One of the most destructive consequences of sin is man-centeredness. The mind of man has become so feeble that it is unable to extend beyond itself to grasp the eternal principles from which all wisdom is derived. Having nothing different from or greater than himself as the reference point, he makes himself the first principle of his thinking, the source of his assumptions, and the standard for all judgment. This so warps man’s view of the world that he inevitably comes to unrealistic conclusions in theology, science, morality, sexuality, and all other subjects.

Jesus Christ changes everything. He converts us by his power and reorients our thinking by his word. He brings us the truth and enables us to believe the truth. The truth is that God is the creator and ruler of all creation. He is the fountain of all life and intelligence. He alone defines right and wrong. Therefore, he is the first principle of our thinking, the source of our assumptions, and the standard of all judgment. Thus in the Christian faith, even when we are talking about man, or human sexuality, we begin with God and his revelation in Jesus Christ.

God created Adam, the man, in his own divine image. Then he paraded all the livestock, the birds of the air, and the beasts of the field before him, and the man named them all. Among the animals, no suitable helper or companion was found for him. Sometimes people remark that it is better to have dogs and cats as companions than to be with humans, and to suffer all the complexities, betrayals, and annoyances of human relationships. This is a witness to the havoc sin has wrought, because it is true that humans are often terrible company, but in the beginning it was not so. Those who prefer animals over humans, and those who prefer humans over God, serve as continual testimonies to man’s fallen condition. They are willing to settle for a lower kind of communion, and indeed they are unable to have fellowship on a higher plane. An animal is never an adequate companion for a man. But sometimes a man prefers an animal because sin has reduced him and others to such an extent that he is now more comfortable with an inferior arrangement. Yet God has not changed – he remains the perfect company for man, if not for the fact that the sinner now hates him and shrinks from him.

As usual, God interacts with his creation not because he wants to learn something, but because he wants to teach something. The aim was to find a suitable companion for man, and among the animals, no one suitable was found. Thus when God made him a companion, the deliberateness of the creation and the suitableness of the creature became all the more evident. Instead of finding him the best that was available, or a companion that was relatively suitable, God would make one that was exactly right. Adam’s purpose was not only to work the soil, but his chief characteristic was that he was the image of God. When it is said that no animal was suitable for the man, this does not mean merely that no one was interesting enough to entertain him or capable enough to share his work, but it also means that none could complement him in reflecting the image of God.

So God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep, and while he was asleep, God took one of his ribs and closed up the place. Then from the rib he made a woman and brought her to the man. Adam said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man” (Genesis 2:23). God did not bring him a fish, a bird, or a monkey, or an elephant. He brought Adam another human that was different from him and that was suitable to him. Their bodily features and functions complemented one another – there was no conflict or redundancy, but a match. The woman was the ideal companion for the man, and no doubt, the man for the woman. And as the rest of Scripture suggests, the harmony of the two genders is not limited to the body, but they complement each other in their intellects and personalities as well. Most important of all, they complement each other in reflecting the image of God.

God did not bring him another man, but as Adam recognized, this other human was “taken out of man.” Afterward humans would increase by sexual procreation, so that each woman after Eve would not come from the side of a man, just as each man after Adam would not directly come from the earth. Still, the Scripture says, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh” (2:24). Adam and Eve had no human parents, but from their relationship Scripture derives principles for future pairs that would have parents, showing that this relationship functions as a type or pattern for those that follow. That is, in a sexual relationship between humans, one member is like the one who was taken out of the earth, and the other is like the one who was taken out of man; otherwise, the relationship would be essentially dissimilar to the pattern established by Adam and Eve, and would exhibit a distortion of God’s image rather than a true likeness.

Although the creation account makes a forceful and decisive argument, it sets us up for something even greater, and that encompasses the previous point. In his Letter to the Ephesians (5:22-23), Paul teaches that a marriage should imitate the relationship between Christ and the church. The husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, and so the husband must love his wife just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. The wife is as the body of the husband as the church is the body of Christ, and so the wife must submit to her husband just as the church submits to Christ in all things.

Paul does not say that the union between Christ and the church is modeled after a human marriage; rather, he says that a human marriage ought to be like the relationship between Christ and the church. Even more remarkable is his reference to Genesis 2:24: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” He notes that “we are members of his body,” but to declare this as the fulfillment of Genesis 2:24 means that Genesis 2:24 embodied this idea since the beginning.

In other words, it is not that the relationship between Christ and the church received its pattern from Genesis 2:24, but that Genesis 2:24 received its pattern from Christ and the church. Whereas Genesis 2:24 makes the marriage of Adam and Eve a type for future couples, the union between Christ and the church is in fact the archetype for all marriages, including the one between Adam and Eve. The apostle calls this a “profound mystery,” which in the Bible does not refer to something difficult to understand but to information hidden until a certain time, and that turns out to be simple and obvious when disclosed by revelation. The full meaning of human marriage was not revealed, or at least not revealed in such explicit terms, until the arrival of Jesus Christ.

Again, Paul’s use of Genesis 2:24 indicates that, while the marriage of Adam and Eve provides a type for future marriages, it was in fact derived from the archetype of the union of Christ and the church. And while human marriage and sexuality began with creation and will eventually cease (Matthew 22:30), the union of Christ and the church was foreordained before the creation of the world and shall continue forever. Therefore, a human marriage is a reflection of Christ and the church. It has been this way since Adam and Eve. Although the union between Christ and the church is not a sexual relationship, the church is portrayed as female, and as the bride of Christ; likewise, we have established that Genesis 2:24 refers to marriage between a man and a woman. This in turn means that relationships that deviate from this pattern – that are adulterous, homosexual, religiously mixed, and so on – are incapable of properly reflecting and honoring the union of Christ and the church, and thus they are also inherently inferior, defective, and sinful.

An animal can be a good meal or a good pet to a man, and a man can be a good friend or a good business partner to another man, but an animal or a man can never become a suitable companion to a man, and an animal or a woman can never have this “bones of my bones and flesh of my flesh” intimacy with a woman as typified by our first parents. We all realize this. We know it by nature, by instinct, by reason, and by revelation. But just as men in their wickedness suppressed their knowledge of God “and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles” (Romans 1:23), they have also suppressed the truth about human nature and sexuality so that “their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones” and “the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another” (1:26-27).

Any time we deviate from God’s arrangement, we inevitably end up with something grotesque and destructive. Thus when men abandoned the immortal God, they turned to worship that was inferior, and their deities became mere images of men, or even birds and beasts. Likewise, homosexual relationships are inherently inferior because they abandon God’s arrangement for marriage and sexuality. Just as idolatry is an affront to the nature and majesty of God, representing him with images of birds, and bulls, and demons, homosexuality is an affront to Jesus Christ, who cherished his bride and gave his life for her. Homosexuality can never be an expression of love, but it will always be a demonstration of how unlike God we have become because of sin.

Here we focus on homosexuality because it is our topic, but similar criticisms apply to fornication, to adultery, to a marriage between a Christian and a non-Christian, or a marriage in which the wife refuses to submit to the husband, or one in which the husband fails to love the wife as Christ loves the church. Homosexuality is indeed a gross form of perversion and a more obvious manifestation of human depravity, but we condemn all arrangements that deviate from God’s design.

Since we condemn every arrangement that does not reflect the image of God and that does not honor the mystery of Christ, and since these are among the reasons that we oppose, this means that those who practice or endorse homosexuality do not cross us only on a narrow issue, but their stance represents a wholesale rejection of the Christian faith, even its very essence. And this must mean that they can have no part in salvation. Or, as the apostle writes, “Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them” (1:32). For this reason, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against these wicked men and women (1:18).

There is much resistance to this message. As homosexuals and their supporters become increasingly vocal and aggressive, they begin to exhibit a disturbing resemblance to the homosexuals of Sodom. The angels that visited Lot’s home probably looked like two strikingly handsome men. The homosexuals demanded, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them” (Genesis 19:5). But Lot would rather offer his own daughters for them to rape and abuse than to comply (v. 8). Instead of feeling ashamed, the people were filled with indignation, and said, “This fellow came here as an alien, and now he wants to play the judge! We will treat you worse than them” (v. 9). And this is what the homosexuals and their supporters say. They complain, “Who are you to judge us?”

As they continue to escalate their propaganda and intimidation, it is not farfetched to imagine that they might eventually add violence to their repertoire and become the full successors to the Sodomites. This is not a slippery slope argument, for such an argument leaves the impression that it is the final end that we truly wish to avoid. Such a view would be overly lenient. Rather, I say that even without the violence, and even without the rape and abuse, homosexuality itself is a damnable transgression of God’s law and God’s design.

I mean that Sodom offers us a preview of how things may become. It is a realistic account of what sinful men will do and the extent that they will go in order to attain the freedom to live wicked lives. It is not farfetched, because Sodom shows us that this has already happened before. This is not to say that homosexuality itself leads to all of this – David committed murder to cover up his adultery, but adultery itself does not lead to murder. Nevertheless, when sin in all its facets, including homosexuality, is allowed to develop, the result tends to be an explosion of violence and destruction. And a society that condones homosexuality and other perversions is the environment that also encourages all kinds of wickedness to increase, because it is the kind of society that has rebelled against God’s commandments.

Jesus Christ is the only antidote, and as his disciples, Christians must take a stand and declare the Lord’s message and his standard. Those who sin are wretched and contemptible. More wretched and contemptible are those who sin but refuse to admit it. And even more wretched and contemptible are those who sin, refuse to admit it, and then by propaganda and intimidation compel others to approve their sin. This is the kind of people that we face. Therefore, be strong in the Lord and be infused with his power, so that you may be able to stand your ground, and having done all, to stand. And let us resolve to endure opposition for the sake of God’s elect. Some of the chosen ones are ensnared by homosexuality, but their souls will awake to righteousness when they hear the call of God. As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.” They are waiting for us to tell them, “Rejoice! Jesus Christ has come to set you free!”

Recommended:
Homosexuality and the Wrath of God