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Homosexuality and the Bible
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given special attention by us. Paul also clearly has the creation
texts in the background of his indictment of homosexual practice
in Romans 1:24—27 and 1 Corinthians 6:9.
2. Every text that treats the issue of homosexual practice in Scripture
treats it as an offense of great abhorrence to God.... Indeed, every
single text in Scripture that discusses sex, whether narrative, law,
proverb, poetry, moral exhortation, or metaphor, presupposes
a male-female prerequisite. There are no exceptions anyway
[anywhere] in Scripture.
3. The male-female prerequisite is the foundational prerequisite for
defining most other sexual norms. Jesus himself clearly predicated
his view of marital monogamy and indissolubility on the foundation
of Genesis 1:27 and 2:24, texts that have only one thing in common:
the fact that an acceptable sexual bond before God entails as its first
prerequisite (after the assumption of an intra-human bond) a man
and a woman (see Mark 10:6-9; Matt. 19:4—6).22
Gagnon rightly concludes that “same-sex intercourse is a high offense
in the sexual realm toward God.”23What is at stake in the debate over
homosexuality is the biblical doctrine of sin. Are we willing to take
homosexual practice as seriously as God takes it?
At the same time, although in God’s estimation homosexual prac
tice is placed near the top of sexual sins in seriousness, we should
remember that from God’s perspective such sins as “pride of heart”
(Prov. 16:5) and “lying lips” (Prov. 12:22) and “idolatry” (Deut. 17:3-
4) and “dishonest scales” (Prov. 11:1) are castigated just strongly by
God as “abominations” (using the same Hebrew word tôcêbd), al
though there is no effective mechanism to punish such sins until the
final judgment.
All of us are sinners, in need of the grace of God. And all sins, even
those most strongly condemned by God, can be forgiven by Him.
Again, take the case of my friend Ron Woolsey: He had to stop his
self-justification before he could be justified by God. He had to stop
blaming God
and
others
and
start listening to His conscience and