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Homosexuality, Marriage, and the Church
Reformation, as well as the Advent movement, was founded upon
the basic principle of
sola Scriptura
: “By Scripture alone” all issues of
faith and practice are to be ultimately judged. Consider Isaiah 8:20:
“To the law and to the testimony; if they do not speak according to
this word, there is no light in them.”2
For Bible-believing Christians, Scrip
ture is the final norm for truth. It is the
standard by which all doctrine and expe
rience must be tested (see 2 Tim. 3:16-17;
Ps. 119:105; Prov. 30:5-6; Isa. 8:20; John
17:17; 2 Thess. 3:14; Heb. 4:12). Scripture provides the framework,
the divine perspective, and the foundational principles for every
branch of knowledge and experience. All additional knowledge and
experience, or revelation, must build upon and remain faithful to the
all-sufficient foundation of Scripture. All other authorities are to be
subordinated to the supreme authority of God’s Word.
It is evident from the verses regarding homosexual practice and
God’s Edenic model that Scripture gives a consistent and clear con
demnation of homosexual practice. Not only is there univocal con
demnation of homosexual practice throughout the Bible, but nu
merous lines of evidence connected to the Levitical legislation also
point to the universal (transcultural) and permanent (transtemporal)
nature of the prohibitions against homosexual activity.3As Richard
Hayes summarizes:
The biblical witness against homosexual practices is univocal....
Scripture offers no loopholes or exception clauses that might al
low for the acceptance of homosexual practices under some cir
cumstances. Despite the efforts of some recent interpreters to
explain away the evidence, the Bible remains unambiguous and
univocal in its condemnation of homosexual conduct.4
The witness of Scripture concerning homosexuality is not some
obscure and minor point in the biblical corpus that might be dismissed
as peripheral to the overarching concerns of the
Bible.
It rather forms
What’s the big
deal if we call
these unions
“marriage”?