Basic Biblical Teaching on Homosexuality
Joel Beeke & Paul M. Smalley
So far we have seen that the Bible commends sexual activity in the context of the marriage of one man and one woman. This implicitly rules out homosexuality as contrary to God’s creation ordinance. The Bible also speaks explicitly to homosexuality, and it unequivocally condemns it as a sin from which people must be saved by Christ.1 There is not a single example of a commendation of homosexuality in Scripture. This is acknowledged even by many who desire to promote same-sex relationships.2
Old Testament Teaching on Homosexuality
The best-known historical references to homosexuality in Scripture are those about Sodom, a city noted for its great wickedness (Gen. 13:13; 18:20). The Lord did not find ten righteous people there. Therefore, he destroyed the city in a spectacular outpouring of fire and brimstone, which was visible for miles around (18:32; 19:24–29). The Scriptures reveal two kinds of wickedness that provoked this act of judgment. There was grave injustice, as evidenced in the “cry” for help rising up from the city (18:20–21; 19:13; cf. Ezek. 16:49–50),3 and sexual perversion, shown when the men of Sodom demand to “know” Lot’s male visitors (Gen. 19:4–5), a euphemism for sexual intercourse (v. 8).4 Jewish writings outside of the Bible from the second century BC, such as Jubilees and the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, also identified sexual sin as one of the great offenses of Sodom.5
The law of Moses clearly prohibited sexual acts between men. Leviticus 18:22 says, “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.” Leviticus 20:13 says, “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.” Kevin DeYoung writes, “The reason the prohibitions are stated so absolutely, is because men were designed to have sex with women, not a man with another male.”6 Someone might object that these passages also prohibit sexual relations with a woman during her menstruation (18:19; 20:18), showing that they do not reveal abiding moral principles. In reply, we note that Leviticus shows homosexual acts to be serious violations of the moral law by imposing the death penalty on the perpetrators (20:13), whereas sexual relations during menstruation only make a man ceremonially unclean (15:24).
New Testament Teaching on Homosexuality
The New Testament reaffirms this old covenant law, proving that it has abiding moral significance for all peoples. Paul writes in 1 Timothy 1:9–10 that God’s law is contrary to the sins of mankind, including “them that defile themselves with mankind.” The phrase translates a single masculine word (arsenokoitēs) that combines two Greek terms, “male” and “bed,” meaning, “males who go to bed [sexually] with males.”7 The same two terms appear in the ancient Greek translation of both Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13.8 Therefore, Paul affirms the abiding moral authority of the law’s condemnation of homosexual acts.
The New Testament books of Jude and 2 Peter offer divinely inspired commentary on Sodom and Gomorrah. Jude says that those cities suffered God’s fiery destruction for “giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh” (Jude 7). “Strange flesh” cannot refer to the fact that the visitors were angels, for the Sodomites did not regard them as angels but as men (Gen. 19:5), and the same sin is attributed to nearby cities that were not visited by angels. Therefore, we should understand “strange flesh” as condemning the men of Sodom and Gomorrah specifically for their homosexuality because of its violation of the boundaries of God’s created order for sexuality.9 Similarly, 2 Peter 2:7 speaks of “the filthy conversation of the wicked” in Sodom, where “filthy” (aselgeia) refers to sexual licentiousness or shameless sensuality.10
The longest statement in the Bible about homosexuality is Romans 1:26–27: “For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.” Given the mention of the two genders and the immediately preceding statements about sexual sin (v. 24), it is clear that Paul wrote of “natural use” with regard to sexual matters here. The word translated as “use” (chrēsis) appears frequently in other Greek writings with reference to sexual relations.11 Like the laws of Leviticus, “homosexual relations in general are indicted,” as Tom Schreiner observes.12
The apostle teaches us much about homosexuality. Sexual activity between people of the same sex is “against nature,” which refers here to God’s created order for mankind.13 John Murray wrote, “The offense of homosexuality is the abandonment of the divinely constituted order in reference to sex.”14 God condemns sexual activity not only between men but also between women. Sexual desires toward the same sex are sin. The problem with these sexual desires is not that they are too strong, but that they are corrupt in desiring satisfaction in a wrong object.15 Therefore, the Bible teaches that what today are called gay and lesbian desires and acts are sinful, whether they are unusual events or a long-term way of life.
Homosexual desires and actions degrade human beings. They are “vile” (atimia), which means that they bring dishonor to those who exercise them. They produce “that which is unseemly” (aschēmosunē)—that is, indecency and cause for shame (cf. Rev. 16:15). Paul goes on to say that such people are already receiving the penalty that necessarily accompanies such a wandering from God’s ways. Homosexuality particularly manifests itself in an idolatrous people who have turned from the knowledge of the true God. Paul does not say that each individual who engages in such sins is particularly idolatrous, but rather that when a group—such as a people or nation (note the plurals)—turns from the Creator to worship idols, God gives that people over to greater bondage to fornication and homosexuality. He is “not talking about an individual’s decline into sin,” but giving “a typical description of a culture’s decline.”16 Homosexuality not only provokes the wrath of God, but is a sign that the wrath of God has already come upon an idolatrous people.
Therefore, the Westminster Larger Catechism (Q. 139) rightly says that “sodomy, and all unnatural lusts (Rom. 1:24, 26–27; Lev. 20:15–16),” are sins “forbidden in the seventh commandment.”17 Both homosexual desire and activity violate God’s holy law.18
For people who have given themselves over to same-sex erotic desires and practices, Paul’s message of law and gospel comes through most clearly in 1 Corinthians 6:9–10: “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.” Paul reiterates the law of God that homosexuality is sin. The phrase “abusers of themselves with mankind” translates the same Greek word seen before in 1 Timothy 1:10, which means “males who go to bed with males” (arsenokoitēs). Here again the word echoes the laws of Leviticus in its condemnation of all sexual activity between men, a connection strengthened by the fact that Paul has just written strongly against incest, another sexual sin condemned in Leviticus 18 and 20.19 The word translated as “effeminate” (malakos) literally means “soft”; here it designates “men who are soft.” Immediately preceding “males who go to bed with males,” it refers to men who seek to attract and please homosexual aggressors.20 With these two words Paul rebukes the full range of male homosexual behavior as sin incompatible with Christianity.
Some writers object that Paul was ignorant of homosexual relationships involving more equality or affection, so he must have been condemning only the abuse of teenage boys or slaves.21 We reply that the apostle’s life and ministry in cities steeped in Greco-Roman culture would have acquainted him with the wide variety of male-to-male sexual relationships practiced in the ancient world, including those of mutual affection and admiration.22 Though there certainly were oppressive relationships, there were also examples in Greek history and literature of homosexual relationships in which both men were regarded as noble.23 Christ’s apostle was aware of lofty views of homosexual relationships, but simply condemned homosexuality without qualification.
Paul warns that people engaged in homosexual sex will not “inherit the kingdom of God” if they do not repent of their sin. In the teaching of Jesus Christ, the only alternative to inheriting the kingdom is being cast into the fires of hell for eternal punishment.24 Therefore, to pronounce God’s blessing on the union of two men or two women is to endanger their souls.25 However, Paul did not write that if we ever commit such sins then we are surely damned, but he said, “And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:11). Some Corinthian believers had lived as such sinners, but the past tense indicates that they were no longer unrighteous—no longer adulterers, men who slept with men, thieves, or drunkards.26 Their identity had changed because they were “in Christ Jesus” (1 Cor. 1:2). Union with Christ now defined them, and they could not be the same.27
Telling people that Christ can save them from sin is not homophobia. True homophobia is believing that people who practice same-sex sexual relations are so different that they can never turn back to the Lord and his ways.28 On the contrary, the homosexual man or woman who repents, forsakes sin, and trusts in Christ by grace becomes a saint, washed clean, set apart for God, and counted righteous for Christ’s sake. The gospel promise of “such were some of you” means there is no such thing as a gay Christian or a lesbian Christian, any more than there is a Christian adulterer or a Christian drunkard. To be sure, inner conflict with sin remains (Gal. 5:17), bringing great frustration to the believer (Rom. 7:14–25). The solution is to cling by faith to the promises of Christ and to strive in holy fear to put off all sin and pursue holiness as part of God’s living temple and spiritual family, the local church (2 Cor. 6:16–7:1).
Beeke, Joel R., and Paul M. Smalley. 2020. Reformed Systematic Theology: Man and Christ. Vol. 2. Wheaton, IL: Crossway.
This argument is developed at some length in Beeke and Smalley, One Man and One Woman.
“Wherever homosexual intercourse is mentioned in Scripture, it is condemned.” Pronk, Against Nature?, 279. Via writes, “The biblical texts that deal specifically with homosexual practice condemn it unconditionally.” Via and Gagnon, Homosexuality and the Bible: Two Views, 93. See also Luke Timothy Johnson and Diarmaid MacCulloch, cited in DeYoung, What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?, 132.
Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis, Chapters 18–50, New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995), 20–21.
Gen. 4:1, 17, 25; 19:8; 24:16; 38:26; Num. 31:17–18, 35; Judg. 19:25; 1 Sam. 1:19; 1 Kings 1:4. The Septuagint also translates “know” with a Greek word (syngenōmetha) used with a sexual meaning in the Scriptures (Gen. 39:10) and outside them. Wold, Out of Order, 82, 86–87.
Jubilees 16:5–6; Testament of Levi 14:6; Testament of Benjamin 9:1; Testament of Naphtali 3:4, cited in Gagnon, The Bible and Homosexual Practice, 88n121. In the first century BC, Philo wrote of Sodom, “Those were men who lusted after one another, doing unseemly things, and not regarding or respecting their common nature … and so, by degrees, the man became accustomed to be treated like women.” De Abrahamo, 135–36, cited in Peter H. Davids, The Letters of 2 Peter and Jude, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006), 53.
DeYoung, What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?, 41.
Similar Greek words are formed with the -koitēs ending, including “one who sleeps with slaves,” “one who sleeps with his mother,” and “one who sleeps with many.” David F. Wright, “Homosexuals or Prostitutes? The Meaning of ΑΡΣΕΝΟΚΟΙΤΑΙ (1 Cor. 6:9, 1 Tim. 1:10),” Vigiliae Christianae 38, no. 2 (June 1984): 130 (full article, 125–53). Vines’s argument that the word refers to economic exploitation is remarkably weak. Vines, God and the Gay Christian, 122–25.
Wright, “Homosexuals or Prostitutes?,” 129.
Davids, The Letters of 2 Peter and Jude, 52–53.
Rom. 13:13; Gal. 5:19; Eph. 4:19.
Thomas R. Schreiner, Romans, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 1998), 94.
Schreiner, Romans, 95–96.
For references to creation, compare Rom. 1:20, 25 to Gen. 1:1; Rom. 1:23 to Gen. 1:26, 30; Rom. 1:27 to Gen. 1:27; and Rom. 1:32 to Gen. 2:17. See Gagnon, The Bible and Homosexual Practice, 289–91.
Murray, The Epistle to the Romans, 1:47–48.
Denny Burk, “Is Homosexual Orientation Sinful?,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 58, no. 1 (2015): 101 (full article, 95–115).
RPCNA, Gospel and Sexual Orientation, 18.
Reformed Confessions, 4:333.
RPCNA, Gospel and Sexual Orientation, 54.
David E. Garland, 1 Corinthians, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003), 212–13.
Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1987), 243–44.
Myers and Scanzoni, What God Has Joined Together, 84–85; and Vines, God and the Gay Christian, 37.
Anthony C. Thiselton, First Epistle to the Corinthians, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), 452.
Gagnon, The Bible and Homosexual Practice, 351–52.
Matt. 25:34, 41, 46; cf. Rev. 21:7–8.
DeYoung, What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?, 77.
The Greek tense is imperfect, implying a condition that continued in the past or actions repeated in the past.
RPCNA, Gospel and Sexual Orientation, 47.
Rosaria Champagne Butterfield, The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert: An English Professor’s Journey into Christian Faith, expanded ed. (Pittsburgh: Crown and Covenant, 2015), 169.