THE TRUTH OF SODOM’S SIN

The author “Liz” is trying to Biblically justify homosexuality. She writes:

“Jesus teaches us that loving each other is far more important than strictly following Jewish laws.” https://serendipitydodah.wordpress.com/2017/02/27/the-clobber-verses/

While Jesus did teach love, He clearly has a different understanding of love than does Liz. He also required us all to repent of our sins:

·       And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.  Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” (Luke 13:2-5)

This is also true of sexual sins:

·       “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matthew 5:27-28)

Jesus warned a woman caught in adultery to “go and sin no more” (John 8:11). If adultery was wrong in Jesus’ eyes, then also the practice of homosexuality, which is consistently condemned in the Bible.

Following the lead of others, Liz also tries to claim that the sins of Sodom didn’t include homosexuality:

“The sin of Sodom is about hard-heartedness, abuse, insult to the traveler, and inhospitality to the needy (Helminiak, pg. 46), not about committed homosexual relationships that exist today.”

The sin of Sodom was also about homosexual rape. The Book of Jude is particularly revealing about Sodom’s sin:

·       Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh (“perversion;” NIV), are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. (Jude 7)

Besides, my homosexual friend has confided (along with others) that there is no such thing as a sexually monogamous male homosexual marriage.

Liz also tries to minimize the warnings against homosexuality in the Book of Leviticus as just a cultural requirement of that time:

To Bible readers of today, the word “abomination” [used in Leviticus 18 and 20 regarding homosexuality] conjures up disgust, horror, or evil, but to the ancient Hebrews the word we translate as “abomination” simply meant unclean, taboo, or forbidden.

However, the context of these two sets of verses argues against a limited cultural interpretation and in favor of a permanent and universal one:

·       “And you shall not lie sexually with your neighbor’s wife and so make yourself unclean with her. You shall not give any of your children to offer them to Molech, and so profane the name of your God: I am the LORD. You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. And you shall not lie with any animal and so make yourself unclean with it, neither shall any woman give herself to an animal to lie with it: it is perversion. Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean.” (Leviticus 18:20-24)

This passage equates homosexuality with adultery, child sacrifice, and bestophilia. From all indications, these practices continue to be abominations before God. Besides, contrary to Liz, they applied to all peoples. The last verse indicates that these prohibitions also applied to all the surrounding nations. This was why the Lord was going to destroy them.

The next set of verses associates homosexuality with the same perversions as above:

·       “If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. If a man lies with his father’s wife, he has uncovered his father’s nakedness; both of them shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. If a man lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put to death; they have committed perversion; their blood is upon them.  If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. If a man takes a woman and her mother also, it is depravity; he and they shall be burned with fire, that there may be no depravity among you. If a man lies with an animal, he shall surely be put to death, and you shall kill the animal. If a woman approaches any animal and lies with it, you shall kill the woman and the animal; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. (Leviticus 20:10-16)

Liz then claims that Paul was speaking only against uncommitted sexual relationships and not the committed form that we see today:

“But these were not the committed homosexual relationships that we see today. In that culture, their only perspective was that “natural intercourse meant the penetration of a subordinate person by a dominant one.”

However, there is no textual evidence that Paul was making this distinction. Instead of a right and a wrong homosexual practice, Paul was condemning the entire practice of homosexuality as unnatural:

·       Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. (Romans 1:24-27)

Homosexuality represents a perversion of the intended gift of sexuality. Therefore, any who practice homosexuality are punished with “the due penalty for their error.” In fact, there is not a verse in the entirety of Scripture that would give the slightest allowance for even committed homosexual relationships.

Liz and those whom she cites are clearly more concerned about pushing this militant agenda than with any concern about faithfulness to the Word of God.

How then should the Christian love the gay person? The same way that God does, by pleading with them to turn from their sins, the same thing that we all must do!