I heard a news story on the radio Sunday that the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., had a transgender clergy officiate at their Sunday service for the first time. Someone (the newstory didn't identify him) said that this showed that God loves LGBT people just the way they are. There's an element of truth to this, but it actually distorts the Gospel.
God loves us while are are still sinners. Jesus died for all of us while we are still rebels. He reaches out to us and offers us reconciliation in our current stats as sinners. But once we are reconciled to God, He doesn't leave us just as we are. He calls us out of sin and gives us the Holy Spirit to give us that power.
Jesus told the woman accused of adultery (John 8) that He didn't condemn her in the judicial sense under the Mosaic Law. The required witnesses were there to give evidence. So Jesus told her He didn't condemn her, but He told her to go and sin no more. He didn't tell her He accepted her just as she was. He told her to leave her sinful ways.
He tells all of us that.
Psalm 51 gives us the prayer of a contrite heart. God hears our prayer as sinners, but we ask Him to cleanse our hearts because they're full of sin. While He hears our prayers just as we are, He doesn't leave us as we are.
The false message this person in the news story gave is that our sin doesn't matter in our relationship to God.
The Gospel is not that God accepts us just as we are. The Gospel is that we're sinners whom God loves and redeems, and gives us the Holy Spirit to live lives that glorify Him and leave sin behind.
"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. And such were some of you. 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." - 1 Cor. 6:9-11
"Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away." Col. 3:5-7
"Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!—assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness." - Eph. 4:17-24
Posted by: c | June 23, 2014 at 03:56 PM
Well, of course, isn't it obvious that we should accept people as God made them...unless God flubbed it and made them a man when they should have been a woman? Then it's OK to try to change them.
Old and busted: "Try to stop being gay!"
The new hotness: "Try to stop being male!"
The first is h8 speech. The second is reason.
Honestly, America is lost.
Posted by: WisdomLover | June 23, 2014 at 04:04 PM
@ WisdomLover
"Honestly, America is lost."
I think you're right. Transgender is the new "in" thing. And if you thought the hostility was strong when it comes to speaking out against homosexuality, just try saying ANYTHING about transgender.
There's no reasoning with these people. None. At least with homosexuals there was hope of discussion. When it comes to transgender people, you can't even begin a conversation. You either celebrate this insanity, or you will be destroyed.
Posted by: Mo | June 23, 2014 at 07:48 PM
Excellent article, well put. Much appreciate the clear biblical approach. Thanks!
Posted by: David W | June 24, 2014 at 11:38 AM