Why is sex between two consenting adults sin?

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Sin is not merely defined by one person encroaching on another person's rights. Pride, greed, envy, bitterness, and many other such things are sins, but they do not encroach on anyone else's rights. So, then, why are these considered sins by God? It seems the key point is that each of them is a departure from the righteousness of God.

In the case of two consenting adults, you assume that each of these people have title to their own lives. According to the Bible, "a man's life is not his own" (Jeremiah 10:23), but belongs to God Himself. So, we should certainly consider the consent of the other person, but we cannot forego the consent of God Himself.

When David prays his prayer of repentance over his sin with Bathsheba in Psalm 51, he says, "Against you, you only have I sinned..." (Psalm 51:4) David understood that the primary infraction was not again Bathsheba or even Uriah, but against God. It is His standard and His holiness that matters--not the consent of any mere mortal.

Another note is that the eating of the fruit of the tree in the Garden of Eden did not infringe on any other person's rights--but it still went against the command of God.

I know, O Lord, that the way of man is not in himself, that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps. Jeremiah 10:23 ESV

"Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment." Psalm 51:4 ESV

"but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat[d] of it you shall surely die.” Genesis 2:17 ESV

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The 10 commandments makes it very clear. Customs of that time may have been to have more than one wife like King David, but that is not God's best plan. Let every man have his own wife. Who can afford more than one nowadays. Who would seriously want to live with more than one. Adulterers, fornicators, liars, thieves, murderers will have their place in hell.

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