Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted.
We often get caught up in discussion (at least in our heads) as to what is sin and what is not sin for today’s contemporary society. The term sin means missing the mark. The mark is well stated in the above passage: Whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God ...! Sin is missing the mark of the glory of God. Paul does take some time to list out some examples of this. For our society today we can’t help but notice that in his list he adds homosexuality. The relationship to homosexuality and the glory of God is also mentioned by Paul in his letter to the Romans:
Romans 1:22-27 (ESV)
Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
When Paul makes these claims he is not talking or writing about simply historical and contextual sins, although this certainly was happening in his day and time. He is also addressing the sins for the ages. It is anything that does not recognize or goes contrary to the glory of God. These were not behaviors for just his day. This was not teaching that was for Paul’s day only. Paul is teaching us what he calls, sound doctrine. We need to be careful when we take certain portions of Scripture and deem them not for today. For instance, in Paul’s above list he also mentions murderers, those who strike their parents, liars and enslavers. Do we believe those are only for back in Paul’s day. If we take homosexuality out of this list, don’t we also have to take the others out of the list? If we put one sin as contemporary for that day, don’t we have to do so for the others, also? It would be nice to be able to pick and choose what portions of Scripture we want to obey. But regrettably that is not our choice to do. At the same time notice that one sin is as equal as the others. Murderers are in the same list as liars. Enslavers are in the same lists as those who strike their fathers and mothers. Unlike us, God does not have degrees of sin. We are either sinning or not. What God refers to as sin should not be cleaned up and honored. This is Scripture’s teaching, not mans.
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