| | Print | |
We recommend "Landscape" print layout.
Human Sexuality and the Marriage CovenantChristians follow God-centered identities and the Creator has designed humans to be male or female, anatomically matched for pair bonding and heterosexual procreative union. God intends sexual activity to be exclusively preserved for the marital partner and monogamously contained within the marriage covenant. Marriage is meant to be the life-long union of one man and one woman. During a wedding each spouse declares and accepts the other as God’s chosen provision for their lives. God warns believers against marrying unbelievers. Although marriage break-up is permitted and in some cases is justified, God hates divorce. It only takes one hardened heart or one abusive spouse to force a divorce; therefore, in holding couples accountable for ending a marriage covenant, care and discernment are needed to properly ascertain responsibilities and spiritual consequences. The notion that God might will a particular divorce is wrong. Divorce defies God’s precept that in marriage the husband and the wife become one in flesh and spirit for the sake of raising Godly offspring. Divorce disgraces the sacred marriage covenant - “what God has joined together let man not separate;” in effect, declaring that one or both marital partners were not God’s provision or that somehow God no longer has enough power and grace to restore relations between spouses. God is able to make good out of the ashes of a broken covenant, but He may not do so. Anyone who divorces their spouse, except for unfaithfulness (adultery or abandonment) and remarries, commits adultery. Sex outside of marriage is sin – fornication or adultery. And the sexually immoral, whether heterosexual or homosexual, live in a false reality before God, falling short of God’s intent for sexual relations. The feminist model for a liberated heterosexual woman, described by author Dalma Heyn, is patently unchristian: “The average young woman - working, assertive personally and professionally – is comfortable with independence, employment, autonomy, and multiple sexual relationships. She began having sex, according to the newest Kinsey Institute Report, between the (median) ages of sixteen and seventeen. If she marries at the age of twenty-seven, then, she will have been making love - with one man or several, simultaneously or serially, alone or cohabiting - for a decade. She is used to pleasure as to pleasing, and envisions having both in equal measure in an egalitarian marital relationship.”[1] And the homosexual liberation model described by then President of the National Organization for Women (NOW), Kate Millett, is also patently unchristian: “Women’s liberation and homosexual liberation are both struggling towards a common goal: a society free from defining and categorizing people by virtue of gender and/or sexual preference. ‘Lesbian’ is a label used as a psychic weapon to keep women locked into their male-defined ‘feminine role.’ The essence of that role is that a woman is defined in terms of her relationship to men. A woman is called a lesbian when she functions autonomously. Women’s autonomy is what women’s liberation is all about.” [2] God does not elect the sexually immoral to adopt the lifestyle they choose. God’s judgment lies in leaving them where they want to be, giving them over - heart, body, passions and mind - to this sinful reality. Unrepentant heterosexuals and homosexuals will not inherit the Kingdom of God. The witness of Christian heterosexuals, ex-gays and ex-lesbians to their deliverance from sinful lifestyles by the saving grace of Jesus Christ is clear testimony to God’s will. Jesus Christ cannot be divided in Spirit: (1) delivering men and women from sinful lifestyles, and (2) also blessing unrepentant sexually active homosexuals and sanctifying same-sex marriages. So-called “pro-gay, liberal or homosexual Christianity” is counterfeit theology - intended to look real, but in reality the witness is self-serving. Same-sex marriage is not an issue that Christians can agree to disagree on. The orthodox must confront such heresy and separate from those who are bearers of this anti-Christian theology. Ge 1:26-31, 2:4-25, 34:7; Lev 18:22; 1Sa 2:22-24; Pr 6:20-35, 7:1-27; Mal 2:13-16; Mt 5:31-33, 15:19, 19:4-9; Mk 10:2-13; Lk 16:18; Jn 8:1-11; Ro 1:21-32, 7:1-3; 1Co 6:9-20, 7:1-7, 10-11, 27, 10:8, 15:1-2; 2Co 6:14-17; Eph 5:3-8, 31-32; 1Th 4:3-8; 1Ti 3:1-2, 5:8; Tit 1:6; Heb 13:4; 2Pe 5:13-22; Jude 4, 18; Rev 2:14-15, 20-25. |