Same-Sex Attraction and the Rise of Legalism
Having established that there is only one true sexual orientation—if we are to use the modern language—it then follows that all thoughts, impulses, desires, inclinations, and acts that are contrary to that God-given design are inherently perverted and sinful. Indeed this is exactly what the entire testimony of Scripture will affirm, many times referring back to God’s creation of Man as the final appeal.
Unfortunately, today, the evangelical trend is to arbitrarily assert that “our genes are fallen” in order to justify the predisposition to impure desires. Chalking this up to the effects of the Fall, they give physiological and biological reasons for spiritual bankruptcy, something entirely foreign to Scripture.
Today, I would like to draw out the biblical conclusions that come from a sound understanding of the Doctrine of Man—the very thing we ended our last post with. We can be sure that by God’s creating of the male and female, there is an instantaneous purpose and design that rules out a number of modernistic fallacies.
For today, we will address two in particular, the first is an error of definition, which logically leads to an error of correction. In other words, to redefine homosexual lust as a neutral, innate same-sex attraction, inevitably leads to the pursuit of legalistic holiness, namely singleness and celibacy insofar as it is an answer to that attraction.
Some hold to the idea that the attraction in itself is not necessarily wrong until it is acted upon, or that there can exist a point where same-sex attraction is not considered lust, but this is not what we find in Scripture. The Greek word for lust that is often used is epithumeo. In fact it is the word used by Jesus in Matthew 5. Lust, properly understood, is a desire of, or the coveting of, things forbidden.
Heterosexual attraction is designed by God, natural, and morally neutral in itself unless it becomes lustful. Homosexual attractions are always lustful and never morally neutral.
It is, therefore, a dangerous error to assert that Christians can attach the same-sex attracted—often referred to as SSA—adjective to them without compromising their Christian witness or holiness. It is a theological oxymoron.
This is precisely what is sweeping evangelicalism. The new standard for holiness has become the very legalism that the Lord Jesus Christ repudiated in His own day.
“I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matt 5:28).
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness” (Matt 23:27–28).
Our Lord put forth a lot of effort to explain that simply refraining from physical acts was not the level of righteousness or holiness that God sought. Even the Old Testament prophets cried out against the legalistic errors of the Israelites: “Rend your hearts and not your garments” (Joel 2:13).
“I tell you,” Jesus said, “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 5:20) (emphasis mine). The point he is making is that the standard for God’s holiness is absolute perfection of the heart, soul, mind and strength. It is much higher than anyone can possible imagine. Without the imputed righteousness of Christ it renders us hopelessly damned for “whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it” (Js 2:10).
What the Lord does, then, in His sermon on the mount in Matthew 5, is unfold just what that looks like and how we are guilty of sin before we ever complete any type of outward act.
God’s judgement of the evil men in Noah’s day was not just because of their activity, but because “every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen 6:5) (emphasis mine). Jesus Himself made abundantly clear that all sin starts in the heart of man, not in his genes: “From within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality” (Mk 7:21).
Promoting celibacy while ignoring the lust of the heart is advancing the very legalism that the Lord Jesus Christ condemned.
It is, as Paul said, "having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power." His commendation? "Avoid such people" (2 Tim 3:5).
We must not be caught up in this error. God has already stated that mere restraint from outward activity is not the litmus test for holiness, nor is it even effective for real internal purity. In no unclear terms, the Colossians were told:
"Why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations— “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh" (2:20–23).
The best counsel anyone can give to someone who truly wants to repent of their sin and place their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is to help them understand that their sin is a personal offence against Holy God. Until we see it that way, we will have no fear of God, or grief that leads us to repentance.
Hosea makes an incredibly pertinent observation, or indictment rather, in that “Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his wound” (5:13) but they did not go about healing it the right way. They sought out man-made remedies. What was God’s reply to this?
“I will return again to my place, until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face, and in their distress earnestly seek me” (v. 15).
Friends, make no mistake. It is not enough to simply identify a problem in our life and then ask God to make it go away. Until we properly call our sin, sin, and acknowledge our personal offence and guilt before our Holy God, we will not be healed. This will be the sad reality of those who think that same-sex attraction is neutral and not a sin in itself.
How many testimonies have you heard—or perhaps once had yourself—where you prayed and prayed that God would take away this desire or that desire while never coming to a place of freedom from it? Hosea suggests that we have not humbled ourselves enough to acknowledge the guilt of our sin that is found in the very thoughts that dwell in the deepest recesses of our hearts.
The puritan John Owen, commenting on this passage in Hosea in his priceless gem of a book The Mortification of Sin, stated: “Nothing will do until they come (verse 15) to ‘acknowledge their offence’. Men may see their sickness and wounds, but yet, if they make not due applications, their cure will not be effected.”
Paul, likewise, contrasts the difference between “worldly grief” and “godly grief” in his letter to the once sexually immoral Corinthians. “I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief . . . For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death” (2 Cor 2:9–10) (emphasis mine).
Every man and woman under the sun, regardless of their position before God, can feel grief over their embarrassment, loss, humility, or shame that results from their sin, but it is quite a different thing to feel what Paul identifies as a “godly grief” that leads to repentance from said sin.
For the topic at hand, how many people, having felt homosexual lusts in their heart, only asked God to take it away so that they wouldn’t be different from most people? So that they wouldn’t be ridiculed by bullies? So that they wouldn’t be shamed by their families? This is not godly grief over sin and a recognition of a personal offence against God, it is self-love and self-preservation in light of their familial, social, and cultural contexts—it is nothing less than praying to God that He would make us legalists.
My encouragement for anyone who truly wants freedom from the lust of their own hearts is to do what God required of his people in 2 Chronicles 7:14: "humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin."
Finally, one of the big problems with the same-sex attraction hobby horse that many in the church have mounted is in the very usage of that term, rather than calling it what it is—homosexual lust. In so doing, we have given the sin a neutral sounding name. We make it worse by truncating it to SSA, much like we have been so beguiled into thinking that many imprudent parents with disobedient children are simply victims of ADD. James minces no words: “This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic.”
The late Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones was wise and insightful in this regard: “I am certain that one of the main causes of the ill state of the church today is the fact that the devil is being forgotten. We have become so psychological in our attitude and thinking. We are ignorant of this great objective fact—the being, the existence of the devil, the adversary, the accuser” (emphasis mine).
Many people don't know this, but Dr. Lloyd-Jones was no stranger to the study of science and medicine. With four degrees under his belt, he was one of London’s most brilliant surgeons and medical researchers of his time before giving it up for preaching. Had he stayed his course he would have been attending the bedsides of those residing in Buckingham Palace.
Today, sadly, the tenor of the evangelical conversation has seen some changes. It is shifting from the preaching of repentance from sin—like lust in the heart—to coaxing along victims of their unchosen biological "experiences". The shift has been subtle, but it will certainly continue to have its damaging effects on the integrity of the church’s witness and purity, not to mention the very real danger of increasing false converts.
We must not be selfish, as John Owen has said, by “considering more the trouble of sin than the filth and guilt of it.”
There is freedom from the bondage of sin only when we recognize our impure attractions and desires as sins, in themselves, against God. We are worse than we think. All of us. Explaining away our tendencies to biology, be it homosexual lust, pornography, drunkenness, etc., will keep us from the saving blood of Christ, His imputed righteousness, and the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit to effect real change.
“When one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” | 2 Corinthians 3:16–18
In Christ Alone,
Ben
