BRIEF WORD ON THE SIN OF HOMOSEXUALITY : Apprising Ministries

BRIEF WORD ON THE SIN OF HOMOSEXUALITY : Apprising Ministries

BRIEF WORD ON THE SIN OF HOMOSEXUALITY

By Ken Silva pastor-teacher on Feb 26, 2013 in AM Missives, Current Issues, Features, Homosexuality/"Christian"

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. (Romans 1:24-27)

As A Perversion Of God’s Created Order The Sin Of Homosexuality Is Idolatry

Apprising Ministries warned years ago e.g. in Christian Soldiers Standing Up For Jesus? there are very rough spiritual waters dead ahead because of the now widespread acceptance of the Emerging Church akaEmergent Church, which is a cult of postliberalism—that morphed into Emergence Christianity (EC), within mainstream evangelicalism.

And an important agenda for these rebels against the final authority of God’s Word has always been to try and convince us—and they aimed their propaganda primarily at your youth—that a lifestyle choice to have sexual relations with another of the same sex, i.e homosexuality, is fine for the regenerated Christian—and not only in monogamous relationships.

But the absolute Truth is that in Romans chapter one we are informed that the LORD God Almighty’s patience will (and possibly now has) run out concerning issues like this. In verse 26 we read — Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. It should be obvious enough we are being told here that what we will read next would be considered shameful lusts by the Creator.

Now notice that this has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with a particular culture may think, but rather, with what God Himself as Creator judges universally to be shameful lusts. The b part of verse 26 — Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. The logical question that should arise now is: What are these natural relations women exchange here for unnatural ones.

God the Holy Spirit anticipates this question, and then provides our answer through His inspired vessel Paul in Verse 27 — In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Bible instructor James Edwards now adds the following insightful comment:

Paul illustrates the consequences of idolatry by turning to the errors of lesbianism and homosexuality…homosexuality illustrates the theological error he has been expounding since verse 18, namely, the exchanging of something authentic for something counterfeit.

Paul cites homosexuality (“homo” comes from the Greek word meaning “same,” not the Latinhomo, “man”) not because it is a worse sin but because it exemplifies better than other sins the very nature of sin, which is the perversion of an original good, and hence idolatry.

His choice of terminology, natural . . . unnatural relations, is instructive. Homosexuality is a forsaking of a natural relationship instituted according to the purpose of the Creator, i.e., heterosexuality, for an unnatural relationship which reverses the Creator’s purpose.

Homosexuality changes something originally oriented to the opposite sex as a compliment and inverts it to itself, thus perverting the created order. Like all sin, it is a disorientation which leads to confusion. Thus, the dishonoring of God results in the disordering of human life.  1

We see then — In the same way as the women the men also abandoned — or exchanged — natural relations with women for unnatural ones. So now from this passage of Scripture we really should understand that according to the created order, the LORD God Almighty—the very Creator of the universe Himself—has in fact defined “natural” sexual relations to be that which occurs between one man with one woman after marriage.

As a result therefore the Bible then defines sexual activity between members of the same sex as being “unnatural.” And this is also reinforced in the b part of verse 27 — Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. Now we can put all of this together and come to the realization that according to Holy Scripture God refers to sexual relations between members of the same sex as shameful lusts.

Homosexuality is also said to be abandoning natural relations and being inflamed with lust (a sin in and of itself) for a member of one’s own sex. Verse 27 lists this among indecent acts and clearly refers to homosexuality as perversion. There is just no way around what these texts are saying because this passage of the Bible concerns proper sexual conduct for men and women—period. Further, this is part of the created order itself, and so it would apply to all mankind regardless of the cultural mores of any generation.

If we really do care about others then we’re going to tell them the truth; and if you actually love Jesus Christ then you’d respect His Word and teach to His creatures what He has said. So, when all is said and done, the question becomes: Why then all the debate about the sin of homosexuality?

Further reading

• THE SIN OF HOMOSEXUALITY IS DIFFERENT
• THE CHRISTIAN KNOWS WHAT JESUS SAYS ON THE ISSUE OF HOMOSEXUALITY
• HOMOPPRESSION IS AT LEAST AS BAD AS HOMOPHOBIA

Endnotes

1. F.F. Bruce, Gen. Ed., New International Bible Commentary [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1976], 55, bold theirs ↩