How Can Christianity Be Good If It Condemns Homosexuality?

There are many stories in which the characters we love most are those committed to the risk and inconvenience of the greater good–a good that allows for several dangers in its pursuit and rewards in abundance those who had every opportunity to abandon it, and yet, remained faithful in their pilgrimage. Likewise, the stories we love most are those that, against every possible odd, conclude in a funeral and a feast—the death of the wickedness that has encroached upon the land, and the resplendent joy of its defeat.   

What makes Christianity so good, such that homosexuality is considered a sin and thus, worthy of condemnation? 

Is Christianity the sort of good that would have permitted Bilbo Baggins to sit quietly by his hearth until the inevitable demolition of his beloved Shire?¹ No. Christianity is not good because it agrees with our conveniences or yields to our preferences. It isn’t the sort of good that allows us to exclaim, “blast it all!” and carry on with the temporal delights of second breakfast. Contrarily, it commands that we forsake such conveniences when destruction lies in our wake.²   

“Good” is the purposeful opposition to chaos, wickedness, and deceit. We would not love Atticus Finch so well, for example, if he had not loved Tom Robinson more than Maycomb’s narrow-minded opinion of him.³ Nor would we triumph with Elizabeth Bennet had her prejudice triumphed over her.⁴ The very essence of goodness is that it remains hostile to evil and thus seeks to restore peace and order. Just as an upright judge issues a punishment appropriate to a particular crime, so Christianity, its God and its teachings, repels wickedness that ensnares, and disciplines those who violate His law and design.⁵ These disciplines, however, are not condemnation for condemnation’s sake–they serve to renovate physical, mental, and spiritual depredation. Or, in other words, establish shalom: to return things to the way they were always meant to be–one with God, creator and sustainer of all.⁶ 

Here’s the bad news: every member of humanity has fallen short of Him, and our deserved penalty is eternal separation from Him.⁷ Sin, no matter how it manifests itself, puts each of us on an equal playing field where no participant is any more or less in violation of God’s design than another. In fact, He did not hesitate to include explicit examples of such wickedness in His Word, particularly as it concerns homosexuality. The God of the Old Testament, who rescued Lot from His righteous destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19, is the same God who, through Paul, writes in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10: 

“Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God” (ESV). 

Furthermore, in Leviticus 18:20-23, among other commands to set Israel apart from surrounding pagan nations:  

“And you shall not lie sexually with your neighbor’s wife and so make yourself unclean with her. You shall not give any of your children to offer them to Molech, and so profane the name of your God: I am the LORD. 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” (ESV). 

God is so emphatically against the sexual perversion and destruction of our bodies that He insists that His people flee from it altogether.⁸ 

Why would He care so much about what we do or desire? Because potters know how their pieces work. From the moment of conception, God knew that His design was good. He also knows that the contradiction of it is fatal for us. This is why Paul contends that “the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God.” Opposition to Him is not only a rejection of Him, but a rejection of us altogether, in which case, the result is our self-inflicted decay. 

Christianity is good because God condemns wickedness such as homosexuality, because He condemns spiritual suicide–even if that murder is culturally euphemized as “Love is love.” But any “love” that one man may have for another shatters in comparison to the love and desire He has for us to know Him just as we did before destruction entered the world. God created man, not akin to the rest of His creation, but distinctly, in His image.⁹ This seal signifies that all men and women, no matter their transgressions, are uniquely cherished and exhorted by the One who made them.¹⁰ This includes those who identify in any manner contrary to His perfect design: gay, lesbian, liar, thief, adulterer, and murderer alike. 

And yet, while a good God cannot let iniquities go unpunished, there is no violation we could commit against Him that would discontinue His love for us. It is simply not in His nature, and it never will be.¹¹ He does, however, have every right to tell us how to live. Even idyllic Eden submitted to its Creator’s jurisdiction.¹²  

Furthermore, He refuses to forsake us when we have been at pains to resist Him, and His righteousness extends beyond His adversity to lawlessness, beyond his curse to the serpent in Genesis 3:   

“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your  

offspring and her, she will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”¹³  

God does not merely punish evil like homosexuality; He did something which changed the course of human history: He confirmed that a Deliverer will come to restore His people, a Deliverer who will not only die for His beloved enemies but relieve them of His just wrath by bearing it for them instead.¹⁴ This is the bedrock of Christianity, best known as the Gospel: To those who believe in the Son of Man, His marvelous gifts of mercy and grace on the cross of Calvary, and His declaration over sin and death three days later, they are no longer condemned to their due punishment. Rather, they are adopted into His family as His dear and beloved children.¹⁵  

Paul’s warning in 1 Corinthians 6 does not have to be the end of the story for those who actively pursue homosexual desires and behaviors, nor is it for those who love the Lord and yet struggle with its temptations. 

“…But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”¹⁶  

By our own accord, we are not worthy to dine at God’s table unless someone reclines on our behalf. Does this mean that those in Christ are without fault or without struggle to adhere to His will? No, God does not consider our debts, but accounts for Christ’s atoning sacrifice on the cross in our stead, and thus, declares us righteous. Consequently, just as He bodily and spiritually resurrected, so we, in the words of Paul,  

“Must consider [ourselves] dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” We do so by “presenting [ourselves] to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and [our] members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.”¹⁷ 

Christianity is good because, to those who believe in Jesus’s atoning death on the cross, no matter the magnitude of their transgressions, God does not give us the chastisement we so rightly deserve. On the contrary, He delivers us from our enslavement, declares us as righteous recipients of His inheritance, and equips us with His own Spirit to pursue holiness, even when our flesh inclines itself otherwise.¹⁸  

The sin of homosexuality is the same sin that entangles every image bearer. The God who condemns it for our sake is the same God who sacrificially offers deliverance from it and equips us with weaponry for the bearing of its teeth. 

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
    I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
    your rod and your staff,
    they comfort me. 

You prepare a table before me
    in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
    my cup overflows. 

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
    all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
    forever.”¹⁹ 

The God of Love,²⁰ is the same God who loves us enough not to affirm the sins that His own son died for. He is faithful to His promises–although good has already won, the delights of His feasting table will surely multiply, and a day will come when every knee will bow, and every tongue confess that He is Lord of all.²¹ Until then, we press on, knowing that the journey is not in vain, but better than the dwindling hearth at our feet. That, Dear Reader, is when the greater story will begin.