The core statement
The core statement of the covenant theology of sexuality is simplicity itself: “Sexual intercourse is intended by God to be at least implicitly a renewal of the marriage covenant.”
It can be embellished slightly by rephrasing the last part of the statement: “Sexual intercourse is intended by God to be at least implicitly a renewal of the faith and love and unreserved gift of self pledged by the couple when they entered the covenant of marriage.”
It can be rephrased further in secular terms: “Sexual intercourse is meant to be a renewal of the couple’s own marriage covenant, a symbol of their commitment of marital love.”
Or, in its most secular form: “Sexual intercourse is meant to symbolize the self-giving commitment of marriage.”
Secular phrasing is helpful for conveying the idea to students in schools where religion is not taught and/or where it cannot be taught that sexual intercourse is truly a marriage act and is honest and finds its meaning only within marriage. As an aside, I want to respond to the easily imagined challenge that this concept could not be taught in an American public school because it might be seen as reflecting a religious belief. The response is threefold. 1) Most just laws reflect the natural moral law that has been codified in the Ten Commandments, so there is no difference in teaching that man is not meant to steal from others and teaching that man is not meant to have sex outside of marriage. 2) The ordinary language of cultures all over the world—both in time and in place—supports the notion that sexual intercourse is meant to be a marital act. Any culture that has a taboo on adultery or that sees pre-marital sex by engaged couples as less good than marital sex supports the notion that sex is meant to symbolize the commitment of marriage. 3) Such basic non-sectarian norms of human behavior simply must be taught at every level and place of education, or alleged education is simply not human education, and that, of course, is the problem with much education today.
John F. Kippley
Sex and the Marriage Covenant