What Did Jesus Believe and Teach About Marriage and Sexuality?

[Note:  I began writing this document in 2013 and have sporadically revised it a number of times over the intervening years.  (Such is the “curse” of perfectionism.)  This is the first time I’ve made it public.  As with my previous essay on abortion, it is my prayer that the Lord will use this article and the accompanying resources ultimately to redeem a multitude of lost souls and to challenge, reprove, enlighten, edify, equip, and encourage the body of Christ.  To God be the glory. —Jeremy]

Abstract

The objective of this essay is to demonstrate as clearly as possible what Jesus of Nazareth personally believed and taught concerning the subject of sexuality, specifically with regard to homosexuality, marriage, biological sex/gender, and sexual ethics in general.  The argument may be summarized succinctly as follows:

1) All Scripture is God-breathed (see 2 Timothy 3:16-17, Matthew 4:4, Mark 7:6-13, Luke 24:18-27, John 17:17, 2 Peter 1:20-21, and 2 Peter 3:14-16), and Jesus is God (e.g., John 1, Colossians 1, Hebrews 1, and Revelation 1).  That means all the words in the Bible, from Genesis 1:1 through Revelation 22:21, and not just the “red letters,” ultimately emanated from the mind of Christ.  That also means Jesus is the Author of marriage, sex, the two binary genders of male and female, and, yes, even the Mosaic Law, which explicitly denounces homosexual conduct.

2) Furthermore, Jesus of Nazareth was a Torah-abiding Jew who could not have condoned, much less affirmed, homosexual behavior since God the Father explicitly condemned it, along with a host of other deviant sexual acts, in the Hebrew Scriptures (cf. Genesis 19:1-29, Leviticus 18:22 & 20:13, and Judges 19:22–25), which Jesus cherished, defended, taught, and personally obeyed without flaw.  It is significant to note that the Seventh Commandment alone prohibits any and all forms of sex outside the marital union of one man and one woman, and Jesus expanded its application to one’s thought life (cf. Exodus 20:14, Deuteronomy 5:18, and Matthew 5:27-28).  Jesus also expressly condemned fornication (i.e., non-marital sex of any kind), thereby covering the bases of pre- and extra-marital sexual conduct and lust, which would also include pornography (cf. Mark 7:20-22, Matthew 15:18-20, and Hebrews 13:4).

3) Moreover, Jesus could not have been any clearer in Mark 10 or Matthew 19 about the limited definition of marriage—a definition that implicitly excludes any and every sexual relationship or family configuration other than the divinely designed one-man, one-woman marital union and “nuclear family” that has been in place “from the beginning of creation” (Mark 10:6-9).  In that same passage, Jesus also emphatically confirmed His belief that humankind is a sexually dimorphic race of beings, meaning that humans exist in only two distinct forms or categories:  male and female.  Combined with the facts established in points 1 and 2 above, Christ’s indisputable positive affirmation of the monogamous, lifelong union of a man and a woman as God’s exclusive blueprint for marriage, family, and sexual intimacy absolutely precludes the possibility that Jesus was either supportive of or morally neutral toward homosexuality or, for that matter, any other form of sexual conduct or expression that transpires outside the protective perimeters of one-man, one-woman marriage. 

Originally published in 2018
Last revised on 6-16-23

 

Prologue

This essay is not intended to be a scholarly dissertation or theological treatise, nor will it explore in a substantial or extensive way the political, scientific, medical, or natural law arguments against homosexuality or same-sex marriage (SSM).  (I have, however, included at the end of this article links to a variety of important resources that will help you understand in much greater detail both the secular and biblical cases for natural, conjugal marriage, in addition to classical Christian teaching on homosexuality and sexual ethics.)  Instead, this article is one man’s humble attempt to help Christians, as well as non-Christians who are interested in the subject, narrow down the discussion to what Jesus Christ personally believed and taught regarding homosexuality, marriage, biological sex/gender, and the broader topic of sexual ethics.  Seeing as how Jesus of Nazareth is the central figure of Christianity and has been respected down through the ages as the greatest moral teacher in recorded human history, people from all walks of life should, at the very least, be willing to consider what He has to say on these weighty issues.  If we are to achieve this, though, it is absolutely necessary to appeal to the Bible and especially to the primary historical sources on the life, ministry, and teachings of the historical Person named Jesus of Nazareth—specifically, the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

“Love . . . does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth” (1 Corinthians 13:6, emphasis mine).

 

Love of God demands truthfulness, and so does love of neighbor.  Of course, this fact is usually appreciated when a person’s physical health is at risk, but it is often taken for granted, if not resented, when the discussion swings to moral and spiritual concerns.  However, since the latter areas of discussion have eternal ramifications, they constitute the most important topics people can discuss.  Therefore, my goal with this piece—as always on a blog titled “Upholding Truth”—is to communicate the truth to you carefully, thoughtfully, and clearly.  [Note:  Since political correctness is void of both love and truth, you will be thoroughly disappointed if you expect to find even a vestige of that here.]     

Remember, it is better to be offended by an honest friend who tells you the truth than to be given destructive counsel or false assurance from the complaisant “ear tickler” who tells you only what you want to hear.

“Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but deceitful are the kisses of an enemy” (Proverbs 27:6).

“Celebrating a behavior that leads to disease and death [physically and spiritually] is closer to hate than love.” —Dr. Frank Turek

 

As a final disclaimer, since the modern-day concepts of “sexual orientation” and “sexual identity” are not found anywhere in the Bible, whenever I use the term homosexuality throughout this essay, understand up front that I am employing the historical biblical definition of that word to refer to male-with-male and female-with-female sexual behavior.  Furthermore, when I use the term homosexual, I am employing the biblical understanding of that term, which simply means “one who participates in homoerotic or sexual behavior with a person or persons of the same sex.”  Moreover, as far as possible, I have tried to be careful about maintaining the vital distinction between homosexual conduct and same-sex attraction (SSA).  Additionally, due to the rapid rise of transgenderism and the popular notion of self-determined “gender identity” in post-2015 America, I must now clarify that whenever I use the term man in this essay, I am referring exclusively to a physical, biological male.  Likewise, whenever I use the term woman, I am referring exclusively to a physical, biological female.  By the time you read this document, however, even those terms may no longer have any meaning.  May God have mercy on us all.

 

What Did Jesus Believe and Teach About Homosexuality, Marriage, Biological Sex/Gender, and Sexual Ethics?

 

The Claim:  “Jesus never said anything about homosexuality!”

The Response:  Actually, Jesus said more about this topic than you may like to believe.  If you consider yourself to be an open-minded, reasonable person who sincerely cares what Christ has to say about homosexuality, marriage, biological sex/gender, and sexual morality in general, then I invite you to read, in its entirety, the following four-point answer to this popular, but sorely mistaken, objection.

[Note:  All Scripture quotations and linked references are from the updated 1995 edition of the New American Standard Bible (NASB).  While there are many good Bible translations, the NASB has long been respected and trusted as probably the most literal, word-for-word English translation of the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek biblical languages, thus making it my preferred version of Scripture.  Plus, on top of being trustworthy, it’s easy to read as well.  Bonus points!]

 

1) False Assumptions

Some people argue that since there is no recorded evidence that Jesus explicitly condemned homosexuality by name (i.e., “Homosexuality is sin!”) during His earthly life and ministry, He therefore either must have approved of homosexuality or certain forms of it, at least, or was indifferent toward its practice.  However, to assume that Jesus must either condone or hold a morally neutral position toward anything He does not expressly address in the Bible is to commit a logical fallacy known as arguing from silence.

On this line of reasoning, the rational inference is that any human behavior that Jesus did not explicitly condemn in the Bible must be morally permissible.  But consider the absurd implications of such thinking.  There are myriad human actions that Jesus does not specifically address in the New Testament that most people would readily agree are evil:  rape, pedophilia, molestation, prostitution, human trafficking, pornography, spousal abuse, child abuse, abortion, segregation, slavery, terrorism, identity theft, lynchings, gay bashing, etc.  If we follow this logic, then Jesus was “just all right” with all of these things and more!  Clearly, this fallacious reasoning proves far too much.

What’s more, this view falsely assumes that the only words of the Bible that can be attributed to Christ are the words that proceed directly from Jesus’ mouth.  In many Bibles, these words are set apart in red letters.  Unfortunately, this special formatting, though unintentional, gives readers the misguided impression that Jesus’ direct quotations carry greater authority than the rest of Scripture.  In truth, however, the “black letters” of the Bible also faithfully represent Christ’s views.  (To learn why this is the case, see point #3 below.)       

Rule of Thumb:  Resist the urge to make arguments from silence when reading Scripture.  As I have just shown, this is a careless and ultimately dangerous way of interpreting the Bible (or any type of communication, for that matter).  Hence, when the Bible does not directly speak to an issue (homosexuality, as you will soon see, is certainly not one of those issues), we should never speculate or assume one thing or the other.  Put another way, it is always safer to base our conclusions on what the Bible clearly does say rather than on conjecture about what it does not say.

Having said all that, it is important here to note what Jesus of Nazareth does explicitly condemn in Scripture:  fornication (i.e., all forms of pre-marital sex), adultery (i.e., all forms of extra-marital sex), and sensuality (i.e., all licentiousness and lack of moral restraint in attitudes and behaviors), any and all of which would include sexual relations with or lust toward people of the same gender, since Jesus, a Law-abiding Jew, clearly understood marriage exclusively to mean the union of a male and a female (cf. Mark 10:2-9 & Matthew 19:3-6, and see point #4 below).  Hence, here we have biblical proof of tacit condemnation of homosexuality from the very lips of Christ—and in “red letters,” no less:   

“‘That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man.  For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness.  All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man’” (Mark 7:20-23, emphasis mine).

 

2) Jesus:  Author, Teacher, and Keeper of the Law

Jesus of Nazareth was an observant Jew who revered, taught, and—in His humanity—personally submitted to the divine authority of the Jewish Tanakh (i.e., the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible), which necessarily means that Christ must have endorsed the entire Mosaic Law (cf. Matthew 5:17) for the two primary purposes for which it was intended:  a) to govern God’s covenant people living under the theocratic system of ancient Israel and (b) to pave the way for the Messiah’s (i.e., Jesus’) complete fulfillment of the entire Old Covenant so that He could inaugurate a New and superior Covenant whereby all who forsake their sins and trust exclusively in Christ and His perfect merits can be forgiven of their sins and reconciled to God forever.  

      [Note:  For more evidence of Jesus’ high view of the Old Testament, click here.]

“Do not think that I came to abolish the Law [i.e., Genesis through Deuteronomy] or the Prophets [i.e., the rest of the Old Testament]; I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill.  For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.  Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:17-19, emphasis mine).

 

Now would be a good time to attempt to clear up the confusion surrounding Old Testament laws and their applicability and relevance outside ancient Israelite society.  Essentially, the 613 or so ordinances that God decreed for national Israel through His servant Moses in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy can be divided retrospectively into three categories:  ceremonial laws, civil laws, and moral laws.

[Note:  As I cannot possibly give this topic the treatment it deserves in this essay, I highly recommend studying chapter 9 (“The Law(s): Covenant Stipulations for Israel”) of Fee and Stuart’s How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth.  Also check out Paul Copan’s Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God and the DVD series The Bible: Fast Forward by Stand to Reason.  Finally, I cannot overstate the importance of learning how to read and study the Bible responsibly.  Scripture (the Old Testament, especially) simply cannot be rightly interpreted or applied apart from understanding the big picture of the Christian worldview—that is, the overarching Story of ultimate reality and God’s redemptive work in human history.  In addition to the aforementioned resources, my article “Bible Study Tips” contains several hermeneutical/interpretive pointers I think you will find helpful.]

Ceremonial laws consist of the “religious” regulations regarding animal sacrifices and point to humanity’s need for atonement and salvation, as well as to the need for God’s covenant “set apart” people to remain holy and separate from all that is unclean and unholy in the eyes of a holy and absolutely perfect God.  Certain ceremonial laws seem bizarre to modern readers—for example, the elaborate Levitical purification rituals required of priests before sacrificial offerings could be made to God, as well as the “kosher” dietary restrictions that prohibited the Jews from eating certain animals God classified as “unclean,” such as pork and shellfish.  Author and teacher Paul Copan explains:

“Unclean animals symbolized what Israel was to avoid—mixing in with the unclean beliefs and practices of the surrounding nations.  Israel was to be like the clean animals—distinct, in their own category, and not having mixed features.  After all, the Israelites were God’s set-apart [i.e., “holy”] people who were to reject the religion and practices of surrounding nations.  As the people of [Yahweh], the Israelites were reminded that holiness requires persons to conform to their [unique] class as [Yahweh’s] set-apart people.  So, what the Israelites did in their everyday lives—even down to their eating habits—was to signal that they were God’s chosen people who were to live lives distinct from the surrounding nations.  Every meal was to remind them of their redemption. . . . However one navigates through some of these Old Testament purity laws, the undergirding rationale behind these laws is Israel’s call to live holy lives in everything.  That’s why the theme of holiness is explicitly mentioned in all the passages in which the prohibited food lists are given (Exod. 22:30–31; Lev. 11:44–45; 20:25–26; Deut. 14:4–21).” —Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster? (emphasis mine)

“Knowing the intention of such laws—to keep the Israelites from being led into the Canaanite religion that stood so utterly over against God and His character—helps you see that they are not arbitrary, but crucial and graciously beneficial.” —Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, p. 179

“‘Are you so lacking in understanding also?  Do you not understand that whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him, because it does not go into his heart but into his stomach, and is eliminated?’  (Thus, He [Jesus] declared all foods clean.)  ‘That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man.  For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness.  All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man'” (Mark 7:17-23, emphasis mine).

 

Civil laws consist of the case laws dealing with disputes among citizens (e.g., “If this situation arises, then this is how you should handle it”) and the apparently draconian criminal laws that were enforced by the Jewish national government in order to maintain a civil society—for example, the requirements for citizens to use just scales in commerce, for priests to judge cases brought before them with complete integrity and impartiality, and for the nation to execute murderers, kidnappers, false prophets, practicing homosexuals, et al.

“When the LORD [YHWH], your God, cuts off before you the nations [of Canaan] which you [Israel] are going in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, beware that you are not ensnared to follow them, after they are destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire after their gods, saying, ‘How do these nations serve their gods, that I also may do likewise?’  You shall not behave thus toward the LORD, your God, for every abominable act which the LORD hates they have done for their gods; for they even burn their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods” (Deuteronomy 12:29-31, emphasis mine).

 

Here’s some news I think we can all agree is good:

The ceremonial and civil laws applied exclusively to citizens of Israel living under the Old Covenant theocracy and to no one else.  They were not universal or permanent, but localized and temporary.    

          Paul Copan sheds some more light on this point:

“We know that many products on the market have a built-in, planned obsolescence.  They’re designed for the short-term; they’re not intended to be long-lasting and permanent.  The same goes for the law of Moses:  It was never intended to be enduring.  It looked forward to a New Covenant (Jer. 31; Ezek. 36).  It’s not that the Mosaic Law was bad and therefore needed to be replaced.  The law was good (Rom. 7:12), but it was a temporary measure that was less than ideal; it was in need of replacement and fulfillment. . . . God’s ultimate ideals regarding human equality and dignity, as well as the creational standard of marriage, made their appearance at the very beginning (Gen. 1–2).  The ancient Near East displays a deviation from these ideals in fallen social structures and human hard-heartedness.  Incremental steps are given to Old Testament Israel that tolerate certain moral deficiencies but encourage Israel to strive higher. . . . [Therefore], certain Old Testament laws and punishments were inferior to creational ideals (Gen. 1–2), [and] the Mosaic Law is not permanent, universal, and the standard for all nations.  So, we should evaluate the severity of [seemingly] harsh laws and punishments [i.e., in the Mosaic civil and ceremonial laws] in their ancient Near Eastern context instead of in light of Western culture.” —Is God a Moral Monster? (emphasis mine)

 

The next point is critical.

Moral law, the essence of which is codified and summarized in the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17) and the two Great Commandments (see Leviticus 19:18, Deuteronomy 6:5, and Matthew 22:36-40), is a reflection of God’s holy character and is, consequently, as everlasting and immutable as God Himself.  The reason for this is that morality is grounded in the very nature and character of God, who is the transcendent, changeless standard of moral perfection by which all human behaviors are to be measured and by which all moral judgments are to be rendered.  Put another way, God Himself is the moral law.

Therefore, even though the harsh penalties of Israel’s civil laws delineated in Leviticus (e.g., the execution by stoning of adulterers and practicing homosexuals), for example, do not apply outside the jurisprudence of national Israel as it existed under the Old Covenant, nevertheless, the immorality of the social behaviors that were prohibited—that is, the inherent sinfulness of the acts themselves (i.e., adultery and homosexuality, in this example)—is an unalterable feature of objective reality.  So, regardless of what civil laws a particular nation’s government may have on the books, adultery and homosexuality always have been and always will be immoral behaviors in all societies because they violate the higher law of God’s moral will.  Another way of saying this is that good and evil can never trade places (cf. Isaiah 5:20).  Ergo, whether it’s 1450 B.C. or A.D. 2018, a sinful act can never be anything other than sinful.        

Thus, God’s moral law (also called the “law of nature” or simply “natural law”) applies to all people in all places at all times.

Scripture is consistent and clear on this point.  In the litany of prohibitions against immoral sexual practices recorded in Leviticus 18:1-30, for example, God did not forbid His chosen people (i.e., Israel) from engaging in these behaviors in a capricious fashion, as if it would have been morally acceptable for non-Jews (i.e., Gentiles) to have done any of these things.  On the contrary, the Lord reminded the Israelites that the pagan Gentiles who inhabited the Promised Land (i.e., Canaan) before them had “defiled” both themselves and the land itself by performing these same “abominations”—homosexual practice included (cf. Leviticus 18:24-27).  Without question, God does not rule by a moral double standard.  When He calls a behavior an “abomination,” it is because that particular action is inherently and irrevocably evil and detestable, regardless of who (e.g., Israelites, Canaanites, Egyptians, Americans) is practicing that behavior or where, when, or why that behavior is being practiced.      

The universality of the moral law (which, again, is not to be confused with ancient Israel’s civil or ceremonial laws) is also why we see certain of God’s moral directives, including His universal condemnation of homosexuality and all other forms of sexual immorality, repeated or reaffirmed in the New Testament (see, for example, Romans 1:18-32, 1 Corinthians 6:9-20, 1 Corinthians 7:1-9, 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8, and 1 Timothy 1:8-11).

Let’s explore this point a little further.  To be clear, the behaviors that were prohibited in the Ten Commandments, for instance, were morally wrong before they were codified in two stone tablets on Mount Sinai.  Murder, adultery, theft, bearing false witness, coveting, and so forth are not wrong in virtue of the fact that they appear in the Mosaic Law, as if they had been morally innocuous before the events of Exodus transpired.  No, the reason they are reflected in the Mosaic Law is because these behaviors had always been immoral in and of themselves.   

Moreover, murder, for example, is not morally wrong simply because all (to my knowledge) governments today outlaw that behavior.  Rather, the reason why any government prohibits murder is because that behavior is intrinsically and universally immoral.  In other words, people and governments do not create or define morality.  On the contrary, people and laws—that is, when laws are just—merely recognize and uphold the absolute moral truths that God has “written” on the heart or conscience of every human being (see Romans 2:12-16) and which transcend and antedate all governments and civilizations.  This is why God’s moral law needs to be understood separately from the Mosaic Covenant or Mosaic Law. 

Throughout His life on earth, Jesus of Nazareth accomplished what no one before or after Him could do:  He personally, perfectly, and perpetually kept the moral, civil, and ceremonial laws of God (e.g., John 15:10) and consistently demonstrated the highest possible reverence for His Father’s ethical standards, which, by necessity, had to include the ones pertaining to human sexuality.  As a matter of fact, Jesus Christ taught the strictest and most difficult sexual ethic of any moral teacher or philosopher in world history!  Indeed, the fact that sex—both physically and mentally, mind you—is to be restricted to the conjugal union of one man and one woman and that this monogamous relationship is to last a lifetime is one of Christianity’s most distinguishing doctrinal singularities.  Remember, it was Jesus who equated lust (i.e., sexual longing for or sexual thoughts about a person who is not your spouse) with adultery of the heart and who revealed that God’s standards of sexual purity and marital fidelity are actually exceedingly higher than the religious authorities and rabbinical scholars of Jesus’ day had erroneously believed and taught (cf. Matthew 5:27-28 and Matthew 5:32).  

Furthermore, since God roundly condemns homosexual behavior in the Torah (i.e., the first five books of the Bible)—even vehemently denouncing the act, in point of fact, as an “abomination” (Leviticus 18:22) and as “detestable” (Leviticus 20:13)—then Jesus, the Torah-abiding Jewish Messiah who could never go against the will of His Father and remain sinless, must surely agree that homosexual behavior is, like it or not, abominable and detestable (e.g., John 4:34, 5:19, 8:28, 8:42, 8:49, 10:30, 14:10, 14:31, and 15:10).

Finally, it is imperative to understand that Jesus Himself is God, which means that Christ—the second Person of the holy Trinity—was as much the Author of the Mosaic Law as God the Father.  (See item #3 below for more on this crucial point.)

Please bear in mind that the entire Mosaic Law serves as a sobering reminder that God is holy, that human beings are sinful rebels who have broken all of God’s laws countless times, and that God’s holy standards are far too high for any mere human to keep.  This is why, when His disciples asked, “Who can be saved?” Jesus replied, “With people, this is impossible; but with God, all things are possible” (cf. Matthew 19:16-26).

Only Christ, the sinless God-Man, could perfectly meet God’s just demands, flawlessly obey all of His laws, and ultimately appease the Father’s righteous wrath toward sin through His voluntary, sacrificial, substitutionary, vicarious, atoning death on the Cross in our stead.  Indeed, as noted earlier, Jesus proclaimed that He came not to abolish the Old Covenant but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17)—and that is precisely what He did while living on this earth as God Incarnate.  But Jesus achieved much, much more than that.

Astonishingly, the sovereign Judge of the universe graciously made the decision not only to forgive sinners but also to credit Christ’s perfect righteousness and His fulfillment of the entire moral and Mosaic Law to the morally and spiritually bankrupt “bank account” of every person who trusts in Jesus and His redemptive merits alone for salvation (cf. 2 Cor. 5:21).  (In fact, without Christ’s imputed righteousness, no one can enter God’s heavenly kingdom.) 

Notwithstanding, the amazing grace of God in Christ does not nullify His moral law this side of eternity; neither does it give His redeemed people a license to sin (see Romans 3:31, 6:1-3, and 6:14-16, as well as Jude 4).  Quite the opposite, Christians are commanded not to abuse the grace and mercy we’ve been shown but to pursue a self-denying life of holiness by the power of the Holy Spirit who indwells us, out of grateful allegiance to and abiding love for the Lord Jesus Christ—the Redeemer, Master, and Lover of our souls (e.g., 2 Corinthians 7:1, Ephesians 1:3-4, Titus 2:11-14, Hebrews 12:9-11, and 1 Peter 1:14-16).   

“Rightly understood, [Old Testament] Law reveals the failure of human beings to be truly godly and leads them to cry out to God for grace.  No wonder the ‘poor in spirit’ are blessed.  Only they realize their spiritual bankruptcy.  Those who rely on a righteousness measured by the do’s and don’ts of law never realize that they must appeal to God to be forgiven and transformed within.” —Lawrence O. Richards, The Bible Reader’s Companion, p. 607

“Therefore, the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith.  But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.  For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:24-26, emphasis mine).

 

3) Jesus:  The Word Who Is God

God is the Author of all Scripture (2 Timothy 3:16-17).  Jesus is God (e.g., John 1, Colossians 1, Hebrews 1, Revelation 1, Mark 14:61-62, John 10:30, and John 14:7-11).  Therefore, it logically follows that Jesus is the Author of every word contained in the Bible, not just the “red letters.”

It stands to reason, then, that if a moral prohibition against homosexual behavior can be found anywhere in the Bible, then we can rightly attribute that prohibition to Jesus Himself.  And, as it turns out, categorical divine injunctions against homosexual activity appear in both the Old Testament (e.g., Genesis 19:1-29, Leviticus 18:22 & 20:13, and Judges 19:22–25) and the New Testament (e.g., Romans 1:18-29, 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, and 1 Timothy 1:8-11).  Therefore, we can rest assured that Jesus of Nazareth did personally oppose and prohibit homosexuality because He, like His Father, opposed and prohibited every kind of sexual activity that transpires outside of the marriage of one man and one woman.

“All Scripture is inspired by God [literally “God-breathed”] and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, [and] for training in righteousness so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17, emphasis mine). 

“Again the high priest was questioning Him, and saying to Him, “Are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?”  And Jesus said, ‘I am, and you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power and coming with the clouds of heaven.’  Tearing his clothes, the high priest said, ‘What further need do we have of witnesses?  You have heard the blasphemy [i.e., that Jesus was equating Himself with God the Father].  How does it seem to you?’  And they all condemned Him to be deserving of death” (Mark 14:61-64, emphasis mine).

“Seeing their faith, [Jesus] said, ‘Friend, your sins are forgiven you.’  The scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, ‘Who is this man who speaks blasphemies?  Who can forgive sins, but God alone?‘  But Jesus, aware of their reasonings, answered and said to them, ‘Why are you reasoning in your hearts?  Which is easier, to say, “Your sins have been forgiven you,” or to say, “Get up and walk”?  But, so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins,’—He said to the paralytic—’I say to you, get up, and pick up your stretcher and go home.’  Immediately, he got up before them and picked up what he had been lying on and went home glorifying God.  They were all struck with astonishment and began glorifying God, and they were filled with fear, saying, ‘We have seen remarkable things today’” (Luke 5:20-26, emphasis mine). 

“For this reason, therefore, the Jews were seeking all the more to kill [Jesus], because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God” (John 5:18, emphasis mine). 

“So the Jews said to Him, ‘You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?’  Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.’  Therefore, they picked up stones to throw at Him [i.e., because they knew He was equating Himself with God the Father], but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple” (John 8:57-59, emphasis mine).

“[Jesus said,] ‘I and the Father are one.’  The Jews picked up stones again to stone Him.  Jesus answered them, ‘I showed you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you stoning Me?’  The Jews answered Him, ‘For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God‘” (John 10:30-33, emphasis mine). 

“Then He said to Thomas, ‘Reach here with your finger and see My hands, and reach here your hand and put it into My side, and do not be unbelieving, but believing.’  Thomas answered and said to Him, ‘My Lord and my God!’  Jesus said to him, ‘Because you have seen Me, have you believed?  Blessed are they who did not see and yet believed'” (John 20:27-29, emphasis mine). 

“[Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.  [Note:  The term “firstborn” does not mean Jesus was the first created being, as some cults claim (just keep reading this same passage to learn why); rather, this word means “preeminent; supreme; existing before; first in rank, order, and importance.”]  For by [Jesus Christ], all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him.  He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.  He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead [i.e., the first person to rise from the dead, never to die again], so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything.  For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness [of deity] to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven” (Colossians 1:15–20, emphasis mine). 

“For in [Christ], all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form” (Colossians 2:9).

“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds” (Titus 2:10-14, emphasis mine).

“God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world.  And [Jesus] is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.  When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much better than the angels, as He has inherited a more excellent name than they” (Hebrews 1:1-4, emphasis mine). 

“To those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ, grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence” (2 Peter 1:1-3, emphasis mine).  

“Behold, [the Lord Jesus Christ] is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him.  So it is to be.  Amen.  ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, ‘who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty‘” (Revelation 1:7–8, emphasis mine).

 

4) Jesus:  Designer and Defender of Marriage and the Two Sexes

We’ve spent some time looking at what Jesus is against.  Now, let’s look at what Jesus is for!

Jesus did explicitly endorse the natural marital union of one man and one woman by appealing to the perfect, pre-Fall creation ideals chronicled in the first two chapters of Genesis, in which God established not only the foundational social institutions of marriage and family but also the distinct functions and unique body-soul complementarity of the two “made-for-each-other” human counterparts:  male and female (cf. Mark 10:2-9 and Matthew 19:3-6).

“Some Pharisees came up to Jesus, testing Him, and began to question Him whether it was lawful for a man to divorce a wife.  And He answered and said to them, ‘What did Moses command you?’  They said, ‘Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.’  But Jesus said to them, ‘Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment.  But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female.  For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother, and the two shall become one flesh; so they are no longer two, but one flesh.  What, therefore, God has joined together, let no man separate” (Mark 10:2-9, emphasis mine).

[Note:  It is important to point out here that Jesus, along with all the Old and New Testament writers, ever recognized only two biological sexes or genders:  male and female—no more, no less.  Also, there isn’t a scintilla of biblical evidence suggesting that any persons, even after humanity’s fall into sin, were created with the “wrong” biological gender or that one’s sex/gender should, or even can, be changed or “reassigned.”  In fact, a compelling scriptural case can be made to demonstrate that God strongly disapproves of and forbids any attempt to alter one’s gender or sex by surgery or medicine (e.g., transsexualism) or appearance/dress (i.e., transvestism; cf. Deuteronomy 22:5).  Such behaviors obscure or blur the creation order distinctions between male and female (cf. Genesis 1:27)—distinctions that should always be maintained and respected in the world God made.

Nonetheless, congenital anomalies such as hermaphroditism (a.k.a. “intersexuality”) and genuine mental disorders such as gender dysphoria (a.k.a. “gender identity disorder”) and transgenderism are tragic realities of living in a fallen creation.  To learn how these rare, but serious, conditions might be wisely and ethically handled from a thoughtful and compassionate Christian perspective, see http://bit.ly/1dnf9QC, http://bit.ly/1lHwZEI, http://bit.ly/1KQvoIU, and https://bit.ly/31bD1qD.] 

Echoing Moses, Jesus unequivocally affirmed that, from the very inception of the human race, God supernaturally created male and female in His own likeness, specifically designed them for each other, and personally joined the two human complements together into a monogamous, lifelong, committed union called a marriage, which is a holy covenant between the couple and God that is “sealed,” as it were, through the sacred, life-producing act of marital sex, which binds the two anatomically-suited genders to each other as “one flesh” (physically, sexually, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually)—that is, a new, permanent, and indivisible human unit that collectively represents the nature, character, and glory of God on earth in a way that no other created thing, pairing, or grouping can (cf. Genesis 1:26-28 and 2:18-25).

Through their blessed union, the male-female pair is capable of begetting children, at which point the marriage unit becomes a family:  the fundamental social structure and building block of civilization that, both naturally and as a general rule, unites a mother and father with the children their marriage produces and which stabilizes and perpetuates society in accordance with God’s ingenious design and glorious plan for humanity (cf. Genesis 1:28 and 9:1 as well as Malachi 2:13-16).    

“In Genesis 1, you see pairs of different but complementary things made to work together:  heaven and earth, sea and land, even God and humanity.  It is part of the brilliance of God’s creation that diverse, unlike things are made to unite and create dynamic wholes which generate more and more life and beauty through their relationships.  As N.T. Wright points out, the creation and uniting of male and female at the end of Genesis 2 is the climax of all this.

“That means that male and female have unique, non-interchangeable glories—they each see and do things that the other cannot.  Sex was created by God to be a way to mingle these strengths and glories within a life-long covenant of marriage.  Marriage is the most intense (though not the only) place where this [union] of male and female takes place in human life.  Male and female reshape [and] learn from [each other] and work together.” —Timothy Keller

 

Notice what God says in Genesis 2 about the first man:  “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him” (Genesis 2:18).  Two things strike me about that statement.

First, if one requires a “helper,” that implies that an objective or goal needs to be met.  But what exactly did Adam need help doing?  The answer is what theologians call the “Creation Mandate.”  God spells it out in Genesis 1:  “God blessed them [i.e., the first male and female], and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth'” (Genesis 1:28).

Second, evidently, just any old assistant wouldn’t have sufficed.  On the contrary, to carry out His vital mission of procreation and earthly stewardship, the helper God had in mind needed to be uniquely “suitable” for the man.

Now, obviously, as the sovereign, omnipotent, omniscient Creator of the universe, God could have met this requirement any which way He pleased.  Heck, He could have filled, populated, and subdued the earth Himself!  But He didn’t, because God had a better plan.

God could have chosen a helper for Adam from among the wide variety of animals He had already created.  But He didn’t, because God had a better plan.

Likewise, in theory, I suppose God could have paired Adam with an angel or created another being, maybe even another man, and somehow made it possible for Adam and the other creature to procreate, nurture children optimally, complete the image of God in each other, and represent Christ’s sacrificial love for His Church through their same-sex union.  Hypothetically speaking, God could have done things very differently “in the beginning.”  However, the fact remains, He didn’t, because God had a better plan, and this is how it went down:

“The man gave names to all the cattle and to the birds of the sky and to every beast of the field, but for Adam, there was not found a helper suitable for him.  So, the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept.  Then, He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place.  The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man and brought her to the man.  The man said, ‘This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.  She shall be called Woman because she was taken out of Man.’  For this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.  And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed” (Genesis 2:20-25).

 

Thus, God intentionally custom-created woman/female to be the lifelong suitable helper and counterpart of man/male.  And in His perfect wisdom and creative genius, God designed the two sexes in such a way that reproduction/procreation is the only biological function that neither male nor female can perform without the aid of the other.  Without woman, then, man could never have accomplished God’s purposes for humanity in this world.  And without man, woman could never have accomplished God’s purposes for humanity in this world.  The bottom line:  Man needs woman, and woman needs man (sorry, feminists).  That was God’s good plan for marriage, sex, and family; and it was—and forever will be—completely perfect.                

“At creation, human sexual identity not only is without sin—it is also created for the purpose of achieving something good.  When God made Adam and Eve male and female, He had in view the achievement of some very good thing that can be achieved no other way—not even in the relationship between human beings and God Himself.  By creating male and female human beings in two distinctly separate acts, God focused attention on some good thing that can be achieved only because human life is sexually differentiated.’  The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.  I will make a helper suitable for him”‘ (Gen. 2:18).  In this statement, God revealed that human sexuality not only is a good thing in itself—it is also for something good [i.e., it has a purpose/function/goal/end].  It realizes some good thing that does not exist apart from a relationship that consists of unifying the sort of corresponding differences involved in [male-and-female] human sexual identity.” —Daniel Heimbach, Biblical Foundations for Manhood & Womanhood, pp. 283–284

 

Understand, too, that the tremendous Christological importance of the male-female marital relationship must not be downplayed or jettisoned, lest the sanctity, moral value, and divine meaning of marriage be eviscerated.  As the Apostle Paul explains in Ephesians 5:22-33, the union of a man and a woman provides a mysteriously powerful testimony to the world regarding the unconditional, selfless, sacrificial, protective love and care that Christ (represented in marriage by the man/husband) forever demonstrates toward His Bride, the Church (represented in marriage by the woman/wife), who in turn responds with the deepest sense of gratitude for His enduring love and care by humbly yielding to His authority and by honoring and remaining faithful to Him alone.  No other pairing, grouping, arrangement, or equation other than 1 man + 1 woman is capable of illustrating this exquisite, glorious picture of the one-of-a-kind relationship that exists between God and His redeemed people (cf. Revelation 19:7-9).    

[Note:  Procreation is certainly one of God’s purposes for marriage, but it is not the only one.  A husband (man) and wife (woman) can still become “one flesh,” represent Christ’s love for the Church, and honor God with their union in other significant ways even if they “cannot” bear children.  (The reason I put scare quotes around the word cannot is this:  God is the Author of life and the Miracle Maker, and He has been known to bless even a 90-year-old barren woman and a 100-year-old man with children.  So, to all the infertile married couples out there, trust God and never lose hope in Him to do what is impossible from man’s perspective!)  However, one important point we must not miss here is this:   Same-sex or homosexual relationships, by nature or by design, can never become “one flesh” or achieve any of those same God-glorifying ends; it is literally not possible.]

Significantly, as I established previously, Jesus is God the Son, which means He was every bit as involved as God the Father and God the Spirit in creating the world, the two sexes, the marriage institution, and sexual reproduction (cf. Genesis 1:26-27, John 1:1-3, Colossians 1:15-16, Hebrews 1:10, and Revelation 4:11).  Hence, the same Jesus whom some modern thinkers unconscionably invoke in an effort to support homosexuality and marriage “redefinition” (read:  a logical, theological, ontological, and anthropological impossibility) is the very Person who specially created the first woman (Eve) out of the first man (Adam) to be the man’s “suitable helper” and ideal counterpart (Genesis 2:18, 23) and who personally invented marriage and the sexual process!  How arrogant, foolish, and truly blasphemous, then, to think that we fallen creatures have the authority or ability to “reinvent” or “redefine” an institution, behaviors, relationships, or categories that Almighty God invented and defined.

To summarize, Christ’s indisputable positive affirmation of the monogamous, lifelong union of a man and a woman as God’s exclusive blueprint for marriage, family, and sexual intimacy absolutely precludes the possibility that Jesus was either supportive of or morally neutral toward homosexuality and, for that matter, any other form of sexual conduct or expression that transpires outside the protective perimeters of one-man, one-woman marriage. 

From beginning to end, the Bible is abundantly clear that the Christian has only two choices when it comes to sex:

(1) Remain sexually celibate and chaste in body and mind for life or until marriage (at which point the conditions of item 2 below apply), to the glory of God

or

(2) Marry and remain sexually faithful in body and mind for life to one adult of the opposite sex who is not a close relative and who is also a Christian, to the glory of God (cf. 1 Corinthians 7:1-9).

There are no other options with regard to God’s standards for sexuality and marriage.  The Bible really is that black and white on this subject.  (For more on this point, I recommend “Try Before You Buy?” by Greg Koukl and the article “Is It Okay for a Christian to Marry a Non-Christian?” by Rich Deem.)

[Note:  Please understand that the Bible mandates sexual celibacy or abstinence for everyone outside of man-woman marriage, not just for those who experience same-sex attraction.  Thus, the single person who never marries is to live a life of chastity in thought, word, and deed.  Likewise, the single person who chooses to marry is to live a life of chastity in thought, word, and deed prior to marriage as well as a life of monogamous faithfulness and commitment to his or her spouse after getting married.  As is true of all His moral standards, God’s sexual requirements apply to all people, irrespective of attractions, desires, feelings, so-called “orientations,” etc.

Additionally, a Christian who is already married to a non-Christian is scripturally obligated to remain married to the unbelieving spouse unless the non-Christian is sexually unfaithful (Matthew 5:32; 19:7-9) or abandons the Christian spouse and rejects efforts to reconcile with him or her (see 1 Corinthians 7 for more).  Moreover, if the person one desires to marry was previously divorced, he or she must be biblically free to remarry.  For more on this, see Matthew 5:32 and 19:9 and read Matt Slick’s helpful article here.  Remember, though, that the Lord Jesus Christ views divorce as forgivable as any other sin.

One final aside:  As far as God is concerned, a person’s ethnicity, nationality, and skin color/shade are irrelevant to marriage; however, biological sex and spiritual condition are imperative!]

CONCLUSION:  Yes, Jesus Christ condemned homosexuality as well as all other kinds of sexual activity—physical and mental—that transpire outside the protective boundaries of one-man, one-woman marriage. 

“Sex is like fire.  If you put fire in a fireplace, where it belongs, it will warm you.  But if you let fire spread anywhere else in your home, it will burn down your house and everything in it.  The culture says that sex is just a physical activity.  If that’s true, then why is it worse if someone rapes you instead of just physically assaulting you?  The reason is because sex is not just physical; it’s also emotional and spiritual.  Within its appropriate context or ‘fireplace’—that is, marriage between one man and one woman—sex is beautiful and wonderful.  But if you allow it outside of its proper boundaries, sex will burn you.” —Dr. Frank Turek

“Trust and obey God’s boundaries.  The truth of the matter is, God calls us to live pure lives because He wants us to enjoy all the blessings He has for us.  He puts boundaries on sex—commanding that it be between a man and a woman who are married to each other—because He cares about what happens to us. . . . He does not do so to be cruel or unfair.  He does it because He loves us and wants us to experience life at its very fullest.  He gives us His commands for our benefit—to prevent us from destroying ourselves.” —Dr. Charles Stanley, Turning the Tide: Real Hope, Real Change, pp. 129–130

 

Summary

1) All Scripture is God-breathed (see 2 Timothy 3:16-17, Matthew 4:4, Mark 7:6-13, Luke 24:18-27, John 17:17, 2 Peter 1:20-21, and 2 Peter 3:14-16), and Jesus is God (e.g., John 1, Colossians 1, Hebrews 1, and Revelation 1).  That means all the words in the Bible, from Genesis 1:1 through Revelation 22:21, and not just the “red letters,” ultimately emanated from the mind of Christ.  That also means Jesus is the Author of marriage, sex, the two binary genders of male and female, and, yes, even the Mosaic Law, which explicitly denounces homosexual conduct.

2) Furthermore, Jesus of Nazareth was a Torah-abiding Jew who could not have condoned, much less affirmed, homosexual behavior since God the Father explicitly condemned it, along with a host of other deviant sexual acts, in the Hebrew Scriptures (cf. Genesis 19:1-29, Leviticus 18:22 & 20:13, and Judges 19:22–25), which Jesus cherished, defended, taught, and personally obeyed without flaw.  It is significant to note that the Seventh Commandment alone prohibits any and all forms of sex outside the marital union of one man and one woman, and Jesus expanded its application to one’s thought life (cf. Exodus 20:14, Deuteronomy 5:18, and Matthew 5:27-28).  Jesus also expressly condemned fornication (i.e., non-marital sex of any kind), thereby covering the bases of pre- and extra-marital sexual conduct and lust, which would also include pornography (cf. Mark 7:20-22, Matthew 15:18-20, and Hebrews 13:4).

3) Moreover, Jesus could not have been any clearer in Mark 10 or Matthew 19 about the limited definition of marriage—a definition that implicitly excludes any and every sexual relationship or family configuration other than the divinely designed one-man, one-woman marital union and “nuclear family” that has been in place “from the beginning of creation” (Mark 10:6-9).  In that same passage, Jesus also emphatically confirmed His belief that humankind is a sexually dimorphic race of beings, meaning that humans exist in only two distinct forms or categories:  male and female.  Combined with the facts established in points 1 and 2 above, Christ’s indisputable positive affirmation of the monogamous, lifelong union of a man and a woman as God’s exclusive blueprint for marriage, family, and sexual intimacy absolutely precludes the possibility that Jesus was either supportive of or morally neutral toward homosexuality or, for that matter, any other form of sexual conduct or expression that transpires outside the protective perimeters of one-man, one-woman marriage. 

In conclusion, there is nothing ambiguous or controversial about Jesus’ thoughts on homosexuality, marriage, biological sex/gender, or sexual ethics in general.  He has spoken clearly, consistently, and decisively on these issues in the pages of holy writ.  Truly, Jesus Christ, who is the very essence of Purity (1 John 3:3), Wisdom (Colossians 2:3), and Truth (John 14:6), was never One to blur the lines between right and wrong or truth and error.  Whether His words are painted black or red, what the LORD means, He says; and what He says, He means.  

 

A Note About Attractions vs. Actions

“But I was born this way!” you might object.

Yes, because of the Fall (Genesis 3), each one of us was born (actually, conceived) with sinful orientations, desires, thoughts, feelings, passions, and lusts; and we were all also born with broken sexuality.  But did you know that Jesus Christ has already addressed the “born-this-way” claim?

It’s true, and what Jesus says is this:  “You must be born again [literally, “born from above” or “born of God”].”

“Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.  This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, ‘Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher, for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.’  Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.’

“Nicodemus said to Him, ‘How can a man be born when he is old?  He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?’  Jesus answered, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.  That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.  Do not be amazed that I said to you, “You must be born again.”  The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it but do not know where it comes from and where it is going.  So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.’

“Nicodemus said to Him, ‘How can these things be?’  Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things?  Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, and you do not accept our testimony.  If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?  No one has ascended into heaven but He who descended from heaven:  the Son of Man.  As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.

“‘For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.  He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.  This is the judgment—that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.  For everyone who does evil hates the Light and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.  But he who practices the truth comes to the Light so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God'” (John 3:1-21, emphasis mine).

 

Listen, God is an omniscient Being, which means that He is all-knowing and, therefore, has comprehensive, perfect understanding of human beings and human nature.  So, He is fully aware of the fact that man’s fall into sin resulted in the corrupting and perverting of every aspect of human nature, including human sexuality.  What’s more, God is also full of mercy and compassion (cf. James 5:11).  Knowing all of this, I believe the Lord is sympathetic to the fact that people cannot change or “pray away” certain thoughts, feelings, or attractions we experience in our fallen condition.

Nonetheless, regardless of what (nature, nurture, environmental or social conditioning, etc.) influences us to think or feel a certain way or be attracted to certain people or whatever, it is our response to these experiences and temptations that matters most.  God has made emphatically clear in the pages of sacred Scripture that He holds every man, woman, boy, and girl accountable for the choices we freely make in response to our thoughts, feelings, desires, and attractions.

As I have written elsewhere:

“A critical point to bear in mind here is that the entire human race is fallen, which means, at a minimum, that each of us experiences and acts on thoughts or desires to do evil.  (The fallenness of humanity entails more than this, but certainly not less.)  Of course, having been crafted in the image of a God who is absolutely righteous and full of grace, we also experience and act on thoughts or desires to do good; however, we are not compelled or coerced to act on one desire or the other.  Again, like God, we also possess a will, which gives us the freedom to choose whether or not to act on the thoughts or desires we experience.

“Accordingly, although humans may not be able to control [all] the thoughts, desires, feelings, or attractions we experience, we nevertheless always have control over the behavior we freely choose in response to them.

“As anyone reading this knows, human beings (because we are intrinsically sinful, as noted earlier) experience a number of inclinations every day that we ought not act on, lest we hurt or destroy ourselves and/or other image bearers of God.  (This is why government is necessary, by the way!)  Suffice it to say, while Fido [a dog] may be excused for living by impulse whenever he’s “in the mood,” the Lord Jesus Christ—the Supreme Judge of the universe—cannot and will not give you or me a pass for hopping in bed with whomever (or whatever!) we find sexually desirable, as if we have no other choice but to follow those attractions wherever they lead, as opposed to resisting our fleshly desires, denying ourselves, and obeying the One who truly knows what is best for us.”

“The difference between just doing what comes naturally and principled self-restraint is called civilization.” —Greg Koukl

 

Thus, while it may not be a sin for a man to experience attraction to other men or for a woman to experience attraction to other women, both the Old and New Testaments are abundantly clear that choosing to pursue or act on those attractions, either by lusting after or participating in homosexual sex acts with the person(s) to whom one is attracted, is unquestionably sinful.

But won’t Jesus take away my same-sex attractions if I become a Christian?  Maybe and maybe not.  I have heard or read many testimonies of former homosexuals who’ve shared that they ceased, usually over a period of time, having sexual attraction to members of the same sex after Christ saved and delivered them from the homosexual lifestyle and that they are now happily married to someone of the opposite sex.  On the other hand, I have also heard or read many testimonies of former homosexuals who’ve shared that even after they trusted in Christ alone for forgiveness of sins and forsook the homosexual lifestyle, they still struggle with same-sex attraction on a daily basis and don’t feel attracted to the opposite sex.  Are these contrasting experiences surprising, unusual, or contradictory?  Hardly!

The reason I say that is because Jesus never promised that He would completely remove anyone’s sin nature, fallen desires/feelings/attractions, or even sources of temptation on this side of heaven.

Look, living with a sinful condition that naturally desires to do what is self-serving and morally wrong is a daily struggle for everybody.  Welcome to the human race!  Recall what the Apostle Paul had to say about this frustrating reality in the seventh chapter of his epistle to the Romans:

“For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin.  For what I am doing, I do not understand, for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.  But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good.  So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.  For I know that nothing good dwells in me—that is, in my flesh—for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not.  For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want.  But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.

“I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good.  For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members.  Wretched man that I am!Who will set me free from the body of this death?  Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:14-25).

 

Any honest Christian will admit that a variety of unwanted attractions, thoughts, feelings, and desires (all of which are fluid and not changeless, by the way) persist even after one has been spiritually born again.  (Welcome to the internal spiritual war between the Christian’s fallen nature and the Spirit of God!)  However—and this is the key—as is true of all temptations to sin, God personally promises to provide a means of escape in every circumstance (1 Corinthians 10:13), for His grace is sufficient (2 Corinthians 12:7-10) and readily available for anyone who calls on Him for help (Hebrews 4:15-16).  Moreover, a significant portion of God’s sufficient and readily available grace is experienced via community, fellowship, encouragement, discipleship, edification, and accountability with other Christians—that is, fellow sexually broken sinners (we all are) whom Christ has redeemed and is continually in the process of “repairing” or, more precisely, making holy (i.e., sanctifying).  Remember, all believers are “works in progress.”  This is one of many reasons why regularly assembling together with other believers in a healthy, biblical church is obligatory for all Christians (cf. Hebrews 10:24-26).  We absolutely cannot bear our personal burdens alone; and the wonderful thing is, we don’t have to—praise God!     

Many and various are the stumbling blocks or “land mines” in the pathway of the Christian, but love for and fidelity to our Lord and Savior demand obedience to His wise, gracious, and protective standards.  And no matter what we may think, feel, or desire to do with our bodies or thought life, on the forthcoming Day of Judgment, Almighty God will hold all people accountable to His standards for sex, not ours.

To reiterate, God gives human beings—His image bearers—two options regarding sex:  Get married to an adult member of the opposite biological sex and remain married to that same person for a lifetime or else remain single and celibate for life.  Sexual activity and expression, physical or mental, in any other context is sin—period.  The Bible really is that black and white on this issue.   

Jesus Christ calls all of His disciples to a life of personal holiness.  What that basically means is that Christians have been set apart and consecrated by, to, and for God.  As a result, we should always be seeking God’s will rather than our own in every area of our lives, and that includes our sex lives.

“Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?  Do not be deceived.  Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.  Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:9–11, emphasis mine).

“. . . beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Corinthians 7:1, emphasis mine).

“As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior, because it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy’” (1 Peter 1:14-16, emphasis mine).

“[Christ] Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness, for by His wounds, you were healed” (1 Peter 2:24, emphasis mine). 

 

Rosaria Butterfield, a woman whom Christ redeemed from the gay/lesbian lifestyle, explains the essence of sexual holiness or “holy sexuality” beautifully (emphasis mine):

“The Gospel’s understanding of sexuality is the best kept secret on the planet—sadly, even among Christians.  So, when we, as Christians, call one another to sexual holiness, we are not saying that the answer is heterosexual marriage.  We acknowledge that marriage is by God’s design, but we acknowledge that not everyone is designed for marriage [i.e., some are called to singleness/celibacy for God’s glory].  We know that.  Now, when we talk about chastity or about dealing in the Lord with your sexual temptations, we’re not talking about repression.  We’re not talking about slapping our hands or the hands of somebody else.  We’re talking about acknowledging and loving the image of God in someone else deeply enough to be sacrificial with what you want.  And that was really new information [i.e., when she was a new Christian].  And one of the things that I had to think about then—that I have to think about today—and it’s something that I pray about daily:  ‘Lord, how has original sin distorted me, and how is indwelling sin manipulating me?'”

 

In light of the multitude of temptations and struggles that beset each of us in this sex-saturated world, we would all do well to ask the Lord these same questions and petition Him daily to empower us both to acknowledge and to love the image of God in other people deeply enough that we would be willing and ready to sacrifice our personal desires, feelings, and attractions for the glory of Christ and for the good of other image bearers of God.

So, Christian, when an impure or “dirty” thought enters your mind, will you choose to dwell on it, or will you actively war against and replace that sinful thought or idea with biblical truth?

When you feel sexually aroused by someone or something God has forbidden, will you recklessly choose to follow your feelings into sin and death, or will you promptly cry out to the Lord for His grace and ask Him to grant you self-control and the strength to do what is right?

When a person who is not your spouse or who is of the same sex is physically attractive to your eyes, will you choose to fantasize about or pursue a sexual relationship with that person, even though God clearly says these things are wrong, or will you look/walk away and choose to “crucify your flesh with its passions and desires” and “walk by the Spirit” instead (Galatians 5:24-25)?

And will you resolve to go the extra mile to honor Christ as Lord of your life by proactively seeking biblical counsel and godly accountability partners to help you overcome and/or avoid sexual compromise?  The wisdom in doing this cannot be overstated.

“If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me.  For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it” (Luke 9:23-24, emphasis mine).

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.  For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did:  Sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.  For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.  For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God, for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so.  And those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

“However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.  But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.  If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness.  But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.

“So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh—for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die—but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.  For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God” (Romans 8:1-14, emphasis mine).

“Following Christ requires denying yourself and your desires, taking up your cross, and submitting to God’s authority, as opposed to affirming yourself and reinterpreting the Bible to make it accommodate your desires or lifestyle.” —Dr. Michael Brown [emphasis mine]

 

One last thing:  Although the world (especially popular entertainment and marketing of almost every sort) is constantly selling us the pernicious lie that humans require sex in order to live fulfilling lives, nothing could be further from the truth.  The fact is, you do not need sex to live a meaningful, fulfilling, enjoyable, satisfying, whole, well-adjusted human life.

Let me say that again:  You do not need sex to live a meaningful, fulfilling, enjoyable, satisfying, whole, well-adjusted human life!  But you do need Jesus Christ and His righteousness to enjoy all of those things now, plus everlasting life and unimaginable blessings in the life to come.

 

A Note About Human Identity

“God created man in His own image.  In the image of God He created him; male and female, He created them” (Genesis 1:27).

“Know that the LORD Himself is God; it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves . . .” (Psalm 100:3).

 

If God created human beings in His own image, then, logically, God must be the Source of human identity.  But how come life doesn’t become a bed of roses the moment one concedes that fact?

Recall that when Adam and Eve rebelled against God in the Garden of Eden (cf. Genesis 3, again), the consequences were severe:  They died spiritually, the perfect relationship they had enjoyed with God and with each other was severed, and the image of God (i.e., the imago Dei) and man’s identity in God were radically marred not only in Adam and Eve but also in every single one of their natural descendants.  Significantly, the image of God in man and man’s identity in God were not completely lost or effaced after the Fall, but they were horribly and, humanly speaking, irreparably damaged and broken.  The wonderful news of the Gospel, though, is that because of Christ’s perfect life, death, and resurrection, both the imago Dei and human identity can be repaired in fallen persons and restored to what God always intended them to be.

Indeed, the Apostle Paul famously taught in his second letter to the first-century church in Corinth, Greece—a congregation which, importantly, included persons whom God had delivered from homosexuality, among many other sins (cf. 1 Corinthians 6)—that when a person becomes spiritually reborn through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone, that individual becomes a brand new creature or creation in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17).  Put another way, when God saves a person, He gives that person a whole new identity—an identity that is forever based upon and tied to the Person and saving work of Jesus Christ.

Naturally, then, all attempts to base one’s identity in anyone or anything other than Jesus Christ (e.g., work, ministry, lifestyle, sexuality, gender, desires, attractions, feelings, passions, relationships, wealth, position, status, political party, special interest group, sports, academics, idols of any kind, etc.) necessarily results in identity crisis, which in turn leads to a life of perpetual confusion, lostness (in every sense of that term), suffering, and—ultimately—destruction.

Make no mistake:  Human identity, dignity, rights, worth, value, meaning, and purpose can be found only in the God who created us and who died and rose again to redeem us for Himself.  For this reason, human identity, dignity, rights, etc., literally cannot be found anywhere else — not in our behavior, not in our careers, not in our relationships, not in our sexuality, and definitely not in our sins.

Jonathan Berry, a Christian pastor and author who struggles with same-sex attraction (SSA) but who abstains from homosexuality and lives a celibate life in obedience to the Word of God, explains this with great eloquence and firsthand experience in an article titled “Why Not Say You’re Gay?”  Below is an excerpt (emphasis mine):

“For a whole host of reasons, though, I don’t ever describe myself as a ‘gay Christian.’  If I didn’t like the label ‘gay’ when I was in a same-sex relationship, I suppose it’s no surprise that I like it even less now!  I have no problem whatsoever in accepting that many of my ‘gay’ friends are quite content with using that label [that is concerning, because he should have a problem with anyone using false labels], but personally, ‘gay’ is simply not who I am anymore.

“As a Christian, I choose to think differently.  The Bible knows nothing of the concept of ‘sexual orientation,’ so no one is ever referred to in the Bible as being gay, lesbian, straight, or bisexual.  God’s Word speaks only of sexual practices—i.e., those which are pleasing to God (sex within marriage, which is between one man and one woman) and those which are not (all other sex, whatever the context).  I now have a new identity, one which is based not on who I’m sexually attracted to, but rooted in my most important relationship of all—that is, my relationship with Jesus Christ.  I identify with His teachings, His sufferings, His death on the cross, His resurrection, [and] His promise of future glory for those who trust in Him for forgiveness and who seek to follow Him as Lord.

“‘If anyone is in Christ,’ writes the Apostle Paul to Christians in Corinth, where some had been converted to faith in Christ from a background of same-sex practice, ‘he is a new creation; the old has gone; the new has come!’ (2 Corinthians 5:17).  For me, part of the ‘old’ that ‘has gone’ is this idea of identifying myself and describing myself according to my sexual attractions.  If I were to hold on to that label ‘gay,’ as if it’s somehow intrinsic to who I am now, then by denying myself a same-sex relationship, it would feel as if I’d be denying who I really am (an accusation some of my ‘gay’ friends already level at me).  If my true identity is in Christ, however, then denying myself a same-sex relationship seems like a much more positive outworking of my commitment to follow Jesus Christ and to put Him first in my life.

“Focusing on my identity as being in Christ also serves as an important reminder to me as to the many great things that are mine as a believer.  So, for example, in Christ I have, ‘redemption’ (Romans 3:24), ‘eternal life’ (Romans 6:23), ‘no condemnation’ (Romans 8:1), ‘the grace of God’ (1 Corinthians 1:4), ‘every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places’ (Ephesians 1:3), ‘righteousness from God’ (Philippians 3:9), and ‘the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding’ (Philippians 4:7).  Quite a list, all given to me freely as a direct consequence of me being in relationship with Jesus Christ!

“We’re often warned of the dangers of identity theft in an increasingly digital age.  As a Christian, I feel passionately that I don’t want to allow myself to be robbed of the enjoyment of these great blessings by falsely embracing any other identity.  In his letter to Christians in Rome, Paul urges his readers not to ‘conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind’ (Romans 12:2).  For me, a really important aspect of that mind-renewal process involves ditching any unbiblical labels and securing my true identity as being in Christ.”

 

Some Parting Thoughts

Have you ever noticed how some (okay, many) people will appeal to Jesus’ authority only when it appears as though Jesus agrees with them on a particular pet issue; otherwise, they could take or leave His teachings?  Sure you have.  Here’s the thing, though:  If a person sincerely believes that Jesus is the ultimate moral authority (which is true), then that person should be willing to change his or her mind and behavior when it can be demonstrated reasonably from the Bible that Jesus objects to that person’s lifestyle or beliefs.  If a person is not teachable, not open to correction, and not willing to repent and submit to Christ’s Lordship if proven wrong, then why bring Jesus into the discussion in the first place?  This is completely disingenuous.

For example, the irony of the popular claim “But Jesus never said anything about homosexuality!” is that many (but not all) proponents of homosexuality who argue in this fashion actually reject the authority of the Bible and ordinarily could not care less about what Jesus has to say about other issues.  But on this one sensitive subject that affects something they desire to do, some (not all) defenders of homosexual behavior and/or same-sex “marriage” suddenly appeal to the authority of Jesus’ words, as if they genuinely desire to submit to His Lordship and live their lives in obedience to God’s moral will.

In reality, even if it were the case that the Gospels contained an explicit proscription directly from the mouth of Jesus—in red letters, if you wish—forbidding homosexual conduct, many in the gay rights movement would readily brand Jesus a “bigot” and a “homophobe” (that is, if they don’t already) and would summarily dismiss His teachings on the subject, as they do with pretty much everything else the Bible teaches.  In other words, they don’t really care what Jesus has to say about homosexuality.  Needless to say, it is grossly presumptuous and profoundly insulting for homosexual activists to try to leverage the sacred, unchanging Word of the living God in an attempt to promote a radically rebellious and historically unprecedented “redefinition” or “reinvention” of the God-ordained, irreplaceable social institutions of marriage and family, and/or to justify unnatural, medically dangerous (see here and here, for example)—indeed, deadly, especially among homosexual men—sexual behaviors that are demonstrably and comprehensively condemned within the pages of the very Book they invoke to support these views. 

“Whoever says ‘I know Him’ but does not keep His commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in Him” (1 John 2:4).

 

Also, I’d like to point out here that many of the things Jesus said and did were not recorded in the Bible (cf. John 20:30 and John 21:25); however, that does not mean they weren’t important.  The Gospel writers recorded only what the Holy Spirit deemed pertinent to the salvation message of Christ and the overarching redemptive revelation of God that encompasses all 66 books of the Bible.  I mention this only because it may be the case that Jesus said more about sexual ethics than we know.

Keep in mind also that the vast majority of the crowds and individuals whom Jesus and the apostles addressed were already well-acquainted with the Mosaic Law, including God’s injunctions against homosexuality and other forms of sexual sin, such as bestiality, which is another behavior Jesus did not directly address in the Gospel accounts but that nevertheless was doubtless understood by His audiences to be a clear violation of God’s moral will.

The logical reason Jesus didn’t address those particular sins by name is because He didn’t need to—that is, because His predominantly Jewish audiences understood that God’s Law clearly forbade those behaviors and, evidently, because the scribes and Pharisees had not distorted the biblical teaching concerning those sins as they had done with adultery and divorce, for example.  If they had done so, you can rest assured that Jesus would have corrected them.

That said, what matters most is that the primary historical source documents we do have concerning the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth—which, remember, contain early, independent, multiply-attested, eyewitness testimonies, along with a preponderance of historically verifiable details, and which are corroborated by greater and higher-quality manuscript evidence than all other major works of antiquity combined—contain sufficient statements direct from the mouth of the Messiah regarding His design and standards for gender/sex, marriage, family, and sexuality.  The reason this matters so much is that, even if one were to reduce the four Gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John to nothing more than the “words in red” or, even less still, to the solitary passage of Mark 10:6-9, no intellectually honest person would be able to escape the reality that the only kind of sexual intimacy Jesus Christ ever positively and explicitly affirmed is that which transpires within the divinely designed context of marriage between one man and one woman, and the only sexes/genders Jesus Christ ever positively and explicitly affirmed are male and female.

Indeed, the logical inference from the “red letters” alone is impossible to miss:  Any and all sexual activity outside of one-man, one-woman marriage is immoral and—as is true of all sin—will ultimately result in eternal separation from God in hell . . . unless one repents (i.e., demonstrates genuine contrition for and turns away from sin) and entrusts his or her whole life to Jesus Christ — the One who paid sin’s penalty in full and who endured the equivalent of eternal hell and divine forsakenness in our place.  

 

Questions to Ponder

Before I close, I implore readers of this blog to think very carefully and thoughtfully about the following questions:

• Is it plausible to believe that biblical scholarship and both orthodox Jewish and Christian doctrine concerning homosexuality, marriage, family, sex/gender, and sexual ethics have been mistaken for more than 3,000 years?  [Note:  Moses most likely penned the oldest books of the Bible (i.e., “the Law”) in the mid-1400s B.C.]

• What biblical evidence can same-sex “marriage” advocates and professing Christians who condone and/or celebrate the homosexual lifestyle posit to support their belief that God could, or would, tolerate sexual unions between “consenting,” “committed,” and/or “loving” same-sex couples?

• Additionally, if a biblical exception can be made for this non-conjugal sexual activity, why would the same loophole not equally apply to other sexual behaviors prohibited in Leviticus and elsewhere in Scripture?  In other words, if this logic is to be applied consistently, what would be the moral problem with approving of incest or fornication or polygamy or polyamory, as long as the people engaging in those sexual behaviors are doing so lovingly, faithfully [even if that means remaining sexually “committed” to the plurality of members within one’s exclusive “group”], and with mutual consent?  Put another way, how exactly does a biblically prohibited behavior or relationship suddenly cease to be sinful simply because the qualities of consent, commitment, or loving affection are present, and where does the Bible indicate that this is a conceivable possibility?

• Theologically speaking, what biblical evidence can one possibly adduce to support the notion that a holy, just, unchanging Being—God—even could, in theory, make “exceptions” that would exempt any individual or relationship from His revealed moral will or His design and intentions regarding sex and marriage, which have been in place since the creation of the human race?  How would this affect God’s character and nature, in other words?
  

• Finally, what is the biblical justification for contending that God intentionally plans and creates certain people to have same-sex “orientations” and attractions (i.e., “God made me this way!”)?  For that matter, where is the biblical support for the idea that merely feeling attracted to the same sex proves that God must have intended for said individuals to pursue their desires and proceed to act on their homosexual tendencies?  How does that logically follow?  

[Note:  Pastor-author Kevin DeYoung published a challenging blog article in which he poses 40 incisive questions for professing Christians who support the homosexual lifestyle and/or who have celebrated the legalization of same-sex “marriage.”  See if you can answer them, but be prepared to take your time and study the Scriptures carefully before you try.  I dare you!]

“[A]lthough they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them” (Romans 1:32).

 

The sobering reality is, in both the Old and New Testaments, God condemns homosexuality every single time the issue is addressed.  Literally every mention of homosexuality in Scripture is negative.  In other words, homosexuality is never spoken of in a favorable or neutral light in the entire Bible.  In addition, no distinctions are ever made between bad and good or perverted and wholesome variations of homosexual acts or same-sex erotic relationships.  The behavior is simply condemned wholesale.  Those are the facts.

[Note:  The distinction Paul makes in Romans 1:18-32 is not between loving and lustful motivations for homosexual sex, as some have argued.  Rather, in context, the distinction the Apostle makes in his argument from nature is obviously between the “natural [or “normal”] function” of sex (i.e., the compatible anatomical “plumbing,” if you will, of male-female copulation, which God intends to happen only within the sacred boundaries of one-man, one-woman marriage) on the one hand, and on the other, the “unnatural” (literally, “against nature”), “indecent,” (literally, “shameless”), and “degrading” abandonment, or misuse, of the Creator’s design and intent for sex that male-male and female-female sexual acts perpetrate.]    

Therefore, those who assert that Jesus was not opposed to homosexual behavior or who contend that certain forms of homosexual activity (e.g., consensual, committed, and loving) are compatible with biblical Christianity must demonstrate from the Scriptures at least one clear instance in which homosexuality is spoken of favorably and/or at least one unambiguous instance in which an exception is offered that would suggest that some forms of homosexual practice are acceptable in the sight of God under certain conditions.  

The burden of proof, then, rests squarely on the shoulders of those who believe that Jesus Christ would approve of any form of homosexuality under any circumstances.  What they will find, if they are honest with themselves, with the biblical record, and with God, is that theirs is a crushing—indeed, impossible—burden to prove.

With all that said, the final section of this document is the most important of all.

 

God’s Grace Is Stronger and Wider Than Any Sin

Read carefully:  Whether a person has lied; stolen; blasphemed; assaulted; pillaged; plundered; murdered; had or performed an abortion; lusted; raped; or participated in pre-marital, extra-marital, or homosexual sex acts, the grace (i.e., the unmerited and undeserved favor and lovingkindness) of Christ is strong enough and wide enough to cover and atone for every possible variation and manifestation of human evil and brokenness.

Knowing this preeminent truth, the ultimate question each of us must answer is this:

“Will I humble myself before the holy God I’ve offended, sincerely acknowledge that I have sinned against Him in thought, word, and deed innumerable times in my life, forsake and turn away from my sins, and trust completely in Jesus Christ alone to rescue me both from myself and the divine justice I deserve for all the evil I have done—in other words, to grant me personal forgiveness and reconciliation with the one true God, my Creator and ultimate Judge?”

If you will do that, the Spirit of God will literally convert you from spiritual death to spiritual life; make you a new creature and give you a perfect and everlasting identity in Christ; grant you the will and desire to follow and honor Christ as the new and only Lord and Master of your life; and empower you to abandon and turn your back on the sinful deeds and relationships (homosexual and otherwise) that characterized your former way of life.  God’s Spirit will also personally and permanently indwell your soul, gradually grow you up in godliness, continually conform your character to the character of Jesus, and equip you to love and serve both God and other people for time and all eternity.

If that weren’t amazing enough (and it should be!), because of the all-sufficient “good works” that Jesus Christ performed on your behalf (i.e., He lived the perfect life you never could, suffered the unfathomable death penalty meant for you, and rose from the dead to prove He truly is God and the long-awaited Messiah prophesied about throughout the Old Testament), God will legally declare you “righteous” in His court of law (i.e., you will be clothed not with a righteousness of your own but with the righteousness of Christ Himself, which is the only thing that will get you into heaven) and will personally adopt you into His family.  That is to say, God will become your Father, and you will become His child—forever.  Oh, and I almost forgot:  When Christ returns to judge the living and the dead and reign forever as King of kings and Lord of lords, you will be given a new and glorified body free from all sin, defects, confusion, disorder, and brokenness and will get to spend eternity in heaven with your Savior and King—a place where there will be no suffering, pain, sickness, sorrow, grief, tears, death, or evil of any kind.     

Sounds like the greatest news in the history of the universe, doesn’t it?  That’s because IT IS!  So, what is stopping you from turning to Jesus Christ now, before it’s forever too late? 

 

Recommended Resources

1) “Homosexuality Was My Identity” – a wonderful video from the superb Anchored North Films featuring the powerful conversion story of a man who turned away from the hopelessness and emptiness of the LGBTQ lifestyle and found his true identity, purpose, meaning, and worth in Jesus Christ

2) “Love Is Love” – another terrific Anchored North video featuring the personal testimony of a young woman who walked away from a lesbian lifestyle and found true love in Jesus Christ, learning in the process that God calls sinners “not from gay to straight” but “from lost to saved” and “not to heterosexuality, but to holiness“

3) www.christopheryuan.com – Website of seminary professor and speaker Christopher Yuan, a “prodigal son” and former homosexual and drug abuser whom Jesus mercifully redeemed and transformed into a man after God’s own heart

4) Christopher Yuan’s Personal Testimony (“Out of a Far Country”)

5) www.desiringgod.org/authors/sam-allberry – Web page featuring articles written by pastor, author, and speaker Sam Allberry, a Christian man who still struggles with same-sex attraction (SSA) but who abstains from homosexuality and lives a joyful, contented, and fulfilling life of self-denying, God-glorifying celibacy in obedience to Christ

6) Sam Allberry’s Personal Testimony (“You Are Not Your Sexuality”)

7) www.rosariabutterfield.com – Website of pastor’s wife, homeschool mother, author, and speaker Dr. Rosaria Butterfield, a former lesbian and radical feminist English professor who now lives faithfully for Jesus Christ and His glory

8) Dr. Rosaria Butterfield’s Personal Testimony (“Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert”)

9) www.jackiehillperry.com – Website of poet, Hip Hop artist, speaker, wife, and mother Jackie Hill Perry, a former lesbian who now finds her identity, contentment, and meaning in Jesus Christ and Him alone

10) Jackie Hill Perry’s Personal Testimony (“From Lesbian to Child of God”)

11) “Why Is This Issue Different?” by Kevin DeYoung

12) “A Status Confessionis Issue” by Kevin DeYoung

13) What Does the Bible Really Teach About Homosexuality? by Kevin DeYoung

14) The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Text and Hermeneutics by Dr. Robert Gagnon

15) Correct, Not Politically Correct: How Same-Sex Marriage Hurts Everyone by Dr. Frank Turek

16) Same-Sex Marriage: A Thoughtful Approach to God’s Design for Marriage by Sean McDowell and John Stonestreet

17) “The Top Ten Same-Sex Marriage False Facts” by Dr. Frank Turek

18) “Do You Think Homosexuality Is Wrong?” by Dr. Frank Turek

19) “Marriage: Biology, Not Bigotry” 

20) “Is Homosexuality Natural?” by Alan Shlemon

21) “Does God Affirm Homosexuality?” – a debate between Dr. Graeme Codrington and Dr. James White

22) “What Does the Bible Say About Homosexuality?” – a debate between Matthew Vines and Sean McDowell

23) “A Reformation the Church Doesn’t Need (Part 1)” by Greg Koukl and Alan Shlemon

24) “A Reformation the Church Doesn’t Need (Part 2)” by Greg Koukl and Alan Shlemon

25) “Answering Matthew Vines’ 40 Questions” by Greg Koukl and Alan Shlemon

26) “What Was the Sin of Sodom and Gomorrah?” by Greg Koukl

27) “Try Before You Buy?” by Greg Koukl 

28) The Bible: Fast Forward by Greg Koukl

29) Is God a Moral Monster? by Paul Copan

30) Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis (particularly the chapters titled “Sexual Morality” and “Marriage”) 

31) “What Does the Bible Say About Homosexuality?” by Focus on the Family 

The Deceptively Named “Equality Act” Would Have Sweeping, Catastrophic Consequences on American Society and Life

“Many in our nation respectfully disagree on important matters such as marriage and human sexuality.  Unfortunately, the Equality Act criminalizes these fundamental beliefs held by major faith groups since the dawn of time and, instead, demands absolute uniformity of thought.  The freedom to live peaceably according to our beliefs is a fundamental right, resting in our human dignity and codified by the First Amendment.  The Equality Act dares to treat reasonable people as hostile to the state and unfit to participate in the marketplace.  Our nation can and must do better.” —Kristen Waggoner, General Counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom

Last updated on 4-12-21

 

** Editor’s Note:  The so-called “Equality Act” (H.R.5) narrowly passed the U.S. House of Representatives on February 25, 2021 with a 224–206 vote.  Not surprisingly, 100% of all Democrat representatives voted for the bill, and three Republicans joined them.  The fate of this monstrosity of a proposed law now depends on the Senate and the mercy of God.

Please go here (scroll down and enter your zip code) to contact your senators immediately and urge them to oppose the Equality Act (H.R.5).  You are welcome and encouraged to link to this article so you can give them ample reasons why this legislation is so dangerous and why it must be defeated.

The full text of H.R.5 may be read here.

(Sources for this compiled research include Alliance Defending Freedom, the American College of Pediatricians, the Heritage Foundation, BreakPoint/The Colson Center, the Ethics & Public Policy Center, Liberty Counsel, Dr. Robert Gagnon of Houston Baptist University, and Dr. Albert Mohler of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.)

 

The egregiously misnamed “Equality Act” (H.R.5) hijacks the legitimate civil rights movement by redefining and expanding the term “sex” as it appears in the 1964 Civil Rights Act and all related legislation to include the relatively novel and entirely subjective and mutable concepts of “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” (a.k.a. SOGI) as protected classifications equivalent to fixed and unchangeable human attributes, such as ethnicity, national origin, or biological sex.  Many in the mainstream media and culture are praising this bill as a humanitarian “anti-discrimination” law that all civilized persons should support, without hesitation.  In reality, however, the “Equality Act” would ironically create unprecedented inequity for most Americans and would adversely and dramatically impact virtually every aspect of American society and life, including but not limited to the following ways:

The Health, Safety, Innocence, and Civil Rights of Children & Parental Rights

For starters, the sacred lives of innocent pre-born (and perhaps post-born) children would be further endangered by this deceitful legislation, as would the rights of anyone who wishes to protect these babies and/or who doesn’t want to be coerced to participate in or help pay for their barbaric deaths.

• The Equality Act contains language that could, and likely would, be used to revoke the Hyde Amendment and thereby sanction taxpayer funding of abortions and abortifacients.
  

As Alexandra DeSanctis of the Ethics & Public Policy Center explains, “The Equality Act redefines ‘sex’ to include ‘pregnancy, childbirth, or a related medical condition,’ and, as the bill’s opponents have noted, federal agencies and courts already have determined that the phrase ‘related medical condition’ can be interpreted to include abortion.”

On this point, Liberty Counsel notes that “any time ‘sex’ has been previously added to federal law, Congress exempted abortion.  H.R.5 now includes abortion.”

• Related to this, employers who provide insurance plans could also be required to cover abortions and all related “services.”

In addition, if H.R.5 succeeds, it would be the loudest declaration from the U.S. government yet of the lie that children ultimately belong to the State.

• Children (teenagers included) would be empowered and encouraged to make dangerous, life-altering medical decisions, the full gravity and ramifications of which young, developing minds cannot possibly comprehend, and they could be permitted to do this without parental knowledge or consent.

• More parents would likely lose custody of their children and be prosecuted by the state for “child abuse” for refusing to affirm their child’s chosen name or gender, for opposing chemical or surgical “transition” efforts or their child’s desire to date persons of the same sex or be involved in LGBT activities or clubs, or for attempting to help their gender-dysphoric child overcome his or her mental confusion/delusion by seeking professional counseling or therapy.  This moral outrage is already happening (see here and here, for example) and would surely increase if the Equality Act is enacted.
  

• Likewise, prospective foster parents would also likely be required to affirm a foster child’s stated gender identity and be barred from any efforts to help a child with gender dysphoria accept his or her God-given body and gender/sex.
  

• In addition, this dangerous Act would almost certainly pave the way for government-mandated, pro-“LGBTQ+” and “Critical Theory” educational curricula (read: indoctrination/propaganda) to be fully implemented across the nation.  Such curriculum, which consists of nothing less than unsubstantiated sexual and gender ideology and blatant Leftist disinformation, directly clashes with the Truth God has revealed in both nature and Scripture and inescapably undermines the God-given authority and obligation of parents both to educate and protect their own children from evil and error.  California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Illinois, New Jersey, and Washington have already mandated SOGI curriculum.  As a Heritage Foundation report well documents, American children are increasingly being robbed of their innocence, exploited, sexualized, and indoctrinated with destructive and truly depraved teachings about sex and related subjects.  In effect, children are being used as lab rats to advance a radical social, political, and moral revolution.  Public school curriculum throughout the country is already filled with graphic information about sexual behaviors and relationships, abortion, and highly politicized, contra-science ideas about “gender identity” and “sexual orientation,” and there continues to be a push among educators and policymakers to begin teaching immoral “comprehensive sex education” as early as kindergarten, which ought to be unconscionable and unthinkable.  If these things don’t qualify as State-sanctioned sexual grooming, predation, and exploitation of children, then what does?  A ratified “Equality Act” would blow the doors wide open for all of this, and more.
  

• Further, a growing number of public libraries throughout the country are inexplicably hosting outlandish (read: twisted and debauched) “Drag Queen Story Hour” events in which cross-dressing men, some of whom have been identified as registered sex offenders, read controversial books to young children.  One can reasonably expect these disturbing problems and others to escalate exponentially if the Equality Act becomes law.
  

• • A Firm but Loving Warning to Parents and Grandparents:  If, against all reason, you allow your children or grandchildren to have unmonitored access to the porn-infested Internet and/or streaming video services (e.g., Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Roku, etc.)—let alone their own private smartphone (a.k.a. a portable “Pandora’s Box”) or tablet computer, which, I don’t mind telling you, is frankly insane—then you need to be aware, first of all, that your kids are almost certainly being regularly indoctrinated with LGBTQ+ propaganda, even in seemingly innocent cartoons and animated films—a fact that is unconscionable and revolting beyond words.  But it is happening.  (Disney is by far the chief offender here, but Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, PBS Kids, and other providers of alleged “children’s programming” are openly and aggressively committed to celebrating and normalizing sexual immorality and other sinful behaviors and ideas that are detestable to the one true God.  This begs the question:  WHY are you, as a parent or grandparent, financially supporting these companies with the money the Lord has graciously entrusted to you?  Think about this:  Satan, whom Jesus called “the father of lies,” is overtly (nothing subtle about it) using these mediums to poison the minds and capture the imaginations and souls of your own children and grandchildren, and you are literally paying to let him do it.  Let that sink in…)
  • Second, in addition to having at their literal fingertips a virtually unlimited supply of mind-raping, innocence-shattering, soul-rotting, and literally brain-changing hardcore pornography, there is also a really good possibility that your children and grandchildren are being strategically deceived into believing they were born with the “wrong” gender and/or body as well as being pressured by their peers, both online and at school, to “transition” to the opposite sex, which, by the way, they are also learning how to do by watching popular transgender “how-to” videos that are freely available on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Tik Tok, Tumblr, etc.  [Parents, if you really love them, then you better be finding out what’s on your kids’ phones, tablets, and computers.  If you’re not tech-savvy, then you better learn to be or else get help from someone who is.]  Disturbingly, “transitioning” to the opposite gender of one’s natural, biological sex has recently become an alarming fad/craze among many adolescents/teenagers, predominantly among girls.  (In fact, according to a study conducted by Sweden’s Board of Health and Welfare, there was a startling 1,500-percent increase in gender dysphoria diagnoses among 13- to 17-year-old girls between 2008 and 2018.)  Dr. Lisa Littman coined the term “Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria” to describe this sinister new peer-pressure trend and “social contagion.”  (In my estimation, social media is almost entirely to blame for this horrifying phenomenon.  Think about it:  What two world-changing technologies exploded in 2008 and forever changed [ruined] the way people communicate and learn about the world?  Answer:  The interdependent emergence of smartphones and social media apps.)

“It is insane—and what I mean by insane is, ‘without any sense whatsoever,’ ‘crazy,’ ‘foolish’ . . . the biblical definition of ‘folly’—to give [children], especially teenage boys, unfettered, unaccountable access to the Internet in their bedroom [i.e., via iPhones, iPads, laptops, desktop computers, modern video game consoles, etc.].  It is insane.  It is the dumbest thing that we are doing as a society right now.  What do we think is going to happen?!  You say, ‘Well, my kid’s not looking for porn!’  Maybe not, but porn is looking for your kid [and so are sexual predators and LGBT activists]!  It’s like putting your children in a lion’s den [or letting them play in a snake pit] all night long, or, as one woman told me, it’s more like putting your [child] in the room with a naked woman [or man] all night long.”  —John Stonestreet

 

Medical / Healthcare Professionals

The Equality Act would politicize healthcare in diabolical ways.

• For one, as preposterous as it sounds and is, H.R.5 would treat refusals to perform an abortion as “pregnancy discrimination.”  This means that a doctor or nurse who refuses to perform or assist with an abortion could be charged with committing illegal discrimination on the basis of “sex,” as redefined by the bill.

As Liberty Counsel further explains: 

“[The Equality Act] also prohibits the Religious Freedom Restoration Act as a claim or defense.  That means there is no religious or conscience protection against forcing a healthcare provider, pharmacist, hospital, religious organization, or pro-life crisis pregnancy center [to participate] in chemical or surgical abortions or abortion referrals.”

 

• What’s more, the Equality Act would require healthcare providers, including the armed forces, to perform experimental and irreversible “gender-transition” procedures on patients who are otherwise healthy and who have normally functioning bodily systems and reproductive organs.  Thus, regardless of a physician’s conscientious objections or best medical judgment, he or she would be required to administer deleterious puberty blockers to children and cross-sex hormone treatments to minors and adults, as well as to perform so-called “gender-affirming” or “sex-reassignment” surgeries (SRS) on both children and adults alike, which would needlessly leave these sacred image bearers of God permanently mutilated and sterile—all for the sake of far-Left political activism.  Meanwhile, the suffering victims’ underlying psychological, emotional, and spiritual problems go untreated and in all likelihood will be greatly exacerbated.  Indeed, the suicide rate among persons (typically called “transsexuals”) who’ve undergone cosmetic surgeries to acquire the external characteristics of the opposite sex is a staggering 20 times higher than that of comparable peers within 10 to 15 years post-surgery.  This statistic is according to the findings of the most thorough follow-up study ever conducted on people who’ve undergone SRS.

[Note:  Actual “sex-reassignment” or “gender-reassignment” is physically and metaphysically impossible.  As Dr. Paul McHugh of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine explains, “Transgendered men do not become women, nor do transgendered women become men.  All (including Bruce Jenner) become feminized men or masculinized women—counterfeits or impersonators of the sex with which they ‘identify.’  In that lies their problematic future.”]  

“Medical doctors, secular and religious, whose ­expert judgment is that sex-reassignment procedures are misguided would now run afoul of our civil rights laws.  If you perform a mastectomy [or a hysterectomy, for that matter] in the case of breast cancer, you will have to perform one on the teenage girl identifying as a boy.  All in the name of equality.” —Dr. Ryan Anderson

A statement from the American College of Pediatricians is apropos here: 

“Conditioning children into believing that a lifetime of chemical and surgical [and social] impersonation of the opposite sex is normal and healthful is child abuse. . . . cold, calculated, institutionalized child abuse at the hands of those charged with healing.” —Dr. Michelle Cretella

Plain and simple.

• Health professionals who attempt to warn youth and adults about the very real and severe medical dangers and damaging effects of puberty blockers, hormone treatments, transgender surgery, and/or homosexual behavior could very well be fired and lose whatever license they have to practice medicine.
  

• The bill’s language also paves the way for an eventual ban on any psychiatric treatment or psychological counseling intended to help children or adults with gender dysphoria overcome their cognitive disconnect with reality.  Given the statistic that 60%–90% of children eventually grow out of gender-identity confusion (thus demonstrating that it’s a temporary phase) and come to identify with their biological/physical sex and body by their late teens—that is, IF they are not pressured by parents, peers, or politically/financially motivated “healthcare” professionals to undergo “gender transition”—outlawing counseling designed to help gender-dysphoric children, in particular, would be a grave, tragic, and completely unnecessary mistake.

• • Note:  “Gender Dysphoria” or “Gender Identity Disorder” (GID) is a serious clinical disorder of the mind that requires psychological (mental and spiritual health) care rather than physical medical intervention.  The only loving, caring way to respond to people who are genuinely suffering from this condition is to show them compassion and to seek to help them align their distorted thinking with the objective reality of their actual biological sex and physical body.  Conversely, the most unloving and uncaring way to respond to gender-dysphoric patients would be to affirm or celebrate their confusion and encourage them to undergo irreversible physiological alterations so they can continue believing the falsehood that their impaired thoughts—or, in many cases, transgender activists—are telling them is true.

• • Notwithstanding the fact that congenital defects or abnormalities occasionally arise during prenatal sexual development (called Disorders of Sexual Development or DSD), such as the statistical rarity of intersex traits, it is an incontrovertible, empirically verifiable fact of science that human beings are a sexually dimorphic species.  In plain language, there are only two basic divisions of humans:  male (XY) and female (XX).  [Note:  Remember that exceptions or aberrations to a rule or norm (e.g., intersexualism/hermaphroditism) cannot be used to invalidate or disprove the rule or norm (e.g., that sex is binary) since the very existence of an exception or anomaly points to the fact that there really is an objective rule/standard of normalcy or of healthy design/function, for example, that is being deviated from.  Otherwise, we’d never be able to recognize or identify an anomaly when we see it!]  In gender dysphoria, or GID, the sufferer’s subjective state or perception (i.e., gender identity) does not correspond to what is objectively factual (i.e., biological sex).  That is to say that what the gender dysphoric person feels or believes is true does not match what is actually true independent of the person’s perceptions, feelings, or wishes.  But what a person thinks, desires, or imagines in one’s mind can do nothing to alter actual reality (i.e., objective or extra-mental reality—that is, the way the world actually is external to our thoughts or feelings).  Put more simply, merely believing, feeling, or declaring that something is so does not make it so, and it would be utterly disastrous for any society to base its laws, medical policies, or language, for that matter, on subjective beliefs or feelings (e.g., one’s self-determined “gender identity”) instead of objective facts (e.g., one’s genetically determined biological sex).  [Note:  Transgender activists and the Leftist-controlled media would have us believe that a person’s sex or gender is “assigned at birth” or “socially constructed,” but this is patently absurd and demonstrably untrue.  In reality, people discover or recognize a newborn’s sex; we certainly don’t “assign” it.  Scientifically, an organism’s biological sex is genetically determined and immutably established at the moment of fertilization, which is the starting point of every life.  Obviously, we know that a baby’s gender is identifiable via ultrasound imaging long before birth.  This, after all, is why parents can host “gender reveal” parties while mom is still in the early stages of pregnancy.]

• • Again, I want to reiterate that the only compassionate, sane, morally right thing a society can do in response to genuinely gender-confused people is to help them align their demonstrably untrue thoughts with the physical bodies and biological sex/gender that their Creator gave them, rather than deviously play along with their make-believe (i.e., knowingly lie to them) and encourage them to undergo extreme chemical and surgical procedures that would leave them physically disfigured and infertile for life.  Doing the latter is not only completely insane; it’s also severely cruel and evil, and it’s little different from advising girls suffering from anorexia-nervosa to continue dieting or to encourage them to undergo liposuction or perhaps even a gastric bypass if that’s what would make them happy and comfortable with their bodies.

• • (Note carefully the logical slippery slope of transgender ideology.  If it is morally acceptable to mutilate people’s perfectly healthy bodies so they can look or feel more like the gender or sex they identify as or perceive themselves to be, then what would be the moral objection to doing the same thing to a person who identifies as a different ethnicity or height or species, for that matter?  The same logic would also apply to people who suffer from a horrifying, but thankfully rare, mental illness known as Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID).  People with BIID are able-bodied individuals who have an inner sense or feeling of “incompleteness” at being able-bodied, so they actually desire to become physically disabled and will seek to have their limbs amputated, their eyes blinded, or even have their spines paralyzed in order to make their physical bodies match the mental image they have of their “true selves.”  Will BIID be the next psychiatric disorder the reckless propagators of “identity politics” attempt to affirm and normalize?  LGBT activists have already laid the necessary groundwork, but let us pray that God, in His mercy, will not permit it.)

• In the same vein, the Equality Act would deny children and adults who experience unwanted same-sex attraction access to counseling or reparative therapy (a.k.a. “conversion therapy,” as it’s often disparagingly called), because such services would be prohibited wherever there is an “exchange of funds” involved (i.e., if a fee is charged for the services).  And, of course, therapists who attempt to offer such professional services would be considered criminals.
  

The Health, Safety, Privacy, and Civil Rights of Girls and Women

A number of liberal feminists and self-identifying “lesbians” (see here, for example) have joined forces with conservatives to oppose the Equality Act (H.R.5) because the bill’s stipulations would, in every practical sense, erase women’s rights in this country, particularly if a person’s psychologically perceived “gender identity” or “experienced gender” becomes a protected class.  In point of fact, this specific policy change would eliminate all legal distinctions between male and female (a.k.a. the “gender binary”) and would render meaningless the very concepts of “man,” “woman,” “boy,” “girl,” and all corresponding titles, nouns, and pronouns, in public life and discourse. 

Genuine girls and women would be endangered in unprecedented ways under the Equality Act.  On this point, the following excerpt from H.R.5 is chilling:

“An individual shall not be denied access to a shared facility, including a restroom, a locker room, and a dressing room, that is in accordance with the individual’s gender identity.”  This applies to “ANY establishment that provides a good, service, or program, including a store, shopping center, online retailer [???] or service provider, salon, bank, gas station, food bank, service or care center, shelter [this would presumably include abused/battered women’s shelters and rape crisis centers—just think about that], travel agency or funeral parlor, or establishment that provides health care, accounting or legal services,” as well as any organization that receives federal funding of any amount.

• Therefore, if the Equality Act becomes law, biological males (i.e., legitimate boys and men) who claim to be girls or women would be granted nationwide admission into intimate spaces and sex-segregated facilities (e.g., public and school restrooms, dressing rooms, dorms, showers, shelters, etc.) designed exclusively for biological females (and vice versa, by the way), thereby endangering the physical and psychological safety of legitimate girls and women in all 50 states.  (For examples of biological males taking advantage of transgender bathroom policies to gain access to and assault girls and women, see here and here.)
  

• Moreover, as Dr. Ryan Anderson of the Ethics & Public Policy Center notes, “Shelters for battered women would be forced to admit biological males, [and] prisons would not be able to protect female inmates from predatory males who claim to be females.”
  

• Likewise, the military would also be forced to require women to share close quarters with men who identify as transgender, and vice versa.  (In addition to the physical endangerment of genuine female service personnel, imagine what this bizarre social experiment would do to military readiness, morale, and cohesion.)
  

• Furthermore, American schools, colleges, and universities would be obligated to allow biological males who self-identify as “female” or “trans” to compete in girls’ and women’s sports, where they would unfairly dominate due to God-given physical advantages and rob true females of fair competition, advancement opportunities, championships, and scholarships, which Title IX of the Civil Rights Act, ironically, was in part created to protect.  (So much for fairness and equality for all!)

“The truth is that men and women are different, and those differences matter.  When our laws and policies ignore this fact, it is more often women who get hurt.  This has become very clear in the arena of athletics, where a level playing field for female athletes is being threatened.  Yet policies that allow male athletes to compete in the female category have been implemented in states and localities across the country, and it’s being encouraged by the Biden administration.” —Charles Snow, Alliance Defending Freedom

Religious Liberty, Conscience Rights, and Freedom of Speech & Press for All Citizens

The “Equality Act” would essentially eliminate the First Amendment rights of all Americans who disagree with any aspect of LGBTQ+ ideology.  (That plus symbol, by the way, is merely a placeholder for a practically unlimited variety of aberrant sexual behaviors, identities, and relationships that have yet to seek social affirmation and normalization.)  In fact, as noted above, the proposed statute expressly exempts itself from the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act and offers zero protections for religious or conscientious objections. 

• Consequently, this pernicious bill would effectively disenfranchise hundreds of millions of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and other social conservatives in this country (including atheists and agnostics who hold to traditional family values) of our God-given, constitutionally guaranteed right freely and peaceably to live our lives and conduct our homes, businesses, schools, churches, ministries, charities, etc., in accordance with our deepest convictions about marriage, family, sexuality, gender, and even basic biology and anthropology.  And anyone who will not “fall in line” and surrender to the totalitarian demands of the sexual revolutionaries should expect to face exorbitant fines, imprisonment, and/or the loss of their livelihood, not to mention merciless and unrelenting culture shaming, “canceling,” harassment, vilification, intimidation, death threats, destruction of reputation, and other such warm and glowing demonstrations of progressive love, tolerance, diversity, inclusivity, and—of course—equality.

As BreakPoint host John Stonestreet has written:

“Anyone who affirms the biological reality of the sexes [or Christian teachings on marriage and sexuality] would be, in law, relegated to the same status as the racists whose oppression of African Americans made the 1964 Civil Rights Act necessary.”

Dr. Robert Gagnon, a renowned scholar and expert in the area of biblical sexual ethics, concurs:

“[The Equality Act would] codify into law that you are a bigot, the moral equivalent of a racist, tantamount to being a member of the Ku Klux Klan, who must be shut out of society and, wherever possible, harassed and persecuted for your beliefs.”

 

• Hiring and retention decisions would be impacted tremendously by the Equality Act for places of employment.  The story of Harris Funeral Homes and the Supreme Court’s unconstitutional and deeply troubling “Bostock ruling” last June is really instructive here.  As author and syndicated columnist Robert Knight commented:

“Gorsuch and Roberts have ruled that feelings, urges, and temptations trump biology and all constitutional rights, including speech, assembly, property, economic liberty, etc.  This is beyond radical and will empower thousands of Marxist lawyers to wage war on normalcy of any kind.  No matter how bizarre someone behaves, employers must look the other way, risk their customer base, and allow it, lest the employee flaunting his/her sexual confusion claim an identity right and ruin them with a lawsuit.  The funeral home was told that a man who shockingly came to work dressed as a woman and disturbed grieving families had no right to remove him from their employment.  Nobody has rights anymore that can’t be trumped by sexual perversity of any kind.  This is Roe, all right—made-up law by corrupt judges egged on by a corrupt media and given a free hand by a corrupt political establishment too terrified to speak for God-given morality and common sense.”

 

• Employers who provide insurance could also be compelled to provide coverage for puberty blockers, cross-sex hormone treatments, and “sex-reassignment surgery” (SRS) in their healthcare plans.

• H.R.5 would also lead to compulsory speech (verbal and written).  Americans would be required to call people by their ”preferred pronouns” or face a punishable offense (not the least of which would be termination of employment), even though doing so would require you to sin against God and violate your conscience, reason, and Scripture by affirming as true what you know to be false—in other words, by lying.  In New York, there is already such a law in place that threatens to punish anyone who repeatedly “mis-genders” a “transgender person” up to $250,000 in fines (!!!).  At least one American teacher, a beloved favorite of many students, lost his teaching position a couple of years ago for accidentally committing this absurd “crime.”  Such incidents would likely skyrocket if the Equality Act becomes law.
  

• Additionally, we would see an escalation in the growing trend of “Big Tech” / “Big Brother” censorship, suspensions, and account terminations of social media users and customers who express dissenting, politically incorrect viewpoints pertaining to LGBT-related issues, including simply passing along well-established scientific and medical facts that contradict the LGBT/Progressivist narrative and agenda.
  

• As Dr. Gagnon points out, all businesses and public universities would be compelled to implement SOGI hiring programs and regular LGBT indoctrination training sessions in order to avoid being sued by the federal government for failure to uphold the civil rights of self-identifying “gay” and “transgender” employees and job applicants.  In a nutshell, this means that “affirmative action” laws—which, it should be noted, are inherently racist and discriminatory, seeing as how they give certain Americans preferential treatment over others in job considerations or school/scholarship applications solely because they are of a particular ethnicity or have a favorable skin complexion, even if other applicants are much more qualified—would effectively be updated also to give unfair/unequal (there’s the irony) hiring and educational preferences to persons who identify as LGBTQ+.

(At this point, it should be painfully obvious to anyone reading this that LGBT activists and other Leftists have clearly redefined the word “equality” beyond recognition, as they repeatedly do, in real-life Orwellian “newspeak” fashion, with any words that convey inconvenient truths that are unacceptable to them.  Whoever controls language controls the culture, and no one understands this better than the political Left.)

• Similarly, employees who are overheard speaking or otherwise communicating negatively or critically about the full range of LGBT issues—including comments made outside of work, such as on social media—would be required to report to the Diversity & Inclusion division of their employer’s Human Resources department, where they would be disciplined, if not fired, for creating an “unsafe” workplace environment.  (To get a clearer idea of what’s to come for all conservative-minded working Americans if H.R.5 becomes law, see here, here, here, and also here.)
  

• The law would also likely be used to exclude from all political, corporate, academic, professional, and judicial hiring and appointments anyone who does not declare full, unequivocal support for all things LGBT, as well as anyone who has ever written or spoken against LGBT beliefs or behaviors at any time in the past.
  

Churches, Ministries, Small Business Owners, Authors, and Religious-based Services, Charities & Schools

• Churches whose teachings remain faithful to Scripture and historical/orthodox Christian doctrine concerning marriage, the family, sex/gender, sexuality, and sexual morality would almost assuredly lose their tax-exempt status and would likely face lawsuits. 

In the estimation of Dr. Albert Mohler, president of Louisville’s Southern Baptist Theological Seminary:

“The loss of tax-exempt status would put countless churches and religious institutions out of business, simply because the burden of property taxes and loss of charitable support would cripple their ability to sustain their mission.”

 

• Since H.R.5 emphatically repudiates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, there is a strong possibility that pastors, evangelists, and other ministers, as well as teachers and authors who publicly denounce LGBT ideology and proclaim biblical and natural-law truths about sex, marriage, and related subjects could be prosecuted for committing “hate crimes” or for spreading “hate speech,” as has been occurring in Canada for some time (see here and here, for example).  Without a doubt, though, if federal law is indeed changed to make any opposition to or disagreement with LGBT views an act of “bigoted” or “hateful” or “discriminatory” behavior, conservative Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Mormons, etc., who refuse to compromise their beliefs about these issues would assuredly be ridiculed, demonized, and marginalized to the contemptible fringe of society by the mainstream culture.

• Furthermore, under the Equality Act’s expanded definition of “public accommodations,” churches that host public activities or outreaches (e.g., a spaghetti supper open to the community) could be forced to open women’s private changing areas and restrooms to biological men during those events, or else incur civil penalties.
  

• Similarly, churches that rent their facilities to the public could be forced to rent them for same-sex wedding ceremonies and other LGBTQ+ events.
  

• Indeed, H.R.5 reclassifies all places of worship—including churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples—as “public accommodations.”  The ominous implications of this significant modification were brought to light in an exchange between Senator Mike Lee of Utah and Mary Rice Hasson of the Ethics & Public Policy Center during the March 17th Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on the Equality Act:
  

“[The Equality Act] expands that definition of public accommodations from the four categories that were previously in civil rights law to an almost unlimited number of activities and places that don’t even need to be actual physical places.  So it includes virtual activities and things like that.  So it’s very easy for a church that does anything where it opens the doors to the community—which is very much a part of a faith-based mission—it opens the doors for them to be subject to discrimination suits because they’re now going to be considered a public accommodation in the same way as a stadium or something like that.  So that’s one of the most damaging and threatening aspects of this particular Act.”

 

In the same hearing, Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma echoed Hasson’s concerns: 

“Deeming houses of worship as public accommodations subjects them to needless litigation, and the Equality Act would literally strip them of the very defense that they were given in 1993 [i.e., in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act].”

 

• Small business owners and creative professionals (e.g., artists, bakers, designers, florists, photographers, videographers, Web designers, wedding planners, etc.) who don’t want to be forced to use their talents to promote or celebrate homosexuality, same-sex civil unions, transgenderism, or other behaviors or messages they cannot in good conscience support would be punished with crippling fines and lawsuits, be forced to close their businesses, and/or face jail time.  (Think of Jack Phillips, Barronelle Stutzman, Aaron and Melissa Klein, Blaine Adamson, and other Americans who’ve been tied up in expensive legal battles for years and who’ve been persecuted ruthlessly by the state and the culture simply for exercising their First Amendment rights.  If the Equality Act becomes law, they will undoubtedly be joined by many, many more victims of government overreach/tyranny.)
  

• Certain authors (see here and here) have already had their books pulled from Amazon and other retailers for daring to criticize transgenderism or homosexuality, despite the fact that many of these books are scholarly, thoughtfully written, and gracious in tone (though this should not make any difference, seeing as how, like it or not, even mean and nasty speech is protected by the First Amendment—and there are thousands of such books still being sold by these same retailers).  Expect these “virtual book burnings” to become the norm under the Equality Act.

• Adoption services and foster care providers committed to God’s definition of marriage and family as revealed in holy Scripture and natural law, as well as the sociological and axiomatic truth that every child needs and fares best when raised by a married mother and father (neither parent is dispensable) would risk losing federal funds if they decline to place children into, for example, same-sex households, which naturally and inescapably deprive a child of either a mother (biological female) or a father (biological male) 100% of the time.  This, in turn, could lead to these providers being forced to close, displacing thousands of children and further straining an already overwhelmed system.  (This has already happened to Catholic Charities and others.)

• Every religious school, Bible college, university, and seminary that refuses to endorse LGBT ideology would lose federal funding, and ultimately, accreditation.  They would also likely be forced, for example, to allow same-sex couples to live in student housing.  Simply stated, the Equality Act would effectively destroy conservative religious education in the United States—especially the biblical Christian variety—because no academic institution could survive such pummeling penalizations.
  

• College students would be forbidden from using their federal tuition assistance at schools that, in the federal government’s judgment, “discriminate” on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.  That means any Christian university that has a code of conduct prohibiting sex outside of natural, biblical marriage—in other words, any Christian school that obeys what the Word of God clearly teaches on these subjects—or that declines to allow biological males to compete on women’s sports teams, would almost assuredly lose federal student aid.
  

“When he was asked about the threat the Act would present to religious institutions and their right to operate by their own religious convictions, [openly “gay” Rhode Island Congressman David] Cicilline offered these chilling words:  ‘The determination would have to be made as to whether or not the decisions they are making are connected to their religious teachings and to their core functions as a religious organization,’ he explained, ‘or is it a pretext to discriminate?’

“The determination will have to be made.  With those words, every religious congregation, denomination, and institution is put on notice:  The government will determine if your hiring and housing and student conduct and employee policies are truly ‘connected’ to your religious teachings, or if you are merely using a claim of religious conviction as a ‘pretext to discriminate.’

“These words mean the effective death of religious liberty, for the burden of proof will now fall to each religious institution to prove to the government’s satisfaction that its convictions are authentic.” —Dr. Albert Mohler

A Heritage Foundation report aptly summarizes the fascist and draconian Equality Act this way:

“The Equality Act makes mainstream beliefs about marriage, as well as basic biological facts about sex differences, punishable under the law.  Every person should be treated with dignity and respect, and no one should face [unjust] discrimination.  But the Equality Act makes [unjust] discrimination the law of the land by forcing Americans to conform to government-mandated beliefs under the threat of life-ruining financial and criminal penalties.  The 1964 Civil Rights Act outlawed state-sanctioned discrimination that caused systematic economic and material harm to black Americans.  The Equality Act is different:  It forces every American to agree with controversial government-imposed ideology on sexuality, or be treated as an outlaw.  The Equality Act demolishes existing civil rights and constitutional freedoms.”

 

With all of this in view, I don’t believe it’s an exaggeration to say that the so-called “Equality Act” poses the greatest threat to children, girls/women, religious liberty, conscience rights, and freedom of speech and press in the history of the United States (indeed, nothing even comes close), and it honestly may well be the biggest affront to God’s created order, reason, common sense, sanity, and medical science in the history of lawmaking.

Allow me to be even more forthright:  If the Senate votes to pass this devilish sham of a bill and President Biden ratifies it, which he has promised to do as a “top legislative priority,” the United States of America, by any honest analysis, will have officially legislated lunacy.

In closing, I exhort you once more to contact your senators and urge them to oppose the Equality Act at all costs.  I also encourage you to link them to this article to help them understand how dangerous this bill is and why it must be defeated.  And, while you still have the chance, please also share this information on social media—that is, if you have the guts.  Don’t hesitate to share it with your liberal friends either.  If you do, it might help to point out that many far-Left feminists and self-identifying “lesbians” are opposed to the Equality Act, as discussed above, specifically because the transgender ideology this bill would enshrine into law actually undermines the entire women’s rights movement.

Finally, and most importantly, I am calling on my Christian brothers and sisters to get on your knees and join me in pleading with our Almighty Creator, Ruler, and Judge to deal mercifully with this wrath-deserving nation whose rebellion against God/Truth has now reached extremities that were unimaginable before now.  Pray specifically that He would make His holy will the greatest concern of Congress, turn the heart of every political figure to Himself, and cause the “Equality Act” to die a swift and decisive defeat in the Senate.

And once you’ve prayed about that, please unite with me in petitioning the LORD frequently and fervently to send nation- and world-changing revival, reformation, and Awakening, because, until Christ returns to make “all things new,” there remains no other hope for a world of rebels who do whatever is “right” in their own eyes and who’ve convinced themselves that they can remake Reality—even God—into their own image.

Works Cited and Additional Recommended Resources

1) “The Inequality of the Equality Act: Concerns from the Left”

[Warning:  This video features some disturbing images and graphic testimonies from parents who have witnessed firsthand the traumatic and heartbreaking medical, psychological, and relational harms their gender-dysphoric/”transgender” children have personally experienced.  Having said that, this panel discussion is an extremely valuable, highly recommended resource for anyone interested in gaining greater understanding about transgenderism and Gender Identity Disorder, as well as the tremendous social dangers posed by the politicization and cultural acceptance/celebration of transgender ideology.]

2) “Dr. Gagnon on the Equality Act” by the Illinois Family Institute

3) “The Equality Act: What to Know and What to Do” by John Stonestreet

4) “The Equality Act: How Could Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) Laws Affect You?” by the Heritage Foundation

5) “11 Myths About H.R.5, the Equality Act 2021” by the Heritage Foundation

6) “4 Ways the Equality Act Would Harm Children” by Andrea Jones

7) “The ‘Equality Act’ Will Spare Churches and Religious Schools? Think Again.” by Sarah Kramer

8) “ACLU Debunked! The Real Facts About Men in Women’s Sports” by Charles Snow

9) “‘Equality Act’ Makes Abortion a Federal Right” by Liberty Counsel

10) “In His Image: Delighting in God’s Plan for Gender and Sexuality” by AFA Studios
(Full Documentary)

11) “What Did Jesus Believe and Teach About Homosexuality, Marriage, Biological Sex/Gender, and Sexual Ethics?”

12) “Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents” by Rod Dreher

13) “The Equality Act and the Rise of the Anti-Theological State” by Dr. Albert Mohler

14) “Why Compromising with the Equality Act Falls Short” by John Stonestreet and Dr. Timothy Padgett

15) “Transgender Surgeries and the Weight of Reality” by BreakPoint

Note:  This brief but outstanding commentary is a bit disturbing and heart-rending; however, it nevertheless serves as a sobering wake-up call about the severe cruelty that transgender ideology perpetrates against its victims, and it is also a source of tremendous encouragement for all Christians to remain faithful to God and His never-changing Word, even if we’re the last people on the planet who will speak common-sense Truth.

16) “The Journey Back to My True Identity: The Testimony of Former Transsexuals and Ex-Transgender-Identifying Persons Walt Heyer and Kathy Grace Duncan” by Focus on the Family – Part 1 and Part 2

 

For another list of helpful resources about the Equality Act, go to https://allforfreedom.com/resources/.