This is a touchy subject in our culture today. Over the last two decades we have seen a massive shift in the cultural understanding of sexuality and gender identity. This shift has taken our culture very far from the biblical view of sex, marriage, and identity, and it has caused a lot of arguments within the church - to the point that many professing Christians have either walked away from the church or changed their beliefs to conform to the culture around them.
Before we get into what the Bible says on this topic, let me first say that whatever you choose to believe, I can guarantee that a quick internet search will find plenty of people who agree with you. It doesn't matter what stance you take, there are people out there who believe the same. Some of them even have nice-sounding arguments to back them up. Some point to science, some point to the Bible, some point to other religious texts, and some stick with feelings as their "proof". But as Christians (if you call yourself a Christian), we find our primary source of truth in the Bible, and we have to do everything we can to make sure we are reading and understanding it properly.
In this post I am going to go through some Old Testament passages that will show us God's original design of sexuality and marriage as well as some of the things God specifically condemned as wrong and immoral. From there we will look at the New Testament and see if there is continuity in what is taught there, or if God's plan for sexuality changed. Let's get started:
Genesis 1:1 - "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth..."
This is a critical passage for the entire Bible. It establishes God's existence before the creation of the world, as well as His power and ability to create all things. It also establishes God's sovereignty over everything - that He is allowed to make the rules and decide what is good or not because He is the maker of it all.
Genesis 1:26-27 - "Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.' So God created mankind in His own image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them. God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.'"
Here we find that God specifically created mankind differently from all the other creatures of the earth - in His image. We call this the "Imago Dei". The verse follows with "so that they may rule..." which tells us that the Imago Dei gives us some kind of authority over the rest of creation. We are higher than them. Additionally, we see that God specifically makes them "male and female". They are commanded to be fruitful, which means to have productive work (as opposed to be lazy and not doing anything), and increase in number, meaning to procreate, and finally to fill and subdue the earth. So mankind is given this mission to work faithfully, grow the population and act as stewards over God's creation, and all of this they are to do as male and female. Its not like its just "men's work" or "women's work". They are to work together toward these goals.
In Genesis 2 we get a more elaborate picture of God's creation of mankind. God made Adam first ("Adam" means "man" and also could mean "ground", which is interesting because God forms Adam out of dust from the ground), and as Adam was working in the Garden of Eden, God noticed that it was not good for Adam to be alone. PLEASE notice, this is before sin enters the world, and God is saying that already something is not good - Adam's aloneness. So, God goes about searching for a suitable partner for him.
Genesis 2:20-24 - "So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals. But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, He took one of the man's ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib He had taken out of the man, and He brought her to the man. The man 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.' That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh."
"Suitable helper" is not the same thing as a sidekick, let's get that out of the way. The woman was made as a complement to the man. Adam was incomplete without Eve, and they were made to work together, alongside each other, in the commands God had given to them (be fruitful, increase in number, subdue the earth). If we lived in an all-male society, we would be incomplete. If we lived in an all-female society, that would also be incomplete. The biblical foundation for marriage and sexuality, at the beginning, was between a man and a woman, a male and a female. Their union as "one flesh" describes the original design of marriage - that a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. Adam started out as one flesh, then woman was made from his rib, so that in marriage man is made whole again through unity with his wife.
Genesis 1:31 - "God saw all that He had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning - the sixth day."
God looks over all of creation, including Adam and Eve and their union, and He declares that it is all very good. This is the natural order of things as instituted by God.
Moving forward, a lot happens between the Fall of man (chapter 3 of Genesis) the giving of the Law of Moses at Mt. Sinai (Exodus 19-20). Adam and Eve sin and are kicked out of the Garden of Eden, bringing both sin and death into the world - corrupting everything. People become totally depraved and wicked and God brings judgment against them with the Flood. He saves Noah's family in the Ark, along with the animals. He makes a covenant with Abram (Abraham) and his son (Isaac) and grandson (Jacob/Israel) to make a great nation from which will come salvation for the world. Jacob's descendants become enslaved in Egypt for 400 years, after which God delivers them to Mt. Sinai where He gives the Law to Moses to pass on to them, that they should live by these laws and decrees.
Most of us know the 10 commandments pretty well, but there were a lot of other commands regarding a wide variety of issues. In Leviticus 18 we see a long list of sexual sins that God found utterly detestable, including adultery.
Leviticus 18:22-25 - "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, and the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants."
The practices listed there, as well as the other listed earlier in the chapter, were common in the nations that lived in Canaan (the Promised Land that later became Israel). These nations saw nothing wrong with these actions, and they probably taught that they were good and acceptable. Yet we see that God finds them to be an abomination - one of the strongest words for condemnation found in the Old Testament. God judged these nations and drove them out of the land because of their sin and wickedness in practicing these things, and He says that these actions were not only wrong, but they defiled the people and even the land.
Two chapters later, in Leviticus 20, we find the consequences for those who practice these things. The ones mentioned in the verses above brought death to the practitioners. That shows the seriousness of these commands. God wasn't kidding around, He took sexuality and marriage very seriously. Perverting His design was not tolerated.
Every part of the Old Testament teaches that God's norm was for there to be men and women, and that marriage relationships was to be between a man and a woman. Whenever there was a deviation from this norm, there were problems that resulted. Abraham had to deal with Sarah's jealousy. Jacob had issues between Leah and Rachel. Samuel's mom felt neglected and outcast because her husband's other wife had many kids and she didn't. David was led to murder and adultery because of his lust for a woman other than his first wife, and the children he had from different wives caused a lot of trouble for the whole nation. Solomon's many wives led him away from God and into idolatry, which caused judgment on the whole nation. Whenever people deviated from God's design, it ended poorly and caused major problems. Did God outright condemn them for these choices? No. But they certainly faced consequences for deviating from God's design, and that is clear throughout the Old Testament.
Now let's move into the New Testament. Jesus, being the Son of God as well as a Rabbi, ought to have a similar idea about sexuality as we see in the Old Testament, right? He does.
Mark 10:2-9 - "And the Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, 'Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?' He answered them, 'What did Moses command you?' They said, 'Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.' And Jesus said to them, 'Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.'"
This teaching is dealing primarily with the idea of divorce, but it nevertheless gives us insight into Jesus' perspective on marriage and sexuality. He even takes us directly back to the Mosaic Law AND creation! He points back to the Law of Moses to show that divorce was permitted only because of the hardness of peoples' hearts. Then He takes it back to the beginning when God first created male and female. His teaching clearly shows that a godly marriage relationship is between a man and a woman, as ordained by God at creation. The way He talks about marriage, being between a man and his wife, also demonstrates that this was the "norm". There is never a positive mention of same-sex relationships, in official marriage or otherwise. So we have male, and female, and them uniting together to form one flesh.
Finally, let's look at one of the major contributors to the New Testament, the apostle Paul. In the fifth chapter of his letter to the Ephesians, we get a clear understanding of his views of marriage. This is already a long post so I won't go through the whole chapter here, but I encourage you to go and read it. At the end of the chapter he says this: "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband."
Paul also reaffirms God's original design for sexuality and marriage. There is a continuity throughout the whole Bible that the natural order of creation, the original design, was for sex and marriage to be between a man and a woman. Deviations from this design go against God and result in judgment. This includes things like incest, adultery, sex outside of marriage, looking at porn (lust), bestiality, and homosexuality.
My goal in this post was to establish a biblical view of sexuality - how God originally designed it. Over the next few posts we will look more specifically at what the Bible has to say about homosexuality and gender identity, how that affects us, and how we should interact with the world in light of this truth. It is important that we learn how to accept the the truth of God's written Word and share it with others without being hateful or judgmental (because it is not our place or our job to judge those outside the church). Instead, we need to learn how to speak the truth in love and with gentleness.
If any or all of this message has challenged you, upset you, or sparked questions for you, please share in the comments below and we can discuss it. Those of you who know me personally can also text, call, or message me on social media to discuss this further.
This is a huge issue in our culture right now, and the Bible teaches something that goes directly against what our culture believes. That means you are left with a choice - there is no middle ground - are you going to believe the Bible, or the culture?
God bless and His peace be with you all.
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