new church life: march/april 2015
dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the
lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed
forever. (Romans 1:24,27)
… as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to
these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange
flesh, and are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
(Jude I:7)
Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not
be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor
Sodomites. (I Corinthians 6:9)
(The law is made) . . . for fornicators, for sodomites, for kidnappers, for liars, for
perjurers, and if there is any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine. (I
Timothy 1:10)
Yet people will say: “But where did Jesus condemn it?” In numerous places
in the Gospels the Lord clearly renewed the prohibition against adultery, and
in passages in Matthew, chapters 5 and 19, adultery, as we know, is given as the
sole ground for divorce.
But what is meant by “adultery”? Is it just unlawful relations between
people of the opposite sex, one or both of whom are married to someone else?
From the very beginnings of Christianity the Church has recognized that the
definition of adultery is much broader than that.
Paul certainly did in his preaching against homosexual practices. What
were people looking to for their definition of the adulteries that the Lord
prohibits, whether it is in the Old or New Testament? There is no question but
that they were relying especially on such teachings as the Lord has given in
Leviticus, chapters 18 and 20.
If we remove that Divinely given resource on what constitutes an
adulteration of the legitimate and productive female-male relationship, what
basis do we then have for prohibiting a whole range of incestuous relationships,
polygamy, bestiality, etc.? Without those Divine prohibitions given mainly in
Leviticus, we lose all our guidelines for determining what is permissible in the
eyes of the Lord, and what is not permissible in human sexual relationships.
Now if, in seeking to preserve our societies from spiritual and moral
calamity, we still wisely choose to retain most of these Levitical prohibitions,
but we drop the prohibition against homosexual practices, on what basis are
we making such an exclusion when there is no indication whatsoever in all of
Scripture that we should do this?
In fact, besides the already cited Leviticus 18:22; 20:13; Deuteronomy
23:17 and Paul’s Epistles, there is plenty of other evidence in Scripture for
retaining this prohibition. In Genesis 19:1-28 there is that powerful example
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