Homosexuality; Is there a Gay Gene? Perversion. Romans 1:26-32

We have seen in looking at these first two stages of divine discipline that we have seen, that God allows more of the function of His permissive will than necessarily an active judgment as He sort of lets people have enough rope to hang themselves. He gives people the freedom to reject Him and then gives them even more opportunity to follow their negative volition in their rejection of Him, and it continues to culminate in increasing stages of degradation and perversion. One the major themes that go throughout each of the three stages—marked by “God gave them up”—is the indication that there is some level of sexual degradation and perversion. It is most clearly seen in the second stage in verses 26 and 27 where it is clear that the rise of homosexuality is a consequence of the rejection of God and is part of God’s divine discipline on a civilization. Part of that really fits within a web of different sins that are all related to sexual identity and gender confusion.

Another thing to be brought out is this word “nature.” In the Greek there are two different forms of it: phusis [fusij], which is a noun, and also phusikos [fusikoj], an adjective. In verse 26 there is the natural use which is against nature. Romans 1:26 ^NASB “For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural.” What this phusis word group does not mean is nature in the sense of creation, what is going on in the natural world. We have taken this concept of Mother Nature, with a capital N, and have personified it. What the word indicates is a sense of what God originally designed and intended. There are various indications from other Jewish writers at the time the New Testament was written that this was the normative understanding within second temple Judaism, and that would reflect a tradition in Judaism going back all the way to Moses. Both Josephus and Philo use the word “nature” as basically a synonym for God’s original created intention. So when we read a verse that says “the natural use” we could do a simple word substitution that women exchanged God’s intended created design for what is against God’s intended creative design. Likewise, also the men leaving God’s intended created design for the woman. Romans 1:27 ^NASB “and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.”

This particular passage is one of three or four passages in Scripture that are at the very center of the debate over homosexuality, sometimes framed, is it nature or nurture? And it has bled over into “Christian” circles. There are those who try to use the Scripture to argue for a pro-homosexual position. They assume what they have heard out in the market place of America that it is not “nurture” (a choice), it is really nature. They believe the view that there is a gay gene or even a genetic predisposition toward homosexual behavior. So assuming a conclusion derived empirically from various studies that homosexuality was determined by genetics and there really wasn’t anything that could be done about it. And there are evangelical scholars on the loose or left side of the spectrum within evangelicalism who believe that Paul is not condemning all forms of homosexuality here, or in 1 Corinthians 6 or some of the other passages, but that he is just talking about homosexual acts that are contrary to the nature of the individual—not contrary to nature as a universal absolute, it contrary to that person’s nature. So even though they are homosexual they are involved in some sort of homosexual activity that really goes beyond even their nature, and that is when it becomes wrong. It’s funny how people play all kinds of games to justify sin!

As we look at this passage we see that the sins related to homosexuality are not singled out or identified in terms of some special class or super class of sins. In fact the specific revelation related to homosexuality in only in the second stage of God’s giving people over to their vile passions. The third stage includes just about any other kind of sin that we could possibly think of.

Observations

1. As part of the religious degeneration that takes place from the rejection of God one is social and sexual degeneration. Social and sexual degeneration comes as a result of rejecting God’s authority in what we have identified as the divine institutions. As a result of that what happens is these social institutions that God establishes begin to become perverted and are really attacked by sexual degeneracy.
2. As Biblical truth impacts a culture it transforms that society with Biblical norms and standards and establishment truth. The result is stability and order, peace and economic prosperity.
3. As Biblical truth is rejected and diluted Biblical norms become dehumanized by a pagan culture. We are seeing more and more of that in our culture today. As a culture turns away from Biblical values and absolutes those who hold them become more and more at odds with the culture until we get to the point where they are identified as the problem and they become demonized.
4. The four divine institutions: 1) Individual responsibility: every individual is responsible to God. 2) Marriage: the authority of marriage is the husband. Homosexuality, sexual perversion, adultery, fornication all attack marriage. 3) Family: the authority of the family is the parent. Homosexuality attacks the family. 4) The government. Once these kinds of things are being legitimized it has a series of consequences within government because government now has to start changing all kinds of rules and laws and regulations. These laws have been built around centuries of realization that marriage is between a man and a woman, not between a man and a man or a woman and a woman, and that these laws provide stability for inheritance, property ownership, and many other things within a nation.
5. As society utilizes and applies establishment principles it stabilizes and strengthens a nation. It provides mental discipline; it supports strength of character and developing virtue within a nation. But when these things are removed or change them it has the unintended consequence of assaulting character and integrity and virtue within the nation and it promotes self-centeredness. When the divine institutions are promoted it promotes a mentality that is against self-centeredness.
6. When society rejects these norms the result is the fragmentation, destabilization and loss of prosperity.
7. Sodom in the Old Testament is a picture of a society at the end of that cycle, and God brings judgment on them. We see this also in the book of Judges.
8. Divine viewpoint teaches that gender confusion and homosexuality are a direct assault on a nation, but they are a part of God’s judgment on a nation that has already rejected Him.

Is there such a thing as a gay gene?

1. The human genome project completed its task in mapping out the human gene in 2003. They never identified a gay gene. The silence is loud; they never discovered a gay gene.

2. In the early 90s there was a study that came out that there might be a gay gene. There was a suggestion of it. However the way they reported it in the news was that they had identified a gay gene. In Science Magazine and article entitled Male Sexual Orientation and Genetic Evidence offered by Neil Risch, Elizabeth Squires-Wheeler, B.J. Keats it was concluded that there is little disagreement that male homosexual orientation is not genetic.

A basic argument on pro-gay web sites is to say that homosexuality is genetic is one of the most homophobic things you can say. Basically what they are saying is we are just trapped in this horrible lifestyle of being homosexual but we can’t help it because it is genetic. So what they are saying is we are trapped here, we can’t do anything about it so we are just going to stick with it because that is the way fate has determined it; that is the way our genetic structure is. Then they said they ought to be proud of the fact that they had chosen a homosexual lifestyle. So they are out there promoting choice! They have a number of citations from booklets and pamphlets supporting the fact that homosexuality was a choice. And that is what Scripture affirms, that this is a choice. It is a volitional decision like any other sin. There may be various environmental factors, developmental factors and genetic predispositions in the sin nature or whatever but that doesn’t mean that they have to act on those predispositions, temptations, or whatever they might be; it is a matter of making a decision. Homosexuality and this whole thing with gay marriage is all fueled by a false assumption and propaganda that it is the result of a gay gene and so we ought not do anything to take away from their civil rights. We are witnessing the application of this second stage of divine discipline before our very eyes.

The third stage comes up in verse 28. Romans 1:28 ^NASB “And just as they [those who have rejected God] did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper.” The ultimate cause of this is their negative volition. As it is translated here, “they did not see fit to acknowledge,” based on the Greek verb dokimazo [dokimazw]—a form of this verb shows up three times in these last few verses—which has the idea of to test something, to accept something as true or approved. So a better translation of this would be “just as they did not approve having God in their knowledge.” They have rejected God and so they don’t approve of having God in their knowledge. What better term to express the views of so many liberals in the United States who are saying we just don’t approve of having God in the classroom, we don’t approve of having God in the pledge of allegiance, we don’t approve of having God in the public square. They have rejected God and so now they disapprove of God.

The result is that God gives them over, He takes His hands off His restraining power on sin a little more and gives them over to debased/depraved mind. The word for depraved is the noun adokimos [a)dokimoj]. The verb for not approving God is dokimazo. It is the same root idea, having to do with approval. Each form has a little different sense to it and here in adokimos the a at the beginning is a negative, so it is talking about something that rather than being qualified or approved is unqualified, not approved, unfit or reprehensible. It is translated in the sense of a depraved mind, a debased mind, a perverted mind. So God is giving them over to a perverted or debased mind, He is just letting their sin nature follow its own course with the result that they do things that are not fitting or not approved—the verb katheko [kaqhkw], not fitting, not approved and it is detestable or abominable. Now that becomes defined through a list of twenty-two sins that come up in the following verses.

Romans 1:29 ^NASB “being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; {they are} gossips.” Why is unrighteousness the first word? Because the subject matter, the key issue in Romans, is the righteousness of God. They are filled with all unrighteousness in contrast to the righteous God they have rejected. The Greek word for being filled is pleroo [plhrow], a perfect passive participle and it has to do with completed action, completed results, and it often has the idea of a descriptive use—this is what described these people, these are the words that characterized this third stage.

Several of these are just what we would identify as general descriptions of sin—righteousness, wickedness, hostility, inventors of evil, senseless, undiscerning. Then there are the mental attitude sins—covetousness, malice, envy, deceit, hostility, violent arrogance (also translated “insolence”—acting out on that arrogance)—without natural affection, i.e. heartless or unloving, the Greek noun astorgos [a)storgoj]. storge is a Greek word for love, not used anywhere in the New Testament. astorgos is the opposite of that, it is unloving and uncaring and it is because they are given over to arrogance and self-centeredness. Then there are the sins of the tongue—slanderers, strife, gossip, proud in a boastful, conceited manner as opposed to the next verse which is just being boastful—and then two overt sins, murder and being disobedient to parents. Romans 1:30, 31 ^NASB “slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful.”

Romans 1:32 ^NASB “and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.” The word “practice” is prasso [prassw] is what they are committed to, an ongoing practice. The word for knowledge at the beginning of the verse is epignosis [e)pignwsij], so it is a full experiential knowledge of the righteousness of God. Take verse 32 at the end of chapter one and use it as the conclusion and bracket that with verse 20, which says, “since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.” It begins with the statement that they know God exists and it ends with the statement that they know God exists. Yet in between they are doing everything they can to suppress the knowledge of God by means of unrighteousness. The result is that God just gives them over to act out on their negative volition and to be as unrighteous as they can. He removes the restraints.

They not only practice these things, they deserve death. But God in His grace doesn’t bring temporal judgment on them; He postpones that so that He can extend mercy and the offer of the gospel.

These who deserve death not only practice these things themselves but they also approve of those who practice them. There is a battle going on, a war going on, and often we forget this. We are engaged, especially in the culture in which we are in now, in a major war against the forces of darkness and we are soldiers in that conflict as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is our responsibility to fight according to the principles of Scripture. We are tearing down every lofty thought that is raised against God; we are to fight according to the principles of Ephesians 6:10-18, and we are engaged in representing God to a fallen world primarily through witnessing of the gospel and in our own lives. But in order to be well trained soldiers we have to know the Word because that is our field manual.

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