why should he of ever brought it up? it was considered Settled Law...
Posted on 08/12/2012 1:27:48 PM PDT by CHRISTIAN DIARIST
Today it is popular among those promoting same sex marriage to say that Jesus never addressed the issue, that He was silent on the subject. Those who affirm the historical and traditional understanding of marriage between a man and woman often are admonished to go and read more carefully the Bible. If we do so we are told we will see that Jesus never addressed the issue. So, the question that I want to raise is, “Is this assertion correct?” Is it indeed the fact that Jesus never addresses the issue of same sex marriage?
When one goes to the gospels to see exactly what Jesus did say, one will discover that He addressed very clearly both the issues of sex and marriage. He addresses both their use and misuse. And, as He speaks to both subjects, He makes it plain that issues of the heart are of critical importance.
First, what did Jesus say about sex? Jesus believed that sex is a good gift from a great God. Jesus is pro-sex! He also believed that sex was a good gift to be enjoyed within a monogamous, heterosexual covenant of marriage. On this He is crystal clear. In Mark 7 Jesus addresses the fact that all sin is ultimately an issue of the heart. Jesus was never after behavioral modification. Jesus was always after heart transformation. Change the heart and you truly change the person. Thus when He lists a catalog of sins in Mark 7: 21-22, He makes it clear that all of these sins are ultimately matters of the heart. It is the idols of the heart that Jesus is out to eradicate. Among those sins of the heart that often give way to sinful actions He would include both sexual immorality and adultery (Mark 7:21). The phrase “sexual immorality,” in a biblical context, would speak of any sexual behavior outside the covenant of marriage between a man and woman. Therefore, Jesus viewed pre-marital sex, adultery and homosexual behavior as sinful. And, He knew that the cure for each is a transformation of the heart made possible by the good news of the gospel. The gospel changes us so that now we are enabled to do not what we want, but what God wants. Here we find real freedom and joy.
Second, what about the issue of marriage? Is it truly the case that Jesus never spoke to the issue in terms of gender? The answer is a simple no. He gives His perspective on this when He addresses the issue in Matthew 19:4-6. There, speaking to the institution of marriage, Jesus is clear when He says, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” That Jesus was committed to heterosexual marriage could not be more evident. A man is to leave his parents and be joined to a woman who becomes his wife. This is heterosexual marriage. That He also was committed to the permanence and fidelity of marriage is clear as well.
So, how might we sum up the issue? First, Jesus came to deliver all people from all sin. Such sin, He was convinced, originated in and was ultimately a matter of the heart. Second, Jesus made it clear that sex is a good gift from a great God, and this good gift is to be enjoyed within heterosexual covenantal marriage. It is simply undeniable that Jesus assumed heterosexual marriage as God’s design and plan. Third, Jesus sees all sexual activity outside this covenant as sinful. Fourth, it is a very dangerous and illegitimate interpretive strategy to bracket the words of Jesus and read into them the meaning you would like to find. We must not isolate Jesus from His affirmation of the Old Testament as the Word of God nor divorce Him from His 1st century Jewish context. Fifth, and this is really good news, Jesus loves both the heterosexual sinner and the homosexual sinner and promises free forgiveness and complete deliverance to each and everyone who comes to Him. John 7 tells the story of a woman caught in adultery. The religious legalists want to stone her, but Jesus intervenes and prevents her murder. He then looks upon the woman and, with grace and tenderness, He tells her that He does not condemn her. Then He says to her, “go and sin no more.” In Matthew 11:28 Jesus speaks to everyone of us weighed down under the terrible weight and burden of sin. Listen to these tender words of the Savior, “Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.” This is the hope that is found in Jesus. This is the hope found in the gospel. Whether one is guilty of heterosexual or homosexual sin, one will find grace, forgiveness and freedom at the foot of the cross where the ground is always level.
When I came to fully trust Jesus as my Lord and Savior at the age of 20, I determined that I wanted to think like Jesus and live like Jesus for the rest of my life. When it comes to sex I want to think like Jesus. When it comes to marriage I want to think like Jesus. That means I will affirm covenantal heterosexual marriage. It also means loving each and every person regardless of their lifestyle choices. It means, as His representative, proclaiming His gospel and extending the transforming grace of the gospel to others that takes us where we are, but wonderfully and amazingly, does not leave us there. That is a hope and a promise that followers of Jesus gladly extend to everyone, because we have been recipients of that same amazing grace.
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A great post for a Sunday and right on also. Maranatha
Was it true the first time this was posted?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2916844/posts
Well, did he ever perform a same-sex marriage?
Most societys especially 2 thousand years ago didn’t marriage licenses..
Gospel citation for that, please, Dr. Akin.
It's interesting that the author would put this (non-Scriptural) statement first, as if he feels compelled (Exclamation!) to project the contemporary obsession with sex onto the Lord.
The strongest point in the words of Jesus regarding the impossiblitity of "same-sex marriage" is the passage that says, "From the beginning God made them male and female," with the additional quote from Genesis. This is in the context of Jesus's condemnation of divorce. We know for certain that He is anti-divorce and anti-adultery, both in action and in intention.
There is also His statement that He did not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it, which incorporates, as it were, a great deal of Old Testament moral teaching into Christianity.
why should he of ever brought it up? it was considered Settled Law...
I’m very sorry. I searched Daniel Akin’s name before posting and nothing came up.
Jesus performed his very first miracle at a Wedding. It was a wedding between a man and a woman. We have to look at the overall plan as evidenced by the history - the teleology. God chose that time and that place to send his Son and placed him in the care of a woman and her husband in a Holy Family.
His actions do not injure or insult those of same sex orientation, they affirm his plan.
This is his example and message to us.
“Jesus believed that sex is a good gift from a great God. Jesus is pro-sex!”
I never read into any of Jesus’ statements that he was pro-sex or viewed sex as a gift. I understood that he saw marriage and procreation as part of God’s nature and God’s law. Jesus himself seemed to lead the life of a celibate.
What does Our Lord say in the Gospel about the Apostles?
Luke 10:16
He that heareth you, heareth me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth me; and he that despiseth me, despiseth him that sent me.
So....read in the Gospel:
UNREPENTANT sodomites are in Hell. God is merciful, repent
of the “act” confess this grave mortal sin to God. God makes no one homosexual, it is a disorder. Pray and after
a from the heart confession, remain chaste.
~ ~ ~
2 PETER 2:4-6 For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but delivered them, drawn down by infernal ropes to the lower hell, unto torments, to be reserved unto judgment: 5 And spared not the original world, but preserved Noe, the eighth person, the preacher of justice, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly. 6 And reducing the cities of the Sodomites, and of the Gomorrhites, into ashes, condemned them to be overthrown, making them an example to those that should after act wickedly.
2 Peter 2:4-6: Peter also reveals that the Sodomites are suffering in hell for their sins by comparing the Sodomites’ punishment to the eternal punishment of the evil angels. Just as God did not spare the angels when they sinned but cast them into hell, so He did the same with the Sodomites when He “condemned them to extinction and made them an example to those who were to be ungodly.”
JUDE 5:7 I will therefore admonish you, though ye once knew all things, that Jesus, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, did afterwards destroy them that believed not: 6 And the angels who kept not their principality, but forsook their own habitation, he hath reserved under darkness in everlasting chains, unto the judgment of the great day. 7 As Sodom and Gomorrha, and the neighbouring cities, in like manner, having given themselves to fornication, and going after other flesh, were made an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire.
Jude 5:7: Like Peter, Jude confirms that the Sodomites are in hell by saying that they had the same fate as the evil angels. Jude says just as the evil angels were condemned to hell, the Sodomites “likewise” (Greek, hos) acted immorally and are undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. “Undergoing” (Greek, upechousai) is a present participle which means their suffering is ongoing. See also the clear polarity between those who are saved (v.5) and those who are condemned (vv. 6-7,11,13).
That said, Jesus did say "... for this cause, a MAN shall leave his father and mother and cling to his WIFE, and the two shall become one flesh. Let therefore no man divide what God has joined together..." So, without specifically addressing the inconceivable concept of same-sex marriage, Jesus affirmed that marriage is between one man and one woman.
That does not mean that he was therefore advocating it.
No, it is not true. Next question.
Unless Dr. Akin was expanding his thesis to the broader context of Jesus being God and inspiring the Song of Songs (Solomon), I don't think his presentation of Jesus being a "sex guru" was very well substantiated, at least not to skeptical liberals.
I thought the same thing. Also, it was a very odd thing to start with on this piece.
I think that perspective is much more true to the Scriptures than the concept, "God is pro-sex!!!!!! Giggety!!!!!"
We can say, "Sex is good," in the sense that when God, at the completion of creation, "saw that it was very good," creation included human beings who would reproduce through sexual relations.
Unity and intimacy between spouses is good, and sexual relations can be a way in which unity and intimacy develop and are expressed. (Or not.) And of course, procreation is good - "Be fruitful and multiply" was the first commandment - and sex is the only way in which that happens.
It is sad that we have to even address such an absurd argument regarding Jesus.
Maybe Jesus didn’t address sex with chickens so maybe he is ok with it, utterly revolting.
He didn’t have to - back in those days those kind of people were stoned to death, so they didn’t swish in your face.
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