Homosexuality & the Gospel 2

Intro

Mark Wingfield, associate pastor at Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas, wrote an opinion piece last year for the Baptist News Global, entitled “3 Words for the Church in 2019: ‘We Were Wrong.’”

“Too much of Christianity is built upon absolute certainty and not enough on divine mystery. I’m reminded of one prominent Southern Baptist pastor who assuredly declared that he had not changed his mind on anything ever. And I’m haunted by the words of an older adult friend who struggled with our church’s decision two years ago to be fully inclusive of LGBTQ Christians. After hearing a presentation on various ways to understand Scripture, he said: “You’re asking me to say that what I learned about the Bible from my parents and grandparents was wrong on this issue. And if I say they were wrong about this thing, then I have to ask what else they were wrong about. I just can’t do that.”

Sadly, we have been trained to worship the received interpretation of Scripture rather than the overarching narrative of Scripture embodied in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Just as we have been trained to worship the Bible as the word of God more than Jesus as the divine Word of God. Is our faith so fragile that to admit we have been wrong in one area necessarily pulls a string that undoes all the rest of our faith? Is our faith really a house of cards?”

Challenges to a traditional view of marriage and sexuality are coming not only from without the church, but from within (United Methodists among the most recent to divide)

Notice the emphasis on interpretation and various ways to understand the Scriptures

true, there are various ways to read, but not varied valid ways to read

true, interpretation is not inerrant, but contradictory interpretations cannot both be right (Fiddler on the Roof)

>The question becomes: what does the Bible say on this topic, and are you familiar enough the text to stand upon it?

Our goal remains the same, that as ambassadors of Jesus Christ we would proclaim the gospel by speaking the truth in love. But that requires that we have a firm understanding of what the truth is.

these texts are not weapons for Pharisees to wield against sinners

these texts are a diagnosis of the illness for which the great physician came to remedy

—the design of God

Adam, though made in perfection and in the image of God, has a need that cannot be met in himself.

God’s means for supplying this need is not duplication but complementarian.

Woman is taken from man for man.

their sameness allows for incredible intimacy and compatibility and equality

their uniqueness establishes their completeness

even as from one two, the two can become one

Only such a complementary union can result in procreation.

Only such a complementary union can serve as a symbol of God’s relationship with His people.

& 20—the commands of a Holy God

Leviticus 18:22 ESV

You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.

Context: God is calling his people to be set apart as holy—distinct from the pagan people of the land.

Leviticus 18:1-

Leviticus 18:1–5 ESV

And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, I am the Lord your God. You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you. You shall not walk in their statutes. You shall follow my rules and keep my statutes and walk in them. I am the Lord your God. You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules; if a person does them, he shall live by them: I am the Lord.

Exodus 19:5-

Exodus 19:5–6 ESV

Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.”

An unambiguous prohibition

Leviticus 18:22 ESV

You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.

repeated in chapter 20

Leviticus 20:

Leviticus 20:13 ESV

If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.

>Common Objection: This is part of an outdated, outmoded, archaic moral code. These OT commands are inconsistent with NT living.

We’ll see in a moment how this principle is brought forward in the NT

Notice that this command in chapter 18 is set amongst other sins that we would still view as morally depraved (exception is menstruation, but that has to do with ceremonial uncleanness)

incest in all its forms

marrying sisters

sexual relations between in-laws

adultery

bestiality

child sacrifice

God’s character has not changed

>homosexual acts are the only acts that get specifically labelled an abomination

-at the end of the chapter all these acts are described as abominations

-bestiality is described as a perversion

-but homosexual acts alone get specifically called “abominations” within the prohibitions themselves…highlighting the offensiveness to God.

Hebrew “ebah” = abomination (serious)

“there are six things that the Lord (Yahweh) hates, seven that are an abomination (ebah) to him.”

Insofar as sin is an abomination to a holy God, these prohibitions remain.

—a depraved exchange

Context:

The unrighteous have suppressed the truth about God

they know about God (his attributes, power and divine nature) because he has revealed Himself—they reject Him

they are futile in thinking (wise in their own estimation, but fools before God)

they were worship the creature rather than the creator (that is, they are self-worshipers)

Homosexual sin is the consequence of mankind exchanging the truth of God for the lie of sin.

Romans 1:24–27 ESV

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

Romans 8:24-

>the penalty of sin is always death—it is serious business

Homosexual sin is a sin against the good and gracious design of God.

The repeated language is “against nature”

>Common Objection: Paul’s arguments here have often been dismissed on the basis of “against nature” being read as “against social conventions.”

—>Therefore “it may have been true in Paul’s day but is not necessarily true for the church in our day.”

Response 1: Homosexual activity was incredibly rampant in the Greco-Roman cultures to which Paul is writing

the idea that Paul is writing in a context of sexual oppression and we are reading in a context of relative sexual progression/liberation is a historical fiction.

Response 2: Paul is not using “against nature” as equivalent to “against social convention” but is instead pointing back to the natural plan of God’s design back in & 2.

Observe the parallels Paul is drawing:

Creation of the world explicitly mentioned (vs. 20)

God titled Creator (vs. 20)

“birds and animals and creeping things” (vs. 23) mirrors the language of “every beast of the earth, every bird of the heavens, and everything that creeps on the earth”

The Greek of verse 23 mirrors the Septuagint (Greek translation) translation of , with identical words being used for “image” “likeness/resemblance” “man” “birds” “animals” and “creeping things”

The use of “lie” (vs. 25) “shame” (vs 27) and the penalty of “death” (vs. 32) are clear illusions to the fall of man in the garden.

—>Therefore, Paul is using “against nature” to mean it is wrong because it violates the design of God, a design inherent to God’s “very good” creation.

—an important word

1 Corinthians 6:9–11 ESV

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Paul’s use of language in this text is designed to remove any ambiguity about his reference to homosexual sin.

Some have endeavored to argue that the word translated “homosexuality” in this passage could simply refer to sexual sins generally, not homosexual sin particularly. There are multiple reasons to reject such a reading:

Firstly, Paul mentions “sexual immorality” or the broad use of the Greek “porneia” earlier in the passage, as well as “adultery” after that

He then comes back to a sexual sin a third time, this time using two words (though our English versions choose to translate this as one simple phrase) which each very clearly point to homosexual acts, which Paul names here as sin.

arsenokoitai —this word Paul almost certainly made