What Is Wrong With Homosexual Behavior?

By Mark J. Larson

[Mark J. Larson, Ph.D., adjunct professor of historical theology, Shepherd’s Theological Seminary, Cary, North Carolina.]

To begin a discussion concerning the moral nature of homosexual behavior it is helpful to define what a homosexual is. Such a person has a “preferential erotic attraction” to members of the same sex. He or she may also engage in “overt sexual relations” with them.[1] Homosexuality then has to do with a particular kind of desire and behavior;[2] it entails inward romantic feelings toward someone of the same sex that may lead to outward physical actions.[3]

Diverse Positions

The question to consider is whether or not there is anything that is morally wrong with homosexuality. There are divergent views on this question. One perspective is that a faithful and loving homosexual relationship is quite legitimate.[4] A 2012 Gallup poll indicated that 53 percent of Americans believe that homosexuality is morally acceptable.[5] President Barack Obama took the same view in a speech delivered at the White House on 29 June 2009 in which he praised Franklin Kameny who coined the phrase “gay is good.” This indeed was the underlying perspective of the United States Supreme Court in the Obergefell v. Hodges decision of 26 June 2015, which required all the states to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The key issues in this position are “fidelity and mutual care.” If they are present, there can be nothing to morally prohibit it.[6] Such a relationship cannot be sinful.[7]

The classical Christian position, of course, condemns homosexuality as immoral.[8] Historic Christianity maintains that homosexual desire and homosexual behavior are sinful.[9] This is true of Judaism as well. Both religions forbid all “deviant sexual practices,” such as sodomy and bestiality.[10] Christian theology appeals to Romans 1:27 to argue that the sin of homosexuality includes not only the act, but also the desire: “And in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.”[11]

Foundational Considerations

Prior to examining the question of the morality of homosexual behavior, it is important to remember some fundamental perspectives that ought to form the basis of Christian ethics. A truly Christian ethic begins with the position that God alone determines what is right and wrong. Human beings do not create moral boundaries in Christian ethics. God alone determines them.[12] Christianity likewise recognizes that God has revealed the standards of right and wrong in Holy Scripture. The concept of the good comes from revelation;[13] it is because of this divine revelation of what constitutes the good and the bad that the Scripture becomes the believer’s normative guide in ethics.[14]

Classical Christian morality understands that Scripture reveals not only moral behavior in general, but also a specific pattern for proper sexual conduct. Appropriate conduct would be reflected among other places in a passage like 1 Corinthians 7:2–3: “But because of immoralities, each man is to have his own wife, and each woman is to have her own husband. The husband must fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband.” Such revelation is authoritative and binding.[15] In addition, the biblical passages relating to the issue of sexual conduct are perspicuous. The relevant texts are clear and are not obscure or enigmatic in their meaning.

The Biblical Condemnation

What then does the Bible teach concerning homosexuality? There is no ambiguity in its prohibitions against homosexuality.[16] In fact, there is a strong biblical condemnation of homosexual conduct. The strength of this condemnation surfaces in Leviticus 18:22: “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination.” This passage is imbedded in a context dealing with prohibitions against impermissible and unnatural sexual relationships.[17] Furthermore, there is nothing in the context that would restrict the prohibition to merely cultic acts of homosexuality; rather, the text forbids all acts of homosexuality.[18]

The unusual heinousness of the homosexual act is underscored by the Levitical declaration: “It is an abomination.”[19] This is one of the strongest words of condemnation in the Old Testament.[20] The biblical censure is intensified in Leviticus 20:13: “If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death.” Here, the divine disapproval is reflected in the fact that homosexual behavior in the period of the theocracy was considered to be a capital crime. Quite clearly, the severity of the punishment draws attention to the moral nature of the act.[21] The Old Testament was unique in its time in rejecting all homosexual behavior. “Most of the ancient Near East adopted an attitude to homosexuality very similar to that of classical Greece and Rome which simply accepted it as long as it was done among consenting adults.”[22] One should also take note of the fact that the Old Testament condemnation of homosexuality continues into the New Testament.[23] Paul, for example, in Romans 1:27 referred to “men with men committing what is shameful.”

The Scriptural Rationale

Why does the Bible provide such a strong condemnation of homosexual conduct? What is wrong with homosexual behavior? The Scripture indicates that such practice is wrong for a number of reasons. First, it is to be regarded as a moral error. Paul could speak with regard to the men who commit shameful acts with other men as “receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due” (Rom 1:27). The Greek word for error refers to a deviation from the proper course of conduct.[24] People who engage in homosexual activity have deviated from ethical integrity.

From the biblical perspective, homosexuality is viewed, secondly, as being an act that is against nature; it is practice that stands in opposition to the creation order.[25] Paul asserted in Romans 1:26, “For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature.” What is patent is that homosexual conduct is an aberration from the creation ordinance of marriage as reflected in Genesis 2:24: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” Jesus taught, in Matthew 19:3–9, that this passage concerns the subject of marriage, which is to take place between a male and a female. Jesus further stated that the text indicates that God’s intention for a man includes three elements: he is to leave his parents; he is to be joined to his wife; and, he is to become one flesh with her. The experience of becoming one flesh with another human being is to occur in the context of a marriage relationship between one man and one woman. This is “the only ‘one flesh’ experience which God intends and Scripture contemplates.”[26] Carl Henry correctly stated, “The monogamous union of Adam and Eve as ‘one flesh’ is the pattern of God’s intention for the whole human family.”[27] The relationship between this creation ordinance and homosexuality is obvious. Homosexual behavior is a contradiction of the creation order. There is no room in the intention of God for a person to be joined to another of the same sex and thereby to become one flesh with him or her.[28]

A third reason why homosexual conduct is morally wrong is because it betrays a fundamental commitment on the part of the homosexual to human autonomy. Rather than submitting to God’s definition of what is proper sexual conduct as reflected in the creation ordinance, the homosexual defines for himself or herself what his or her sexual behavior will be like. The homosexual has a commitment to govern himself or herself rather than submitting to the government of God. The homosexual rejects the position that God gives created things “their essential identity and function and defines man’s proper relationships.”[29] Human autonomy is the very opposite of true godliness as reflected in the prayer of Christ, the perfect man: “Not my will, but yours, be done” (Luke 22:42). The homosexual defies the will of God for his or her life.

The Consequences That Follow

Finally, it should be noted that homosexuality is wrong because of the dreadful consequences that it brings to the homosexual. For instance, it brings pollution and uncleanness to human nature. In 1 Corinthians 6:9–11, Paul alluded to this very thing. Having mentioned various sexual sins — including homosexuality and sodomy — he stated concerning the Corinthian congregation, “And such were some of you. But you were washed” (1 Cor 6:11). To say, as Paul did, that the Corinthians were washed indicates that they had been morally soiled. Their previous immoral conduct had made them to be filthy.

The idea that homosexual behavior brings moral pollution is likewise found in Augustine, the greatest theologian of the first millennium of church history. He wrote, “Shameful acts which are contrary to nature, such as the acts of the Sodomites . . . are everywhere and always to be detested.” He argued, “Even if all people should do them, they would be liable to the same condemnation by divine law; for it has not made men to use one another in this way.” He then reached this conclusion: “Indeed the social bond which should exist between God and us is violated when the nature of which he is the author is polluted by a perversion of sexual desire.”[30]

Homosexual acts soil the soul. There is more than the issue of moral pollution though. Such acts result in dishonor to the individuals involved. When Paul referred to “vile passions” in Romans 1:26, he referenced “passions of dishonor.”[31] Such conduct reduces a person. The individual ultimately brings dishonor upon himself or herself.

There are the present detrimental consequences of homosexuality, but there is also the eschatological result of God’s judgment. Paul gave a solemn warning when he raised the question in 1 Corinthians: “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?” He then gave a word of caution, “Do not be deceived.” This is then followed by a straightforward declaration: “Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor 6:9–10). Paul cannot be any more explicit than he was in this passage. The word homosexuals refers to the passive partner in the homosexual act, while the term sodomites is a reference to the active participant.[32] The crucial point to observe is that continuance in homosexual behavior, apart from repentance, brings exclusion from the eschatological kingdom. Jude 7 reveals something of the significance of what this entails: “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, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.”

Conclusion

What is morally wrong with homosexual behavior? Homosexuality is morally wrong, considered as an act in itself, simply because it is an error, a deviation from the proper course. More specifically, it is an act against nature, the order of creation. As such, it betrays, like all sin, a commitment to autonomy in place of submission to God’s will. Homosexuality is also wrong in terms of its consequences for the person who engages in such behavior. The results are not only immediate in terms of defilement and dishonor, but they are also eternal, bringing a separation from the kingdom of God. There is something that all humanity knows deep within them: “Our thoughts, emotions, and choices have lasting consequences.”[33]

One can be thankful that Paul provided, in 1 Timothy 1:15, a trustworthy statement that deserves full acceptance: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” Paul could say that the lifestyle of homosexuality was a thing of the past for believers in the congregation in Corinth: “Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor 6:11). This truly is a remarkable declaration: God forgives and wipes the slate clean. “I will forgive their iniquities, and their sin I will remember no more” (Jer. 31:34).[34]

The good news is that the gospel continues to be “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Rom 1:16). Liberation from the chains of homosexual enslavement is found through faith in Christ who sets people free from the power of sin and even the presence of sin at the second coming. “When God acts climactically to reclaim the world and raise our dead bodies from the grave, there will be no more homosexuality.”[35] Every believer without exception rejoices in the prospect that awaits them: “We know that when he appears, we will be like him, because we will see him just as he is” (1 John 3:2). The believer’s eschatological hope impacts the conduct of life in the present: “And everyone who has this hope fixed on him purifies himself, just as he is pure” (1 John 3:3).

Notes

1. John Jefferson Davis, Evangelical Ethics: Issues Facing the Church Today (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1985) 106–07.
2. John H. Boyle, “Understanding Homosexual Behavior and Homosexuality,” Review and Expositor 68 (Spring 1971): 217–18.
3. Anonymous, “Cheated by the Affirming Church,” Christianity Today 48 (December 2004): 50–51.
4. Judith Hoch Wray, “Is Homosexuality a Sin? What Sin Do We Discern? Lexington Theological Quarterly 35 (Fall 2000): 169–75, insists that there is nothing sinful regarding homosexual behavior.
5. Denny Burk, What Is the Meaning of Sex? (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2013) 187.
6. This is the position advanced by Anita C. Hill, “On Being Christian and Homosexual: Living Responsibly with What Is Given,” Word and World 14 (Summer 1994): 339.
7. John C. Yates, “Toward a Theology of Homosexuality,” The Evangelical Quarterly 67 (1995): 73.
8. Patrick Lee and Robert T. George, “What Male-Female Complementarity Makes Possible: Marriage As a Two-in-One-Flesh Union,” Theological Studies 69 (September 2008): 641–62. Kevin DeYoung, What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality? (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2015), is a good example of the classical teaching of the Christian church based upon the authority of Scripture and sound biblical exegesis.
9. Denny Burk and Heath Lambert, Transforming Homosexuality: What the Bible Says about Sexual Orientation and Change (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 2015) 26.
10. Alan Donogan, The Theory of Morality (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1977) 105.
11. Jay Adams, The Christian Counselor’s Manual (Philipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1973) 405, contended, “the desire as well as the act is condemned as sin in the Scriptures.” Edward T. Welch, “Homosexuality: Current Thinking and Biblical Guidelines,” The Journal of Biblical Counseling 13 (1995): 24, took the same position.
12. Greg L. Bahnsen, Homosexuality: A Biblical View (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1978) 16.
13. Yates, “Toward a Theology of Homosexuality,” 77.
14. Bahnsen, Homosexuality: A Biblical View, 14.
15. Welch, “Homosexuality: Current Thinking and Biblical Guidelines,” 20.
16. Ibid. 20.
17. Paul D. Feinberg, “Homosexuality and the Bible,” Fundamentalist Journal 4 (1985): 18.
18. Gordon J. Wenham, “The Old Testament Attitude to Homosexuality,” The Expository Times 102 (1991): 362, observed that Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 “cover both private (secular) homosexual acts and religious homosexuality.”
19. John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965) 47, stressed the particular heinousness of homosexuality: “However grievous is fornication or adultery the desecration involved in homosexuality is on a lower plane of degeneracy; it is unnatural and therefore evinces a perversion more basic.”
20. Wenham, “The Old Testament Attitude to Homosexuality,” 362.
21. Welch, “Homosexuality: Current Thinking and Biblical Guidelines,” 23.
22. Wenham, “The Old Testament Attitude to Homosexuality,” 360.
23. Edith M. Humphrey, “What God Hath Not Joined: Why Marriage Was Designed for Male and Female,” Christianity Today 48 (September 2004): 39.
24. William Hendriksen, Exposition of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981) 78.
25. David F. Wright, “Homosexuality: The Relevance of the Bible,” The Evangelical Quarterly 61 (1989): 295.
26. John Stott, Decisive Issues Facing Christians Today (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell, 1990) 347.
27. Carl F. H. Henry, “In and Out of the Gay World,” in Is Gay Good? Ethics, Theology, and Homosexuality, ed. W. David Oberholtzer (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1971) 110.
28. O. Palmer Robertson, The Christ of the Covenants (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980) 78.
29. Bahnsen, Homosexuality: A Biblical View, 28–29.
30. Augustine, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick (Oxford and New York: Oxford, 1991) 45–46.
31. Hendriksen, Exposition of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, 78.
32. Gordon Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987) 243; Simon J. Kistemaker, Exposition of the First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993) 188.
33. Wesley Hill, Washed and Waiting: Reflections on Christian Faithfulness and Homosexuality (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010) 7.
34. Wesley Hill teaches biblical studies at Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge, Pennsylvania. In his book Washed and Waiting, he acknowledged that he as a believer in Jesus Christ still struggles with homosexual temptation. No believer of course is free from the phenomenon of temptation. The reality is that “temptations to greed, pride, or anger” are the kind of realities that “Christians face on a daily basis” (44). Burk and Lambert, Transforming Homosexuality, 26, take a similar view: “We do not mean to imply that same-sex-attracted Christians will be freed from every inclination to sin in this life.” They do, however, add this statement: “Nevertheless, we do believe that the gospel provides resources for real progress in holiness over the course of a believer’s life.”
35. Hill, Washed and Waiting, 50.