The expression of human sexuality is both a private and a public affair. It is private in that it always involves the individual. Nevertheless, culture recognizes and legitimizes the intimate expression of human sexuality through concepts like marriage.
The Judeo-Christian ethic establishes the family as the basis for culture. Any breakdown in personal sexual ethics will necessarily impact families and introduce significant cultural implications. Likewise, misguided cultural concepts can shape personal sexual ethics and desires.
What happens in these situations is a continued compounding of sexual excess and idolatry. God’s judgment often comes when God gives us exactly what we choose, whether individually or as a culture. In Romans 1, we learn private sexual sins hold serious public consequences for culture.
In Romans 1, the Apostle Paul emphasized the role of divine judgment and its link to cultural depravity as expressed in sexual practices. In the book of Romans, Paul presented the gospel he preached as the apostle to the Gentiles. To proclaim the gospel, Paul always began with the existence of God as presented in general revelation. He then moved to the reality of sin and humanity’s desperate need for a Savior. This is exactly what we see in Romans 1.
However, in this instance, Paul used the Jewish connection between faith and human sexuality as a demonstration of how fallen humanity commits idolatry and denies the clear evidence of nature in their relationships. (Perhaps an extended reading of this passage is in order before you continue reading).
In verse 18, Paul made it clear truth is available to humanity, but humanity, in its fallen state, actively works to ignore and suppress this truth. Paul referenced general revelation as a source of knowledge of God’s existence. Humanity explains this data away to live however they see fit. Like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, humans continue to believe they know better than God.
As humanity rejects God and His commands, verses 21-23 demonstrate how this choice to reject God leads to greater ignorance. This ignorance is manifested in the gods we choose to worship. While God’s reality is visibly evident in creation, humanity chooses creation itself — a lesser good — to worship. Our pride, Paul noted, ultimately makes fools of us all. Depravity motivates us to create gods we can control.
Verse 26 reveals God’s judgment for rejecting Him. This judgment comes as the result of God’s giving humanity exactly what we choose in idolatry. While idolatry seeks to exalt self, it leads to slavery to its various passions. Spiritual truth is exchanged for physical worship that debases the glory of the image of God in which we were created. When God gives us what we want, our desires rule over us exacting ever greater sacrifice in the name of “freedom” and “authenticity.”
This spiritual reality of the rejection of God manifests itself visually in culture. Society always highlights values. For Paul, the anarchic autonomy of human depravity manifests itself in lust. God gives fallen humanity up to “lust” in verse 24, and He gives humanity up to “passions” in verse 26. This points to an escalation from a misuse of our bodies for our own pleasure, dishonoring God’s gift of the body, to unnatural orientation of the passions that come to control it.
Sin corrupts God’s design. Natural relations and honorable passions are traded for unnatural and dishonorable ones, dishonoring ourselves and others. Lust, unlike love, will never satisfy. It fuels our sin to objectify and control others. As it is entertained it grows, seeking ever greater heights (or depths). Sin always compounds sin.
Romans 1:26-27 defines homosexual acts as “unnatural.” This word is a reference to the creation mandate which identifies the essentially generative aspect of the human sexual act in a one-flesh union between a husband and a wife. In this context, “natural” never references the individual but the common shared qualities of a genus — human nature if you will. The concept of nature and natural law expressed here by Paul was a major component of Greco-Roman ethics through natural law theory.
Consider two examples from Plato, who argued homosexual sex acts are “unnatural” in Book 1 of Phaedrus. Again, in Book 8, Plato argued laws prohibiting homosexual sex acts would be according to nature. Paul’s point was homosexual acts are a cultural symptom of idolatry. These sinful acts serve to mutually reinforce the attitude of idolatry and lead to ever greater examples of depravity.
In verses 28 and following, we see sexual aberration is merely one of a host of sins that result from man’s rejection of God. The sin of idolatry changes how we understand ourselves and how we understand the world. It distorts reality and reverses morality. Behavior impacts how we think about ourselves and others and how we conceive of right and wrong. Ultimately, God judges us by giving us what we want.
The fruit of our rebellion against Him is a culture that embraces and celebrates all the things counter to His will and purpose. God’s law is meant to promote human flourishing. When society forgets God, it ceases to flourish. Instead of restricting evil, a society without God sanctions evil of all kinds.
One does not have to squint to see the reality of these verses playing out before our very eyes in modern Western culture.
The rejection of God has led to the rejection of nature and His good order for creation. Our ongoing cultural debate surrounding human sexuality serves as a prime example of this reality. Such discussion is a sign of cultural judgment.
Because we have rejected God, we have rejected His plan for us. Sexual expression has been removed from its rightful time and place in covenantal marriage. Premarital and extramarital sexuality are common. Abortion is celebrated as a means of sexual freedom and a choice. It is defended and celebrated as a social good rather than recognized as murder. The decoupling of human sexuality and marriage has undercut the family as the very foundation for society.
The LGBTQIA2S+ community and modern discussions surrounding it demonstrate a continuation of this idolatrous trajectory. Our society has, by and large, turned from natural passions to unnatural. The sexual act meant for marriage and procreation is now viewed simply as a means of individual expression. Sexuality has become the individual’s sole identity. Human sexuality serves the purpose of personal satisfaction and culminates in empty acts of selfishness, often at the expense of others, and always at the expense of self.
Today, the reality of the body has become secondary to the depravity of the mind. Through medication and surgery, our culture rejects God, His image within us, and nature, remaking our very bodies after our own image. That is the very definition of idolatry!
About the Writer: Dr. Kevin Hester is the dean of the School of Theology at Welch College and chairman of the Commission for Theological Integrity. Learn more: welch.edu.
