“For this reason God delivered them over to disgraceful passions. Their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. The men in the same way also left natural relations with women and were inflamed in their lust for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the appropriate penalty of their error.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Hot topics tend to be faddish and cyclical. An issue that is absolutely crucial to have an opinion on in one season doesn’t even register on the radar in another. The issue of the morality of homosexual practice is not the issue in our culture that it once was not all that long ago. This is mostly because as a culture we have decided it’s fine. And as the church has continued losing cultural power and position, most people just don’t care what the church thinks about it anymore. But this doesn’t mean the position of the Scriptures has changed. And it doesn’t mean the culture doesn’t dislike the position any less. These two verses aren’t terribly comfortable to talk about, but here they are, so let’s do it.

Let’s start with a bit of context. Remember where all of this is coming from. Everything Paul has been saying here falls into the category of “the results of sin.” He’s talking about judgment and specifically God’s just judgment against sin and on sinners. We are often led to believe this is always something active on God’s part; that He actively does something to us in retribution for our rebellion against His sovereignty and authority as God. But the truth is that He far more often doesn’t have to do anything. He can simply step out of the way and let the natural consequences of sin play themselves out naturally. That’s judgment enough to satisfy His justice.

The impact of sin on our lives and in our world more generally is comprehensive. It affects our minds and also our bodies. The mental impact comes first, but it very naturally advances from there to our bodies. This is because what we believe dictates what we do.

If the mental impact of sin is that we lose our ability to think and reason rationally, let alone correctly, the physical impact is that we begin to think certain things are good ideas when they are in actuality anything but a good idea. And when we think something is a good idea even though it’s not, we tend to do it and worry about if we should have later. But if the idea really is a bad one, it’s not going to go well for us if we do it anyway.

In v. 25, Paul identifies one of the physical impacts of sin that God allows as judgment. Sin leaves us wanting to pursue sex in ways that veer widely outside the boundaries of the context God designed for it to be thoroughly enjoyed, namely, marriage. The consistent position of the various contributors to the Scriptures is that sexual impurity or sexual immorality is any use or pursuit of sexual pleasure that falls outside the context of a marriage (which, definitionally, is a covenantal relationship between a man and a woman, designed to point people to Jesus).

Within that context, just about anything goes as long as the two (and only two) parties are comfortable with it. Outside of that, nothing is morally permissible. Or, to better put that in new covenant terms, because the pursuit of sexual pleasure outside the context of marriage necessarily causes harm to the parties involved both now and in the future, it is always a failure of love, never an expression of it. Thus, it violates Jesus’ one command for His followers to keep to love one another after the pattern of His own self-sacrificing and kind and generous love for us. As Andy Stanley pithily puts it, if it’s not good for her, defer; if it’s not good for him, it’s a sin.

Settling at last on what we see here, Paul is continuing to make this point, but with his attention briefly set on a more specific application of the broader principle In the culture of the day, marriage was common and expected, and sexual activity outside of marriage was strongly and sharply condemned. A woman turning out not to be a virgin on her wedding night (and, yes, they often checked) was a really big deal that could cause all sorts of problems both for her and for her whole family. A marriage could be annulled over something like that and the woman given a label that would make all but eliminate future marriage prospects and the security they brought her. In the same vein, infidelity was pretty frowned upon too.

There was a general exception, though. Homosexual sexual encounters, especially in the context of one of the temples where a union with a temple prostitute – male or female – was a way to experience union with the god or goddess being worshiped. This generalized exception wasn’t limited strictly to temple encounters although that was one of its most common expressions. Another form of it was when a man or woman had sexual relations with a younger male or female of the same gender in a practice called pederasty. (Today we call it statutory rape which I find better expresses its disgusting nature.) Paul here was basically saying, “Yes, all sexual activity outside the context of sexual activity between a husband and wife in marriage is disgraceful, including homosexual sexual activity. This goes both for men and for women.”

Paul’s point here really couldn’t be clearer. Homosexual sexual activity of any sort is morally impermissible. It is an expression of God’s judgment against sin. And it is unnatural, that is, it goes against nature. (To put that last part in more secular terms, it is anti-Darwinian.) God’s design for sex was that it serve as a great gift for a husband and wife to enjoy both as the means of fulfilling His command to be fruitful and multiply, but also simply for its own sake. He did not design it for any other context. Period. This, by the way, includes any and all extramarital heterosexual activity. That kind of sexual activity may not go against nature, but it is just as morally impermissible as its homosexual counterpart.

If that’s what Paul meant, what does this mean for us? Well, that’s fairly obvious too. For followers of Jesus, homosexual sexual activity is not something we can endorse, support, or participate in. Okay, but what about family or friends or neighbors who are gay or lesbian or anywhere else on the seemingly infinite modern spectrum of sexual self-identifications? What does this mean for them and our relationship with them?

Number one, this doesn’t give us license to judge anyone. Period. If they haven’t signed up for the moral standards of Christianity, it is not our job to hold them to those. It is not right of us to hold them to those. We wouldn’t want them to force us to hold to the moral standards of secularism or of another religion. We owe them the same courtesy.

These two verses are part of a group of verses scattered across the Scriptures known collectively as the “clobber passages.” That phrase is partially a pejorative attempt to guilt unthinking Christians into ceding moral territory in the name of being less judgmental and more tolerant. We should be confident enough in our beliefs so as not to be intimidated by such attempts. On the other hand, far too many professed followers of Jesus have used this and the other “clobber passages” to belittle and berate people in a very judgmental way that does not fall in line with the character of Christ. We can’t do that.

Where we encounter people who are gay or lesbian in our daily lives, we are to treat them with the same kindness and generosity that we would anyone else. We should love them like Jesus loves us, and there really aren’t any exceptions to that. To do otherwise is to act in ways that are vigorously out of sync with our confession. Again, judging them is not our job. God will handle that just like He’ll handle judgment of us for all of the places where we fall out of line with His expressed character. Only the covering of Christ shields us from judgment on the last day, not the covering of Christ and the refusal to support homosexuality. As Paul makes clear here, He’s got it covered. Our only job is to love like Jesus.

Okay, so does this mean we should have all thrown our support behind the gay marriage push that reached its climax ten years ago? No, and for several reasons, but here are two in particular. The first is that marriage is a pre-political institution that governments don’t possess the authority to define. Legally defining something as marriage that definitionally is not marriage doesn’t suddenly make it marriage. It is a step into the kind of delusional thinking that Paul talked about in previous verses, and it is unloving to throw support behind such attempts in the name of playing along. The second is similar to this. It is unloving to support someone who is actively walking a path away from the character of Christ just like telling someone who we know to be consuming something poisonous that they’re not doing anything wrong in the name of not hurting their feelings is unloving.

Just like we can walk and chew gum at the same time, we who follow Jesus must be able to stand firmly on the character of Christ using all of the properly cultural and legal means at our disposal while at the same time extending love and gracious compassion to those around us who are seeking to violate that character. This is not an either-or campaign, but a both-and adventure. In the end, God is going to sort out who is following Him in Christ and who’s not, who is living in a manner that is consistent with His character and who’s not. We don’t have to bear that burden. We can love and tell the truth with graciousness and humility. He’ll take care of the rest.

And in the midst of a culture that has already collectively decided which way to go, this is all the more important for us to do. This is because living out of sync with God’s character and nature will bring its own consequences eventually. Our job as servants of Christ is to be there to lovingly help pick up the pieces when everything has finally fallen apart, and to be His hands and feet to put them back together in the right way. We can and must be a part of the restoration power of the Gospel in the midst of a culture that is broken. That’s our call.