Jul 10, 2019 6 min
Homosexuality is manifesting itself in an unusual place these days: the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ! I mean unusual in its boldness, frequency, and claim. Of course, for years we have suspected—even witnessed—homosexuality in the Church. However, it often operated incognito and confined (usually to the choir stand). The days of down-low Christians, however, seem to be quickly approaching an end. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Keeping homosexuality under wraps simply enabled it to thrive uncontested. In our zeal to keep homosexuality at bay, we hurled condemnations at suspected offenders. We struck angrily every time it reared its ugly head. We thought we were dealing fatal blows, but we simply drove the spirit underground where it somehow gained strength and now fights with a vengeance! Some of us refused to see the proverbial handwriting on the wall; we ignored the growing tide of homosexuality that hiccupped sporadically throughout the Church’s development. Alas, we can no longer look the other way. Unpleasant as it may be, it is time—indeed past time—to have a frank, Biblical conversation regarding homosexuality. Let’s begin.
The Argument
Homosexuality is in the Church. It is out of hiding, bold and combative. It almost begs for a fight. Its manifestation is frequent! Everywhere you look, somebody in the Church is coming out of the closet—bishops, pastors, renowned musicians, denominational heads, and church founders. And people are applauding them! As stated earlier, homosexuality has long operated in the Church. What differs now is its boldness and claim of Biblical correctness. Someone once questioned me about the Church’s emphasis on homosexuality, which I considered ironic because the contemporary Church is lacking in its weigh-in on homosexuality. At any rate, she reasoned that homosexuality is no different from any other sin. In so doing, she unwittingly made my point. Homosexuality requires the Church’s attention because there are entire groups of people—within the Church!—seeking to sanction it as a godly form of behavior. It is different from say adultery or witchcraft because many do not even regard it as a sin. In fact, Christians coming out of the closet argue that homosexuality is their God-given orientation and that it is an unalterable plight of their birth. That part of the Church that dares to speak against homosexuality doggedly counters this notion.
Divine Design
I was a homosexual for many years, so I empathize with the homosexual-by-birth argument. However, the argument is inappropriate. Because of the fall of humanity, we cannot look to birth as an indication of God’s will. Our births are rooted in the fall and are therefore flawed. We must look to divine design for God’s will. The divine design for sexual orientation (for anything really) is found in Genesis. After the creation of man, the Lord God determined that man needed a partner: “It is not good for man to be alone; I will make a helper comparable to him” (Gen. 2:18). After considering every beast of the field and every bird of the air, God “caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and…took one of his ribs […and] made (it) into a woman, and He brought her to the man” (Gen. 2:21-22). Verse 24 continues, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” The commentary in my Bible states that among other things, one flesh implies sexual union. Nowhere in this account of creation, which incidentally reveals God’s intent for human sexuality, is homosexuality even indicated as part of the divine design. It is clear that God intended man and woman to dwell maritally in sexual union—not man and man or woman and woman. Genesis 1 also contains an account of creation, again with no allusion at all to homosexuality. This lack of allusion is not accidental. It intentionally highlights the divine design for heterosexuality within the context of marriage.
Subsequent Procreation
Adam and Eve not only fell into sin, but they also procreated in their fallen state, hence the principle of subsequent procreation—that is, procreation following the fall. Incidentally, every human being, after Adam and Eve, was born subsequent to the fall. Genesis 1 reveals that every living thing God created (plants, animals, and humanity) contains a seed. It is God’s way of perpetuating life without having to actually create each individual. Moreover, each living thing can only procreate after its kind, according to its seed. That means that sinful individuals (that would be everyone as a result of the fall) can only procreate other sinful individuals.
No one more than David was aware of the negative issues of subsequent procreation. While serving as King of Israel, David had an adulterous affair with Bathsheba, which resulted in a pregnancy that threatened to expose his treachery. To cover his sin, David had Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband, killed in battle and then married her. David’s scheme was perhaps a secret to everyone except God, who sent a prophet to confront him. After the confrontation, David penned Psalm 51. In verse 5, David, the adulterer, liar and murderer, credits his propensity for sin with his state of birth. He insists, “I was shapen in iniquity […and] in sin did my mother conceive me.” In essence, he contends that he was born an adulterer. This is exactly what homosexuals contend when they claim homosexuality as a fact of their birth.
However, David takes this issue further than homosexual advocates are willing. He understands that the fact that a behavior stems from his state of birth does not sanction the behavior as right. He realizes he needs to undergo some type of change and consequently pleads with God: “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow (v. 7). Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me” (v. 10). In other words, despite what he believed about his birth, David agreed with God’s ideas of right and wrong. What the Church must understand is that homosexuals are sincere in their belief that they were born thus. In fact, any honest Christian would have to agree that people were born in sin, and since homosexuality is a sin, it is not a stretch to conclude that people can be born with a bent toward homosexuality. This does not mean that homosexuality is right. It simply means the birth was flawed, just like mine; just like yours. This is exactly the reason for the new birth: it cancels the sinful effects of subsequent procreation by transforming its recipient into a new being. II Corinthians 5:17 confirms this truth: “If anyone be in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away: behold, all things have become new.” The bottom line: homosexuality is a sinful consequence of birth, which can only be changed through the new birth.
What the Church Must Do: Grace and Truth
The traditional Church has leaned heavily on the letter of the law when dealing with homosexuality. We’ve used harsh attitudes and even harsher words to condemn homosexuals. We thought we were helping them, but we only drove them deeper into their closets of shame. And because God often delivers in the open, we have effectively kept many homosexuals from the deliverance they crave. On the other hand, the contemporary Church is so full of so-called grace (which is not grace at all) that it won’t even acknowledge homosexuality as a sin. Many contemporary churches won’t even broach the subject, and on the rare occasion they do, they circumvent accountability with platitudes, such as homosexuality is no greater than any other sin or the Church’s job is not to judge. We must marry grace and truth in order to answer the bold spirit of homosexuality. We must love homosexuals because we cannot effectively minister to people we do not love. Our hearts of contempt must become hearts of compassion. Because the wrath of man does not work the will of God, we must abandon our anger at homosexuals and replace it with genuine, unconditional, longsuffering love. On the other hand, true love always involves truth because we do not really love those from whom we withhold the truth. If we really believe what the Bible says about the penalty of sin, we cannot (in love) remain indifferent. It is both what you say and how you say it. I know from experience that it is detrimental to harshly and mercilessly speak the truth. Similarly, kind speech that involves no truth is just as detrimental. Therefore, we must commit to always speak the truth and always in love!
God bless you as you continue to endeavor to hear and follow His Voice.
