Dr. Alan J. Dunn

Our previous considerations of conversion therapy have brought us to reflect upon “conversion.”  Although conversion therapies were developed by secular psychologists in the hope of “healing the disease” of homosexuality, in our current cultural moment, conversion therapy has become mistakenly associated with Christianity.  Conversion therapy is generally discredited, and if Christians advocate conversion therapy, then that is something for which Christians can likewise be discredited.  What is going on here?  Judgment.   Disapproval.  Who wants to be disapproved?  We should be careful here.  Jesus warns against the fear of men lest we love the approval of men rather than the approval of God [John 12:43].  We cannot escape judgment, either by men or God.  Whose judgment counts?  Again Jesus warns, You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of men, but God knows your hearts; for that which is highly esteemed among men is detestable in the sight of God [Luke 16:15].

Romans 1 is crucial to our understanding of homosexuality.  Our sexuality gives evidence of the God we worship.  Our sexuality has theological significance.  Before we consider our sexuality, recall that Paul presents us with three kinds of revelation God gives to men.  The first is the revelation of Himself in the creation and to conscience.  The second is the revelation of His wrath:  For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness [Rom 1:18].  The third is the gospel.

¹⁶ For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

 ¹⁷ For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH” [Rom 1:16-17]

The Reason for Wrath

            Our attentions now turn to God’s wrath.  God’s wrath is due to the sin of idolatry in which men exchange the truth of God for [the] lie, and worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever [Rom 1:25].  Men are aware of God and know truth concerning who He is as the Creator [Rom 1:19-20].  They try to suppress that awareness but fail and attempt to satisfy their sense of God with creaturely idols who, they tragically believe, will not judge and condemn them.

Idolaters couple the suppression of the knowledge of God as Creator with a refusal to worship Him: For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks [Rom 1:21a].  Instead, they worship and serve the creature – which is the essence of paganism.  They pursue idolatry despite God having made Himself known to them.  Their refusal to honor God as God infects the way they reason.  They became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.  Professing to be wise, they became fools [Rom 1:21-22].  Notice the repetition of fool.  “Fool,” in Scripture, is a theological term describing an atheist.[1]  But this is self-deception fueled by the doctrine of demons [1 Tim 4:1].  It is instructive to note that Paul’s description of pagan speculation or reasoning has more to do with ethics than logic.  Given who God is as the Creator and who we are as the image of God, it is perfectly logical to honor God as God and give Him thanks for all His goodness.  The pagan continues to reason, but he uses his mind immorally when it comes to God.  He reasons about God rebelliously.  He must rationalize a way to suppress God’s revelation in creation and conscience so that exchanging the Creator for the creature as the object of life’s devotion can make sense.  Such speculation will appear reasonable only because, at the level of his epistemological[2] presuppositions, he has exchanged the truth of God for a lie.  In all this, Paul says they are without excuse [v.  20].

They exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures [Rom 1:23].  We may read Paul’s description of Roman idolatry and be inclined to dismiss the matter as antiquated and irrelevant to us.  We should not hastily dismiss what Paul is telling us just because we think men, in our Western culture, no longer reverence statues of men and animals.  Our culture’s idolatry is perhaps more sophisticated but no less blasphemous.[3]  Men’s idolatry is the reason for the revelation of God’s wrath.

The Revelation of God’s Wrath

The second way God reveals Himself, along with creation and conscience, is by a present manifestation of His wrath [Rom 1:18].  God reveals His wrath now and in the future Final Judgment, the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God [Rom 2:5b].  The relationship between God’s present wrath and homosexuality is of specific interest to us.

Let’s back up a moment and ask, “What does all this theology have to do with our sexuality?”  Once again, we must resort to Genesis.  God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them [Gen 1:27].  Moses emphatically asserts the essential reality of who we are as humans.  We are the heterosexually engendered image of God, male and female.  Our sexuality innately expresses our theologically defined creaturehood as the image of God.  It is an inescapable fact that human sexuality has theological significance.

Why are we in this kerfuffle about conversion therapy?  It is a present skirmish in an ancient enmity [Gen 3:15].  This cultural contention over sexual morality is actually a theological and religious conflict.  It concerns the fundamental realities of the existence and nature of God and the nature of man as His creature created male and female in His image.  If we face a threat, it is not from any Christianizing of conversion therapy, it is from the paganizing of theology.

What are the theological implications for the image of God, male and female, who worship and serve that which is not God?  God reveals Himself to them in their idolatry.  He is not only their good Creator and Sustainer but also their righteous Judge who cannot approve of their idolatry.  Where is the present manifestation of God’s wrath revealed?  Not surprisingly, in human sexuality, that specific theologically significant aspect of our being created in God’s image, male and female.  In wrath, God separates Himself from His engendered image-bearers. [4]  God’s wrath does not remove Him from His creation.  He is ever omnipresent.  God’s wrath does not stop Him from causing His sun to rise on the evil and the good and sending rain on the righteous and the unrighteous [Mat 5:45b].  God’s wrath is seen in the fact that, while omnipresent and still life-sustaining, He steps back away from those upon whom His wrath abides [see John 3:36].   Paul points to three “abandonments” of idolaters by God with the repeated phrase, God gave them over.  In Romans 1:24, we see God giving men over to sexual promiscuity; in verse 26, to sexual perversion; and in verse 28, to a kind of moral insanity that ensnares men in many multifaceted immoralities [Rom 1:28-32].[5]  We see the wrath of God in the disordered dissolution of God’s original order for the genders and created life.  Even though men are aware that there is so much that is so wrong [Rom 1:32], they continue suppressing and exchanging as time rushes them on to that day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God [Rom 2:5].

After instructing us about Final Judgment [2 Cor 5:10], Paul says, Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men, but we are made manifest to God; and I hope that we are made manifest also in your consciences [2 Cor 5:11].  There is not only the future eternal wrath of God from which we must flee [Luke 3:7] but there is a present temporal wrath from which we must flee.  That wrath is seen in men’s heterosexual promiscuity and homosexual perversion, which so mangles the conscience that men’s minds become depraved and they behave wickedly toward God and neighbor [Rom 1:28-32], all the while knowing that they should not be acting that way!  How tragic!  I want to make the following observation with gospel compassion, not calloused condemnation.[6]   What we observe here is sobering and fearsome.  When we see our fellow men, made in the image of God, male and female, living in sexual sin, heterosexual or homosexual sin, we are not looking at someone who is only heading to the future wrath of God.  We are looking at someone under the present revelation of the wrath of God.  We are seeing the effects of a divine abandonment from an idolater.[7]

The Revelation of God’s Gospel

            We come to the third revelation referenced in Romans 1.  The first is God’s revelation of Himself as the Creator in the creation and to conscience.  The second is the revelation of the wrath of God.  The third is the revelation of His righteousness and saving power in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

¹⁵ So, for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.

 ¹⁶ For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

 ¹⁷ For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH” [Rom 1:15-17, citing Hab 2:4].

Although I have engaged Romans 1 chronologically, beginning with creation then wrath, we should note that that is not Paul’s sequence in the text.  Before Paul describes the pagan culture’s idolatry and consequent wrath of God, he first expresses his eager desire to declare the good news of God’s saving love in Christ.  His purpose for analyzing Roman culture is not to denounce and damn, but for gospel purposes in calling sinners to repent and be embraced in the love of God by faith in Christ.  In other words, Paul’s response to the moral devastation brought on by idolatry is to call men to repentance and faith in Christ: to be converted.

How will men respond?  We see the prototypical response in Genesis 3:7ff.  As soon as Adam disobeyed, his eyes were opened to his guilt and shame, so he stitched some figs leaves together to cover his newly discovered nakedness.  When God again came to Adam after he had disobeyed, Adam misunderstood God’s approach.  He ran from God.  Evidently, in the presence of God, fig-leave coverings are futile.  When God called him to account, he shirked responsibility, blamed this wife, and then he blamed God Himself.  But he had to face the truth: he ate.  He is guilty.  He deserves death.  Yes, God did come to fallen Adam as the righteous Judge and cursed the earth with death, but He also came in saving grace – something Adam could never have conceived.  God salvaged the original good order of creation and launched His program of saving grace.  God gave fallen men gracious promises and provisions for their salvation from Satan’s deceptions, sin, and death.  Those provisions and promises given during the time of the Old Testament have all been fulfilled in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  God still approaches fallen men today with the gospel of forgiveness of sin in Christ Jesus.  But many today, like Adam, having exchanged the truth of God for the lie, misinterpret God’s approach to them.  It seems inconceivable, but it’s true.  In the proclamation of the gospel, God approaches sinners with the good news of reconciliation, restoration, and resurrection life.

We must warn our pagan family members and friends not to misinterpret God’s approach to them in His gospel.  God reveals Himself in the creation and conscience.  He reveals Himself in wrath.  But He also reveals His saving kindness in the gospel of Jesus Christ.  We must urge men not to try to cover themselves with the futile fig leaves of intellectual refutations of God’s existence or hide behind the false gods of unbiblical religions.  They must know that it is ultimately impossible to escape the judgment of God.  We must call to them to stop running from God.  We must explain the significance of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection to them as interpreted by Scripture.  Only in Jesus is God’s righteous wrath propitiated.  Only Jesus can forgive our sin and reconcile us to God.  Only in Christ can we have peace with God [Rom 5:1] and enjoy the peace of God [Phil 4:7].

 ²¹ There is no other God besides Me, A righteous God and a Savior; There is none except Me.

 ²² “Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; For I am God, and there is no other [Isa 45:21-22].

The good God who is our Creator is the righteous Judge who condemns sin, but He is also the only Savior of sinners who alone can forgive and cleanse us from our sin and save us from the wrath to come.  Let us, like Paul, be eager to tell all men that today is the day of salvation [2 Cor 6:2].  We need to help our family and friends see the eternally destructive vanity of idolatry and appeal to them to give their devotion and allegiance to Christ, not to the creature.  We must call contemporary pagans to convert to Christ, just like Thessalonian pagans did, who turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, that is, Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath to come [1 Thess 1:9-10].

—-

[1] The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God’” [Psa 14:1].  The wicked, in the haughtiness of his countenance, does not seek Him. All his thoughts are, “There is no God” [Psa 10:4].  The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God,” They are corrupt, and have committed abominable injustice; There is no one who does good [Psa 53:1].

[2] Epistemology is the study of knowledge and how we know what we know.

[3] It is, rightly, common among Christian thinkers to measure both culture and individuals with the moral metric of idolatry.

[4] The wrath of God is revealed in the curse of death [Gen 2:17].  Death is not annihilation.  It is essentially a separation, a severing of all that God originally created to live in harmonious unity.  Death disconnects creation’s unities.  It fractures what God made intact.   It inverts and reverses the order of creation.  It effects disorder, dissolution, de-creation.  The death that Paul describes in Romans 1 is a separation from God such that the good order of creation fractures.  There is a fracture in man’s relationship to God Himself.  There is a fracture in man himself experienced as disordered sexuality that then undergirds an extensive disordered morality.

[5]  “But as Plato and Aquinas teach, it is sexual vice, among all vices, that has the greatest tendency to destroy rationality.  Sexual desire can seriously cloud the intellect even in the best of circumstances, but when its objects are contra naturum, indulgence makes the very idea of an objective, natural order of things hateful.” [Edward Feser, https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2021/12/western-cultural-suicide-as-apostasy.html.   See also Feser’s “Psychoanalyzing the Sexual Revolutionary” https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2019/07/psychoanalyzing-sexual-revolutionary.html accessed 2/17/22].  I’m reminded of a professor who told of his interaction with a college student who claimed to have “an intellectual problem with the Bible.”  To which the professor replied, “Oh yeah?  What’s her name?”

[6] For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things [Phil 3:18-19]; The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will [2 Tim 2:24-26]; We beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God [2 Cor 5:20b].

[7] We do well to remember that we are saved by grace, not on the basis of any merit of any kind.  ¹ And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, ² in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.  ³ Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.  ⁴ But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, ⁵ even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved) [Eph 2:1-5]; ³ For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.  ⁴ But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, ⁵ He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, ⁶ whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, ⁷ so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life [Tit 3:3-7].

All Rights Reserved. Used with permission. No part of this article may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever or translated without written permission.