Articles
Coping with Life 46 – Homosexuality
Coping with Life 46 – Homosexuality
Mike Willis
I have purposely reserved this article as my last article on sexuality because of the radicalization and politicalization it stirs in our society. It is not my intention to stir one’s emotions; it is my responsibility as a preacher of the gospel to preach to people what the will of the Lord is and then leave it to the individual to decide for himself whether or not to serve the Lord.
There is no ambiguity in what the Lord revealed in the Bible about homosexuality. His attitude toward those guilty of homosexuality is seen in his destruction of the ungodly cities of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 19). Later, when the Law of Moses was given to direct the Israelites in their moral conduct and in the civil state of Israel, the Lord said: “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination” (Lev. 18:22). The civil punishment for homosexuality legislated by the LORD for the state of ancient Israel was this: “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” (Lev. 20:13).
The Christian lives under the law of Christ, which teaches that homosexuality is sinful but does not enforce that the state abide by the Old Testament legislation for the punishment of the sin. Homosexuality is included among a list of moral vices (1 Cor. 6:9-10; 1 Tim. 1:9-10). The most extensive statement about homosexuality in the New Testament is found Romans 1: “Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. 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” (1:22-27).
Notice that the acceptance of homosexual begins with a rejection of the revealed word of the LORD God to follow another god or religion. Paul prefaced his teaching with this statement: “CLAIMING TO BE WISE, THEY BECAME FOOLS.” Divine wisdom and human wisdom are in opposition to each other. They were in the first century AD when Paul wrote and they are in the twenty-first century in which we live.
The gospel offers to the homosexuality the same grace as it does for the fornicator, adulterer, pornographer, and sinfully divorced and remarried. After listing a string of vices that include homosexuality of which some Corinthians had been guilty, Paul said, “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” (1 Cor. 6:11). Just as the idolater, fornicator, thief, drunkard, and swindler can be forgiven, so also can the homosexual. But not one of them can be acceptable to the Lord Jesus while continuing his sinful practice. If men and women could cease the practice of homosexuality in the first century so can they in the twenty-first century.
I have seen parents torn asunder by their teenaged child announcing that he is homosexual, but I have also seen parents torn asunder to learn that their child is a drug addict, a thief, and a murderer! We cannot allow the anguish that comes to those who are guilty of sin to blind us to the clear teaching of God’s revealed words in Scripture. Read them for yourself and then obey them so that you teach them to your children.
