Dozens of books have been written in recent years by liberal theologians in an attempt to demonstrate that homosexuality, homosexual relationships, and homosexual marriage are fully consistent with Biblical Christianity. I have grown weary of reading that King David was a homosexual because he loved Jonathan, or that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because of a lack of hospitality, or – my personal favorite – that the Bible never actually addresses the issue of homosexual behavior.
I would suggest that the fact that some of such foolishness comes from persons who once professed to be Christians is yet further evidence of the fact that the nation – indeed the world – is well along in the Biblically-foretold age of apostasy. During such a period, we are warned about the prevalence of false teachers. How can we tell whether a teacher is false? Who can we rely on? But for the fact that we have the Word of God, we would be adrift on such matters.
One ubiquitous question asked among Christians for a decade has been: What Would Jesus Do? A recent article by Dave Daubenmire thoughtfully addressed the topic: Would Jesus Officiate at a Same Sex Marriage? His article discusses how we can know, for certain, the answer to this question by studying exactly what His Father has revealed to us through the Holy Scriptures as to what He intended marriage to be. If you do not believe that the Bible is the Word of God, this article may mean nothing to you. But even if you don’t believe the Bible, I challenge you to read through it, so that you at least you can say you have heard the other side.
Before we address homosexual marriage it is imperative that we seek to know how the Definer of marriage identifies marriage. We begin in Genesis 2:18-25, which states:
“Then the LORD God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.’ Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. The LORD God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. The man said, ‘This is now bone of my bones, And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man.’ For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.”
God is the one who said that it was not good for man to be alone. So when He created a helper for man He created a woman – not another man. God established monogamy as the pattern for marriage. From Genesis 1:1, which reads, “In the beginning God … ,” we know that the universe is not a chance happening. God is intimately involved with our existence. God putting His stamp on creation in a unique way creates man. Genesis 1:26-28 states:
“Then God said, let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’”
Man is created to have dominion over the earth. Before family comes purpose. The purpose was that mankind would have dominion. Remember, the fall of man has not occurred, yet. Man is still in a perfect environment. Genesis 1:31 reads, “And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good.” When God created man, He created the capstone of His creation whose job it is to run His creation.
In Genesis 2:18 the woman comes on to the scene: “Then the Lord God said, it is not good for man to be alone, I will make him a helper suitable for him.” Woman was conceived in the mind of God, not Adam’s. Please note that this is different than the creation of male and female animals. Male and female animals were all created at the same time. The first creation of man and woman occurred at different times. I believe the reason why this happened is because male and female human beings were given the responsibility of dominion. Animals were not. Whenever you delegate dominion you necessarily have hierarchy.
Genesis 2:21 states, “So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place.” Eve is created out of Adam. So Adam is only half the man he used to be because he loses one side. In order for him to become a whole man he has to get his rib back. But his rib is now located in somebody else. He can’t take the rib out of somebody else and put it back. So in order to get his rib back he has to take hold of somebody else’s life, and make this somebody part of his life to get the rib back that he lost. But getting his rib back means he gets another half he didn’t count on, because he not only gets his rib, he gets her rib, too.
That means, gentlemen, that what marriage does is bring back what you lost, with a bonus. That is why she is different from you. And, that means, ladies, if you are going to understand your rib, you have got to understand Adam because half of your ribs belong to him. So in order for you to understand who you are, in the marriage relationship, you need to understand who he is, because half of what makes you who you are, is part of what makes him who he is. So in order for both of you to become all that both of you were meant to be, both of you have to merge into each other. If you don’t take from your mate their strengths you do not become all that you were created to be.
God performs the marriage ceremony and Adam says, in Genesis 2:23, “This is now …” (note he doesn’t say “she” is now). He says, “This is now … ,” meaning this new relationship. Ee is talking about marriage. “This is now bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, she shall be called woman because she was taken from man,” said Adam. Adam names her. He names her after himself. His name in Hebrew is Eish. The Hebrew word for woman is Eisha. In the first marriage, she takes his name. All Eve knows when she is created is that she is there. She doesn’t know who she fully is until she receives his name. That is why in marriage there is a transfer of names from the woman’s last name to the man’s last name, because she is now merged into another purpose.
The Six Purposes for Which God Created Marriage and Family
There are at least six purposes for which God create marriage and family. The first reason for marriage is procreation: having babies. The Bible makes grand statements about having babies, the more the merrier. Why the big deal? Remember God told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply so that you will have dominion over the earth. The reason was not just to have people that looked like them. It had to do with the theology of dominion. Dominion meant to reproduce yourself and spread out all over the earth, so that all over this planet there would be somebody ruling under God’s authority. Mankind cannot perpetuate itself based on homosexual marriage.
Secondly, marriage is self-realization. “Adam I will make a helpmate for you.” As long as you are single, God is your completeness. When it is time to marry, God is in the process of bringing someone along to fix up the rest of us to make us complete. The reason Adam was given a wife was to complete him. God doesn’t give you somebody just like you. For if both of you are the same, then one of you would be unnecessary. He gives someone who is different from you so that you can make up the differences, so that you can fulfill the complete purpose of God that He has ordained.
Thirdly, marriage is a divine Illustration. You are a type of Christ in the church. The Bible says that you are the bride and Christ is the bridegroom. You are to illustrate a greater reality of God to His people. So a bad marriage means a bad illustration. Ephesians 5:32 tells us that this is an illustration of the relationship of Christ. Homosexual marriage is not a reflection of divine illustration. In fact, one could make an argument that it borderlines on blasphemy.
Fourthly, marriage brings about companionship. God created marriage for companionship. Genesis 2:18 states, “Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone.’” There is a great blessing in sharing life with the one you love – your companion. God created Adam and Eve when He declared that it was not good for man to be alone.
Fifthly, marriage brings enjoyment. God created sex for enjoyment, in the context of marriage. I Corinthians 7:5 says, “Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.” Outside of the context of heterosexual marriage there might be “pleasure for a season,” (Hebrews 11:25) but there can be no true, lasting enjoyment.
Sixthly, marriage is for protection. God desires a godly seed. Malachi 2:15 reads, “But not one has done so who has a remnant of the Spirit. And what did that one do while he was seeking a godly offspring? Take heed then to your spirit, and let no one deal treacherously against the wife of your youth.” God knows that marriage provides protection for the family.
But we now live in a lost and fallen world. And America is not exempt from this broken world. In fact, there are many reasons to believe that America, far from being an example for the nations, is now leading the nations in the wrong direction. A recent article on systemic corruption in America is an eye-opening compendium of the near complete fallenness of government, corporations and the people.
The Book of Romans gives us a description of the end-times society when Jesus will return and God will pour out His wrath, beginning with Chapter 1: “For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God, or give thanks; but they became futile in their speculations and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise they became fools.” I have seen men with degrees, piled on top of degrees that get up and say how you and I evolved from monkeys. Maybe they did, but I sure didn’t! Some of the greatest intellectual minds of the universe talk about how we evolved from a single cell protoplasmic blob! That is beyond the comprehension of the mind. If you saw a Boeing 747 flying across the sky, wouldn’t you assume that because it could fly, it can carry people, its seats are placed in rows, and that it can do all the things it can do; wouldn’t you assume that somebody thought it up, and somebody put it together? Certainly you would not conclude that it was the accidental product of a tornado blowing through a junkyard. Yet, the same mind can look in the sky and see a bird fly by and say, “product of chance.”
“And they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures,” reads Romans. They worshiped the creature rather than the Creator. We have the worship of the creature going on around us on a global scale. Then look what happened – here is the tragic payoff. Romans continues:
“Therefore God gave them over in the lust of their hearts to impurity, that their bodies might be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever, Amen.”
Now look what God did, because they worshiped the creature rather than the Creator, God steps back. It is as if God has parameters, or limits, as to how far evil can go. He says that evil can only go so far. But, God says if you are going to knock against those limits, and if you knock against them long enough I am going to step back. I will let you foul your own nest and if you want to live like a pagan, you can. When He steps back what happened? There was an outbreak of immorality. Does that sound familiar?
“For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way the men abandoned that natural function of the woman and burned in their desire towards one another, men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own person the due penalty of their error,” continues Romans. God says if you are going to live like that I am going to step back. What happens? An outbreak of sexual immorality begins. It culminates in an outbreak of homosexuality. We are there! We have arrived!
“And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper,” says Romans. When God steps back there is an outbreak of immorality. When we continue to push up against those limits God will step back again, and there is an outbreak of homosexuality. When we continue to push those limits, God steps back again and turns us over to a depraved mind, “to do those things which are not proper.” It is a time when lawlessness begins to rule and mankind does not have any standards by which to live by. Paul finishes the chapter by listing signs of depravity:
“being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.”
With all the attention given to homosexuality in the media, it is no wonder that Gallup recently found that the American public estimates that 23 percent of Americans are gay or lesbian, while the actual number Gallup finds to be 3.8 percent. And the Williams Institute finds a total of 390,000 married same-sex couples. However, regardless of the number of homosexuals in America, the definition of marriage is not decided by plebiscite. God has defined marriage as between one man and one woman. If a man and a man or a woman and a woman desire to be together, that is not marriage. Marriage has been defined from the beginning, by the One who created us male and female.
Most people know the story of Jonah: he was a prophet whom God told to go to Nineveh and preach a message of repentance. Nineveh was the capitol of Assyria which was located 550 miles Northeast of Israel. But Jonah decides he would go to Tarshish, which was 2,500 miles to the Northwest. Jonah is a renegade preacher who does not want to do what God called him to do. In his rebellion, he is tossed overboard of a ship and is swallowed by a big fish. He was there three days and three nights and was regurgitated on to dry land.
After Jonah goes on the first submarine ride in history, he agrees to do what God asked him to do. Jonah goes to Nineveh and preaches to the city, and in one day the entire city repents. Jonah 3:5-9 reads:
“Then the people of Nineveh believed in God; and they called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them. When the word reached the king of Nineveh, he arose from his throne, laid aside his robe from him, covered himself with sackcloth and sat on the ashes. He issued a proclamation and it said, ‘In Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let man, beast, herd, or flocks taste a thing. Do not let them eat or drink water. 8’ But both man and beast must be covered with sackcloth; and let men call on God earnestly that each may turn from his wicked way and from the violence which is in his hands. ‘Who knows, God may turn and relent and withdraw His burning anger so that we will not perish.’”
Notice this about the people of Nineveh. Conversion changed the political environment of Nineveh. It didn’t happen because they made better laws, hired more policemen, or provided more arms for the people to reduce the violence. The violence was removed because the people met a living God. The thing that changes people and brings about peace to an environment is when men repent before a living God. Nineveh still had the same King, the same Congress, the same Supreme Court, and the same city Council. The difference now was there was a heart transformation, and that translated into actions and behavior. That is the only thing that will help America change. When the people of America, leaders of America, and Supreme Court Justices of America encounter the Living God who has the power to forgive, and to transform our hearts, then we will see a new America. It doesn’t matter who is in public office; it matters if their hearts are committed to the Living God.
Dr. James Taylor, Senior Pastor at Christ’s Church of Norman in Norman, Oklahoma. http://www.ccnonline.biz. He is the author of the forthcoming book “It’s Biblical, Not Political: How to Line Candidates up Biblically.”