Paul begins his letter in Romans 1-3 by describing
the unrighteousness of all humanity, Jew and Gentile alike, and the
universal need for a savior. Romans 3 nears its close with the famous
verse, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” In Romans
3:10, Paul says, “There is no one righteous, not even one.”
To build his
case to that effect, Paul argues in chapter 2 that, even though the
Jews have the Law, they still don’t follow it well enough to earn their
salvation on their own. But he starts in chapter 1 by describing the
unrighteousness of humanity more broadly. And in Romans 1:18-32, Paul
writes of the descent of Gentiles into idolatry and the consequences for
them of their rejection of God. He says that they knew the truth of
God, but they rejected it; they exchanged the truth for a lie, and
worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator – birds,
animals, reptiles.
And so because they had given up God, God, in turn,
let them go – He let them live without Him, and He gave them over, it
says, to a wide array of vices and passions. Included among these
passions were some forms of lustful same-sex behavior. In verses 26 and
27, we read the following:
“Because of this [referring to their idol worship], God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way, the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.”
Well, now, it seems, the case is finally closed.
Even though the verses in Leviticus don’t apply to Christians, here we
have Paul in the New Testament explicitly teaching the unacceptability,
the sinfulness of same-sex relationships. And even though he only speaks
of lustful behavior, and not of loving relationships, he labels
same-sex unions unnatural. They are outside of God’s natural design,
which was set forth in Genesis 1 and 2 and is exclusively heterosexual.
So even if a same-sex relationship is loving and committed, it is still
sinful. That is the traditional interpretation of Romans 1:26-27.
How solid of an interpretation is that? Does this
passage require us to reject the possibility of loving relationships for
gay people, and if so, how does that make sense, given the problems
that I outlined earlier with that position? Was that Paul’s intent here,
to teach that God desires gay people to be alone for their entire
lives, because their sexual orientation is broken, and is outside of His
created, natural design?
How we understand this passage hinges in large part
on how we understand the meaning of the terms “natural” and
“unnatural.” It’s commonly assumed by those who hold to the traditional
interpretation that these terms refer back to Genesis 1 and 2, and are
intended to define heterosexuality as God’s natural design and
homosexuality as an unnatural distortion of that design.
But once again,
closer examination does not support that interpretation. In order to
understand what Paul meant by the use of these terms, we have to
consider two things.
First, we have to look at the broader context of
the passage in order to see how the concept of nature functions within
it. And secondly, we need to see how Paul himself uses these terms in
his other letters and how they were commonly and widely applied to
sexual behavior in particular in the ancient world.
First, the passage’s context. In 1:18-32, Paul is
making a larger argument about idolatry, and that argument has a very
precise logic to it. The reason, he says in verses 18-20, that the
idolaters’ actions are blameworthy is because they knew God. They
started with the knowledge of God, but they chose to reject Him. Paul
writes, “What may be known about God is plain to them, because God has
made it plain to them.
For since the creation of the world, God’s
invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been
clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people
are without excuse.” The idolaters are without excuse because they knew
the truth, they started with the truth, but they rejected it. Paul’s
subsequent statements about sexual behavior follow this same pattern.
The women, he says, “exchanged” natural relations for unnatural ones.
And the men “abandoned” relations with women and committed shameful acts
with other men. Both the men and the women started with
heterosexuality—they were naturally disposed to it just as they were
naturally disposed to the knowledge of God—but they rejected their
original, natural inclinations for those that were unnatural: for them,
same-sex behavior.
Paul’s argument about idolatry requires that there be
an exchange; the reason, he says, that the idolaters are at fault is
because they first knew God but then turned away from him, exchanged Him
for idols. Paul’s reference to same-sex behavior is intended to
illustrate this larger sin of idolatry.
But in order for this analogy to
have any force, in order for it to make sense within this argument, the
people he is describing must naturally begin with heterosexual
relations and then abandon them. And that is exactly how he describes
it.
-Matthew Vines
To be continued
J-Bo
No comments:
Post a Comment