Posted by
Bob Siegel on Friday, December 28, 2007 1:40:29 PM
QUESTION: “Many people today are challenging
conventional ideas about Jesus. For example, I have heard that, unlike today’s
Evangelical Christians, Jesus never denounced homosexuality. I also heard that
Jesus Himself might very well have been gay, as evidenced in verses like
John 19:26 which says that John was ‘the
disciple whom Jesus loved.’”
I’ll begin my answer with the bottom line: Jesus was not gay; neither did
He promote a homosexual lifestyle. Would He have shown compassion to
homosexuals? Certainly. He showed
compassion to anyone, and He offered forgiveness to anyone willing to turn from
sin. But He was not gay.
It’s true that our gospel accounts do not record Jesus speaking about
homosexuality directly. But Jesus did confirm the divine inspiration of the
Jewish Holy Scriptures (referred to in those days as The Law and The Prophets)
and insisted that the Israelites continue to honor God’s Law.
Matt 5:17-20
Do not think that
I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them
but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear,
not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means
disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one
of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be
called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these
commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
Since Jesus was authenticating the entire law, that authentication included
the specific law about homosexuality:
Lev 18:22
"'Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is
detestable.
The Apostle Paul also condemned homosexuality in the New Testament:
Rom 1:26-27
Because of this,
God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural
relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural
relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed
indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for
their perversion.
“Wait a minute. Should we trust Paul’s words? Paul
wasn’t one of the original disciples of Jesus.”
True, but he encountered the resurrected Christ later (Acts 9). Now, it’s true that the original disciples
were given special authority by Jesus (John 20:22-23). But keep in mind that one of these
authoritative disciples, Peter, later authenticated the words of Paul, even to
the point of equating Paul’s letters with scripture!
2 Peter 3:15-16
Bear in mind that our Lord's
patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the
wisdom that God gave him. 1He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking
in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to
understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other
Scriptures, to their own destruction.
In summary, although Jesus did not directly comment on homosexuality, He
did comment on it indirectly by speaking of the entire Law of Moses as a
command of God. And Paul (authenticated by Jesus’ disciple Peter) directly
addressed the subject.
“Then what about the other part of my question? Why
was John called ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved’?”
There were several Greek words for love. The word for sexual love was
eros from which we get the English word, erotic. This word was not used of
Jesus and John. Instead the word was agape, a kind of love referring primarily
to sacrificial action, i.e. loving a person enough to lay down your life for
him. This is not a sexual word. Indeed, it is the same word used of God in John
3:16 where the gospel writer talks about God loving the entire world.
Conclusion: In our zeal to re-clarify the Bible’s standard about
homosexuality, let us keep in mind that the primary message of the New
Testament is not one of condemnation but rather forgiveness. God may not like
the practice of homosexuality, but He loves homosexuals. He loves everyone and
homosexuals are no more separated from God than any one else. We are all guilty
of sin. Yes, we are all commanded to repent. But we are all guilty and even
when we repent, we do so by the mercy and help of God’s Spirit.
Scripture taken from THE HOLY
BIBLE
New International Version NIV
Copyright 1973, 1979, 1984 by International Bible Society
Used by permission of Zondervan
Publishing House.
All rights reserved.
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