God is love. It’s one of our favorite things about him. However, we often assign a worldly idea of love to God—that God “just wants us to be happy.” Reading how the Bible defines debauchery helps us see there is more to love than this picture.
The Bible uses the term “debauchery” in various passages about people’s sinful behavior. But what kind of sinful behavior?
How Does the Bible Define Debauchery?
The Bible describes debauchery as excessive indulgence in sinful behavior, often associated with sensuality and unrestrained self-gratification.;
One of the most well-known passages on debauchery appears in Paul’s letter to the Galatians. There, Paul lists “debauchery” as one of the works of the flesh:
“The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, and envy drunkenness, orgies, and the like.” (Galatians 5:19-21).
The Bible teaches that such behaviors are contrary to God’s design for humanity—which includes self-control, humility, and the pursuit of righteousness.
What Does the Bible Say Debauchery Will Lead To?
Various stories and passages throughout the Bible illustrate the consequences of indulging in debauchery. The story of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32) serves as a powerful parable about the destructive effects of reckless and debauched living, highlighting the importance of repentance and returning to a righteous path.
The apostle Peter also addresses the concept of debauchery:
“For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do—living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry. They are surprised that you do not join them in their reckless, wild living, and they heap abuse on you.” (1 Peter 4:3-4)
Here, Peter highlights the contrast between the lifestyle of debauchery and the virtuous living expected of believers. The passage emphasizes that those who have embraced faith should no longer participate in the unrestrained behavior associated with debauchery.
What Might Be the Definition of Debauchery Today?
The definition of debauchery has evolved to encompass a broader range of behaviors and attitudes that involve excessive indulgence in pleasures, often at the expense of one’s moral values, self-control, or societal norms. While the concept of debauchery still carries connotations of self-indulgence and hedonism, its interpretation has adapted to the modern world’s cultural, social, and ethical dynamics.
Today, debauchery refers to the unrestrained pursuit of sensual pleasures, often including excessive consumption of alcohol or drugs or engaging in promiscuous sexual activity. It can also involve lavish spending, decadent parties, and a disregard for responsible behavior. The term implies a sense of recklessness and a lack of concern for the potential consequences of one’s actions.
On the one hand, many people of faith would largely hold to the same definition of debauchery from the Bible. This would include a relentless pursuit of pleasure, regardless of its impact on a person’s physical or mental health. Debauchery would lead to overindulgence in food, alcohol, drugs, and sex acts outside of marriage. Like the parable of the Prodigal Son, modern Christians would include indulging in lavish wealth.
Modern definitions of debauchery would include online pornography and overusing the internet for consumer goods we don’t need.
Debauchery has always involved a level of exploitation—it is expensive to carouse and misuse resources, and there has always been some level of exploiting people (such as servants or enslaved people) to get and misuse those resources. Many Christians are grappling again with this truth, recognizing that greed and amoral capitalism hurt the poor and the environment. While many conservative believers don’t discuss this point, the Bible (particularly the Old Testament) does connect extreme self-indulgence with oppressing the poor, condemning both actions.
Are the Bible’s Warnings about Debauchery Unloving?
One shift in our culture is that many people view any barriers to their sexual desires or personal search for self-gratification as evil. Disagreeing with someone’s lifestyle, personal choices, and self-identity is now seen as hateful. This is a modern, and perhaps twisted, view of debauchery.
We must remember that “God loves us” doesn’t mean he wouldn’t judge or condemn us for doing what “makes us happy.”
We see this point in the Bible’s words about God’s love. When Paul wrote about love, he had to appropriate a little-used Greek word for love. Because of common misunderstandings, just using the word wasn’t enough. He had to list aspects of divine love. God’s love is so supreme that Paul describes it in detail (1 Corinthians 13).
Among patience and kindness, Paul tells us love does not rejoice in sin but rejoices in the truth. Iniquity and sin are at opposite ends of the spectrum. To rejoice in sin, or to make it acceptable to God, is to hate others and believe a lie.
As much as some may want to deny it, God’s warnings against sin are love. Sin destroys people made in the image of God. To love people is to agree with God about iniquity and recognize its consequences.
What Is the Root Thing that Makes Debauchery a Sin?
The Bible warns against our own desires for a reason. Our desires, emotions, and intellect can deceive us and lead us down dark paths. Our understanding and desires are based on simple and limited information, based only on what we see immediately. We tend to believe that satisfying our momentary desires will satisfy our eternal soul. This is a lie.
God does want us to be happy, eternally so, and the path there is to trade the temporal for the eternal. The Father isn’t out to put us down or to hurt us. His love wants the best for us, and that is eternal. There are greater and more lasting, eternal ones, and God attempts to lead us into a life that satisfies what matters and gives us meaning and joy beyond the moment.
The slide to debauchery begins with the lie of self-gratification here and there. Yet, whatever happiness or pleasure we may attain is easily and quickly gone. So we have to give ourselves more and more over to the lie and the sin, hoping more will give us more. But it doesn’t. We are left more and more empty.
Debauchery is the extreme of the twisted lie of self-gratification.
At our core, we are eternal beings made in the image of God. Our eternal souls can only be satisfied with the eternal and unseen. Debauchery is the attempt for our eternal souls to find contentment and meaning in temporary things. And it won’t work. Never has and never will. There will never be enough drugs, alcohol, wealth, sex, food, or whatever pleasure we like. None of them can address the eternal.
Only a relationship with God can do that.
Why Doesn’t Legalism Fix Debauchery?
Legalism, the strict adherence to rules and regulations, is often seen as an attempt to curb immoral behavior like debauchery. Just change our behavior, right?
While it might seem like a solution, legalism ultimately falls short of effectively addressing and rectifying the root causes of debauchery. Why?
The Bible tells us the root problem with the Law. It was dependent upon the human ability to keep it. Again, human ability is the problem. We can’t solve the problem with more of the problem. Jesus makes it clear sin comes from our hearts and within us, so laws that only focus on external behaviors fail to address the core issue. We require a transformation within our hearts.
Paul knew better the problem with external Law. In his early days, he was a zealot for the Old Testament. At least, he thought so, but he killed Christians instead of receiving the God he said he worshipped. In Romans 7, Paul declares the Law couldn’t fix the inner issue. All the Law could do was give him more ways to sin. Paul writes to the Colossians how the Law has no power, and legalism has no value against the indulgence of the flesh (Colossians 2:20-23).
The Old Testament Law, or any moralistic system, relies upon our ability. And we are already an overarching law Paul calls the Law of Sin and Death. We can’t escape the Law of Sin and Death.
At least, we can’t on our own. We require a new, better, greater law.
How Do We Avoid Debauchery Today?
In Christ, we are now under a new law: the Law of Spirit and Life.
If I jump from an airplane, the law of gravity will grab and pull me to a certain death. But there’s another law. If I have wings, I can operate under a different law: the law of aerodynamics. With the law of aerodynamics, I can fly and overcome the law of gravity.
Through the death and resurrection of Christ, the one who beat sin and death, we have access to a greater law, the Law of Spirit and Life. Paul defines the Law of Spirit and Life: to walk by the Spirit. If we walk by the Spirit, we will not fulfill the lust of the flesh (Galatians 5:16). The lust of the flesh leads us down the path to debauchery.
This is the power of walking by the Spirit. It’s not only about not devolving into debauchery. When we walk by the Spirit of God, his gift to us, we will live out his righteousness. Within that walk, we find unshakable peace, immeasurable joy, secure hope, and abundant love. Our eternal souls are met with what can actually satisfy us.
This is both practical and mystical. On a practical level, there are three aspects to cover.
1. Learn to hear the voice of God. There is nothing more important than this. God is always with us and continually speaks to us. We can’t communicate with a person we can’t hear. God’s words are life, and they have power. And we’ve been given the power to hear his voice as children of God. Jesus said his sheep hear his voice and intimately know him. With this gift, we must develop hearing the voice of God. How? Through the disciplines—such as prayer, reading the scripture, praise and worship, and meeting with the saints of God. These disciplines are designed to help us train our spiritual ears for the eternal voice of God. Let’s use them as such.
2. Understand our own inability. Jesus said, “Apart from me, you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Debauchery and legalism have the same root: It’s about me. But I can do nothing in my own power. I require God’s grace and power, his revelation and discernment. This feels like death, and to some degree it is. But we must reject any effort to “save ourselves.” Those who seek to save their own lives lose them; if we lose our lives for Christ and the Gospel, we will find true and abundant life (Matthew 16:25).
3. Invite God into every aspect of our lives. There isn’t a difference between the secular and sacred when we give our entire lives unto him, and He places His Spirit within us. Every moment can be sacred and eternal with a constant awareness of his presence. Invite God into our everyday situations and decisions. His leading will lead us to challenges, self-sacrifice, eternal joy, and life.
We have to power against debauchery. We need to cling to Christ and the Father with the power of the Holy Spirit. In God, who is truth, we will find more contentment, peace, joy, and life than we could ever imagine. Definitely far more than debauchery could ever give us.
Peace.
Photo Credit: © Getty Images/AarStudio
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