While discussing sins and
their relevance today, beware of an argument predicated on what Christ said or
did not. The whole intent of invoking Christ’s saying is to declassify sins. Do
not get deceived by such an argument, for it merely depicts the person’s lack
of knowledge, or worse – his/her innate depravity.
For instance, if homosexuality is
the sin under consideration, the person who tacitly or explicitly endorses
homosexuality would argue, “Jesus neither mentioned homosexuality as sin nor
condemned it; hence homosexuality cannot be a sin.”
If this argument is posed by a young
and a naïve believer or an unbeliever of Christ, then this person is merely
exhibiting an unpretentious lack of knowledge.
But the same argument would be
asinine or sophomoric or cretinous if it’s posed by a person claiming to be
mature and knowledgeable. Such a person is innately depraved. Beware of such
people.
This argument is fallacious for many
reasons.
The God of the Bible is a blessed
Trinity. They are co-equal. Perfect harmony exists between the three persons of
the blessed Trinity.
If God the Father (the first person
of the blessed Trinity) classified homosexuality as a sin, then Jesus Christ
(the second person of the blessed Trinity) would not declassify homosexuality from
its status of sin to being acceptable behavior.
But those who either tacitly or
explicitly strive to endorse homosexuality place Jesus in such a horrendous
position as if HE contradicts God the Father.
Dr. Robert Jeffress, Senior Pastor
of the First Baptist Church, Dallas and an adjunct professor at Dallas
Theological Seminary, in his article, entitled Did Jesus Condemn Homosexuality? exposes three flaws in the
argument that Jesus never condemned homosexuality:1 (Emphasis Mine)
When
confronted with verses in the New Testament against homosexuality, homosexual
advocates will quickly go to another myth of homosexuality. And that is, Jesus
never condemned homosexuality. That argument is flawed in three important ways.
First, that argument assumes that Jesus’ words are
more authoritative than the rest of the Bible. To say Jesus never condemned
it is to say that Jesus’ words carry more weight than the words of the apostle
Paul or the apostle Peter or any other scripture. But we don’t believe that as
Christians. Second Timothy 3:16 says, “All Scripture is inspired by God.” Those
are all God’s words.
Second, the argument fails to realize that by
affirming the truthfulness of the Old Testament, Jesus automatically condemned
homosexuality. In Matthew 5:17, Jesus said, “Do not think that I came to
abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.” Let
me illustrate it this way. Let’s say somebody came up to you and said, “I
believe President Obama is pro-slavery.” You say, “Why would you say such a
thing?” And your friend says, “Well, I did some research. Of all of the
speeches the president has given, in not one speech did he speak out against
slavery. Therefore, he is pro-slavery.” Would that be a logical deduction? Of
course not. At his inauguration, the president swore to uphold the Constitution
of the United States of America. And the Constitution prohibits slavery. Thus
by swearing to uphold the Constitution, he was saying, “I am going to uphold
all the laws, including laws against slavery.” It’s the same way with Jesus.
When Jesus upheld the Old Testament, He was automatically condemning
homosexuality.
Third, by upholding God’s plan for sexuality,
Jesus did condemn homosexuality. In Matthew 19 the Pharisees tried to trick
Jesus by questioning Him on the issue of divorce and remarriage. Jesus answered
by going back to God’s original plan for human sexuality, which is this: sex is
reserved for a marriage relationship between a man and a woman. Yes, it’s true
that Jesus never mentioned the word “homosexuality.” He never said, “You shall
not commit homosexuality.” But guess what? Jesus never said, “You shall not
commit incest.” Jesus never said, “You shall not commit bestiality or
pedophilia or necrophilia.” Was he pro-necrophilia and pedophilia? Of course
not. By upholding God’s pattern for sexuality–a man and a woman in a marriage
relationship–Jesus automatically condemned any deviation from that pattern.
It is a fact that Jesus never
condemned smoking weed, spousal abuse (domestic violence), piracy of
intellectual property, bestiality, pedophilia, necrophilia, and many more sins.
But it would be rather immature of a Christian to endorse such a sin because
Jesus never publically condemned it.
An article in the Canadian edition
of The Gospel Coalition website
exposes the flaw in this argument by using another example:2
Asking whether
or not Jesus ever talked about homosexuality is somewhat analogous to asking
whether or not Jesus ever talked about elder abuse.
Kind of.
But not
exactly.
Jesus never
used the specific words “elder abuse” but he did rebuke the Pharisees for not
properly honouring their parents (Mark 7:12-13) and he did cite approvingly the
5th commandment, which states:
“Honor your
father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD
your God is giving you.” (Exodus 20:12 ESV)
So yes, Jesus
would disapprove of elder abuse but no, he never addressed the topic directly
using that particular term.
Much the same
would have to be said with respect to the question about homosexuality.
Jesus did
rebuke the Pharisees for having a low regard for the Biblical ideal of
covenantal marriage. He said to them:
“Have you not
read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5
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’? 6 So they are no longer two
but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
(Matthew 19:4–6 ESV)
Clearly Jesus
affirmed the Biblical vision of marriage as a life long union between one man
and one woman. He affirmed sexuality within that particular context when he
said, approvingly, “the two shall become one flesh”. And he did so by referring
authoritatively to a passage from the Old Testament.
Furthermore,
Jesus referred negatively and disapprovingly to all forms of sexual immorality.
He said in Matthew 15:19-20:
For out of the
heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false
witness, slander. These are what defile a person. (Matthew 15:19–20 ESV)
To “defile”
means to make unclean. In the Old Testament it referred to what put one outside
the worshipping community; the term is used in a similar sense in Revelation
21:27:
But nothing
unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false,
but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life. (Revelation 21:27
ESV)
Therefore,
Jesus is saying that evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft,
false witness and slander are defiling sins that would exclude us from the
everlasting Kingdom of God – presumably if not confessed and forgiven through
his atoning work on the cross.
But what did
Jesus mean, precisely, when he referred to “sexual immorality” as one of those
defiling and excluding sins?
The
Greek-English Lexicon Of The New Testament And Other Early Christian Literature
(BDAG) defines the word porneia, translated in most Bibles as “sexual
immorality”, as involving “unlawful sexual intercourse”. The Jewish law
provides a long list of what constitutes unlawful sexual intercourse in
Leviticus 18-20. According to those statutes, a man was forbidden to have sex
with the following:
1. His
neighbour’s wife (Leviticus 18:21)
2. Another man
(Leviticus 18:22)
3. An animal
(Leviticus 18:23)
4. His mother
in law (Leviticus 20:11)
5. His
daughter in law (Leviticus 20:12)
6. His sister
(Leviticus 20:17)
Sex with any
of these would be considered porneia – unlawful.
According to
Jesus sex of this sort defiles a person and thus places them outside the
worshipping community and outside the eternal kingdom of God.
Therefore it
certainly cannot be argued that Jesus affirmed or was indifferent toward the
issue of homosexual sex. Jesus clearly endorsed the Old Testament vision of
marriage as an inviolable covenant between one man and one woman and he clearly
viewed unlawful sex as being the sort of thing that defiled a person and placed
them outside the kingdom of God. Jesus did not use the word “homosexuality” but
neither did he use the word “incest” or “bestiality”. He did not need to. In
using the Greek word porneia he identified with how the Jewish law delineated
lawful and unlawful sex.
According to
Jesus, unlawful sex is sin.
Sin separates
us from God.
But thanks be
to God, Jesus came to offer his life as a sacrifice of atonement and is
therefore able to offer forgiveness to all lawbreakers and sinners.
Including you.
And including
me.
Jesus said
that he was going to the cross in order to secure forgiveness for broken men
and women just like us. At the Last Supper he passed a cup to his disciples and
said:
this is my
blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of
sins. (Matthew 26:28 ESV)
Unlawful sex
is sin.
Theft is sin.
Murder,
adultery, false witness and slander are sin.
But thanks be
to God – all such sins can be forgiven and forever washed away through the shed
blood of Jesus on the cross.
Hallelujah!
SDG,
Pastor Paul
Carter
So to conclude, any argument that
strives to endorse (or declassify) homosexuality or any other sin based on the
fact that Jesus never condemned it, is fallacious and the agency of this
fallacy i.e. the person/institution that conveys this fallacy should be
disregarded.
Endnotes:
1http://www.firstdallas.org/icampus/blog/did-jesus-condemn-homosexuality/
2https://ca.thegospelcoalition.org/columns/ad-fontes/jesus-ever-talk-homosexuality/
Websites last
accessed on 15th July 2019.
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