Will Homosexuals Go To Heaven
- As mentioned in the “Interpretation and Questions” section above, these verses have been translated from the original Greek into English in various ways, and there are uncertainties about which specific homosexual practices are intended.
- As stated in verse 11 of , all these sins are sins that God will forgive if a person repents.
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Ii Homosexuality In The Old Testament
In the Old Testament homosexuality is most explicitly discussed in four passages. Two are prohibitions in the law against homosexual activity. The other two are historical events: Sodom/Gomorrah and Gibeah. We will not attempt to answer every issue that could be raised about each text. This has already been done in a number of resources that will be referenced. However time will be taken to clearly establish the Bibles viewpoint, and therefore the perspective that the Christian should hold. In our discussion we will begin by looking at the treatment of homosexuality in the Law. Then we will look at the two narrative accounts.
A Leviticus 1: 22 Prohibition Of Homosexuality In The Law
Lev 18:22 You must not have sexual intercourse with a male as one has sexual intercourse with a woman it is a detestable act.
This straightforward law prohibits all homosexual acts. It makes no distinctions as to whether or not they were consensual. It comes in the midst of a section of laws related to sexual relationships. No consequence is given here in each verse for the individual laws, but rather they are all listed as things that must not be done. All of the items in this chapters list are said to defile and are called abominations . In balance, homosexuality here is not singled out from among the rest of the sexual sins , but is included with the rest. Likewise, those who break any of these laws are to be cut off from the midst of their people . These various sexual activities are ones which brought about the punishment of God upon the previous inhabitants of the land . Thus in the law homosexuality was an offense against God. It, along with the other sexual sins, was not to exist in Israel at all.
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The Tribulation Kingdom Of The Antichrist Will Be Defined By Homosexuality And Religious Pluralism
Revelation 6 warns that the end-times Antichrist will ride forth on a white horse conquering and to conquer holding aloft a bow .
men
Chapter 6 of the Revelation of Jesus Christ to the Apostle John closely parallels a portion of the Olivet Discourse in Matt 24, Luke 21, and Mark 13, in which Jesus summarized the sequences of end time events before His return. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse represent the four phases or aspects of what Jesus calls the beginning of sorrows just before the start of the tribulation .
The white horse represents the Antichrist, and the bow which he holds is almost certainly the rainbow. Remember that the Antichrist is an imposter who seeks to deceive the world into thinking he is the messiah. The real Christ will return in the clouds at His second coming , and on a white horse. Revelation 19:11 states And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war.
Remember also that the rainbow, which God set in the clouds after the great flood is the symbol of Gods authority over the earth and evidence of His presence . The Antichrist will apparently appropriate the symbol of the rainbow for himself as part of his claim to deity.
Bible Verses About Homosexuality
Christians must always start with the Bible in order to hear Gods Word on any subject. His commands are not optional, and he states clearly, You shall not lie with a male as with a woman it is an abomination .
Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God .
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 .
Some Christians suggest that a progressive God would overturn his own commands in a certain social climate, but God does not progress in his thinking his thoughts and commandments are always right.
We know that God does not change his mind, that he is always the same, and this is foundational to our hope and our faith in his Kingdom purposes.
God was, is, and always will be against sexual sin in all of its forms, which include lust for a person who is not ones spouse, sexual affairs, and even emotional affairs.
One must not single out someone who identifies as gay or transgender as a sinner but instead look inward. Ignoring ones own sin by way of deflection does not fool God.
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What The Bible Says About Sexual Relations
Its important to talk about sexual relations, because this is really what is most important to the Most High. Because the act of having sex holds great significance to our relationships.
The Paul tells us to flee fornication because it is a sin that we commit against our bodies. As you may or not know our bodies are the temple of God.
1 Corinthians 6:18
18 Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.
In the preceding verse the importance of the our bodies is explained also:
1 Corinthians 6:15-16
15 Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid.
16 What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh.
The Most high gives us clear instructions in this area, about who our sexual preference should be. And we are told to have relations with the opposite sex.
Scriptures confirming this and tell us that a man should not lie with a woman a man as he lies with a woman.
Leviticus 18:22
22 Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.
When sexual relations take place, this is when the bible says the act of homosexuality takes place. The bible refers to it as an abomination.
Any perverse thoughts and mannerism can be dealt with by fasting an praying. Read my post here.
Does The Bible Really Condemn Homosexual Behavior
In the book of Leviticus there are two verses that clearly condemn homosexual behavior:
Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman that is detestable.
If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable.
It is hard to imagine Moses being any clearer on the subject. Nonetheless, there are some valid objections to simply taking these verses at face value.
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The Second Witness Of Sodoms Sin
In Judges 19, ala Sodom, the attempted homosexual rape of a Levite by the Benjamites of Gibeah leads to civil war among the Hebrew tribes .
Frequently, God give special emphasis to His teachings by sending two witnesses. A we noted above, this occurred when God sent two angels to bear witness to Sodoms homosexual sin before the outpouring of His wrath. But there are also two separate incidents in the Bible which bear witness to the special relationship of homosexuality with apostasy and judgment. The first is, of course, Genesis 19. The second witness is Judges 19.
Readers of both passages will be struck by the clear parallels in the two stories, the primary common elements being the mobs of predatory homosexual men insistent on raping the male guest, the offering of a female substitute as the lesser evil, and the severe consequence to society from the behavior of the homosexuals. The differences in the stories highlight the importance of the common elements but also add meaning to the lesson. For example, the fact that the object of the homosexuals lust in Judges 19 is a Levite is significant as the Levites were the tribe of priests who served as Old Testament intermediaries between God and man, and thus the offense was against both God and man simultaneously a violation of the first and the second great commandment.
What Does The Bible Teach About Same
The Bible defines marriage in Genesis 2:24 as a union between one man and one woman. Jesus Christ upholds this definition of marriage in Matthew 19:5, as does the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 5:31. Any and all sexual activity which takes place outside of this context is treated as sinful, what Jesus calls sexual immorality in Mark 7:21.
Further to this, same-sex practice is specifically highlighted as sinful a number of times in Scripture. In Gods Law, for example, condemnations of same-sex practice are given in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13. Further references are made in the New Testament. For example, in Romans 1:24-32, amid echoes to the Genesis creation account, both male and female same-sex practice are treated as sinful. Further references to the sinfulness of same-sex practice can be seen in 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:10.
The Scriptures are, therefore, consistent in their prohibition of same-sex sexual activity, across different periods of salvation history and within different cultural settings. Although the Scriptures are clear on sexual ethics, they also tell us that the prospect of forgiveness and eternal life is held out for anyone who turns from sin and puts their faith in Christ , no matter how they may have fallen short of his good design for sex and marriage.
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Background To The Verses
So whats going on in the two verses that were looking at? First of all, these verses are addressed only to males there is no mention here of two women. Secondly, how are the Israelite people going to be distinct from, different from their neighbours by putting these into practice?
Well, in the surrounding cultures, the major socially acceptable form of same-sex activity was with male shrine prostitutes as part of temple worship to pagan gods and goddesses. And there is repeated rhetoric against these shrine prostitutes at different parts of the Hebrew Bible .
Looking wider afield, there were cultures like Ancient Greece, where the dominant form of male-male intercourse was men with boys pederasty. And did you notice that the verses said a man lying with a male, not a man lying with a man?
Now, occasionally Ive seen some commentators claim that this is trying to link it back to Genesis , but if so it is rather strange that female isnt used its as with a woman and not female.
I think it more likely that male is used here precisely because it can include lying with boys as well as men.
So two main contexts for the Israelite people to be different from male-male intercourse linked with pagan temple goddess worship, and pederasty.
Note how different these are from what we are looking at today with faithful, loving, committed relationships.
Widespread Sexual Perversion So Defiles The Land That God Employs Genocide To Cleanse It
In Leviticus 18, God identifies incest, homosexuality and bestiality as the sins which cause the land to vomit out its inhabitants . Even in this dark context homosexuality is singled out for special condemnation as an abomination .
In what is probably the most challenging Biblical passage of all, Deuteronomy 20:16-18, God tells the Hebrew people to completely wipe out the Canaanite inhabitants of the Holy Land. His explanation why is detailed in Leviticus 18:24-30.
Do not defile yourselves by any of these things for by all these the nations which I am casting out before you have become defiled. For the land has become defiled, therefore I have brought its punishment upon it, so the land has spewed out its inhabitants.But as for you, you are to keep My statutes and My judgments and shall not do any of these abominations, neither the native, nor the alien who sojourns among you so that the land will not spew you out, should you defile it, as it has spewed out the nation which has been before you. For whoever does any of these abominations, those persons who do so shall be cut off from among their people. Thus you are to keep My charge, that you do not practice any of the abominable customs which have been practiced before you, so as not to defile yourselves with them I am the LORD your God.
Of course, this does not condone hatred or violence against homosexuals. To quote from one of my recent articles:
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St Century Catholic Apologetics For Mary’s Spiritual Warriors
Homosexuality Nothing seems to stir up the culture wars faster than this topic. On one side you have a group of people who see this lifestyle as being no different than any other lifestyle. After all, its a matter of live and let live, a civil rights issue akin to the 1960s and Martin Luther King. Who are we to tell anyone else how to live? On the other side, you have a group of people who think that homosexuality is an abomination in the eyes of God, and it should never be allowed at any time. Is it natural to put a sexual organ and its emissions into the digestive system of same sex partners, or should sexual organs only be put into complementary sexual organs of the opposite sex? And if homosexual practices are normal, then why all of the VD and early death rates among homosexuals? Whos right?
Here’s what the late Bishop Sheen once said about right and wrong – “Right is right, even if no one is right. Wrong is wrong, even if everyone is wrong.”
The secular humanists among us dont understand why anyone would invoke the teachings of the bible regarding homosexuality in the 21rst century. Notice how the date is always mentioned in this debate, as if to say that we are all enlightened now, and the superstitions and old wives tales of the bible are all passé.
From the Holy Bible, the Word of God:
Leviticus 20:13: If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination they shall be put to death, their blood is upon them.
The Culture Of Perversion Survives The Flood And Reemerges In The Post
Genesis 9:22-25 Corrupted by the pre-flood homosexual culture, Noahs son Ham passes it to his son Canaan, who sexually molests his grandfather.
And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father and their faces were backward, and they saw not their fathers nakedness. And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan
To uncover nakedness is a Biblical idiom for sexual intercourse. None of you shall approach any blood relative of his to uncover nakedness I am the LORD states Leviticus 18:6.
The Genesis passage has been interpreted some to mean that Ham had sex with Noahs wife, producing Canaan by incest, a conclusion bolstered by Leviticus 20:11: The man that lies with his fathers wife, has uncovered his fathers nakedness. Alternately, the sin is interpreted to be the homosexual molestation of Noah by Canaan. We have chosen the latter interpretation, partly because this was the conclusion of Hebrew scholars of their own language, but primarily because it more closely aligns with the pattern of conduct we have exposed in this study, and thus seems more plausible.
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To Answer A Complicated Issue Of Our Day By Simply Opening The Bible And Reciting A Passage Is To Misunderstand What The Bible Isand Importantly What It Is Not
Though referring to the Torah with the shorthand Moses is hardly proof positive that Jesus was wrong about the books’ provenance , its safe to say that Jesus probably assumed Moses wrote the Pentateuch.
And if he did think that, then he was wrong.
This is a point the Evangelical bible scholar Peter Enns makes in a footnote in his book The Evolution of Adam: Jesus here reflects the tradition that he himself inherited as a first-century Jew and that his hearers assumed to be the case.
In other words, Enns suggests, Jesus knowledge is limited to what was knowable in the first century becauseand this is a key point that Im afraid too many Christians dont think about nearly enoughJesus is, in many senses, limited by the first century.
As orthodox Christianity affirms, and has always affirmed, Jesus is both fully divine, and fully human. That is, he was born of an earthly mother, had a physical body, experienced hunger, went to the bathroom, etc. His brain was a human brain, and he learned the way any first-century child would learn. When Lukes gospel says that Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, we should take the author at his word.
Orthodoxy doesn’t require us to believe that Jesus knew everything, and indeed, there are times in the gospels when Jesus admits to not knowing something. For example, when a person snatches his robe in the hopes of receiving a miracle, he asks his disciples who did that.