About 14 minutes to read
This page sets out what the Bible teaches about men and women, homosexual acts, and what people now call being gay or transgender. Whether you came to learn or to argue, begin with Made Male and Female. If you are a Christian who fights desires you never asked for, read the part for you. If you are not at peace with the sex of your own body, read the part for you. If someone you love has just told you they are gay or trans, read the part for you.
If you feel so hopeless that you have thought about ending your life, stop here first. Call 988 or text 988 now, and tell someone near you. If you are young, tell a parent or another adult you trust. Then read If you are thinking of ending your life. You are not too far gone for Christ.
Made Male and Female
The Bible does not begin with a rule about sex. It begins with a gift.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Genesis 1:27 (KJV)
The man and the woman bear God’s image alike. Yet God did not make one kind of human and leave the rest for us to sort out. He made two, for each other, and he called all he had made very good (Genesis 1:31).
When the Pharisees tested Jesus about divorce, he went back to that first page.
And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
Matthew 19:4-6 (KJV)
Jesus ties marriage to the way God made us. Because he made them male and female, a man leaves his parents and cleaves to his wife. One flesh is a picture of two becoming one, and what it pictures is real, the bodily and lifelong joining of a husband and a wife. For more, read What the Bible Says About Marriage and What the Bible Says About Sex.
So your body is not an accident or a costume. Whether you were made a man or a woman is part of God’s good gift. Ye are bought with a price, Paul says, therefore glorify God in your body (1 Corinthians 6:20).
What Scripture Says About Homosexual Acts
Scripture speaks plainly here, in both Testaments.
Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.
Leviticus 18:22 (KJV)
This law stands beside the laws against incest, adultery, and giving children to Molech. God judged the nations of Canaan for these very things (Leviticus 18:24-25), though they never had the law of Moses. So these were not rules for Israel alone.
For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
Romans 1:26-27 (KJV)
Against nature means against the way God made our bodies at creation. And Paul calls the desire itself a vile affection, not only the act. He lists abusers of themselves with mankind among those who shall not inherit the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9-10), and he names them that defile themselves with mankind among the lawless (1 Timothy 1:9-10). The Larger Catechism counts sodomy and all unnatural lusts among the sins the seventh commandment forbids (WLC 139).
What People Say
- These verses only condemn abuse, or the rites of idol temples. The Bible condemns those too, but the texts do not stop there. Leviticus makes no exception for the willing. Romans 1 tells the story of all mankind turning from the Creator, not of one temple. And men burning in their lust one toward another is mutual desire, not abuse. The Greek word behind abusers of themselves with mankind joins the words for man and bed, which both appear in the old Greek translation of Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13. Paul is speaking out of the law of Moses.
- Jesus never said anything about it. Jesus said what marriage is, a man and his wife joined by God (Matthew 19:4-6). He also named fornications among the evil things that come out of the heart (Mark 7:21). The Greek word Mark uses there covers every kind of sexual sin outside marriage.
- God made me this way. God made you in his image. But every one of us was also born fallen (Psalm 51:5). A desire as old as your memory is no proof of what God intends. All of us have desires we did not choose and must not obey.
One Sin Among Many, and the Same Gospel
Here is the passage Christians must never quote halfway.
Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.
1 Corinthians 6:9-11 (KJV)
Look at who stands in that list. The greedy man is there, and the drunkard, and the man who sleeps with his girlfriend. Every one of us is named somewhere in it. The man who has never felt a same-sex desire is not closer to heaven for that.
This does not make the sin small. Any sin left unrepented shuts a man out of the kingdom. But no sin is so great that it can bring damnation on those who truly repent (WCF 15.4). Such were some of you, Paul told the Corinthians. Some had lived in these very sins, and now they were washed and justified. They were not lesser Christians. They were the church.
The offer to you is the offer made to every sinner. Christ died for our sins, and he rose again the third day (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). He bore the wrath of God for all who trust him, and he is alive to receive you now. Turn from your sin and trust him. Him that cometh to me, he says, I will in no wise cast out (John 6:37). For the whole message, read The Gospel.
If You Are a Christian Who Fights Same-Sex Desire
Maybe you have never told anyone, and you sit in church sure that if they knew, they would not want you. Hear this first. You belong to Christ. You are a brother or a sister in his house, not a project for someone to fix.
The Confession speaks honestly about what still lives in every believer.
This corruption of nature, during this life, doth remain in those that are regenerated; and although it be through Christ pardoned and mortified, yet both itself and all the motions thereof are truly and properly sin.
Westminster Confession of Faith 6.5
The motions of corruption are its stirrings, the desires that rise from the fallen nature before we have done anything. Same-sex desire is one of these. It is not who you are. It belongs to the old nature Christ is putting to death in you, so do not take it as your name. Confess it when it stirs, and fight it, as other believers fight their own desires. Some teach that the desire is only a temptation and never sin unless you act on it. The Confession will not let us say that. But see the mercy in it. Sin can be pardoned, and the Confession says this corruption is through Christ pardoned. You do not have to hide it from God.
There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
Romans 8:1 (KJV)
Not less condemnation, and not condemnation postponed. None. Paul himself cried, O wretched man that I am, and in the next breath he thanked God through Jesus Christ (Romans 7:24-25). The fight is a sign of life, not a sign that you are lost.
And Christ knows the fight. We have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but one who was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15). His temptations never came from a corrupt heart, and he never gave in, so he felt their full weight. He is able to succour them that are tempted (Hebrews 2:18).
This page will not promise that the desire will go away. For some it fades, and some come in time to marry. But marriage is not a cure, and no one should be pushed into it as one. Many faithful Christians fight it all their lives, chaste and single and fruitful. Paul called his single life a gift of God (1 Corinthians 7:7). And hear what God said to eunuchs, men who could never have children.
For thus saith the Lord unto the eunuchs that keep my sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and take hold of my covenant; Even unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters: I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off.
Isaiah 56:4-5 (KJV)
Jesus promised that whoever gives up house or family for his sake shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses and brethren and sisters and mothers and children (Mark 10:29-30). He keeps that promise through his church. If you live single for Christ’s sake, the church is meant to be your family, at its tables and in its homes.
If you have fallen, do not hide. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins (1 John 1:9). For the daily fight, read Fighting Sin, and use Mortify with a few brothers or sisters who will pray for you. If you keep going back, read I keep going back to the same sin.
If You Are Not at Peace With Your Body
Some feel, often from childhood, that the sex of their body is wrong. The distress can be crushing, and it is real. If this is you, the Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart (Psalm 34:18). He does not mock you, and no Christian should.
But your sex is not found in your feelings. It is given by God in your body. Feelings are touched by the fall, and they can tell us false things about ourselves. Your body is the plain word God has spoken about whether you are a man or a woman. I am fearfully and wonderfully made, David said (Psalm 139:14), and it is true of you.
Drugs and surgery cannot make a man into a woman or a woman into a man. They can only wound a healthy body and leave the deeper sorrow where it was. Children above all must never be given them. A child cannot weigh what he is giving up, and adults who lead little ones into this bear a heavy guilt before God (Matthew 18:6).
A small number of people are born with bodies that did not form in the usual way, sometimes called intersex conditions. These are real and rare, and those who have them deserve care, never mockery. Like blindness, they come from a fallen world that groaneth and travaileth in pain together (Romans 8:22). They do not erase God’s pattern, any more than a child born blind erases the eye.
If you have already taken hormones or had surgery, Christ has not turned away from you. There is mercy for you as for every sinner. Turning back will take time and help. Tell your pastor, and do not stop or change any medicine without a doctor.
Christ will one day change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body (Philippians 3:21). Vile here means lowly and weak. If you are his, the body you struggle with now will be raised and made glorious, and you will be at home in it forever.
When Someone You Love Is Gay or Trans
Maybe your child told you last night, or your oldest friend. You may feel grief, or fear, or that you failed. You do not have to settle everything in the first hour.
Keep the relationship. You can love someone well without agreeing with them. Think of the father in Jesus’ story, who saw his son a great way off and ran to him (Luke 15:20). Keep the door open and the table set.
Tell the truth, once and clearly, and kindly. Tell them what God says, and that you are a sinner saved by grace yourself. You need not repeat it at every visit. Let your speech be alway with grace (Colossians 4:6), and pray more than you talk.
If your child is young and under your roof, you are still the parent. Listen long, and keep them safe. Keep them from drugs and surgery, and find a doctor and counselor who will not push them toward changing their body. If your child speaks of wanting to die, call 988 together that day.
If you are asked to celebrate a same-sex wedding, decline gently. A wedding gives thanks for a marriage, and you cannot give thanks for what God has not joined. Say so with sorrow and not scorn. Some faithful Christians think they may attend without approving. Many others think being there is itself a blessing of the union, and they stay away.
Christians also differ on names. Many will use a chosen name, much as they would a nickname. Pronouns are harder, since they make a claim about a person’s sex, and many believers cannot use them with a clear conscience. Ask your pastor, and be patient with believers who land differently.
If your child has walked away from the faith, read When Your Child Walks Away From the Lord.
Where Christians Have Sinned
Christians have often sinned here. Some have mocked and made jokes. Some have spoken as if this were the one sin beyond forgiveness. Some have put their own children out of the house. And many have stayed quiet about their own greed and lust while they were loud about this.
We bless God and curse men, which are made after the similitude of God. My brethren, these things ought not so to be (James 3:9-10). Such cruelty must be repented of, not explained away. Because of it, many who struggle have sat silent in the pews or left.
The opposite sin is just as real. A church that stops calling sin sin leaves people with no Savior to run to. Christ came full of grace and truth (John 1:14), and his church may not let go of either.
What to Do This Week
- If you do not yet know Christ. Read the gospel offer again. Then tell God plainly that you are a sinner, and that you trust Christ crucified and risen to save you.
- If you fight same-sex desire. Tell one person, your pastor or a mature Christian of your own sex. You were not made to carry this alone (Galatians 6:2). Cut off what feeds the desire, especially on a screen.
- If you are not at peace with your body. Talk to your pastor, and to a Christian doctor or counselor who will not rush you toward drugs or surgery.
- If someone you love just came out. Tell them today that you love them. Pray for them every day.
- For every church. Make room at your tables for single brothers and sisters. Let no joke about this sin be heard among you. Let the one who fights this sin hear from you that Christ receives sinners, and that you do too.
- If you are in danger. If you are thinking of ending your life, call 988 or text 988 now. If someone is hurting you, read If You Are Not Safe.