Writing at the prompting and under the direction of God's Holy Spirit, Paul continues to say that a result of men "suppressing" the truth they have about God (and themselves) is simply this -- that women abandon their natural function for sexual relations with other women, and men abandon their natural function with women and commit shameful acts of sexual practice with other men. Homosexual practice, therefore, is the result of suppressing the truth we have from God. Homosexual practice is, by Biblical definition, unrighteous.
There is little doubt that a good number of people in the human race have found themselves more attracted, relationally and sexually, to someone of their own gender. Questions have been raised about where this same-gender attraction comes from.
- Does such an orientation come from "nature" or "nurture"?
- If "nature," can someone claim that "God made me this way."?
- Is there any validity to such a claim?
- Does such a claim, if believed (by the person or affirmed by culture), give the person the "right" or green light to practice same-gender sexuality, with the attending freedom to believe that he/she is not doing anything wrong?
- If such a claim is not valid, what should such persons -- with deeply ingrained feelings and a 'natural-feeling' orientation - think about themselves and their relationship to God, who (if the Bible is to be believed) calls gay sexuality "unrighteousness"?
At first blush, such a claim is not patently unreasonable. Why? Because conservative Christians have often appealed to Psalm 139 as a description of how God is involved with every child conceived in the wombs of women. In this inspired song to God, David (seemingly speaking not just about himself, but more broadly about God's hand in the creating and shaping of human life) appears to think that God particularly shaped him from the earliest moments and from the most rudimentary earthly elements. It is not a far stretch to imagine someone with undeniably gay tendencies drawing the same conclusion - "I'm this way. I've been this way since I can remember. I didn't choose this. Therefore, I was created this way. God is the author of my gay-ness."
Still, there is a problem. We live in a "fallen" creation; this is, in a physical universe that has been impacted negatively by the moral choices of Adam and Eve. An originally "very good" creation has been impaired, distorted, marred - some would argue increasingly so -- by God's judgment on the physical order because of the moral sin of Adam. Instead of the ground simply yielding healthy plants with seed for reproduction of more healthy, helpful vegetation, God told Adam that now the ground would be, in some sense, his enemy, and that it would more naturally yield "thorns and thistles" (Genesis 3)
The point is that not everything that happens in the process of physical reproduction is the "way God made it." Everything in the physical order is laboring under the degenerating impact of sin. Plantinga said it, "Things are not the way they are supposed to be."
Some wonder, "What if a 'gay-gene' is found? Won't that prove that God makes people this way?" Not so fast. Genetic make-up is also under the "curse of the fall." What we may or may not find in our genes does not give us a pass to commit unrighteousness.
Clearly, the degenerating impact of sin has also scared and distorted our sexuality - our drives, our passions can be very wrong even though they may feel so natural. And we can know which drives or passions or tendencies are wrong by evaluating them in light of a revealed moral standard; that is, the Word of God.
UNDERSTANDING THE RECOVERY - "God can re-make me in Christ"
Again, led by the Spirit of God, Paul wrote this: Surely you know that the people who do wrong will not inherit God's Kingdom. Do not be fooled. Those who sin sexually, take part in adultery, those who are male prostitutes, or men who have sexual relations with other men, those who steal, are greedy, get drunk, lie about others, or rob -- these people will not inherit God's kingdom. In the past, some of you were like that, but you were washed clean. You were made holy, and your were made right with God in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God (1 Corinthians 6:9-11, NCV).
When anyone comes to Christ in a humble repentance, in faith on His ability to change us from the inside out, God does the most loving thing He can for each of us. He refuses to leave us where we are. He insists on something better, something that is washed and clean and out of the unrighteousness we may have felt was so very natural, even inbred.
Let's take responsibility for our unrighteousness, instead of making genetic excuses for it. And, let's trust our Creator, who can lift us out of unrighteousness and make us clean and washed and holy in Christ.
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