Homosexuality and God

Homosexuality and Christianity is one of those subjects that seems almost impossible to discuss anymore without someone becoming angry.

So before I begin, I want to make something very clear.

I believe that same-sex sexual relations are sinful.

I also believe adultery is sinful.

Sex outside of marriage is sinful.

Lying is sinful.

Stealing is sinful.

Hatred is sinful.

Pride is sinful.

And I am a sinner.

That last statement is important, because I have no right to open the Bible, point at another person, and pretend that the same Word of God does not also judge me.

It does.

The question, then, is not whether homosexual people are somehow worse than the rest of us.

They are not.

The question is much simpler:

What does Scripture teach?

And once we determine what Scripture teaches, are we willing to allow it to judge all of us—even when we do not like the answer?

What Do We Mean by Homosexuality?

We should probably begin by being careful with our words.

Today the word homosexuality can describe several different things. It can refer to attraction, identity, relationships, or sexual activity.

My concern in this discussion is primarily with sexual conduct and the biblical definition of marriage.

I do not need to claim that I know exactly why one person experiences one kind of desire and another person experiences something different.

People experience desires of all kinds.

The fact that I experience a desire does not automatically make acting upon that desire morally right.

That applies to me just as much as it applies to anyone else.

A married heterosexual man may genuinely desire another woman.

His desire does not suddenly make adultery righteous.

Someone may desperately want something that belongs to another person.

That desire does not make stealing acceptable.

I may become furious with someone who has hurt me.

My anger does not give me permission to hate or harm that person.

So when someone says, “This is what I feel, therefore God must approve of it,” I cannot accept that as a biblical standard.

I could use the same argument to justify almost anything I wanted to do.

Scripture must judge my desires.

My desires cannot be allowed to rewrite Scripture.

Does the Bible Actually Address This?

One argument I hear frequently is that the modern word homosexuality did not exist in biblical Hebrew or Greek.

That observation by itself does not settle the question.

My name is Raymond.

The name Raymond does not appear anywhere in the Bible either.

That does not mean the Bible has nothing to say to me.

Modern words can describe things that existed long before the modern terminology developed.

There are legitimate discussions among scholars about the precise meaning and translation of particular Greek and Hebrew words. Those discussions should not simply be dismissed.

But neither should the entire biblical argument be reduced to whether one modern English word appears in an ancient manuscript.

The issue is not:

“Does the Bible contain the English word homosexual?”

The issue is:

“What kinds of sexual relationships and conduct does Scripture describe as consistent with God's intention?”

That is a much larger question.

And the answer does not depend upon one disputed word.

Marriage Begins With a Pattern

Genesis gives us the first biblical picture of human marriage.

God creates humanity male and female.

Genesis 2:24 then describes a man leaving his father and mother and being joined to his wife, with the two becoming one flesh.

Thousands of years later, Jesus Himself returns to this same passage when discussing marriage in Matthew 19:4–6.

He points back to creation:

God made them male and female.

A man leaves father and mother.

He is joined to his wife.

The two become one flesh.

That is significant.

Adam and Eve did not exchange modern wedding rings.

They did not apply for a marriage license.

They did not have bridesmaids, a church building, photographs, or a reception.

Those are human customs surrounding marriage.

They are not what creates the biblical pattern.

The underlying pattern is the union of man and woman.

This is also connected with the unique way male and female were created. Together they possess the biological capacity to produce another human life.

Of course, not every married couple can or will have children. Infertility does not make a marriage cease to be a marriage.

The point is that male and female are complementary in a way that two males or two females are not.

That pattern appears at the beginning of Scripture and continues throughout it.

Scripture Goes Beyond Genesis

The biblical case also does not depend solely upon Adam and Eve.

There are passages in both the Old and New Testaments that address same-sex sexual conduct.

Romans 1:26–27 is one of the clearest New Testament examples.

Paul describes women exchanging natural sexual relations and men likewise abandoning relations with women and becoming sexually involved with other men.

There are also relevant passages in Leviticus, 1 Corinthians, and 1 Timothy.

People debate the interpretation of some of these passages, particularly individual Greek words.

Those discussions can be worthwhile.

But when I consider the entire biblical pattern—creation, marriage, Jesus' teaching, Paul's teaching, and the consistent treatment of sexual morality—I cannot conclude that Scripture presents same-sex sexual relations as something God approves.

That is my conclusion from Scripture.

Someone may disagree with my interpretation.

But disagreement should lead us back to the text, not into hatred of one another.

Love Does Not Make Everything Right

Another argument sometimes goes something like this:

“God is love. These two people love one another. Therefore God must approve of their relationship.”

I believe the first statement completely.

God is love.

But the conclusion does not necessarily follow from it.

Love is extraordinarily important, but the existence of love does not automatically make every relationship or every action righteous.

A married person might sincerely believe that he has fallen in love with someone else's wife.

The feelings may be real.

The affection may be real.

He may genuinely care about her.

That still does not make adultery acceptable.

Biblical love and biblical obedience cannot simply be separated from one another whenever obedience becomes difficult.

Jesus said:

“If you love me, keep my commandments.”

Love therefore cannot mean merely doing whatever our feelings tell us to do.

Sometimes love requires us to deny ourselves.

That is true for heterosexual Christians.

It is true for homosexual Christians.

It is true for me.

It is true for everyone who claims to follow Christ.

The Bible Judges Me Too

This is where Christians need to be especially careful.

It is very easy to preach loudly about somebody else's sexual sin while quietly excusing our own.

A man condemns homosexuality and then commits adultery.

Someone condemns same-sex relationships while consuming pornography.

Someone speaks passionately about biblical morality while lying, cheating, abusing his family, harboring hatred, or refusing to forgive.

That is hypocrisy.

Scripture does not give heterosexual Christians permission to treat homosexuality as though it were the only sexual sin that matters.

It isn't.

Jesus had some of His harshest words for religious people who were very good at identifying everyone else's sins while failing to examine themselves.

If I use Scripture as a weapon against you while refusing to allow that same Scripture to expose me, I have completely missed the point.

God's Word judges both of us.

Should Christians Hate Gay People?

Absolutely not.

A gay man is made in the image of God.

A lesbian woman is made in the image of God.

So am I.

Their lives possess human dignity and worth.

Christians should not mock them.

We should not threaten them.

We should not abuse them.

We should not treat them as though they are somehow beneath us.

We should not refuse them ordinary kindness, friendship, compassion, or human dignity.

And we should certainly never imagine that cruelty becomes righteous simply because we attach God's name to it.

Jesus did not give Christians permission to hate sinners.

If He had, Christianity would be in serious trouble, because the church is full of sinners.

I am one of them.

At the same time, love does not require me to call something righteous when I believe Scripture calls it sin.

There is an enormous difference between saying:

“I believe this behavior is contrary to God's design.”

and saying:

“Because you struggle with this or live this way, I hate you.”

The first is a theological conviction.

The second is a failure to love.

I can disagree with someone profoundly and still love that person.

In fact, Christianity requires me to.

What About “God Made Me This Way”?

I have heard people say:

“God made me, and I am gay. Therefore God made me gay, and He must approve of everything associated with that.”

I do not think that reasoning works.

God certainly created us.

But Christians also believe that humanity lives in a fallen world.

Every one of us experiences desires, weaknesses, temptations, physical conditions, emotional struggles, and tendencies that do not necessarily represent God's moral intention for us.

That includes me.

I cannot say:

“God created me, therefore everything I naturally desire must have been commanded by God.”

If that were true, there would be virtually no need for repentance, self-control, or obedience.

The Christian life repeatedly calls us to surrender things we desire to God.

Sometimes that surrender is extraordinarily difficult.

I do not pretend otherwise.

And I certainly do not want to trivialize what another person may struggle with.

But difficulty does not determine truth.

Scripture does.

We Must Also Be Careful With Scripture

There is another danger here.

Christians sometimes accuse other people of changing Scripture to fit their beliefs.

That certainly happens.

But Christians can do exactly the same thing.

We all have the temptation to make the Bible agree with us.

That is why we must distinguish between:

what Scripture actually says

and

what we desperately want Scripture to say.

If someone can demonstrate that I have misunderstood a passage, I should listen.

If the Hebrew or Greek changes my understanding, I want to know that.

If historical context matters, I want to understand it.

Faithfulness to Scripture does not mean refusing scholarship.

It means allowing good scholarship to help us understand Scripture rather than using scholarship merely to make Scripture say whatever we already wanted it to say.

And that standard applies to both sides of this discussion.

Sin Is Not the End of the Story

Here is the part Christians sometimes communicate very poorly.

Christianity is not fundamentally the message:

“You are a sinner, therefore God wants nothing to do with you.”

Quite the opposite.

The Gospel begins with the fact that all of us are sinners.

Paul writes in Romans 3:23 that all have sinned and fall short of God's glory.

All.

Not homosexuals.

Not heterosexuals.

All.

And the Gospel is that Jesus Christ came for sinners.

He came for adulterers.

He came for liars.

He came for thieves.

He came for the sexually immoral.

He came for proud people.

He came for angry people.

He came for people who have destroyed their lives.

He came for people who look respectable while hiding sins nobody else knows about.

He came for me.

And He came for you.

Sin is real.

Judgment is real.

But so are grace, repentance, forgiveness, and redemption.

Whatever sins a person has committed, the answer of Christianity is not hatred.

The answer is Christ.

Who Will I Follow?

Ultimately, I have to decide what will determine truth for me.

Public opinion changes.

Political parties change.

Politicians change their positions.

Cultures change.

I change.

God does not.

That is why I do not want my faith determined by whichever president happens to occupy the White House, whichever political party happens to control Congress, or whichever opinion happens to be popular this year.

No president is my Savior.

No political party died for my sins.

Jesus Christ did.

So when culture and Scripture appear to disagree, I choose Scripture.

But choosing Scripture also means accepting what it says about me.

I cannot demand repentance from someone else while refusing to repent myself.

I cannot proclaim God's holiness without remembering His mercy.

I cannot speak about judgment without speaking about the Cross.

And I cannot condemn sin while forgetting how much I need the same Savior I am telling someone else about.

So if you are gay and you have read this far, I hope you understand something.

I do not hate you.

I am not afraid of you.

I do not believe that you are somehow less human than I am.

I believe you were created in the image of God.

I also believe that Scripture places boundaries around human sexuality, just as it places boundaries around my sexuality and every other part of my life.

You may disagree with me.

We can still talk.

We can still sit together.

We can still treat one another with dignity.

And I will never need to pretend that you are my enemy simply because we disagree.

If you do not know Jesus Christ and you want to understand why I believe what I believe, I would gladly talk with you.

Not so that I can stand above you.

I cannot.

I would stand beside you as one sinner telling another sinner where I found forgiveness.

His name is Jesus Christ.

And whatever else we may disagree about, I believe He loves you enough to call you to Himself.

The same way He called me.