That which is against nature (Rom. 1:24-27)

 

The church has often been likened to a hospital.  This week I was thinking about how so many aspects of that analogy are fitting as I was visiting a brother in the hospital.  As I walked down the halls, I saw many folks in waiting rooms.  Some were waiting to be taken in for an operation or a procedure or a test.  Others were there waiting on someone, who were there for support and help.  Then there are those who are admitted, who are occupying a room and a bed and are being attended by doctors and nurses.  The goal of course of all of this is the well-being of the patient.  It is so that sick people might be made well.

That this is an apt analogy can be seen from Jesus’ words to the Pharisees: “And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners? But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Mt. 9:11-13).  Our Lord said that his work was like that of a physician, and physicians don’t tend to well people but to those who are sick.

This means that the church is a place full of sick people.  But we are not just sick people.  We are sick people who are getting well.  We have come to Christ, not to have  the cancer of our sin celebrated, but to have it removed and to be healed by him.  We have been called to repentance, and all of us are in various stages of the healing that repentance brings.

Now when you go to a hospital, there are a number of emotions you might have.  If you are the patient, you are probably going to be nervous.  Will the test come back positive?  Will the operation be successful?  Will there be a lot of pain?  How long will the recovery be, and so on.  And yet you are probably also hopeful, otherwise you wouldn’t be there.  Hospitals are not always the nicest places to be, and we are all thankful when we get to go home.  But where would we be without them?  We need and are thankful for hospitals, aren’t we?

The church is certainly meant to be a place where we are being healed.  That experience ought to bring with it a certain amount of gratitude for the church, and a joy to be a part of the church.  And yet, just like a hospital, the church doesn’t exist just to make you comfortable.  Sometimes the church is the place you go to be tested, to have your heart exposed and put under the scope of God’s word which pierces even to the dividing of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of our hearts (Heb. 4:12).  It’s not wrong to sometimes have a measure of apprehensiveness as we await to be confronted by the preaching of the word of God.  I say this because sometimes you will hear guys like Andy Stanley call verses like our text “clobber passages,” and write them off and those who preach them as if they were unthinking and unfeeling pugilists who can only hurt people rather than heal them.  But the fact of the matter is that we sometimes need to be clobbered by God’s word.  And if we are not willing to listen to any part of the Bible, we are no better off than patients who aren’t willing to listen to the physician unless they’re telling them what they want to hear.

At the same time, we ought to come with hope in our hearts, because the medicine dispensed by the faithful church is not the advice of men, but of God in Christ.  The gospel is the power of God unto salvation (Rom. 1:16).  We are all patients; Jesus is the only physician, and he is the good physician.  

As our physician, our Lord is so careful with us, isn’t he?  I love those words in the gospel of Matthew, “A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench, till he send forth judgment unto victory. And in his name shall the Gentiles trust” (Mt. 12:20-21).  If you are saved it is because Jesus didn’t break you; he healed you.  We are all bruised reeds and smoking flax in some way.  We are all so fragile before God.  Sometimes you hear people say that they don’t suffer fools gladly.  And yet I am so thankful that God suffered this fool gladly.  I’m thankful that Jesus Christ is not like them; otherwise I wouldn’t be saved.

I introduce the message this morning this way because we are going to be dealing with the sin of homosexuality and I think two errors have been made in the church when it comes to this sin.  Both errors have to do with the fact that we have forgotten the nature of the church as a hospital and the role of our Lord as a physician to those who are sick.  One error is that the best thing for us to do is to affirm folks in sinful behavior, and that we should love them no matter what.  The other is that those who commit this sin are beyond the pale, so to speak, and that we need not dirty our hands with them.  Both these perspectives are utterly and devastatingly wrong.  The first is wrong because it ignores the fact that Jesus not only calls sinners but calls them to repentance.  He heals us, and that healing involves putting away the sin in our lives, no matter how unpalatable or strange such a course of action might or might not be to our society.  The second is wrong because it fails to recognize that Christ welcomes those who see themselves as sinners who need to be healed by him, no matter how bad the sin might be.  The tax collectors and the prostitutes were considered the worst of the worst in Jesus’ day; but it was exactly those very people that Jesus welcomed and called to repentance.  And the fact of the matter is that we are all sinners, and we all need the same cleansing and healing by Christ.  If you are in the church, it is because you are a sick sinner in need of healing by Jesus, and in that respect you are no different from “the vilest offender who truly believes.”  The church is a hospital and we are all patients; Jesus is the only doctor in the house.

We are dealing with this matter today because we must.  We must because our culture is saying the opposite of what the apostle Paul is saying here, and because there is so much cultural pressure to cave on this issue.  I fear that if the church is not exceedingly clear at this point we are going to inevitably stop being faithful to Scripture and to our Lord.  That has happened; it is happening.  And if the church does not act as a small corner of resistance to the pressures of society to conform to its idolatrous standards, where will the resistance come from?  Brothers and sisters, we need to stand.  We need to stand with patience, yes.  With kindness, yes.  With love, yes.  But equally, we need to stand with clarity and firmness.

There are three things I want to examine and respond to as we look at these verses, and particularly with verses 26-27.  The first is to look positively at what Paul is saying.  The second is to guard it from misunderstanding: what he is not saying.  Finally, we want to consider why it’s important for us to be saying these things today.

I want to be very careful with my words, especially today as we deal with this topic.  For one thing, I recognize that my audience consists of children as well as adults, and so I intend to be sensitive to this fact.  So if it seems like I’m sometimes not being direct enough at points, it’s not because I’m trying to soft pedal the issue, but because I don’t want to be overly explicit.  But also, I want to be careful that I do not myself fall into one of the two errors I mentioned above: I don’t want to come across as if this is no big deal, and on the other hand I want to be careful not to bruise a broken reed or quench a smoking flax.  If you are struggling with this particular sin, I want you to know that you are in a house full of people who are struggling with sin and that the Christian life is one of continual repentance and going to Christ again and again for healing and forgiveness.  In fact, we are all broken sexually and need Christ to heal us.

What Paul is saying here

First of all, we must say this, clearly and without evasion: in verses 26 and 27 Paul is talking about homosexual behavior as sin.  This is sin because the apostle calls homosexual activity the outcome of “vile affections” or “dishonorable passions” (26).  God gave them up to this, which in the context is a judicial punishment by God for idolatry (compare with verses 24 and 28).  He calls it “recompense for their error” (27).  That is, this sin is a punishment for idolatry.  There is nothing good about it; there is nothing to be affirmed or celebrated about this.  

It is a sin because it is against the order of creation.  This is what Paul means when he says that homosexual practice is to “change the natural use into that which is against nature” (26) and when he calls it “unseemly” or “indecent” in verse 27.  In fact, it’s pretty clear that the reason why Paul highlights homosexual sin here is not that it’s the worst sin, but that it is illustrative of the fact that sin reverses God’s creation order.  It is against nature.  God created and meant men and women to experience the intimacy of the marriage bed in marriage between one man and one woman, and for a man to exchange a woman for another man in that way is a clear and sinful reversal of God’s purpose in creation.  

Hence, “against nature” doesn’t mean, in the context here at least, “contrary to prevailing norms and customs;” it means “contrary to God’s design for men and women from the beginning of creation.”    These are people who have first and foremost rejected the Creator and substituted the creature in its stead: the fundamental violation of the creation order.  And now Paul goes on to show how that exchange works itself out in terms of God’s wrath in giving people over to dishonorable passions and a reprobate mind.  This is an example of that.  This is not about local customs, either in terms of time or geography; this is about the sin of reversing God’s creation order and design.  

By the way, though Paul himself makes this clear enough, it is also the case that Paul’s contemporaries used this same language in the same way.  Kevin DeYoung explains, “The phrase [against nature] was commonly used in the ancient world of deviant forms of sexual activity, especially homosexual behavior.”  He mentions authors as various as Plato, Plutarch, Philo, and Josephus, as well as Stoic philosophers like Musonius Rufus who, like Paul, called homosexual behavior “contrary to nature.” 

Second, the apostle is not only saying that all homosexual practice is sin, he is also saying that the affections that lead to it are sin.  We know this because the apostle speaks very clearly about the affections that lead to it (26) as vile, about men who “burned in their lust one toward another” (27), and more generally in verse 24 as God giving them up “to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves” (which he then goes on to exemplify in terms of homosexual desire and practice in verses 26-27).  

Though we must make a distinction between the desire and the act, as we should do with all sin, we also need to recognize that the seed of sin lies in the heart and as such is itself sin and is to be mortified (for another example of this, see the Sermon on the Mount, Mt. 5:21-27).  And yes, we must say with the Bible that those who struggle with homosexual desires aren’t necessarily excluded from the kingdom of God (for we will all struggle with sinful desires this side of heaven).  On the other hand, the Bible makes it clear that those who act on them and don’t repent of them will be excluded from the kingdom of God.  So there is that distinction between desire and act that we must maintain. Yet that doesn’t mean that the sorts of desires which lead to those sinful acts are themselves neutral.

In fact, the only way we are going to successfully fight any sin is by fighting it at the level of heart desire.  It is the worst thing to do to someone, pastorally, to cordon off their desires that go in sinful directions and to treat them as neutral.  They are not; they are to be struggled against and mortified.

Third, Paul is saying here what he says elsewhere.  You can’t treat this passage as a one-off.  Sometimes you will hear people say that the Bible doesn’t deal with this issue very much, and therefore we shouldn’t make a big deal about it.  You will also hear people say that Jesus never condemned homosexual behavior and therefore we shouldn’t.  However, both these arguments are specious.  

Jesus himself affirmed that the original creation order was for one man and one woman to be united in marriage and that this is where the one flesh relationship was to be experienced (cf. Mt. 19).  Jesus and Paul both see God’s purpose in creation as establishing norms for all people everywhere in every age.  They are not speaking at cross purposes; they are both supporting the Genesis account of the origin of sex and marriage.  But this is also problematic because Paul was the apostle of Christ.  He spoke for Christ with authority, and so to reject Paul is to reject Christ.  There is no difference between Pauline Christianity and the teaching of Jesus; they are the same thing.

That being said, it’s important to recognize that Paul clearly thought this was a serious issue.  Romans 1 should settle the matter.  But let’s consider two other passages in which he says the same thing.  We mentioned the first passage last Sunday, but it bears repeating.  In 1 Cor. 6, Paul writes, “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 6:9-10).  The phrases “nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind” are translated in most other Bible translations together as “men who practice homosexuality” (ESV) or something similar.  These Biblical scholars know what they are talking about; that is what they phrases mean, and this is what the KJV translators were getting at.  Importantly, Paul says that those who do so such things and who don’t repent of them (ver. 11) will not inherit the kingdom of God.  

Then consider Paul’s words to Timothy: “the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine; according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust” (1 Tim. 1:9-11).  Again, you have the same language that is used in 1 Cor. 6, “them that defile themselves with mankind,” which is a reference to “men who practice homosexuality.”  This is “contrary to sound doctrine.”  In particular, it is against “the glorious gospel of the blessed God” (11).  It is sin.

Now these last two texts are significant, because the word Paul uses to describe homosexual behavior was probably coined by Paul, but it is also almost certain that he coined it from the language of the Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation of the OT) from Leviticus 18 and 20.  In other words, we see that Paul is saying what Moses said and what the OT ethic teaches.  This means that we must interpret Paul in light of the Mosaic instruction in those chapters.  

To see this, we note that the word Paul coined is arsenokoitai.  You don’t have to be a Greek scholar to hear the almost identical language used in Lev. 20:13: “arsenos koiten.”  Basically, Paul is taking two Greek words and putting them together. But what was Moses saying in Lev. 20:13?  He was saying this [or rather, God was saying this through Moses]: “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.”  This is what Paul is referring to in Romans 1, 1 Cor. 6, and 1 Tim. 1.  Paul’s is Christ’s apostle, and as such he didn’t unhitch his Bible from the OT.  Rather, he showed us that we need to interpret the NT sexual ethic in light of the OT sexual ethic. 

So this is what Paul is saying: that homosexual desire and practice is sin and an evidence of God’s wrath and judgment upon those who have through idolatry exchanged the Creator with the creature.  Paul is showing us how sin puts things backwards, how it reverses God’s design, and homosexual behavior clearly illustrates this and warns us of the dire consequences of rejecting the truth about God.

What Paul is not saying here

But we need to be careful here.  There are a number of ways this passage can be misunderstood, and we need to guard against that.  What are some of these things?

First of all, we need to point out that Paul’s point here is neither that homosexual practice is the worst sin nor that it is just like any other sin.  The point that Paul is making here is that homosexual practice clearly illustrates the way in which in sin turns things backwards and reverses the creation order.  But Paul doesn’t stay on this, and when he goes on in the following verses to give this long catalog of sins (29-31) he doesn’t mention this sin explicitly again (though it is probably included under the category of “fornication”).  The apostle is not saying that this is the worst sin.

But neither is it just like any other sin, like greed or gluttony.  Sometimes people will argue that since we don’t excommunicate gluttons, we shouldn’t do so to people who are living in a homosexual relationship.  But such an argument fails to reckon with the fact that not all sins are equal, nor should they all be treated in the same way.  The Biblical record is clear that this is a particularly heinous sin.  We can’t be faithful to the Biblical witness or be truly helpful to hurting people by avoiding Biblical language and context.  In the catalog of sexual sins in Leviticus 18 and 20, for example, the sin of homosexual behavior is the only one that is explicitly identified as an abomination (Lev. 18:22; 20:13 cf. 18:26).  It was for this reason that the nations (who were not under the Mosaic covenant) were being expelled from the land of Canaan (18:26-28).  The Gentile nations were not being expelled because they ate shellfish; they were being expelled because they were given over to sexual sins like homosexual sin.

Nevertheless, we need to be careful here, because some Christians speak of those who are entangled in this sin as if it were the unpardonable sin.  It is not.  And again, we need to be careful lest any of us give the impression that we’ve got it altogether as if we were somehow superior to people struggling with this sin.  We are not; we are all sexual broken in one way or another, and we are all in need of cleansing and healing by Jesus Christ.  Let us say it again: the Lord Jesus is the only doctor in the house.  We are all “sinners, weak and wounded, sick and sore.”  We all need to come to Christ and to repent of our sins, sexual or otherwise, and to be cleansed and healed by him.

Second, the apostle is not saying that those who struggle against it are going to hell.  Now I put it like that: struggling against it.  There is a difference between giving yourself over to sin and struggling against it.  I don’t know why, but God has not ordained that conversion to Christ corresponds with sinless perfection.  There are good and wise reasons for the fact of progressive sanctification, but that means that all of us will be struggling with sin to the day we die.  As Martin Luther put it in the first of his Ninety-Five Theses: “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent’ (Mt 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.”

It is a failure to repent daily of our sins that constitutes lostness.  It is a failure to daily come to Christ by faith for forgiveness of our sins that marks a person off as unsaved.  Those who love their sins, no matter what they are, and refuse to submit to Christ as Lord and Savior will be lost, even if they are decent, respectable folk as the world counts them.  But it is not the struggle with sin, no matter what the sin is, that constitutes lostness.  Part of walking in the light is daily confessing our sins and being daily cleansed by the blood of Christ.

Now that doesn’t mean that we can’t expect to see a measure of victory in our lives over our sins if we are connected to Christ by faith.  That’s the whole point of progressive sanctification.  I love the testimony of Rosaria Butterfield, who was once a lesbian, and a gender and queer-studies professor at a university in New York.  Then she became a Christian.  And that meant that she had to walk away from her old life and that she had to fight her old desires.  This is her witness, speaking about the truth of Col. 3:9-10: “This passage told me that I am a Christian and that lesbianism is part of my biography, not my new nature, regardless of how I feel inside.  The biography of my life as a lesbian is from the short and early chapters of my life, and there is no reason in heaven and earth for me to keep reliving and rereading those chapters.  Progressive sanctification is real.” 

So on the one hand, I want to give encouragement to those of you who are fighting this sin, or any other sin for that matter, and I want to encourage you to keep on fighting through faith in Jesus Christ.  I don’t want you to think that the presence of such a struggle means that there is no hope for you.  There is hope, hope in Christ the great physician who frees us from the bondage of our sins.

Third, Paul is not giving Christians permission to abuse those who commit this sin.  The Biblical position that this is a sin does not relieve us from the responsibility of loving our neighbors as ourselves.  Now I know that Christians are accused of this simply because they say this is sin.  Most of our culture would accuse me of being a bigot and a hater simply for teaching what the Bible plainly teaches.  That is not the case.  You don’t love someone when you tell them it’s okay to sin against the law of God.  At the same time, let’s be careful that we are servants of the Lord who do “not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient; in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth” (2 Tim. 2:25-26).

Finally, the apostle is not forbidding only a certain kind of homosexual practice, while allowing for other kinds.  There are no such limitations on the kind of homosexual behavior Paul is condemning here.  The apostle is speaking of any type of homosexual relation as being contrary to nature and the sad result of an idolatrous exchange. 

Why it’s important for us to be saying these things today

The Bible makes it very clear that those who do not repent of this sin will not inherit eternal life.  We have made the point that this sin is an expression of the wrath of God.  God’s wrath now points to God’s wrath to come and that those who commit such things are worthy of death (Rom. 1:32).  This is what Paul means in 1 Cor. 6:9-10 that those who refuse to repent of this sin will not inherit the kingdom of God.  It doesn’t mean that this can’t be in our past, but it does mean that the grace of God gives us a different future: “such were some of you” (11).  We need to hear the apostle’s words: “For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience” (Eph. 5:5-6).

The Bible makes it very clear that those who are living in this sin are embracing a destructive lifestyle. The sin itself is a punishment from God (27) and an expression of his wrath (18).  How can it be a good thing for people to continue in that?  You cannot be blessed by God and continue in this sin.  If we want to promote human flourishing, we will have to do it God’s way.  God’s way embraces one of two paths: either in a marriage between one man and one woman or in a celibate lifestyle.  To do anything else is to withdraw ourselves from the blessing of God. 

To give place to this sin is to defile the church and to rob it of God’s blessing, even to place it under the judgment of God.  Paul said of the Corinthian church, which had refused to put a man out for a particularly heinous sin: “But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person” (1 Cor. 5:13).  I think one of the things the apostle is warning them about is that if they don’t deal with the wicked man, they will invite God’s judgment upon the church.  This is the very thing that happened to the church of Thyatira (Rev. 2:18-29).

We want everyone to experience the blessing of forgiveness and cleansing which is in Jesus Christ, which cannot be had without repentance.  “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy” (Prov. 28:13).  “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 Jn. 1:9).

So may the Lord help us to be faithful to his word.  It is when we are faithful to his word and speak the truth in love, that we will be able to truly help people.  We are sick people telling other sick people, not to be okay with their disease, but to point them to the Great Physician who can heal all their diseases and cleanse them from every sin.