Romans 1:26-27

Paulos,

Grace to you! Thank you for your responses! You are sharpening my thinking. May you be blessed for your aid to this student of the Scriptures. As you can tell I am taking each of the 'giving over' sections separately. This 'giving over' is a dangerous passage in our cultural climate, but may God's truth win out in light of such militant opposition. Peace to you and your home, in Christ our Lord!

Romans 1:26-27

²⁶ Because of this, God gave them over to dishonorable passions, for even their women exchanged the natural sexual relations for that which is against nature. ²⁷ Likewise the men abandoned the natural sexual relationship with women and burned with lust for one another---men committed with men that which is disgraceful---receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

The first 'giving over' in verse 24 came because glory was exchanged. The giving over described in verse 26 comes because the truth of God was exchanged for a lie. Just as the first judgment specifically dealt with dishonorable things, this judgment is wrapped up with dishonorable use of the body. Here though, it seems Paul is being more specific regarding the dishonorable use of the body, because this dishonorable use of the body is directly related to the idolatry that is present in the passage: homosexuality symbolizes idolatry.

Though there are differing views regarding how one should interpret 'natural' in the passage (e.g., that 'hetero' men were behaving like homosexuals, when they really were not homosexual), I take it to mean that which God intended by his creational design. That is, 'natural' here means that God designed man and woman to be together in sexual union. Humanity's very sexual make up, our sexual plumbing, teaches that man and woman belong one in the other. The woman is designed to receive and the man is designed to enter. Male parts do not go with male parts and female parts do not go with female parts. Our sexual physiology is designed so that the male and the female complement one another.

What does this have to do with idolatry? Well, because man, male and female, is designed by his Creator to worship the Creator, and because man has turned away from natural design to worship of the creation (the truth of God for a lie), God has given man over to emulate in his sexual relations (both male and female) the dishonor of worshiping the creature over the Creator. Thus, homosexuality, the turning away from the natural to the unnatural, is a God designed judgment on humanity, who has turned away from God's truth toward a lie. Homosexuality, then, is a symbolic judgment representing idolatry. Thus, what we should think of when we encounter homosexuality is 1) it is shameful, no matter what our cultural agenda may say, and 2) we have turned away from God to worship the creature instead of the Creator.