—and God's grace is so astonishing that Christ willingly came to save sinners.

“But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

—Romans 5:8

There is no Gospel without telling the truth about evil.

And there is no Christian justification for calling sexual evil holy simply because the perpetrator happens to be powerful, respected, religious, married, ordained, admired, wealthy, influential, or useful to an institution.

Sin does not become righteousness when a religious person commits it.

Abuse does not become holiness when someone attaches God's name to it.

Silence is not automatically forgiveness.

Forgiveness is not pretending nothing happened.

Repentance is not demanding that wounded people protect someone's reputation.

And grace is never permission to continue destroying people.

The Greek New Testament word commonly translated repentance is μετάνοια — metanoia.

It points to a changed mind, a turning—a reorientation that produces a changed direction.

Biblical repentance is not merely:

“I am sorry everyone found out.”

It is not:

“I said sorry, so nobody should mention this again.”

It is not:

“God forgave me, therefore consequences are persecution.”

Real repentance comes into the light.

Jesus said:

“The light has come into the world.”

—John 3:19

And John continues:

“Whoever does what is true comes to the light.”

—John 3:21

That can be terrifying.

Because darkness offers something seductive.

Hiding.

Some readers know exactly what that feels like.

Maybe your story is not identical to Tamar's.

Maybe nobody knows what happened.

Maybe somebody crossed boundaries and then convinced you that speaking about it would destroy the family.

Maybe someone weaponized Scripture to protect themselves.

Maybe you were told that submission meant surrendering your God-given dignity.

Maybe somebody demanded forgiveness without repentance.

Maybe you carry shame for something another person chose to do.

Or perhaps the uncomfortable truth is different.

Perhaps you recognize yourself not only in the wounded characters of Scripture but somewhere closer to the people who caused wounds.

Maybe pornography has slowly trained you to consume human bodies instead of seeing image-bearers.

Maybe lust has become your secret master.

Maybe you have manipulated someone emotionally or sexually.

Maybe you have crossed boundaries you keep minimizing.

Maybe you know there are messages, searches, relationships, fantasies, habits, or hidden actions that cannot survive honestly in the light.

Then do not use grace as camouflage.

Run to grace as rescue.

Jesus Christ did not come merely to improve the public image of sinners.

He came to save sinners.

That means confession is possible.

Repentance is possible.

Forgiveness is possible.

Transformation is possible.

Not because sin was insignificant.

Because the Savior is sufficient.

First John 1:9 gives sinners one of Scripture's great promises:

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Notice what Christianity offers.

Not denial.

Cleansing.

Not image management.

Forgiveness.

Not pretending darkness is light.

Coming into the light and finding Christ there.

And for the wounded person reading this, hear something equally important:

Another person's sin against you does not determine your value.

Your worth was never created by their ability to recognize it.

You bear the image of God.

And while healing can be complicated, slow, and painful, Jesus is not frightened by the chapter you struggle to speak about.

Christ knows what it means to be betrayed.

He knows what it means to be falsely accused.

He knows humiliation.

He knows violence.

He knows abandonment.

And the risen Christ proves that evil does not receive the final word.

This is why the Bible can afford to tell ugly stories.

Scripture does not need to airbrush humanity because humanity is not the hero.

Jesus is.

David cannot carry the story.

Solomon cannot carry it.

Judges cannot carry it.

Kings cannot carry it.

Pastors cannot carry it.

Church institutions cannot carry it.

You cannot carry it.

I cannot carry it.

Only Christ can.

And perhaps that is why some of the Bible's darkest pages are also strangely important.

They destroy our fantasy that human beings can save themselves.

They make us hunger for a better King.

A King who does not exploit His bride but gives Himself for her.

A Shepherd who does not devour the sheep but lays down His life for them.

A Savior who does not excuse sin but bears its penalty.

A Lord who calls sinners out of darkness and into light.

Jesus Christ.

This is the heartbeat of Gospel Warrior:

From Scandal to Grace, Because Jesus Rewrites Everything.

Not because every earthly consequence disappears.

Not because every wound instantly stops hurting.

Not because justice ceases to matter.

And certainly not because evil should be renamed good.

Jesus rewrites everything because sin does not have to own the final chapter.

The sexually broken can pursue purity.

The guilty can repent.

The ashamed can come into the light.

The wounded can seek healing.

The enslaved can find freedom.

The hypocrite can stop pretending.

The sinner can be forgiven.

The lost can come home.

And nobody has to manufacture a cleaner past before approaching Jesus.

Come truthfully.

Come repentantly.

Come wounded.

Come exposed.

Come exhausted.

But come.

If this article uncovered something you have kept buried, you do not have to describe your trauma publicly. But if you want your comment to become a simple prayer, write “Christ is still healing me.”

If you are fighting hidden sin and you are finally ready to stop making peace with it, comment “no more hiding.”

If your spirit is exhausted and you need brothers and sisters in Christ to remember you in prayer, simply comment “pray for me.”

And if Christ has already brought you from a chapter you thought would destroy you into a life you never believed possible, tell part of that testimony. Someone reading the comments may desperately need evidence that Jesus still restores people.

Then think of one person who needs this truth.

Not someone you want to embarrass.

Someone you love.

Tag them gently.

Share this article to your Facebook profile if you believe someone in your circle needs to understand that the Bible's honesty about sexual evil is not approval of sexual evil. Sometimes sharing truth is ministry to a person who never would have searched for it themselves.

Save this article too.

Difficult passages return.

Difficult questions return.

And when somebody claims that Scripture's record of human depravity means Scripture celebrates that depravity, you may need to come back and remember the difference between what the Bible records and what God commands.

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Go to Jesus.

If you sinned, repent.

If you are hiding, come into the light.

If you have been wounded, refuse the lie that somebody else's wickedness erased your God-given dignity.

If you have wounded someone, stop defending yourself long enough to tell the truth.

If you have been pretending, surrender the performance.

Because the Bible never needed perfect human characters to prove its message.

It needed an honest diagnosis of humanity...

and a perfect Savior.