A BIBLICAL EXAMINATION OF HOMOSEXUALITY AND SAME SEX UNIONS - PART II

PART 2: THE ALTERNATE LIFESTYLE 

Sin Defined

“You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination.” Leviticus 18:1-24

   As early as the book of Leviticus, the prohibition of unclean relationships is made plain. An abomination is nothing more than sin in the eyes of the Creator. It is an aberration of the divine design of the man-woman relationship that He intended for mankind.

   This is the same sin that is described in Genesis 19:5 when the men of Sodom implored Lot to bring the travelers out so that they might “know them carnally.” There is a similar scenario in Judges 19:22.

     Man’s Rebellion

“For this reason God gave them up to vile passions.”  Romans 1:26a

   Paul describes in the first chapter of Romans the debase nature of the Gentiles who committed this sin of homosexuality. In verse 18, we read where “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” The Bible states plainly that men suppress the truth, and this means that they do it knowingly. How do they know? Because in verse 19 it says, “that what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.” This means that every man has an internal witness to what is right and what is wrong. Since every man bears the image of the Creator, it follows that man possesses a conscience that can reason right and wrong.

   So, as we come to verse 26, God has given them up to their vile passions, because man had rebelled and rejected the fact that God exists and has revealed Himself to mankind.

“For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.” Romans 1:26b-27

   But the rejection of God didn’t end here. Man went on to rebel even further by doing those things that even nature proves to be wrong. Engaging in same sex relationships of which the Scriptures state are shameful. In 1 Corinthians 5:1, Paul writes that the sexual immorality reported among the Corinthians was not even named among the Gentiles. This sin that he spoke of was that of a man living with his father’s wife. How much lower on the scale of degradation must this sin of homosexuality be!

      Husbands and Wives

“Wives, submit to your own husbands…Husbands, love you wives, just as Christ also loved the church.” Ephesians 5:22 & 25

The New Testament teachings concerning the family are very specific: marriage is to be between a man and a woman. There are no other alternatives. This is the Divine design for mankind in order that he might realize all the blessings of this life through loving relations with the opposite sex. Each time that the Scriptures deal with marriage and the family, it always speaks of the relationship between a man and a woman. (See also, 1 Peter 3:1-7; Col. 3:18-19) To see something other than this in God’s order is to attempt to introduce a different morality than that which the Creator intended. 

     The Problem of Relative Morality

“In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” Judges 21:25

   Anyone who studies the book of Judges will realize that not all the events of this book spell out evil times. For the wonderful story of Ruth occurred during this timeframe. And just because there was no king in the land does not prove that this was the reason why men acted sinfully. But the real reason lies in the fact that Israel lacked an objective basis to live by. They had rejected the authority of God as He had revealed Himself to them through the Scriptures and by the prophets. And therefore each did what he thought was right in his own eyes. There is a direct parallel with this thinking and that of our 21^st Century culture. It is what we might call relative morality. Whatever a person wants to do at any given moment is his own choosing, and he has a right to think and do whatever he likes regardless of the overall consequences. It is a denial of any absolute truth or values.

   For the Christian, this should not be. We who claim Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, stand at the crossroad and must take a stand for absolute truth as it has been revealed to us in God’s Word. Too often Christians have caved in to the moral slide of our culture. It is concerning this surrender of Biblical moral values that we turn our attention.