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Homosexuality Worse Than Other Sins?
Homosexuality Worse Than Other Sins?
What does the Bible say about homosexuality? In Romans 1.24-27 we see that God considers it a sin. Also, Jude 1:7 says that at least one of the reasons Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed was because of their engagement in this practice. Most compelling is how humans were created for sex in the first place. In Genesis 2 we see that Adam and Eve were created for each other, to cleave to each other and become one flesh. When Jesus is asked about marriage in Mark 10.3-9, He presents creation as the ideal example of marriage, and even of sexual union. Jesus’ statement leaves no room for marriages that are not between one man and one woman. It is clear that any deviation from this pattern would be wrong, and that homosexuality is one such deviation.
While we need to recognize homosexuality as an unacceptable deviation, we also need to recognize that it's not any worse than any other deviation, or worse than any other sin for that matter. In Romans, Paul talks about people who because they rejected God, made identities out of sinfulness:
... God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity, to dishonor their bodies among themselves. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creation rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason, God gave them over to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged the natural sexual relations for unnatural ones, and likewise the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed in their passions for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
... God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what should not be done. They are filled with every kind of unrighteousness, wickedness, covetousness, malice. They are rife with envy, murder, strife, deceit, hostility. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, contrivers of all sorts of evil, disobedient to parents, senseless, covenant-breakers, heartless, ruthless. Although they fully know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but also approve of those who practice them. Therefore, you are without excuse, whoever you are, when you judge someone else. For on whatever grounds you judge another, you condemn yourself, because you who judge practice the same things...
Romans 1:24 – 2:4
In this passage Paul is talking about how the people who rejected God were delivered over to disgraceful passions. The first disgraceful practice he mentions is homosexuality, but he quickly draws the reader’s attention to many other vile things. People who do any of these things deserve to die. I think sometimes we forget that gossip, slanderer, insolence, arrogance, and boastfulness are also on this list, and that they’re no different from the rest of the disgraceful practices.
Any deviation from sex within biblical marriage is wrong and we need to be on guard against any of these temptations in our lives. God doesn’t condemn people for feelings of attraction. Instead, it's how we process and act on these feelings that can condemn us. Hebrews 4:15 tells us that Jesus was tempted in every way but was without sin. Any feelings or thoughts we have, no matter how normal they may seem, need to be considered and controlled prayerfully.
For instance, it's fine for me to be attracted to women but if I start fantasizing in general or about a specific person, I have crossed the line Jesus talks about in Matthew 5:27 – 28. And it’s from this beginning that I could act on the temptations from everything between pornography to assault.
In the same way, if I, a man, have feelings of attraction toward other men, that’s not sin. However, if I acted on these feelings- entering any kind of sexual activity, from fantasies to anything else, then that would be wrong. But, in regard to sinfulness it's no different than if I had inappropriate sexual activity with a woman. The only difference here is that there is an appropriate place for a man and woman to share sex together-- marriage.
We can’t judge and condemn evil while harboring evil in our own lives without casting away God’s love. Paul’s point at the beginning of Romans 2 is that we should be gracious toward others because God has been gracious to us. When we judge, we need to judge like God judges: God calls evil what it is, but He does His utmost to rescue those in danger of condemnation by teaching and loving them. We should do this too.
The key to helping people who believe that homosexuality is acceptable is not by singling them out as worse than other sinners. Instead, we need show consistent and godly judgement on all sins. It’s especially relevant that we are consistent in calling any sexual misconduct sin. We need to be willing to help and be helped as people struggle against different deviations from sex within marriage.
~Andrew Outcalt
