CT CLASSIC
What God Hath Not Joined
Why marriage was designed for male and female.
Edith M. Humphrey | posted 9/01/2004 12:00AM
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Though the emphasis is on bodily disruption, the consequences go beyond the body to the entire self (27). Thus Romans 1 understands homoerotic behavior as an example of what happened to humanity in terms of the body and the passions, before it goes on to consider sins that arise within the disordered mind (28-31).
Homoerotic activity, then, is symptomatic of the primal rebellion against God—alongside covetousness, murder, strife, gossip, deceit, disloyalty, and pride.
No doubt Paul places it first because this condition shows brokenness in God's creative order and within the ordained union of male and female (Gen. 1:27). Homoeroticism thus represents an exchange (Rom. 1:26) of what is "natural" for what is "against nature," and is a primary breach between the two designed for each other. These relations dramatize human rejection of God's primal purposes.
Some have claimed that, because Paul uses homoeroticism only as an illustration, Romans 1 does not speak regarding sexual ethics. This can hardly be so. Would anyone apply the same reasoning to the other signs of depravity cited here, like murder? Paul assumes that his readers agree with his assessment of homoerotic activity, and helps them to understand it in the context of the scriptural story of origins.
Holiness Narratives
In light of this larger narrative, we go back to the Old Testament. In Genesis 18:16-19:29 (and a similar story in Judges 19), the male inhabitants of a city attempt to rape visitors. Some have argued that Sodom's sin was not sexual but simply a breach of hospitality. This is highly unlikely, since Lot's daughters were offered as a sexual substitute.
The intended sin here is gang rape, though it is true that where other passages mention Sodom (Isa. 1:10ff., Jer. 23:14, Eze. 16:49ff.), they emphasize hypocrisy, falsehood, and arrogance over sexual sin. Yet as Judaism and Christianity encountered later Hellenistic acceptance of homoeroticism, the sexual element in the Genesis story was highlighted: Intertestamental writings cite Sodom as an example of sexual perversion (cf. Jude 7).
We turn from narratives to injunction. Leviticus 18:22 says bluntly: "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination" (cf. Lev. 20:13). Some within the church argue that such prohibitions concern only cultic practices in ancient Israel and so are no longer binding on Christians. But some Levitical proscriptions concern immoral behavior, not simply ritual uncleanness. We need to ask, How does the general pattern of the Scriptures direct us to understand this prohibition?
The answer is that homoerotic behavior contradicts God's purpose for all his creatures. It is not in the same category as the cultic or cultural prohibitions regarding non-kosher foods and the twining together of two types of thread. Like the prohibition of incest (Lev. 18:6-18), the prohibition of homoerotic acts addresses every age.
As the New Testament epistles show, the early church did not discard what the Hebrew Bible said about sexual ethics. When Corinthian Christians thought that their spiritual sophistication gave them license to sin, Paul challenged them (1 Cor. 6:9ff.): "Do you not know that evildoers will not inherit God's kingdom?" Then he offered as examples those who steal, get drunk, scorn what is holy, pursue sexual immorality, and practice two modes of male homoerotic behavior.
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