Thursday 3 August 2017

Homosexuality, Christianity and Heaven

Question: Can you be a homosexual and still be a Christian and go to heaven? - anonymous


It should be clear after you’ve read it that homosexuality is not part of God’s plan for humanity. It is in fact one way a person can express their rebellion against our Creator. But that doesn’t answer your question in its entirety does it?

It is quite possible for a person to have very strong same-sex attractions - to have homosexual desires - and still be a Christian. Sometimes our personalities are the products of factors beyond our control. People can be raised in social circumstances that predispose them towards certain behaviour; we often pick up the attitudes of the people we are raised with on a whole lot of topics. Some people are born with obsessive / compulsive personalities, and that makes things like alcoholism or any other form of addictive behaviour much more likely, and therefore dangerous. Consequently a person can find themselves with homosexual desires and have no clear memory of ever making a ‘choice’ to be that way. That doesn’t make the behaviour right, but it does make it a lot harder for that person to resist.

It’s important to realise that it’s not a sin simply because you are tempted by something. It becomes a sin when we give in to those temptations. Jesus was tempted, just like us, but he didn’t sin - he didn’t elevate his desires over God’s (Hebrews 4:15). It’s also important to realise that just because we do sin, a person doesn’t cease to be a Christian. Jesus’ death on the cross for our sins represented a full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice for every sin that we have ever committed or will commit (Hebrews 9:24-28; 1 Peter 3:18).

The Bible also assures us that once we have trusted ourselves to Jesus, nothing - not even our own sins - can part us from him and our eventual home in Heaven because our salvation depends not on what we do, but on God’s promise to honour Jesus’ sacrifice (Romans 8:31-39). But a Christian is a person who has turned their back on sin and is no longer satisfied with the sinful life that was taking them further and further away from God. The Bible describes people who put their trust in Jesus as those who ‘put off the old self’ and put on the new life they now have because of him.

So you can see that it is possible to have a homosexual nature and yet be a Christian. But it is not possible to willingly practise homosexuality, thinking no more of it, and yet be a Christian. A Christian, when everything else is said and done, is a person who has chosen to follow Christ first.



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