Homosexuality, Repentance, Change and Love
If we are convinced that the Bible is right in condemning homosexuality but we struggle with it, then what must we do?
A history of homosexual activity does not prevent a person from coming to Christ and being saved. Yet homosexual behaviour must not continue for the person converted to Christ. Take it from Paul: Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. (1 Corinthians 6:9-10)
But how are we to repent, endure and change?
Ability to Change
First of all, no one should expect that changing one’s sexual desires is an easy matter. All humans should understand, from experience, that sexuality is a deeply-rooted part of the human person, including dimensions and desires that are both conscious and unconscious, voluntary and involuntary, chosen and discovered. Sin has corrupted human sexuality just as the Fall corrupted every other aspect of our being. And everyone’s sexuality is fallen – not just that of homosexuals.
Every person, as he grows into adulthood, comes to discover and know a personal sexual profile that includes everything from arousal to activity. At some level, it remains a mystery to us all how we acquired this profile. Those who come to perceive either heterosexual or homosexual desires almost surely did not ask for that pattern of sexual interest, though it may have well been fuelled by early experiences or the surrounding environment.
It is often argued that pre-dating and trumping these early experiences and environmental factors, sexual orientation is fixed, genetically set at birth, and not subject to change. Therefore, forcing homosexuals to change is a form of abuse, flying in the face of and unchangeable fact of their own nature. So when society forced Jack and Ennis in Brokeback Mountain into sham and tragic heterosexual marriages, it simply compounded the problem and spread the pain.
This secular description of homosexual sin is a good reminder not just of the entrenchment of homosexual sin in our lives (if that is an area we struggle with) but the entrenchment of all kinds of other sins in our lives, whether we are heterosexual or homosexual. Sin is deceitful (Hebrews 3:13) and sin has the ability to imprison us. Before we came to Christ, we were indeed slaves of Sin (Romans 6).
We are not to underestimate the power of sexual sin or any other sins. As part of our repentance of our sin and rebellion against God, we are to acknowledge the incredible power of these enslavements and desires, so that we cannot escape from them. However at the same time, we acknowledge one greater power: the redeeming and transforming grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, if we believe in the gospel, we really do believe that it can and will completely transform us sinners, and that the Holy Spirit can and will perform His work of sanctification within the life of the believer. This means that practising homosexuals can really come out of the sin of homosexuality by God’s power, like heterosexuals and homosexuals alike can come out of their other sins.
Paul does not consider homosexual activity or any other sin so ingrained in a person’s behaviour that there is no escape. The triune God is able to wash, sanctify and justify in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of God. There is a way out from the judgement on all who continue in their sin in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10. “That is what some of you were“, Paul reminds the Corinthians (1 Cor 6:11). The homosexual and other sinners, by God’s grace, can be set free from their sin and sanctified in the name of the Lord Jesus and in the power of the Holy Spirit. There is hope for those who love and depend on God and seek to keep his commandments.
This does not mean that they will be free from all temptations and will not struggle with homosexual desires. The same is also true for those who come out of other patterns of bondage to sin. But we can all be made whole in Christ.
Opportunity to Change
If the repenting homosexual practitioner is not free from all temptation, will he not be set back by his inclinations to revert to homosexual conduct? What hope does he have? Do not worry, says Paul, As in all cases of temptation to sins, “no temptation has overtaken us that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let us be tempted beyond our ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that we may be able to endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).
Temptation is Not Sin
Temptation, it should be noted, is not the same as sin. Even if homosexual acts are wrong in God’s eyes, it is not sinful to be tempted to make love to someone of your own sex – unless, of course, you go on to perform the act mentally (see Matthew 5:27-28 where Jesus has heterosexuals in his sights).
Love Not Ostracism
If we are heterosexual Christians and we ostracise our homosexual neighbours simply because of the pattern of temptations they experience, then we are very confused and very wrong. (David Field)
Like all other sinners who have been saved by grace, those who once indulged in homosexual behaviour but have since repented of it are to be welcomed as part of the body of Christ (Rom 15:7, 2 Cor 2:5-11).
We all share in the fallenness of this present world order because of our rebellion against God. For that reason, homosexual behaviour is not more heinous than other sins (though it may hurt the sinner himself/herself more because it is done to the body), which reflect the world in opposition to God. Accordingly, there is no justification for the persecution of such persons who still bear the image of God, despite their sinful behaviour.
As Helmut Thielicke so long ago observed:
The predisposition itself, the homosexual potentiality as such, dare not be any more strongly depreciated than the status of existence which we all share as men in the disordered creation that exists since the Fall. Consequently, there is not the slightest excuse for maligning the constitutional homosexual morally or theologically. We are all under the same condemnation and each of us has received his “share” of it. In any case, from this point of view the homosexual share of that condemnation has no greater gravity which would justify any Pharisaic feelings of self-righteousness and integrity on the part of us “normal” persons.
Love Not Universal Acceptance
Some Christians have swung to the exact opposite error of not speaking of homosexuality as a sin at all, for fear of offending those who struggle with it. Since we all fall short of the glory of God, let us not speak of sin, they say. Who are we to judge right and wrong? The church is to be a place of love and peace.
Suffice to say, there is no scriptural basis for this action neglect. Instead, we know right and wrong from what is written in the Scriptures, and we are to rebuke and correct one another, so that we do not fall prey to false teaching (Titus 1, 2 Timothy 4) so as to present each other perfect in Christ on the Last Day (Colossians 1:28). To ignore each other’s sin under the banner of false love would be equivalent to neglecting to alert our neighbour that enemy hordes have marched up to his gate at night and are scaling rope ladders thrown over his parapet, all in the name of letting him have a good night’s sleep. How heinous a crime that would be!
Christians will never be free from sin in this world. Occasions of homosexual behaviour, do not therefore, exclude one from the kingdom of God any than occasions of theft or murder. What is imperative for Christians, however, is the acknowledgment that such acts are sinful and deserve God’s judgment. Unless we repent of all sinful activity, we will be excluded from the kingdom of God. God’s grace is sufficient to renew and sanctify all who turn to Christ, even those who fall into sin, time and time again. However, for those who choose to disobey God’s commandments wilfully and deliberately, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins (Heb 10:26).
shadow. (24 February 2006). Homosexuality, Repentance, Change and Love., from http://thebookofshadow.blogspot.com/2006/02/homosexuality-repentance-change-and.html
