The Main Flaw in “Homosexual Christianity”

The heart is an incubator of sin, thus the heart producing sin is as sinful as the sin it produces. The lust often called same-sex attraction (SSA) is simply homosexual sin in the heart. These days it is not cricket to call it an abomination, even though the Lord does.

His name is Jesus, because he saves his people from their sin. The Lord does not save people in sin but from it, reaching into the depths of a sinner’s heart. In every person who has trusted in Jesus Christ, the Spirit tackles sin of every kind. The Savior so reorients the heart that it is impossible for a converted sinner to live and think as he once did. Conversion includes more than forgiveness. Every new believer receives the Spirit as a gift from God who goes to work to destroy our sinful nature and write God’s law on our hearts, even causing us to walk according to it. So no one can be gay and Christian without an unrelenting battle. The Holy Spirit does not quit, and he does not seek to reform our old nature. In his patient way and at his sovereign pace, he produces holiness with the goal of full likeness to Christ in every son and daughter God has adopted. Without exception, this deliverance begins in this life. If the Lord lets sin sit comfortably in anyone, it is proof that such a person has never been admitted into the family of God. If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons (Hebrews 12:8).

In the Presbyterian Church in America we lack full agreement whether same-sex attraction is deadly sin. Many gay Christians think that same-sex lust may persist for a lifetime without relief, and that that is not so bad as long as the person is celibate. There is so little apparent need of repentance in gay circles that renouncing sin is muted. (Ever hear of a call to repent of SSA at a Revoice conference?) Instead, the “homosexual Christians” announce when they should renounce. What is expected of those who oppose this movement is that we should, in good Christian charity, simply leave things alone, for sin is not really being committed. It is only desire, and we all have temptations, don’t we? The testimony of gays who have the PCA ear is that this desire is permanent, and they do not want us to leave out that science agrees. [i] Supposedly God has salvation from this sin on hold – if indeed it is sin at all.

Meanwhile the Scriptures keep sounding away on the natural condition of our hearts: “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person …” (Matthew 15:19,20). We are to put off our former manner of life, which is corrupt through deceitful desires, including sexual appetite for those of the same gender. Instead we are to be renewed by putting on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness (Ephesians 4:22-24). Such a change of heart is the promise of the gospel. Holiness comes to us graciously when we believe in Christ and thereby enter a new life to love God from the heart.

Sexual immorality, in fact any impurity, must not even be named among us. In the “opinion” of the apostle, no one who is sexually impure has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ. Let no Revoice conference deceive you with empty words, for because of such impurities the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Don’t join them in darkness; we are light in the Lord (see Ephesians 5:3-8). Though none can say, “I have made my heart pure; I am clean from my sin” (Proverbs 20:9), God loves purity of heart (Proverbs 22:11) and urges us to keep our hearts with all diligence (Proverbs 4:23), while all along he fosters purity in us.

The New Covenant

We are compelled to take a good look at how the truth of sanctification vigorously confronts the claim of unchanging homosexual desire within a professing Christian. This brings us to the gospel promises of the New Covenant and whether God is merely urging change in our hearts or announcing the kind of change he is determined to produce. A change in our very nature is necessary to know the Lord, for without holiness no man shall see him (Hebrews 12:14). If such a change is absent, the damning news is that salvation is absent also. If there is no connection to Christ, any soul lacking moral transformation is still in his sin; eternal destruction awaits. Surely to be in a Christian pulpit one must be saved with evidence that the desires of the flesh have given way to desires that please God such as faith (Hebrews 11:6) – not merely change in external behavior.

In the new covenant God makes bold assertions. He promises: 1) a status of forgiven, and 2) a continuing infusion of righteousness in those who are being sanctified. Note “are being sanctified” progressively (Hebrews 10:14; Ezekiel 36:24-27; & Jeremiah 31:31-34). The condition is simply and only faith in Christ for all the Lord promises in the covenant. God did not indicate that we could have one benefit without the other. Because God covenants, he promises. If he promises, he delivers, and delivers to all who believe.

Thus there is no Christian who enjoys one feature and lacks the other. In one act, sin is remitted (justification); in the other feature, sin is being replaced with the law written on the heart. In sanctification God works to overcome sin, so it is rendered less and less effective. What used to rule us has lost its ugly grip. We have been joined to Christ so that greed, vindictiveness, idolatry, deceit, and covetousness have been delivered a setback, even though all our former vices stick around tempting and seeking another opportunity in us. We may commit them, but we never become comfortable with our old favorite sins.  Thus –

For a Christian gay to announce never changing sinful desire is to place himself outside the covenant of grace. The promises of the new covenant cannot be broken by God, and no person can belong to Christ without receiving the Holy Spirit. The minister must not be simply a communicator of this gospel but an embodiment of it, a public example of how God in the new covenant has transformed him from the sinful passions of “the old man”. We have now gotten down to basics. To say, “It does not work for me, because my dominant attraction is for sex with my own gender,” is to say, “God has not kept such a covenant in my case, or I am not in such a covenant.” Does any PCA minister say such a thing? No, but if a minister claims persistent  [here I have added unmitigated]  illicit desire even if bridled, he loses his claim to being a Christian. He insults the Holy Spirit as unable to save from some special sin, or that God the Holy Spirit, in shocking ungodliness, has broken covenant with him. This is the chief error of homosexual Christianity. This covenant, called new in Jeremiah 31, fits the healing of an incurable condition in 30:12, 15 & 17. In sanctification God commits to the impossible. He heals the incurable.

It is time to recognize and refer to the surpassing contribution of Walter Marshall, a Puritan who in 1692 wrote The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification [ii]. We are sanctified only in union with Christ with notable results. Marshall explains:

Opposed to Walter Marshall’s gospel clarity is the “gay Christian” notion that some sins are so deep, that Christian gays have no choice in their passions. These desires cling so closely they cannot be rid of them. Considering their sexual desires as incurable in this life is rejection of the covenant with terrible personal consequences.

Frustration and Failure

The big talk today is of sexual orientation. The basic assumption the world teaches us is that a person has a fixed sexual inclination. This thinking is applied everywhere, becoming its own “gospel truth”. But in Christian doctrine, regeneration is a radical change from a fleshly proclivity over to a heart turned to God. In salvation, it is the heart that is reoriented. The gay appeal is that we recognize that their desire remains. After all, it is what they are. For some there may be change, but in gay Christianity the assumption is that same-sex attraction is ordinarily very unchangeable, a claim made in spite of numerous testimonies to the contrary. Their doctrine overturns the Christian faith. Regeneration is forced to bow to a persistent sexual orientation, a viewpoint in place before the Word of God is even opened. With a false idea as the starting point, the gay gospel is a patchwork of excuses and arguments without deliverance or transformation. And we are supposed to accept this and allow rejecters of salvation reality to flourish in pew and pulpit.

Walter Marshall knew trying to restrain sin is not a solution. He had pointed things to say about missing the gospel and the unhappiness that ensues. He anticipated the traffic from Side B to Side A. Not knowing of us in 1692, he still addressed our current problem.

We in the PCA have been introduced to a remedy which aims to tame the flesh as Marshall puts it below. We are tempted to say “good luck” to the taming. Do we forget that sin is alive in us and needs death rather than restraining? Homosexual lust lately has been getting a new suit of clothes. It is lookin’ pretty good, trotted out as celibacy. It is even portrayed as a benefit since celibate gay Christians are models of obedience, though a fleshly mind finds submitting to God’s law unnatural (Romans 8:7). This homosexual flesh-taming has presented itself as costly sacrifice to be admired. Imagine Aunt Tillie telling us she sacrifices for the Lord every day by not lying. Not lying is neither expensive nor time consuming. It is not sacrifice, but we now are hearing that staying out of gay bars and resisting whatever goes on in there is sacrifice on a scale close to heroic. Taming the flesh has churned up many arguments. Marshall is clear:

The Way Out – Faith in Christ   

The wise Puritan continues:   

It is because the Father chose us that we “are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:30). Christ is as much our sanctification as he is our justification. We receive these by faith, and if we are in Christ, we receive both – finished justification and sanctification underway. 

Truly Saved?

Marshall warns further of a faith in which the hope is only for forgiveness and an escape from hell. Since God’s salvation is a package of forgiveness, adoption, and cleansing, one must believe him for all that is promised. To trust God only for selected parts means a soul with selective faith has believed in a partial Savior, who fails to deliver all he has promised. We must not suppose we can trust God for preferred blessings and pass over ones God has tied tightly together. The PCA constitution says that sanctification is inseparably joined to justification (WLC 77).

The new covenant is gospel promise from first to last. A promise can only be received by faith. To opt out of any holy benefit by unbelief is to fail to accept the gospel as God has designed it. We must believe that he rewards those who seek him (Hebrews 11:6). To live without the Spirit replacing fleshly lust, convicting us, wooing us, holding Christ before us, humbling, and chastening us to agree with his holy law written in our hearts – to live without the Spirit is to live in the flesh as one who has never come to Christ at all.

No sin is too deep or too difficult for God. What he begins in our union with Christ shall continue until we are fully in his holy likeness, but in every believer sanctification is underway. No sin gets a pass. A person who supposes he can be a Christian with lifelong lust for a person of the same sex has deluded himself. He should tremble at the deceit gripping his mind and flee to Christ. “Christian gays” are playing with fire – hellfire. Hebrews 12 reminds Christians that our God is a consuming fire. The Lord is a fire that purifies or a fire that destroys.

I urge prayer with the promises of the new covenant before us. The fear of God and repentance before him is needed. Faith will bring relief, delight, and life in Christ. Gospel washing does not happen somewhere over the rainbow, way down the road. No, the washing of regeneration is at the outset of the Christian life and cleansing continues throughout.  The gospel is violated by Revoice’s revision of it when they appeal with a come-as-you-are-and-flourish-as-you-are message. If Christ does not wash us, we have no share with him (John 13:8). If he is truly our God, he is the Lord who sanctifies us now (Ezekiel 20:12). Those who opt out of sanctification have opted out of salvation.

When Marshall speaks of something being a necessary part, he means it is essential to, or “without which you do not have”.  He asserted sanctification is a necessary part of salvation, then if absent, so is salvation. This should alarm anyone who harbors unchanging sexual lust.

We must put off the old man and put on the new (Ephesians 4:22-24). However, the drift now in the PCA is that peace loving souls with sensitivity and understanding should just accept the condition, celibacy, and improvement of the old nature.  All we have to give up is the Bible’s teaching on the Christian life.

Imagine someone in hell reviewing his arguments, trying to figure out where he went wrong and remembering,  “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life”  (Galatians 6:7,8).

Gay Persuasion at Work

They have an array of spins and arguments to defend this false teaching. Here are some:

Fallacy:  It is not really sin; the Lord does not really change our orientation; this desire endures a lifetime, nevertheless we are saved.

Euphemism:  Rather than “sin”, say, “a result of the Fall” Which is of course true. This propaganda throws people off. Weeds, warts, and tornadoes are a result of the Fall, yet are morally neutral, and they want us to think it is with same-sex attraction also.

Spin:  It is not lust, just an attraction, a different orientation. Wherever “lust” appears, auto-correct to the less offensive word “attraction”. You don’t like my orientation; do my freckles also bother you?”

Spin:  Cleansing? Well, by the power of the Spirit we are celibate; what more do you want? And say, “We have cleaned up our act.”  [This turns attention away from the new covenant’s change of heart.]

Strategy:  Preach the pleasing grace of acceptance; avoid repentance themes, deliverance language, and the necessity of a transformed heart. Just claim justification.

Spin:  Make gay sin distinct. The sinfulness of a man looking lustfully at an ineligible woman is an issue of sin, so we can use it to show how the straights have their wrong attractions too. They cannot judge us.

Argument:  Paul used the present tense:  “ … sinners, of whom I am chief”. Note the present tense of “am”. We are all saints who sin; nobody’s perfect. [This terrible distortion of 1 Timothy 1:15 deserves a very stiff rebuttal.]   

Argument:  “I have prayed a thousand times without any change.” Note how a prominent Revoice apologist states their case:

My reply to the Revoice apologist:  So we know from the statisticians of social science how poorly God’s covenant works. Oh, really! Since healing is taken to be rare for this unique group in spite of being united to Christ, two basic truths crash: 1) Sola Scriptura, and 2) the integrity of God in the new covenant where he promises to cause us to walk in his statutes (Ezekiel 36:27).

The Chief Error of “Gay Christianity”

This changed view of God downplays the Lord as sanctifier; it does not rely on his commitment to his own promises in the new covenant. Naturally this false teaching neither calls for nor expects transformation of gays, ostensibly in union with Christ. Thus same-sex sin sits unchallenged in the heart, which is just another way to say it reigns within. Christians have been set free from the power of sin (Romans 6:22), but not its temptation. Flee to Christ and embrace him in his power, promises, and forgiveness. With that mercy, the gift of the Spirit is included. He will wage war successfully in your heart and fill it with the better things of the Lord. To have a god less than this is to bow before an idol seeking the throne of God. The Gay Christian movement, already among us in the PCA, needs to be repelled and repentant homosexuals welcomed through the gospel into the loving embrace of Christ and his holy church.

[i] A legislative bill in California [HR 3570] is being considered because “sexual orientation cannot change, and therefore because it cannot change, any suggestion or encouragement to pursue change should be considered fraud.” Decision Magazine, January 1, 2020.  See www.changedmovement.com

[ii] Source: https://books.google.com/books?id=NRhMAAAAYAAJ&source=gbs_similarbooks

     Modernized, formatted, annotated, and corrected by William H. Gross www.onthewing.org Nov. 2019

[iii] Rev. Scott Sauls, Thoughts on Revoice, Unnecessary Division, and the PCA, June 21, 2019, p.6.