If you want the short answer: yes it is. But let me tease this out a bit more. In the current debates about homosexual marriage, I have heard far too many progressive Christians try to tell me that marriage is not a gospel issue, and therefore we can just agree to disagree on it.
Um, not so fast. Is it really just a secondary or third order issue that we can just give or take? Is it really so inconsequential as the religious left would have us believe? (And bear in mind some of these leftist believers DO say it is a gospel issue – that is, they think we should bless homosexual marriage!)
So let’s lay things out here a bit. Just how exactly are we to define the gospel? If it includes all that Jesus taught us – as it should – then yes indeed, marriage and sexuality are clear gospel issues. How can they not be? Jesus repeatedly told us that if we claim to love him, then we must keep his commands.
To affirm the good news is to affirm all that Jesus commanded. And that includes what he had to say on God’s intentions for human sexuality. Just as you demonstrate that you are no true disciple of Christ if you reject his claims about being the only way to the Father, so too you show your true colours by denying or rejecting his clear teachings on these vital issues.
Thus we cannot really talk about just having our own preferences on this, like we might have on the colour of the new carpet in our church. This is far more important. I like what Sam Allberry recently had to say about this:
Some issues in the Christian life matter more than others. The apostle Paul made a distinction between matters that were primary to the gospel, and issues that were not. In 1 Corinthians 15:3 he writes, “What I received I passed on to you as of first importance.” This is not to say that other issues are of no importance, just that they are not of first importance. Not taking a side on this issue is to take a side. To decide it is a matter of indifference is to risk having Jesus against you.
In Romans 14:1 he instructs his readers not to pass judgment on “disputable matters.” On such issues Christians need to know their own mind and receive in fellowship those who differ. We might consider as examples of present day “disputable matters” issues like infant baptism, or our understanding of the end times. On such matters Christians are free to differ. But on matters of first importance we must remain in agreement if we are to be faithful to the gospel.
There are five reasons why we must regard the issue of homosexuality as being of first importance.
The reasons he offers are these:
1. The witness of the church
2. The authority of Scripture
3. The purpose of marriage
4. The fate of homosexual people
5. The censure of Christ
This is what he said regarding point four:
Paul is very clear that the “unrighteous” will not enter the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9-11). Among the very various examples of unrighteous behaviour he lists is homosexual practise. Paul is delivering a profound warning: those who do not repent of such behaviour will not enter heaven. Eternity is at stake. To say the issue does not matter is to say that the eternal destiny of people does not matter. This is not the case with secondary issues like infant baptism or women’s ordination.
He goes on the say this:
Not taking a side on this issue is to take a side. To decide it is a matter of indifference is to risk having Jesus against you. Read the description of him in Revelation 1 and consider if you would ever want to risk that Jesus being against you.
This is a gospel issue. When so-called evangelical leaders argue for affirmation of gay relationships in the church, I’m not saying they’re not my kind of evangelical, I’m saying they are no kind of evangelical. This is not an easy position to hold, for I have friends who hold to different views on this subject. But it is the right position to hold. For the five reasons given above, we must never allow ourselves to think of this as just another issue Christians are free to differ over.
Yes exactly right. This is a defining issue as to who is a genuine biblical Christian. I also quite like what is stated in the just released Nashville Statement on marriage and sexuality. Article 10 (of its 14 articles) says this:
WE AFFIRM that it is sinful to approve of homosexual immorality or transgenderism and that such approval constitutes an essential departure from Christian faithfulness and witness.
WE DENY that the approval of homosexual immorality or transgenderism is a matter of moral indifference about which otherwise faithful Christians should agree to disagree.
See my write-up of this important document here: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2017/08/30/the-nashville-statement/
Sadly however, various religious lefties have gone quite livid in their denunciations of this very helpful document. They have torn into it with all sorts of claims, including that it is unloving, unChristlike, bigoted, and so on. It seems they prefer siding with the spirit of the age when it comes to the homosexual debate than siding with clear biblical teachings.
Let me finally quote from Owen Strachan. He has just penned a piece on the Nashville Statement, interacting with its critics, and seeking to understand it in the light of the ministry of John the Baptist. He writes, in part:
Two millennia ago, John the Baptist came preaching Christ. His message was the Messiah; his call was to holiness. As John preached, he somehow gained the ear of Herod, a political leader akin to a powerful governor in our day. John had access to Herod, and he had the priceless opportunity to tell him of his need for spiritual salvation. Surely John spoke of these things. But that was not all he said to Herod.
John the Baptist rebuked Herod for divorcing his wife and marrying his half-brother’s spouse, Herodias. Matthew’s Gospel gives a succinct record of John’s words to Herod: “It is not lawful for you to have her” (Matthew 14:4) We have no extended prologue, no longer record of how the conversation went. Scholar R. T. France notes that John’s comments came in the context of “public denunciation” (France, Matthew, 555). It appears that this happened repeatedly; John did not merely warn Herod once, but “kept on telling” him that he was sinning, and thus in danger of spending eternity in hell.
If our goal as Christians in a fallen world is to gain access to unbelievers and do all we can to keep it, let us be bracingly honest: John the Baptist did a poor job of it. He angered the governor, got sent to prison (where he was chained to a wall), and occasioned his own beheading. Church history suggests that this was not enough for Herodias: she stabbed his tongue with her hairpin. Here is the point for our considerations: it was not the announcement of the Messiah that ended John’s short life. It was the clear declaration of sexual ethics that sent him into eternity. It is a biblical curiosity, rarely preached on, but hugely important for us today in a similarly pagan context: the forerunner of Christ died because he called a wicked governor, a public figure, to repent.
We learn an invaluable truth through John’s martyrdom (he is after all the first martyr, killed even before Christ, showing us just how much of a forerunner he was). We learn that our sexual ethics are not divorced from the gospel. They are bound up with the gospel. You could say it this way: the gospel creates sexual ethics, as I have said elsewhere. The Word of God has always done so. In ancient Israel, homosexuality and cross-dressing called for full repentance (see Deuteronomy 22). In the New Testament era, these same sins are condemned (see Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians 11). You cannot follow Christ but keep your eyes blind to your behavior, or others’. The gospel is a transforming gospel; Christ is a transforming savior (1 Cor. 6:9-11). Sexual sin, as with unrighteousness of any kind, merits a loving response, and love of the biblical kind means not that we affirm sin, but that we seek the rescue of those in danger of the righteous wrath of almighty God.
Yes this is certainly correct. To think that we can somehow present a gospel which has nothing to say about something as vitally important as human sexuality and God’s institutions of marriage and family is to offer a truncated, unbiblical gospel.
The Christian gospel speaks to all aspects of life, including those areas which God most strongly affirms and which the world most strongly attacks and resists. As Martin Luther is said to have remarked:
If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battle front besides is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.
Now is certainly NOT the time to retreat and engage in cowardly silence, or to pretend this is just no big deal. When marriage is under such ferocious attack, it is incumbent upon every single Christian to rally to its defence. It IS a gospel issue. We dare not pretend we can just sit this one out, or somehow straddle the fence.
As a colleague of Luther, John Calvin, once put it: “A dog barks when his master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that God’s truth is attacked and yet would remain silent.”
And how do we explain the relationship of Christ (King of Kings, Lord of Lords and Saviour of His Church) and His Bride (The Church, the repository of truth and earthly source of the teaching of the Bible, nurturer of the redeemed, source of fellowship, assistant to the Holy Spirit in the process of sanctification), if we don’t uphold the essentially unique nature of marriage as between one man, one wife, for life?
Thanks John and yes quite right. The same with the OT – how do we explain the relationship between Yahweh and Israel?
Rom 1:20 “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.”
So what does sinful man do? …. He turns nature upside down on its head so that it no longer reflects Gods glory thinking now that he has effectively obliterated the power of this verse and thus has every excuse. Mind boggling
Jesus was kind, loving and compassionate to the woman at the well (who was in sexual sin) AND his final words to her were “go and sin no more”. We can’t be turning a blind eye to any form of sexual sin and we certainly can’t be championing it. Thanks Bill
SSM may not be a salvation issue – as demonstrated by the criminal on the cross alongside Jesus who was told that he would see Christ in Paradise that very day, but it is not merely a Gospel issue either. Those promoting the SSM agenda are diametrically opposed to Christianity. In case you’ve not seen the articles I refer you to:
It should come as no surprise that the desire is the complete abolition of Christianity. With that being the goal, why is anyone who calls themself Christian supporting this agenda? Sadly it’s all too obvious – some ‘Christians’ are wedded to Marxist politics so see no conflict, others are Christian and wedded to Scripture so do.
If an authentic human marriage is meant to reflect an even more intensely real, “authentic” relationship between the LORD and Israel – as in the Old Testament; and the ultimate relationship between Jesus Christ and His ekkl?sia as in the New Testament, surely the Biblical understanding of marriage and its opposites cannot seriously be divorced from a truly Biblical soteriology. Why is it that early in the first book of the Bible, God performs/creates the first marriage and that the Bible closes with the marriage feast of the Lamb and His bride?
I think my comments on your pages here can testify that I have been saying similar things for a long time. This is a defining issue that will be used to distinguish between those who have been fed and clothed and those who have not i.e. between the sheep and the goats. This is what Daniel prophesied:-
Dan 11:31 And forces will stand from him, and they will profane the sanctuary, the fortress, and shall remove the daily (sacrifice), and they shall place the desolating abomination.
(MKJV)
Once people realize that we are the temple (1 Cor 3:16) and that a new Jewish Temple in Jerusalem cannot be the Holy Place mentioned in scripture because all animal sacrifices are now an insult to what Jesus has already done and so a new Jewish Temple cannot be sanctified, then you begin to understand what the abomination that makes desolate is.
We know homosexuality is an abomination. It is the first unconditional abomination mentioned in the scriptures. We know it makes physically desolate, i.e. it does not produce offspring, but we can now see that it also makes spiritually desolate by causing people to ignore the scriptures and God’s commandments plus it also makes intellectually desolate by forcing laws based on imaginations instead of reality. We are now seeing this in churches, which are meant to be sanctified places, so it is definitely standing where it should not. Daniel’s prophecy here is that doing this will stop the covering of Jesus sacrifice (the “daily”) and so will render people who engage in this not covered by the New Covenant. They have, through their actions, proved that they do not have faith or believe in the one true God because they are actively opposing what He said. If I am correct then all it will take is for a left wing party to take control in Israel and then the prophecy in Matthew 24:15 will be quickly fulfilled and that will be the trigger for the start of the great tribulation, as Jesus spoke of, in the remainder of Mathew 24.
Having said that the scriptures are clear that no-one knows the time and it seems obvious to me that God has put a huge effort into this creation and so will want the maximum return (in souls) for His investment but this will be balanced with His love for us which will shorten the time (Mat 24:22) and, of course, I could be wrong. (Whoever reads let him understand.)
‘Honour your father and your mother.’ ‘You shall not cover your neighbour’s wife…’
Commandments 5 and 10. (Deuteronomy 5: 7-21).
We are following what’s happening in Aus and are praying for you! In the meantime, readers might like to read this post from March 2014 just before the first same sex marriages in Britain, which shows how many theologically orthodox church leaders kept their heads down even to the point of discouraging intercession. http://anglicanmainstream.org/same-sex-marriage-are-we-allowed-to-pray-about-it/
Many thanks for that Andrew Symes.
Dear Bill,
I agree ABSOLUTELY with everything you have said in this article. Marriage IS a Gospel issue and always has been so the the sympathisers of SSM can deny this all they like but it won’t make one iota of difference. They are going against Jesus and what he expects from his followers.
As a Catholic I also believe that Jesus elevated marriage between a man and a woman to such a high degree that He condescended to His Mother’s humble request to perform His first miracle at the marriage feast of Cana even though he said His ‘time had not yet come’. This is why the Catholic Church looks upon marriage between a man and a woman as one of the seven sacraments which Catholic believe were instituted by Jesus Christ so believers could live holy lives. The other sacraments are baptism, confirmation, Eucharist, confession, the sacrament of the sick [which used to be extreme unction] and holy orders.
In marriage two people of the same sex cannot live a holy life because they are committing the grave sin of sodomy which is a sin so harmful that it ‘cries up to heaven for vengeance’. It is harmful because it is ‘contrary to the welfare of mankind’.
I am fairly sure the supporters of SSM would have no problem agreeing with me that the other three sins in this category were also harmful to humankind . They are voluntary murder, defrauding a labourer of his wages and taking advantage of the poor.
By their obstinate refusal to acknowledge ‘the sin of impurity against nature’ which includes sodomy they put their immortal sous in danger because what they believe is an insult to God who is the Creator of the world.
To put it simply it is like saying He didn’t know what He was doing when he created us. That He is not the perfect source of infinite power, wisdom and goodness.
The Bible is book all about marriage from beginning to end. Christians cannot accept “marriage equality” because it is a lie. There is no sexual activity or relationship equal to the one-flesh marriage of a man and a woman, and this symbolises and looks forward to the last and ultimate marriage of Christ and his Church, which is a union of difference, not sameness.
Just as Abraham sent his servant away to bring home a bride, Rebecca, for his son Isaac, the Father has sent his servants into the four corners of the earth to prepare a bride for his Son, Jesus Christ. This is why Jesus remained single while on earth. His let his cheek be kissed in betrayal, but never his lips in love. He took the hands of those he healed, but never “held hands”. The bride of Christ, the church, must remain virginal and pure, so cannot condone or support or participate in sexual perversion.
I am concerned that Sam Allberry seems to contradict himself on whether homosexual practice is of first importance. It is not one of the things that Paul lists as being of first importance in 1 Corinthians 15. Sam says “This is not to say that other issues are of no importance, just that they are not of first importance.” by which he seems to mean that homosexual practice is important, but not of first importance. A little further down the page, however, we read ” There are five reasons why we must regard the issue of homosexuality as being of first importance.”
Is Sam condradicting both himself, and Paul?
Thanks Elizabeth, but there is nothing really to be concerned about. While I cannot speak for Sam, I am pretty sure we are on the same page on this. So my reply would be this – we need to emphasise a number of biblical truths here:
-Yes, all sins sent Jesus to the cross, so in that sense they are all equally very bad indeed.
-However, Scripture itself singles out some sins as being worse than others. So all sins are NOT equal in that sense. For example, some sins mentioned in the Old Testament warrant punishments like the death penalty while others do not. Jesus too spoke about this. But see this two-part article for a lot more detail on all this:
-In terms of where the battle lines are being drawn at the moment in the West, homosexuality and the transgender revolution are certainly at the top of the list of the issues we must deal with. While all sexual sin must be resisted and opposed, there are some that are now especially being rammed down our throats, so that is where our emphasis must be. We go where the battles are the hottest when it comes to the culture wars.
-In Romans 1 Paul carefully looks at the war against God and the rejection of God, and he singles out one sin, homosexuality, as the epitome of man rebelling against God. So even Paul says on the one hand that all sins are bad news, but he has no problem singling out some as a real indication and example of man’s sinful rebellion against God.
Sorry Bill, I’m still not following you I’m afraid. Isn’t Paul saying that the things of first importance are the life, death and resurrection of Jesus? He does not mention any sins in 1 Cor 15, as far as I can see, regardless of how serious they may be. It seems to me that Sam first acknowledges that Paul says that other issues are not of first importance, but then goes on to explain why he, Sam, says that one of the other issues – homosexuality – is of first importance.
Surely if we take Paul seriously, homosexuality along with all other forms of sin must fall in the category of what Paul calls “debatable matters”.
Thanks Elizabeth. But you still may be missing the point. Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 is talking about the importance of the resurrection. That does NOT mean that nothing else is important. All biblical truths are important, and that includes God’s intentions for human sexuality. All this I have sought to explain in the article above.
All God’s truth is important, and it cannot be reduced to what we find in just one chapter – 1 Cor. 15. And you are quite amiss in suggesting that God’s fundamental plans for sexuality, marriage and family are just mere “debatable matters”. Not even close. They are at the heart of God’s creation order, and are reflective of God’s relationship with his people. He speaks of the husband-wife relationship when he speaks of his relationship with Israel. It is the same with Christ’s relationship to the church. That is how important heterosexual marriage is, when he uses it to show what his relationship to his people is like.
This is vitally important, as is God’s fundamental moral code. You might as well argue that “thous shall not murder” and the like are mere secondary items. No way. Simply read 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 for starters. The unrepentant homosexual will no more make it into the Kingdom of God than the unrepentant murderer. It is that serious – and that important.
Paul begins his letter to the Corinthians by calling the church to unity in Christ. I think what he is doing at the end of the letter is then defining exactly what it is that unites us – Christ’s life, death and resurrection, the things of first importance. You are right, Bill, that other things are important too, very important, including our sexuality, but I think what Paul is saying is that they are not more important than our unity in Christ, in other words, not issues that should divide the church.
Thanks Elizabeth, but you still might not be getting things right here. When Paul says things like the resurrection are of first importance, that does NOT mean that there is nothing else of first importance. All of God’s will for mankind is of first importance. And the fact that divisions may arise is no reason to stop proclaiming truth, be it about God, about sexuality, or what have you.
The most divisive person on earth was Jesus – wherever he went he caused division. By you reasoning he could nt or should not have been of first importance because of all the resultant divisions caused! While Scripture emphasises unity, it is never at the expense of truth. See here for more: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2009/03/16/on-truth-and-unity-part-one/
So I reject the idea that telling God to get lost with his intentions for sexuality and marriage and family (which is exactly what we do when we say homosexuality and the redefinition of marriage is no big deal and we can just do what we like here) is somehow a non-important matter. It is vitally important, and is not just some issue that Christians can agree to disagree on.
And how do we explain the relationship of Christ (King of Kings, Lord of Lords and Saviour of His Church) and His Bride (The Church, the repository of truth and earthly source of the teaching of the Bible, nurturer of the redeemed, source of fellowship, assistant to the Holy Spirit in the process of sanctification), if we don’t uphold the essentially unique nature of marriage as between one man, one wife, for life?
Thanks John and yes quite right. The same with the OT – how do we explain the relationship between Yahweh and Israel?
Rom 1:20 “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.”
So what does sinful man do? …. He turns nature upside down on its head so that it no longer reflects Gods glory thinking now that he has effectively obliterated the power of this verse and thus has every excuse. Mind boggling
Jesus was kind, loving and compassionate to the woman at the well (who was in sexual sin) AND his final words to her were “go and sin no more”. We can’t be turning a blind eye to any form of sexual sin and we certainly can’t be championing it. Thanks Bill
SSM may not be a salvation issue – as demonstrated by the criminal on the cross alongside Jesus who was told that he would see Christ in Paradise that very day, but it is not merely a Gospel issue either. Those promoting the SSM agenda are diametrically opposed to Christianity. In case you’ve not seen the articles I refer you to:
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/this-survey-is-about-much-more-than-samesex-marriage-20170831-gy83b6.html
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/culturalleft-wants-to-banish-religion-from-the-public-square/news-story/ca85b764cfe2c6711d11ae751b87c910?nk=e7b2c2e3a38492bb6cea68b8a9cad4d6-1504443204
It should come as no surprise that the desire is the complete abolition of Christianity. With that being the goal, why is anyone who calls themself Christian supporting this agenda? Sadly it’s all too obvious – some ‘Christians’ are wedded to Marxist politics so see no conflict, others are Christian and wedded to Scripture so do.
If an authentic human marriage is meant to reflect an even more intensely real, “authentic” relationship between the LORD and Israel – as in the Old Testament; and the ultimate relationship between Jesus Christ and His ekkl?sia as in the New Testament, surely the Biblical understanding of marriage and its opposites cannot seriously be divorced from a truly Biblical soteriology. Why is it that early in the first book of the Bible, God performs/creates the first marriage and that the Bible closes with the marriage feast of the Lamb and His bride?
I think my comments on your pages here can testify that I have been saying similar things for a long time. This is a defining issue that will be used to distinguish between those who have been fed and clothed and those who have not i.e. between the sheep and the goats. This is what Daniel prophesied:-
Dan 11:31 And forces will stand from him, and they will profane the sanctuary, the fortress, and shall remove the daily (sacrifice), and they shall place the desolating abomination.
(MKJV)
Once people realize that we are the temple (1 Cor 3:16) and that a new Jewish Temple in Jerusalem cannot be the Holy Place mentioned in scripture because all animal sacrifices are now an insult to what Jesus has already done and so a new Jewish Temple cannot be sanctified, then you begin to understand what the abomination that makes desolate is.
We know homosexuality is an abomination. It is the first unconditional abomination mentioned in the scriptures. We know it makes physically desolate, i.e. it does not produce offspring, but we can now see that it also makes spiritually desolate by causing people to ignore the scriptures and God’s commandments plus it also makes intellectually desolate by forcing laws based on imaginations instead of reality. We are now seeing this in churches, which are meant to be sanctified places, so it is definitely standing where it should not. Daniel’s prophecy here is that doing this will stop the covering of Jesus sacrifice (the “daily”) and so will render people who engage in this not covered by the New Covenant. They have, through their actions, proved that they do not have faith or believe in the one true God because they are actively opposing what He said. If I am correct then all it will take is for a left wing party to take control in Israel and then the prophecy in Matthew 24:15 will be quickly fulfilled and that will be the trigger for the start of the great tribulation, as Jesus spoke of, in the remainder of Mathew 24.
Having said that the scriptures are clear that no-one knows the time and it seems obvious to me that God has put a huge effort into this creation and so will want the maximum return (in souls) for His investment but this will be balanced with His love for us which will shorten the time (Mat 24:22) and, of course, I could be wrong. (Whoever reads let him understand.)
‘Honour your father and your mother.’ ‘You shall not cover your neighbour’s wife…’
Commandments 5 and 10. (Deuteronomy 5: 7-21).
We are following what’s happening in Aus and are praying for you! In the meantime, readers might like to read this post from March 2014 just before the first same sex marriages in Britain, which shows how many theologically orthodox church leaders kept their heads down even to the point of discouraging intercession.
http://anglicanmainstream.org/same-sex-marriage-are-we-allowed-to-pray-about-it/
Many thanks for that Andrew Symes.
Dear Bill,
I agree ABSOLUTELY with everything you have said in this article. Marriage IS a Gospel issue and always has been so the the sympathisers of SSM can deny this all they like but it won’t make one iota of difference. They are going against Jesus and what he expects from his followers.
As a Catholic I also believe that Jesus elevated marriage between a man and a woman to such a high degree that He condescended to His Mother’s humble request to perform His first miracle at the marriage feast of Cana even though he said His ‘time had not yet come’. This is why the Catholic Church looks upon marriage between a man and a woman as one of the seven sacraments which Catholic believe were instituted by Jesus Christ so believers could live holy lives. The other sacraments are baptism, confirmation, Eucharist, confession, the sacrament of the sick [which used to be extreme unction] and holy orders.
In marriage two people of the same sex cannot live a holy life because they are committing the grave sin of sodomy which is a sin so harmful that it ‘cries up to heaven for vengeance’. It is harmful because it is ‘contrary to the welfare of mankind’.
I am fairly sure the supporters of SSM would have no problem agreeing with me that the other three sins in this category were also harmful to humankind . They are voluntary murder, defrauding a labourer of his wages and taking advantage of the poor.
By their obstinate refusal to acknowledge ‘the sin of impurity against nature’ which includes sodomy they put their immortal sous in danger because what they believe is an insult to God who is the Creator of the world.
To put it simply it is like saying He didn’t know what He was doing when he created us. That He is not the perfect source of infinite power, wisdom and goodness.
The Bible is book all about marriage from beginning to end. Christians cannot accept “marriage equality” because it is a lie. There is no sexual activity or relationship equal to the one-flesh marriage of a man and a woman, and this symbolises and looks forward to the last and ultimate marriage of Christ and his Church, which is a union of difference, not sameness.
Just as Abraham sent his servant away to bring home a bride, Rebecca, for his son Isaac, the Father has sent his servants into the four corners of the earth to prepare a bride for his Son, Jesus Christ. This is why Jesus remained single while on earth. His let his cheek be kissed in betrayal, but never his lips in love. He took the hands of those he healed, but never “held hands”. The bride of Christ, the church, must remain virginal and pure, so cannot condone or support or participate in sexual perversion.
I am concerned that Sam Allberry seems to contradict himself on whether homosexual practice is of first importance. It is not one of the things that Paul lists as being of first importance in 1 Corinthians 15. Sam says “This is not to say that other issues are of no importance, just that they are not of first importance.” by which he seems to mean that homosexual practice is important, but not of first importance. A little further down the page, however, we read ” There are five reasons why we must regard the issue of homosexuality as being of first importance.”
Is Sam condradicting both himself, and Paul?
Thanks Elizabeth, but there is nothing really to be concerned about. While I cannot speak for Sam, I am pretty sure we are on the same page on this. So my reply would be this – we need to emphasise a number of biblical truths here:
-Yes, all sins sent Jesus to the cross, so in that sense they are all equally very bad indeed.
-However, Scripture itself singles out some sins as being worse than others. So all sins are NOT equal in that sense. For example, some sins mentioned in the Old Testament warrant punishments like the death penalty while others do not. Jesus too spoke about this. But see this two-part article for a lot more detail on all this:
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2010/11/12/are-all-sins-equal-part-one/
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2010/11/12/are-all-sins-equal-part-two/
-In terms of where the battle lines are being drawn at the moment in the West, homosexuality and the transgender revolution are certainly at the top of the list of the issues we must deal with. While all sexual sin must be resisted and opposed, there are some that are now especially being rammed down our throats, so that is where our emphasis must be. We go where the battles are the hottest when it comes to the culture wars.
-In Romans 1 Paul carefully looks at the war against God and the rejection of God, and he singles out one sin, homosexuality, as the epitome of man rebelling against God. So even Paul says on the one hand that all sins are bad news, but he has no problem singling out some as a real indication and example of man’s sinful rebellion against God.
Sorry Bill, I’m still not following you I’m afraid. Isn’t Paul saying that the things of first importance are the life, death and resurrection of Jesus? He does not mention any sins in 1 Cor 15, as far as I can see, regardless of how serious they may be. It seems to me that Sam first acknowledges that Paul says that other issues are not of first importance, but then goes on to explain why he, Sam, says that one of the other issues – homosexuality – is of first importance.
Surely if we take Paul seriously, homosexuality along with all other forms of sin must fall in the category of what Paul calls “debatable matters”.
Thanks Elizabeth. But you still may be missing the point. Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 is talking about the importance of the resurrection. That does NOT mean that nothing else is important. All biblical truths are important, and that includes God’s intentions for human sexuality. All this I have sought to explain in the article above.
All God’s truth is important, and it cannot be reduced to what we find in just one chapter – 1 Cor. 15. And you are quite amiss in suggesting that God’s fundamental plans for sexuality, marriage and family are just mere “debatable matters”. Not even close. They are at the heart of God’s creation order, and are reflective of God’s relationship with his people. He speaks of the husband-wife relationship when he speaks of his relationship with Israel. It is the same with Christ’s relationship to the church. That is how important heterosexual marriage is, when he uses it to show what his relationship to his people is like.
This is vitally important, as is God’s fundamental moral code. You might as well argue that “thous shall not murder” and the like are mere secondary items. No way. Simply read 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 for starters. The unrepentant homosexual will no more make it into the Kingdom of God than the unrepentant murderer. It is that serious – and that important.
Paul begins his letter to the Corinthians by calling the church to unity in Christ. I think what he is doing at the end of the letter is then defining exactly what it is that unites us – Christ’s life, death and resurrection, the things of first importance. You are right, Bill, that other things are important too, very important, including our sexuality, but I think what Paul is saying is that they are not more important than our unity in Christ, in other words, not issues that should divide the church.
Thanks Elizabeth, but you still might not be getting things right here. When Paul says things like the resurrection are of first importance, that does NOT mean that there is nothing else of first importance. All of God’s will for mankind is of first importance. And the fact that divisions may arise is no reason to stop proclaiming truth, be it about God, about sexuality, or what have you.
The most divisive person on earth was Jesus – wherever he went he caused division. By you reasoning he could nt or should not have been of first importance because of all the resultant divisions caused! While Scripture emphasises unity, it is never at the expense of truth. See here for more: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2009/03/16/on-truth-and-unity-part-one/
And here:
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2009/03/16/on-truth-and-unity-part-two/
So I reject the idea that telling God to get lost with his intentions for sexuality and marriage and family (which is exactly what we do when we say homosexuality and the redefinition of marriage is no big deal and we can just do what we like here) is somehow a non-important matter. It is vitally important, and is not just some issue that Christians can agree to disagree on.