The Homosexual Revolution -The Bible And Homosexuality

Excerpts from:
The Homosexual Revolution
END TIME ABOMINATION
BY DAVID A. NOEBEL, with GERALD S. POPE, JULIAN WILLIAMS
WRITTEN 1977

CHAPTER 4
The Bible And Homosexuality
"There is the possibility of morally good homosexual relationships." John J. McNeill

The Rev. G. William Sheek, director of the National Council of Churches Family Ministries and Human Sexuality Program says he is deeply concerned about "certain myths and stereotypes that are being perpetuated in the dialogue over the ordinance concerning civil rights for homosexuals."

The National Council spokesman says that "it is simply not true that the Bible has a single and clear position on homosexuality and that the Biblical position was that homosexuality was a sin against nature not to be tolerated in society."

It certainly doesn't take a theologian long to see that the Biblical norm has always been male and female. Even neo-orthodox Karl Barth stated, "The command of God shows him irrefutably in clear contradiction of his own theories -- that as a man he can only be genuinely human with a woman, or as a woman with a man." And neo-orthodox Helmut Thielicke: "Homosexuality is in every case not in accord with the order of creation."

Then, too, some homosexuals frankly admit "homosexuality is condemned in both the Old and New Testaments." However, generally these homosexuals don't really care what the Bible says, since it isn't of great import to them anyway.

The Bible says, "God created man in his own image, in the image of God created He him, male and female created He them." (Gen. 1:27)

One of man's first commands was to "leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife." (Gen. 2:24)

Indeed, we are told that in marriage the male and female "shall be one flesh," and that they are to be fruitful and multiply." (Gen. 1:28) This could never be true of any homosexual relationships.

In the New Testament counterpart (Ephesians 5:3, 32) the relationship of Christ to His Church is typified by the relationship of husband and wife. Again such a type is destroyed by homosexuality. Homosexuality is not only contrary to God's creative plan, nature itself, but also to His divine types.

But what God says concerning homosexuality in Scripture gives the lie to the Rev. Sheek's point that Scripture does not have a single and clear position on the subject. Scripture consistently and forthrightly condemns homosexuality as evil and wicked. Nowhere does it condone it. Everywhere it condemns it.

MEN OF SODOM

In Gen. 13:13 we are told "the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the Lord exceedingly." Later the theme of Sodom is picked up again with "the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grevious." (Gen. 18:20)

Man in his sin and perversion fell into homosexuality undoubtedly as a mark of defiance against God. It seems whatever God condemns, man, some way, some how twists and turns into a human good. But in the beginning it was not so.

The homosexual community, of course, is very touchy about Sodom and Gomorrah. Indeed, the homosexual would have us believe that the sin of Sodom has nothing to do with homosexuality. Some argue the sin is adultery and incest. Fr. John O' Neill in his work "The Homosexual and the Church" argues very weakly that the sin of Sodom is the sin of being poor hosts.

Such an interpretation is utter nonsense in light of Gen. 19:5, "Where are the men which came into thee this night? Bring them out unto us that we may know them."

The Hebrew word for "know " is yodha and means a sexual knowledge or relationship. The men of Sodom desired a homosexual relationship with these men. If the sin were the sin of being poor hosts, Lot never would have offered his own daughters to these bisexual perverts. He would have offered them tea and cookies. Incidentally, the same Hebrew word is used in Gen. 19:8, "Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known men," and everyone agrees that it refers to sexual intercourse.

Then too, one would never read such expressions as "the iniquity of the city" (Gen. 19:15) or "the cry of them is waxen great before the face of the Lord, and the Lord hath sent us to destroy it" (19:13), if their sin were merely the sin of being a poor host.

FILTHY DREAMERS

If the Lord took such action upon Sodom because it was a city of poor hosts and hostesses, there would be few cities around today. The truth is that the Lord rained brimstone and fire down upon Sodom and Gomorrah because the two cities and the cities about them gave themselves over to homosexuality or "the going after strange flesh." (Jude 1:7) Jude refers to them as "filthy dreamers" who "defile the flesh." (Jude 1:8)

Peter's commentary on Sodom and Gomorrah reads similar to Jude's. "If God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell ... turned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes ... condemned them with an overthrow, making them an example unto these that after should live ungodly, and delivered Lot, vexed with the filthy manner of living of the wicked." (2 Peter 2:4-7)

Being a poor host is undoubtedly poor manners, but hardly a sin that would receive such denunciation from the Lord. And as one reads Lot's actions in Gen.19, he appears to be a fine host to his two strange friends. He greets them at the gate of the city and bows himself before them with his face to the ground. (Gen. 19:1) He invites them into his servant's house to wash their feet and sets before them a feast. (19:2) In fact, he protects his guests by giving the extra mile and offering his daughters to the mob. The mob, of course, was a poor host, but only because the mob desired to commit acts of perversion with Lot's guests. And it was their acts of perversion that the Lord labels as wicked, sin, defilers of the flesh, etc.

Josephus, the Jewish historian, in his "Antiquities" clearly identified the sin of Sodom with homosexual practices. He wrote, "About this time the Sodomites were proud on account of their riches ... they hated strangers and abused themselves with Sodomitical practices."

A Jewish midrash on Genesis commented, "The Sodomites made an agreement among themselves, whenever a stranger visited them that they should force him to sodomy and rob him of his money."

Clement of Alexandria stated that the Sodomite had "fallen into uncleanness, practicing adultery shamelessly and burning with insane love for boys."

And Augustine wrote in his Apostolic Constitution, "Thou shalt not corrupt boys, for this wickedness is contrary to nature and arose from Sodom."

THE DEATH PENALTY

Following the giving of the Mosaic Law, the Scriptures continue to press hard on the sin of homosexuality. Moses says, "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind, it is abomination, " (Lev.18:22) and "if a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination, they shall surely be put to death, their blood shall be upon them." (Lev. 20:13)

And, some homosexuals try to soften Moses' blows by arguing that David and Jonathan had a homosexual relationship.

1 Sam. 18:1 states, "The soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David and Jonathan loved him as his own soul."

However, the Scriptural commentary on David's life has no such sin laid to his account. The Lord says David's sins were murder and adultery (1 Kings 15:5), not homosexuality.

Homosexuality is sexual lust, not soul love.

Besides, the very context of 1 Kings 15:5 would rule out the fact that David was gay. Just a few verses before, the Lord is said to have dispatched the Sodomites (1 Kings 14:24),and a few verses later King Asa is praised as one that was "right in the eyes of the Lord" (1 Kings 15-11) for taking away "the Sodomites out of the land." (1 Kings 15:12) Had David been guilty of homosexuality, it would have been mentioned and condemned.

And King Josiah, likewise, did that which was right in the sight of the Lord and he broke down the houses of the Sodomites (2 Kings 23:7). Since few kings ever are said to do right, the few that do are all accredited with handling the homosexual problem.

President Carter needs to think over this truth before he goes any further in his drive to place more homosexuals in government positions. He also needs to remember his own words, "for us to engage in homosexual activities, for us to steal, for us to lie -- all these are sins."

ISRAEL/JUDAH FALL

The Old Testament prophets continually warned Israel about falling into homosexuality, but evidently with little success. Isaiah, in his condemnation of Israel, says, "Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom and Gomorrah."

(Isa. 1:9) In fact, he refers to the government of Israel as "ye rulers of Sodom" and to the population as "ye people of Gomorrah." (1:10) Israel, instead of avoiding the sins of the Canaanites, practiced such sins. Part of the reason for Israel going into Assyrian captivity was over her homosexuality.

And Jeremiah leaves little doubt why Judah went into the Babylonian captivity some 136 years later. "I have seen also in the prophets of Jerusalem a horrible thing: they commit adultery, and walk in lies, they strengthen also the hands of evildoers that none doth return from his wickedness: they are all of them unto me as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah." (Jer. 23:14)

One point is abundantly clear, the Old Testament has a consistent and clear point of view regarding homosexuality and it is all negative.

CHRIST AND HOMOSEXUALITY

But the New Testament does not give the homosexual much more to cheer about. The one big difference might be that under the Old Testament dispensation the homosexuals were either executed or exiled. Under the New Testament, the homosexual is to be warned that his activity is sinful and under the wrath of God (Rom. 1:18-27); and if he is a member of a local Christian assembly he is to be dismissed (1 Cor. 5:6). Since government was established to protect the good and innocent, it would not be un-Christian to execute child seducers and molesters. However, some insist that since Jesus Christ never specifically mentioned such perversion, Jesus Christ is soft on homosexuality.

The retort to such an insinuation is: (a) Christ's very positive statement in Mark 10:6f. "But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife, and the two shall be one flesh." Male and female, says Christ, were created for each other, since the only meaningful marriage relationship is the male female relationship.

(b) In Luke 17:28f., our Lord warns his disciples about the moral climate of the end time and says, "Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot ... the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all."

(c) Matthew 19:9 records, "Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery." The Greek word for fornication is porneia and means giving one's self to unlawful sexual relationship. The word is used in Jude 1:7 in reference to Sodom and Gomorrah's sins of immorality, i.e., homosexuality. The term fornication or porneia certainly entails homosexuality, and Christ said it is a sin that indeed severs the marriage bond .

Our Lord Jesus Christ, therefore, does have a good deal to say about the subject of homosexuality, and so does Paul. Indeed, Paul turns out to be the arch-nemesis of the gay community. Few pastors in the Metropolitan Community Churches (an association of homosexual churches in America) preach with conviction from Paul's writings in Romans 1, 1 Cor. 6, and 1 Tim. 1. In fact, the homosexuals refer to him as "asexual" Paul. But what Paul condemns is illicit sexual relationships -- never godly relationships. He it is who says "marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled, but fornicators (i.e. homosexuals) and adulterers God will judge." (Heb. 13:4)

GAYS AGAINST NATURE

Romans 1 has to be the New Testament paradigm on homosexuality. Paul, of course, condemns both male and female (lesbianism) homosexuality as he says, "For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections, for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature's law. And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another, men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet." (Rom. 1:26,27)

We have yet to see a good explanation of these two verses from a homosexual point of view! Some seek to play down Paul and say Christ is the founder of Christianity and therefore stick with the red-letter edition of the Bible. Hopefully they will read Matt. 19, Mark 10, and Luke 17 carefully.

Others say Paul cannot be referring to present day "psychological" homosexuals since he did not have access to the science of psychology and sociology. (see Fr. O'Neill's The Homosexual and the Church, pp.56). Such distinctions are nonsense! A practicing modern-day homosexual falls under the condemning words of Paul just as forcefully as a first century invert or pervert. A psychological invert ' in practice, performs the same detestable acts as a heterosexual pervert. Both have left the natural use of the woman and both burn in their lusts one toward another.

But to make sure he does not miss any different kinds of sexual perverts, Paul condemns both the passive (Gr. malakoi) and the active homosexual (Gr. arsenokoitai) in 1 Cor. 6:9 and states that such unrighteousness "shall not inherit the kingdom of God." Even the RSV translates 1 Cor. 6:9 "homosexuals" and the latter Gr. word "arsenokoitai" could be "an obsessive corruption of boys." This verse seems a bit contrary to the modern day theologian quoted earlier who said that homosexual acts "may not be interpreted as excluding one from the domain of God's gracious intention." Paul says such behavior does.

But to make sure no one misreads Paul's earlier comments on the subject, he again sets forth his case in 1 Tim. 1:9,10. The law, he says is not for the righteous, but for the ungodly, for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers, for whoremongers, for homosexuals, for kidnappers, for liars, etc.

This leaves us in a quandary over Rev. Sheek's comment that the Bible does not have a consistently clear stand on this subject.

The Bible does indeed take a consistent stand on the subject. From Genesis to Revelation homosexuality is treated as a sin and exceeding wickedness.

And to speak of "good gay Christians" is a contradiction of terms. True repentance includes the forsaking of sin. The Bible says, "He that covereth his sins shall not prosper, but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy." (Prov. 28:13)