THE MESSAGE OF REVELATION (1)



HOMOSEXUALITY AND THE BIBLE

(Genesis 1-2)

INTRODUCTION:

A. When I was in my first year of seminary, I was approached by a friend of mine, a first-year student like myself. He wanted to know the position of the Presbyterian Church on homosexuality. When I asked Mark why he was interested, he told me that he had been “outed” by one of our classmates. He had confided to another student that he was a practicing homosexual, and that other student had gone to the school administration. Mark would soon be asked to leave the seminary.

Mark told me that he had long struggled with his homosexuality and had come to the conclusion that God was calling him to be a pastor and that God had given him the liberty to remain a practicing homosexual. And he was interested whether or not the Presbyterian Church would permit pastors to be practicing homosexuals.

I told Mark that the Presbyterian Church had considered just such a thing in the past but had decided against it. To my knowledge Mark is now a pastor in a Metropolitan Community Church in Colorado, a church that claims to be evangelical, believing the Bible, and yet welcoming practicing homosexuals as pastors and church officers.

B. You say, “How can that be? Doesn’t the Bible condemn homosexual practice? How could anyone claim to be a Christian and believe the Bible and yet allow for homosexuality expression?” The answer is that all of the Bible’s statements on the subject of homosexuality have been under an intense work of revision in recent decades. It may surprise you that the conclusion drawn by an increasing number of scholars is that the Bible has absolutely nothing to say about homosexuality, or at least about the kind of homosexuality that is being promoted in our day.

Historically the church understood the Bible as condemning homosexual practice as it does other sins. How do you change the church’s understanding of what the Bible says? You do it through two ways:

I. REDEFINE SCRIPTURE.

II. REVISE YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF SCRIPTURE.

I. THE REDEFINITION OF SCRIPTURE.

In the present-day church there are three basic understandings of the doctrine of Scripture.

1. The historic, orthodox view.

2. The 19th century liberalism view.

3. The 20th century neo-orthodox view

Let me illustrate each. This illustration is not original.

A. The Historic, Orthodox View of Scripture. Suppose you go to a garage sale and one of the items offered is a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle in a plain, brown box. And you think, this is a wonderful challenge because I have no picture. So you ask the proprietor of the garage sale, “Are all of the pieces in the box?” They assure you that they are. So you buy it.

But they did not tell the truth. When you finish putting the puzzle together you find that there are some missing pieces. Now most of it’s there. You can see the big picture and many of the fine points. But there are some questions about some of the details. And since you see most of the picture you can make some guesses as to what the rest of it may be.

This is an illustration of the historic, orthodox view of Scripture. God has spoken in the Bible and all of his words are true and trustworthy. But God has not told us everything. We can be sure about what he has said, and we can make some educated guesses about other matters. This historic view is summarized in the Westminster Confession of Faith which says in part: “The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men.”

B. The 19th Century Liberalism View. Now the view of Nineteenth Century Theological Liberalism is also that the person at the garage sale lied, but in a more extensive way. Not only were not all the pieces in the box, but there were many other puzzle pieces mixed in. These were not a part of the true puzzle, and so your task becomes more complicated. You have to sort through all the pieces, discard those which are not true puzzle pieces, and then try to put the rest of the pieces together.

According to nineteenth century liberalism the Bible is a mixed bag with some truth but a lot of error. At this time in Germany numerous books were published with the word “wessen” or “essence” in their title. “What is the essence of the Christian faith?” Not, “what do God’s Words in Scripture teach us?” but “If we strip away the husk and keep the kernel of truth in the Bible, what is its essence?” About this same time scholars introduced the science of comparative religion, which taught that all religions are basically the same, and so we need to look for that which is common to all. That is the essence of religion (which explains why many Christian colleges that used to have a theology department [for study of the Christian faith] now have a “religion” department [for study of comparative religion]). Adolf von Harnack, the great liberal church historian suggested in his book, What Is Christianity?, that the essence of Christianity and other religions could be distilled into two concepts: The Universal Fatherhood of God and The Universal Brotherhood of Man.

But notice what happens to Scripture in this. Any of God’s Words that don’t seem to fit the template of what you consider the “essence” of religion get discarded as husk or chaff or mere human observations, clouded by the patriarchal culture of biblical times. With this view of Scripture, the Bible can support whatever I already believe, and whenever it contradicts what I think, I can dispense with it as “husk” and not “kernel”.

Nineteenth century theological liberalism was very optimistic and envisioned all religions pulling together and rallying around the essence of the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man. Then came a world event that shattered all its naïve and simplistic optimism: the raw brutality of World War I.

C. The Neo-Orthodox View. The neo-orthodox (or “new orthodox”) view of Scripture was devised in a reaction to liberalism. Its chief proponents were the Swiss theologians Karl Barth and Emil Brunner. Barth read deeply in the writings of the reformers Luther and Calvin. He concluded that the only thing that could explain our world was that sin had radically affected our race and that our only hope was through an encounter with the risen Christ. This was not the old orthodoxy, however. Barth attempted to keep the traditional themes of sin and salvation through Christ, but also to appreciate the insights of modern scholarship.

So, using our jigsaw puzzle analogy, in the neo-orthodox view, the puzzle pieces are ALL false. Scripture is entirely the fallible word of human beings. But somehow, through the Scriptures we have an existential encounter with the living Word of God, Jesus. The Bible is not the Word of God, only Jesus is. The words of the Bible only matter insofar as they mediate Jesus, the living Word, to us.

This view is quite common in our day. I would suggest you will find remnants of this view on local college campuses and in numerous churches. When I was in another denomination the Presbytery examined a candidate for ordination. One of the pastors asked this question: “Is the Bible the Word of God or is Jesus the Word of God?” Of course the answer is “both”. But you know what prompted the question, don’t you? Similarly, many people will agree that the Bible is infallible, but not that it is inerrant. “Infallible” means that it does not fail, but “inerrant” means that there are no errors in Scripture. Neo-orthodoxy teaches that the Bible is a fallible human book, but that the Word of God speaks infallibly to us through the Bible.

I’ve been in churches where, just before reading Scripture, the pastor says something like “Listen for the Word of God as I read our Scripture lesson from John 12.” Whether that pastor knows it or not, that is a neo-orthodox statement. Not “listen TO the Word of God” but “listen FOR the Word of God.” “The Bible is NOT the Word of God, but when you listen to the Bible you may have an encounter with the Word of God.”

The main problem with neo-orthodoxy is that it is entirely subjective. Since its truths cannot be verified because its main document is admittedly fallible, who’s to say it’s true or false? And what about those who claim to have encountered God through other religions or who understand God in another way? Who’s to say they’re wrong and you are right?

This is the problem any time we depart from the Scriptures as our infallible and inerrant Word of God. If we need to decide which parts of the Bible are correct and true and which are mistakes and false, then we have become our own authority standing above and in judgment over the Bible. Then the Scriptures have no power to convict us, rather we have the power to convict the Scriptures. And then we can believe anything and so can be sure of nothing. We have no true basis for our faith. If Paul was wrong on homosexuality, then perhaps he was wrong on salvation as well.

This is one of the main ways the pro-homosexual groups deal with Scripture. The report of a committee in 1991 on Human Sexuality said that the “essence” of the Bible’s message was an ethic of justice-love. Which view of Scripture does this represent? (Liberalism) So the words of the Bible are no longer God’s Words, but the Bible’s basic message (as well as the message of all other religions) is justice-love, and if any practice conforms to justice-love (whatever that is), then it is acceptable and good. Morality is based on this principle and not the words and commands of Bible verses. From this basis, the report endorsed various forms of homosexuality, bisexuality, premarital sex and cohabitation, adultery and even prostitution. Any and all of these could be done out of a sense of justice-love, the seventh commandment notwithstanding.

Here is a newsletter from the Covenant Network, one of the groups in the PCA working for the pro-homosexual agenda. It contains an excerpt from an article entitled “Homosexuality and the Bible: A Consideration of Pertinent Passages” by Charles D. Myers, Jr., Associate Professor of RELIGIOUS STUDIES (did you hear that) at Gettysburg College. Here is the last sentence in the article, a sentence that the editors think is important because they place it in an inset text box: “Those who condemn homosexuals because of what the Bible says need to recall that self-righteous condemnation, expressions of contempt for others, and failures to show love and mercy to one another are also condemned in the Bible far more often than homosexual behavior.”

Here’s your quiz question: Which view of Scripture does Charles D. Myers, Jr. accept? (Liberalism). In his view the Bible speaks with a mixed, contradictory message. Some statements condemn homosexual behavior (husk). Other statements call for love and mercy (kernel). So we must discard the husk and accept only the kernel.

Here’s another one: Often the pro-gay agenda side will say: “Some of the statements condemning homosexuality are in the Old Testament.” What view of Scripture does that represent? (Liberalism). No matter that our Lord Jesus and all the New Testament writers accepted the full authority of the Old Testament. Liberalism does not.

Here’s another favorite: “Jesus never mentioned homosexuality.” What view of Scripture does this represent? (Liberalism). What Jesus taught is the kernel, the rest is husk. I had an uncle who believed that the red letters in the Bible alone were the Word of God. The black letters could be ignored. Of course Jesus never mentioned rape, incest or domestic violence either. I suppose that would make them permissible? Could it rather be that the reason Jesus never mentioned homosexuality was because nobody among the people of God of his day was suggesting that it was morally good or acceptable, so that it was not even an issue (as it is in ours)?

If you want to change the church’s view on homosexuality, you must neutralize what the Bible says about homosexuality. One way of doing this is by REDEFINING SCRIPTURE so that you yourself can become the judge over what in the Bible is true and what is not.

Another way to neutralize what the Bible says about homosexuality is by

II. REVISING YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF SCRIPTURE.

A. From the very beginning, the church has understood the Scriptures to be condemning of homosexual behavior. But has the church been correct? Does the Bible really condemn homosexuality after all? This intensive work of revision on the church’s historic understanding of Scripture has been going on for about half a century now. Numerous books have been written and careers made on trying to show that the Bible either never addresses homosexuality directly, or that the kind of homosexuality described in Scripture has nothing whatsoever to do with what present-day homosexuals are advocating.

Having read extensively in this subject over the years, I must say that the revisionists have worked very hard and have been very clever and creative in trying to explain away the Scriptures that seem so clearly to condemn homosexual behavior. I can certainly see how unthinking or willing people (like my fellow seminarian, Mark, for example) could be swayed by their arguments.

B. A detailed look at each text, what the revisionists assert, and why their arguments are flawed, would take many hours. Let me briefly summarize what the revisionists are saying, and then offer an alternative. There are ten basic texts that speak directly to homosexual practice in Scripture:

Genesis 19:1-8 (Lot and the two angelic visitors in Sodom). The revisionists note that this was a case of attempted, homosexual rape. This issue was not homosexuality but lack of hospitality, not welcoming the stranger. At any rate homosexual advocates today would also condemn homosexual rape.

Judges 19:16-30 (The Levite, attempted homosexual rape). The revisionists treat this the same way they do the story of Sodom.

Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13: “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.” (18:22) and “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.” (20:13) The revisionists will note that these texts are found within the “Holiness Code” of Leviticus and have to do with ritual purity. These texts are condemning participation in pagan religion, temple prostitution. What is at issue is not homosexual behavior, but worship in pagan temples. So this has nothing to say about homosexual behavior.

Romans 1:26-27: “26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 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.” Here the revisionists say that Paul is really setting up his Jewish readers so that they will feel the full weight of conviction. Gentiles accepted homosexual practice, Jews condemned it. So as Jews would read this they would agree, judging the Gentiles. But then Paul turns right around and accuses the Jews of sin, “While you preach against stealing, do you steal? 22 You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?” (2:21-22) So Paul is only repeating what the Jews thought about homosexual behavior. Whether or not he agreed with them is not the point.

I Corinthians 6:9-10: “9 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, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.” The revisionists say that the phrase translated “men who practice homosexuality” is really describing homosexual rape or exploitation or perhaps prostitution. And everybody condemns those. But it’s does not address today’s mutual, loving, committed homosexual relationships between consenting adults.

1 Timothy 1:10: The same goes for 1 Timothy 1:10: (in a list of sins) “10 the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine….”

2 Peter 2:6-7 and Jude 7: refer back to Sodom and are treated similarly. “6 if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; 7 and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked….” (2 P. 2:6-7) “7 just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.” (Jude 7) Either this is referring to a Jewish reaction to Greek behavior, or it is describing homosexual rape and exploitation and so does not apply, or it isn’t speaking about same-sex relations at all.

Do you notice some patterns here? First, and perhaps most important, whenever the Bible speaks about homosexual behavior, it always condemns it. There is not one positive word in Scripture about homosexual behavior. That is no small matter.

And in the hands of the revisionists the interpretations begin to sound similar. “This is about unjust and unloving homosexual behavior.” Or “This is about ritual purity in Israel, but not about sin.” Or “This is not really talking about sexuality at all.” And when one of these won’t work, another is immediately appealed to.

But are these objections really true? The city of Sodom, which was incinerated with fire from heaven, became legendary for its evil and even became a type of hell, which is depicted as a lake of fire. Is it really possible that their only sin was a lack of hospitality, or even attempted rape? Other acts of inhospitality and even rape are mentioned in the Bible, yet none of them condemned with such shocking judgment as this. Do not the 2 Peter and Jude texts make this abundantly clear? The revisionists fail to make their case.

III. THE SINGULAR, BIBLICAL, SEXUAL ETHIC.

A. What we find in Scripture, rather, is a singular, consistent sexual ethic that is applied across the boards. Anything falling short of this ethic, or anything going beyond this ethic, is condemned. That one, consistent, sexual ethic is given to us in the opening chapters of the Bible, Genesis 1 and 2:

1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

2:18 Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” 19 So out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him.

21 ¶ So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” 24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

This is the one, consistent, sexual ethic that is applied throughout Scripture. The only exception to this is the infrequent practice of polygamy, having more than one wife. While this was practiced even by some of the patriarchs, it was never encouraged and seems to be all but extinguished by the time of the New Testament. Even so, when polygamy was practiced in Israel 1) it was heterosexual polygamy, 2) it was understood to be a life-long covenant of marriage, and 3) it was seen as an aberration and never the norm.

B. But any other form of sexual expression outside the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman was consistently condemned in Scripture: premarital sex, adultery, rape, incest, bestiality, and, oh, yes, homosexuality in any form whether male or female.

CONCLUSION

There is much, much more to be said. This is very frustrating because I feel that we have only scratched the surface.

Just be very careful when you encounter the arguments of the revisionists. They are very clever and sophisticated. I wish we could explore a list of the favorite Bible texts and slogans of the pro-homosexual groups, such as “Judge not and you shall not be judged”, “Love your neighbor as yourself”, and “Welcome the stranger”. The way these texts are twisted and misapplied is shameful. At any rate, be careful whenever you hear a pastor or professor begin to explain what the Bible REALLY says about homosexuality. The (false) arguments of the revisionists have been exposed and answered, conclusively. If you have further questions on any of these matters, there are satisfying answers to be had.

What did my fellow-seminarian Mark need from the church most of all? How could the church have loved him in his questions and confusion?

First, Mark needed an unequivocal and unbending answer: God’s holy Word condemns homosexual behavior as sin in no uncertain terms, just as it condemns all other sins. So there can be no compromise on this. We cannot permit what God condemns.

Second, Mark needed real help and encouragement and love from God’s people. The pro- homosexual groups that I have encountered at General Assembly meetings absolutely hate the statement, “Love the sinner, but hate the sin.” But that’s good, Bible theology. The problem is that it is hard to do; hard to keep the balance. That’s because we have swallowed the worldly idea that love = permission.

How do you love the child molester…’s next victim? You love them by seeing to it that the child molester is identified, arrested, prosecuted and incarcerated, so that child will not be put through that degrading and dehumanizing experience. How do you love the child molester? Same way. By preventing them from degrading themselves through doing such a horrible thing.

We forget that sin is often its own punishment. Sin in any form is dehumanizing and degrading. Is this not what Paul was arguing in Romans 1? Because people determined to forget God, God gave them over to sin. If you really love the sinner, you must, among other things, do everything in your power to help them stop sinning! We love the sinner BY hating the sin. And by helping the sinner come to hate that sin as well, and to overcome it. In this sense the pro-homosexual revisionists, under the banner of tolerance are doing just about the most hateful thing possible. They are enabling sinners to remain in their sin. They seek to destroy the Law’s power to bring the lost to conviction, and then to Christ. Our Lord Jesus said in Matthew 18:6 “but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. Through their false teaching, these revisionists are kidnapping the doctor and pouring his precious medicine onto the ground, even as the pitifully sick, like Mark, are unaware that they are dying. No wonder Calvin calls false teachers like these revisionists “the cruel murderers of souls.”

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