Posted on 08/10/2012 6:48:52 AM PDT by Graybeard58
WAKE FOREST, N.C. (BP) -- 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 the Bible more carefully. 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. 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 first 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, 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 every one 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.
Daniel Akin is president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C.
How could anyone really know that? Besides, does anyone really think the subject of same-sex marriage was even talked about then?
Does it matter? He never addressed cannibalism as far as I know but every Christian I ever knew was aware that it’s wrong and evil.
Highly doubtful. Heck...would anyone have thought about it in 1950?
John 10:30...... I and the Father are one.”
That addresses it and puts a period on it.
The gospels have nothing from Jesus on beastiality. So, I guess that means it is just OK!!!!!! What a crock and what a lame argument. Same sex attempted marriage is unnatural at face value. Maybe Jesus said nothing, but I believe St. Paul had some thoughts.
Jesus (as well as the Apostle Paul) spoke about fulfilling Jewish Law.
Was not Jewish Law very specific about homosexuality?
God made it very clear in the Old Testament what He thought of homosexuality. And the Son did not come to refute the Father.
“Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.”- Matthew 5:17
How a liberal tries to misuse religion to push their agenda:
Jesus didn’t directly address texting while driving...therefore texting while driving is ok
True
1) Incest (it goes on at great length and exquisite detail).
2) Male homosexual acts (bluntly described as an abomination).
3) Sexual acts with an animal (by either a human male or a human female).
I am unaware of any specific prohibition in the Scriptures regarding female homosexual acts.
Let’s see, God destroys Sodom and Gommorah as a result of homosexuality but now He has seen the error of his ways? The homos just want to call it “marriage” because Jesus was quite specific as to the sin of adultery, as was Paul.
Then Christ came into the world.
14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
Again: Isa 9:6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counseller, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
Christ and God are One in the Same, yet distinct Beings. If God condemned homosexuality, then Christ condemned homosexuality. God condemned homosexuality, therefore Christ condemned homosexuality. End of discussion.
The only people who suggest otherwise are those who are desperately trying to justify their perverted, evil and godless lifestyle.
Paul, addressing Gentiles, addressed homosexuality and we all know how harshly he spoke against it (Romans).
Elsewhere we know what God thought about homosexuality as in the story about Sodom and Gomorrah. Jesus was always fully compliant with God's will so would have believed God's actions against these cities to be righteous. Lev. 18 spells out more laws about what God thinks as far as sexual practices go.
Sexual purity is God's highest and that is stated again and again throughout Scripture.
There are passages that talk about women lying down with women as if with a man, and in similar terms to male homosexual acts.
I am at work, so I don’t have my books handy. Think it is in Leviticus and know it is in Romans. Though the latter is often thrown out by the “Paul is not Christian” crowd.
Yes there is.
I think Christ made it abundantly clear about one man and one woman in Matthew 19:5...
“FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH”
Wife... not “partner,” not “husband,” but wife. Even for liberals in their twisted perverted minds... this isn’t hard to comprehend.
Well, Paul mentions it along with male homosexuality in Romans 1 (This is from the New Living Translation for purposes of clarity):
24 So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies.
25 They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen.
26 That is why God abandoned them to their shameful desires. Even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other.
27 And the men, instead of having normal sexual relations with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful things with other men, and as a result of this sin, they suffered within themselves the penalty they deserved.
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