Biblical Based Foundation

Biblical Worldview presents these truths with regard to this issue:

Sex.

-Sex is a gift from God given to a Man and Woman in marriage. It is to be enjoyed and celebrated in the development of the family.

-Jesus follows God’s Creational design and says in marriage a man cleaves to and becomes one flesh with a woman, his wife. Their physical bodies are joined together in a deep, profound sexual union of body and soul, and the two become one. Jesus cites Genesis 2 as God the Father’s perfect plan which covers all of the “alternative sexualities.” Indeed, every single sexual act the Bible explicitly condemns – adultery, fornication, homosexuality, and bestiality – is excluded by Jesus’ simple formula.

The following information is written by: Greg Koukl, 9/01/2019 for Stand To Reason.

Consider homosexuality, for example. I understand that every depiction of it in popular culture is overwhelmingly positive, and those who differ are characterized as hateful bigots. This is not God’s perspective, though. I want you to pay close attention to the details of a point Paul makes about homosexuality in Romans 1: “God gave them over to degrading passions; for…the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts…. (Rom. 1:26–27)”

The word translated “function” here, the Greek word kreesis, is specifically referring to the fit mentioned earlier. God designed men and women to functionsexually together—their bodies fit together in a precise way to make sexual union possible. Since natural desires go with natural functions, the sexual passion that exchanges the natural function of sex for an unnatural function (homosexuality) is what Paul calls a “degrading passion.”

Notice in particular how Paul explains the nature of this offense before God. He says, “The men abandoned the natural function of the woman,” that is, they rejected the appropriate counterpart God had provided—a woman who was built by Him to be man’s sexual complement. That’s why Scripture has nothing positive to say about homosexuality. Whenever it is mentioned in the Bible, it is condemned.[x]

God also has nothing positive to say about any other sexual behavior outside of marriage—like adultery or fornication—for the same reason: It also corrupts God’s good purpose. Christians who lean progressive do not condone adultery, as far as I know. Nowadays, though, fornication hardly raises an eyebrow—especially among the younger crowd—yet it’s just as much a violation of God’s good plan as homosexuality.

Paul provides another angle you may not have considered. Since our bodies are members of Christ, “one flesh” sexual unions outside of marriage spiritually join Christ (who is in us) to an unholy coupling, sullying the

temple of God, our own bodies. That’s why instead of embracing these relationships, Paul says we should flee them (1 Cor. 6:15–20).

Here is Paul’s sobering summary on the status of those who engage in persistent, habitual sexual sin:

Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators…nor adulterers…nor homosexuals…will inherit the kingdom of God. (1 Cor. 6:9–10)

God’s solution for satisfying our sexual appetites is marriage: “Because of [sexual] immoralities, each man is to have his own wife, and each woman is to have her own husband” (1 Cor. 7:2).[xi] Confusion on this issue, as Paul points out, is deadly deception. Do not be taken in. Scripture is not unclear or ambiguous.

There is a telling passage in the passion narrative where Pilate is confronted by the mob and must decide where his loyalties lie. Mark records his decision: “Wishing to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas for them, and after having Jesus scourged, he handed Him over to be crucified” (Mark 15:15).

Many in Christendom today are taking their cues from Pilate. They are more concerned with satisfying the crowd than being faithful to Jesus. They champion the criminal and turn their back on the Savior.

Culture may be confused on salvation, abortion, gender, marriage, and sex. Don’t you be. On these issues, God has spoken clearly. Faithfulness to our Lord is not theologically complicated.

Gender

There is one thing everyone knows about the world. They know something is wrong, that things are not the way they are supposed to be. The world is broken, and multitudes suffer as a result.

There was a time, though, when this was not so. Genesis tells us about that time. It is the book of beginnings, the introduction to the story of reality. It tells us the way the world was when God first made it, when “all that He had made…was very good” (1:31). It tells us the way the world is supposed to be, the way it was before the evil.

Here is what the book of beginnings tells us about the beginning of human beings:

God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it….” (Gen. 1:27–28)

We have already mentioned the importance of the image of God in man. It’s the source of our innate and intrinsic value, the source of our inherent dignity and nobility. I want you to notice something else about the good, dignified, noble way God made humans.

From the very beginning, human beings have been either male or female, one or the other. In God’s world, sex is binary. There are rare physical exceptions,[vi] but that is not the way things are supposed to be. The exceptions are part of the brokenness.

Notice also that in God’s order there is no hint of distinction between the sex a person is on the outside and the sex a person thinks he is on the inside. Humans were created to be unified, whole persons—the mind matching the body.

At the moment, though, this point is controversial. Some think there is no vital connection between the sex a person is physically and their mental perception of their sex (often referred to as “gender”). And, indeed, there is a miniscule percent of people who are genuinely conflicted, thinking their own gender is different from their sex.[vii] But that is also part of the brokenness. It clearly is not God’s good plan.

There is a reason God made two physical sexes with their matching genders. In God’s plan, men and women were made both physically and emotionally different from each other in order to fit together in a complementary way. As counterparts sexually and soulishly, they were created so the woman could be what God called a “suitable helpmate” to man (Gen. 2:18–25). Even after the evil came and the world was broken, this plan did not change. Indeed, without this physical and emotional fit, it would not be possible for men and women to fulfill God’s command to multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it together.

Scripture is not ambiguous or unclear on this issue, which is why no one, Christian or otherwise, has been confused on it for thousands of years—until recently. Gender is not “fluid” in the way some have made it out to be. That is not how God made human beings.

Binary sexuality is also key to understanding God’s purpose for something else the culture has been confused about.

Marriage

When Jesus was asked about the legitimacy of divorce, He answered by going back to the beginning.

Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh”? (Matt. 19:4–5)

According to Jesus, then, marriage is not a cultural convention based on current custom and sexual whim. Instead, marriage is tied to God’s creation order. Here is His formula for marriage: one man, with one woman, becoming one flesh, for one lifetime.

Notice Jesus’ implicit support of binary gender in His reference to Genesis 2:24: a man leaves his father and mother  and cleaves to his wife. The kind of marriage God had in mind from the beginning is rooted in gender. Men marry women. Women marry men. And being a man or a woman is determined by one’s physical body.

The reason, of course, is obvious. As a group, as a rule, by nature and by design, long-term, monogamous, heterosexual marriages produce the next generation. Successful reproduction requires stable families; stable families are fundamental to civilization; marriages begin families, and a man and a woman make a marriage.

According to Jesus’ thinking, then, same-sex marriage (or any other creative variation) is not only wrong for the same reason divorce is wrong—it corrupts God’s good design—it’s also a contradiction in terms. The word “marriage” has no meaning when used of same-sex couples since heterosexual union is inherent to God’s definition of marriage.

There is nothing ambiguous about Jesus’ view.[viii]Yes, the culture is confused, but there is no reason for you to be confused.

There is something else we learn from Jesus’ formula and from the passage in Genesis He derives it from.

[ix] Notice these all involve sex with someone other than a person’s opposite-sex spouse.

[x] For a detailed treatment of attempts by some within the church to biblically sanitize homosexuality, see “A Reformation the Church Doesn’t Need” at str.org.

[xi] Notice, again, the implicit reference to binary sexuality and the presumption of heterosexual marriage.

[vi] Those who, through a rare congenital defect, are born intersex.

[vii] This internal conflict is known as “gender dysphoria.”

[viii] In light of Matthew 19, the claim that “Jesus never said anything about homosexuality” is groundless. Though Jesus didn’t use the word “homosexuality” here, clearly His teaching on sex and marriage apply to it

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