“I’ve asked for forgiveness. Now please tell me how to answer people who want to know whether or not I’m a virgin.”
It sounds ridiculous. Become a virgin again? Why not ask to relive last week? Yet if you’ve had sex, you may be saying, “I’ve asked for forgiveness. Now please tell me how to answer people who want to know whether or not I’m a virgin.”
Maybe the best answer to the question, “Are you a virgin?” is “None of your business.” But what do you tell yourself? If you want to start over, is it possible? Can you be a virgin again?
A man once posed a similar question to Jesus: “How can an old man go back into his mother’s womb and be born again?” (John 3:4) Jesus answered by talking about a second, spiritual birth. “Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives new life from heaven” (John 3:6).
You can lose your physical virginity just once. If you did it, you did it. You can’t get that first time back again. And the past carries with it physical and emotional consequences. If memories have been etched on your brain, you can’t pretend they’re gone. But spiritually, it is quite possible to start all over again.
Spiritual rebirth doesn’t destroy the past. It transforms it. A second chance, spiritually, means there are no limitations to what you can become. The God who made the universe out of nothing can take your past and make from it something beautiful.
The apostle Paul talked about this transformation when he wrote to a group of Christians in Greece. They had plenty in their past to regret. But because they trusted Jesus to redeem them, the past had been transformed:
Don’t you know that those who do wrong will have no share in the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, who are idol worshippers, adulterers, male prostitutes, homosexuals, thieves, greedy people, drunkards, abusers, and swindlers-none of these will have a share in the Kingdom of God. There was a time when some of you were just like that, but now your sins have been washed away, and you have been set apart for God. You have been made right with God because of what the Lord Jesus Christ and the Spirit of our God have done for you. (1 Corinthians 6:9-11).
How do you begin that kind of transformation? You can’t manage it on your own. You need God’s power and forgiveness. And where do you find that? You ask for it. Spiritual transformation begins as simply and as mysteriously as that. You ask, admitting your need. And God goes to work in your life.
So when you’ve stopped having sex and asked for forgiveness, can you call yourself a virgin? Perhaps you are no longer a virgin in the physical sense. But because you have been purified by God, you are virgin in his eyes. That may not clear up your reputation or your memory. But it does clear up your future with God. You are as good as new.
Once you’ve experienced God’s forgiveness, you’ll still have to deal with the leftovers of your past, like guilt.
Feelings of guilt are your internal, emotional response. They aren’t always reliable. What we call a guilty conscience is often a mixture of feelings: regret, loss, sadness, self-reproach. These are natural feelings for someone who’s been heavily, emotionally involved in a sexual relationship.
The sense of guilt won’t instantly change. Like other natural consequences-pregnancy, disease, or painful memories-feelings don’t necessarily disappear when God transforms your life. But their sting is taken away. So, even though you may still feel guilty, it’s vital to know that, as far as God’s concerned, you’re not guilty. That’s the truth of
1 John 1:9, where God promises to forgive us and cleanse us when we confess our sins to him. And that’s the truth of Jeremiah 31:34, where God promises to forget your sins … forever.
Jesus didn’t die on the cross to take away your feelings. He died to take away your sins. Cleansed of sin, you can work on transforming your feelings into a useful tool for God’s service. They need not lead you downward. Transformed, they can give you compassion for the pain of other people. They can give you deep determination not to go wrong again.