Romans 1 and Homosexuality
March 4, 2025
David Cloud, Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061
866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org
866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org
The following is excerpted from The Way of Life Commentary Series, Romans, www.wayoflife.org -
“God gave them up.” This is repeated three times (Ro. 1:24, 26, 28). It is the Greek paradidomi, from para (to the side of) and didomi (to give), meaning “to deliver over or up to the power of” (Complete Word Study Bible). It is often used for delivering someone to prison or to some other punishment (Mt. 4:12; 5:25; 10:17, 19, 21; 18:34; 20:19; 24:9; 26:15; 27:2, 26). It is God delivering man up to the enslavement described in Ephesians 2:3. “Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.” Note that God responds to man’s actions. Man rejects God, and God rejects man. This is what we see throughout Scripture. We see it in God’s dealings with Adam, Cain, the pre-flood generation, Babel, Sodom, pharaoh, the Canaanites, Israel, those who take the mark of the beast (2 Th. 2:10-12). God gives a person over to that which he pursues. God strives with sinners but not always (Ge. 6:3).
God gave them up to “uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts” (Ro. 1:24). Man chose uncleanness, and God gave him up to it, to be a slave to it. We see that actions of uncleanness are the product of a filthy heart. Adultery begins with looking and thinking (Mt. 5:28). Pornography is not an innocent private entertainment. It defiles families and churches and societies and nations. Fornication and adultery are sins that “dishonor their own bodies.” God did not make man’s body for such things. “Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord” (1 Co. 6:13). God made man’s sexual appetite to be fulfilled in marriage, and outside of marriage sexual activity is unclean and dishonoring.
God gave them up unto “vile affections” (Ro. 1:26-27). This passage contains fundamental Bible teaching on the issue of HOMOSEXUALITY. The Bible leaves no doubt that God looks upon this as a great evil. It is condemned in the law of Moses (Le. 18:22, 25; 20:13). It was the reason why God judged Sodom (Jude 1:7). The New Testament teaches us that it is a sin that can be forgiven and cleansed through regenerating faith in Christ. Paul said that some of the believers at Corinth had committed homosexuality in their past, but they were born again, changed (1 Co. 6:9-11). Consider some lessons about homosexuality from Romans 1:
(1) Homosexuality is “vile.” This is atimia, which is translated “dishonor” (Ro. 9:21), “shame” (1 Co. 11:14), “reproach” (2 Co. 11:21).
(2) The error of homosexuality consists both of affections and actions (Ro. 1:26). God’s Word condemns homosexual desires as sinful. “Affection” is pathos, referring to a strong passion, a desire. It is translated “lust” (1 Th. 4:5). “Burned” is ekkaio, to burn intensely, referring to sexual passion. “Lust” is orexis, “stretching after, desire.” “It is reaching out after an object with the purpose of drawing it to oneself and appropriating it” (Complete Word Study Bible). This refutes the idea that homosexual desires are OK if not acted on. Christ made it clear that sinful desires are the same in God’s eyes as the actions (Mt. 5:21-22, 27-28).
(3) Homosexuality is “against nature” (Ro. 1:26). God’s Word is clear that the natural form of sexual activity is that between a man and a woman in holy matrimony. Anything outside of that is adultery (Heb. 13:4). This rule was established at the dawn of man’s creation (Ge. 2:20-25), and Christ pointed to it as the divine standard for today (Mt. 19:3-6).
(4) Homosexuality is “unseemly” (Ro. 1:27). This is aschemosune, “uncomely, indecent, shameful.” It is translated “shame” (Re. 16:15).
(5) Homosexuality is “error” (Ro. 1:27). “Error” is plane, “a wandering out of the right way” (Complete Word Study Bible). Homosexuality is not right; it is not according to truth.
(6) Homosexuality results in judgment (“receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet,” Ro. 1:27). According to the United States Centers for Disease Control (CDC) report on “Gay and Bisexual Men’s Health,” “Sexually Transmitted Diseases have been rising among gay and bisexual men.” These diseases include syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, papillomavirus, herpes, anal cancer, gay bowel syndrome, and AIDS. According to the report “Enteric diseases of homosexual men,” published by the US National Library of Medicine, “Certain enteric ailments are particularly common among homosexual men. They are primarily infectious diseases and include not only such common venereal diseases as gonorrhea and syphilis but also infections not usually regarded as being sexually transmitted.”
(7) Homosexuality is “reprobate” (Ro. 1:28). This is adokimos, “unacceptable, unapproved, spurious, disapproved.” False teachers are reprobate concerning the faith (2 Ti. 3:8). When tested by the faith, they are found disapproved. Nominal professors of Christ are reprobate concerning good works (Tit. 1:16). When tested by good works, they are found to be hypocrites. Likewise, when tested by godly morality and the truth of God’s Word, homosexuals are found to be reprobate.
(8) Homosexuality is a state of “mind” (Ro. 1:28). It begins with corrupt imaginations of the heart (Ro. 1:21). It is a product of allowing the mind to dwell upon filthy and wicked things. When a person allows his mind to dwell upon evil, allows himself to pursue evil in the imagination, he opens the door to every evil thing. FBI profiler Robert Kessler, who has studied serial killers, says, “My research convinced me that the key was not the early trauma but the development of perverse thought patterns. These men were motivated to murder by their fantasies. ‘It is a development,’ one killer reported, ‘Getting tired of a certain level of fantasy and then going even further and even more bizarre.’ ... All the murderers that we interviewed had compelling fantasies; they murdered to make happen in the real world what they had seen over and over again in their minds since childhood and adolescence. As adolescents, instead of developing normal peer-related interests and activities, where they couldn’t completely control what went on, the murderers retreated into sexually violent fantasies, where they could, in effect, control their world” (Kessler, Whoever Fights Monsters, p. 110). This is a very loud warning in the internet age and the video game age, when every type of vile imagination is available at the click of a mouse or the swipe of a finger. We cannot control what comes into the mind, but we can control what we willfully put into our minds, and we can control what we allow the mind to dwell upon. It has been said, “You cannot keep a bird from lighting on your head, but you can keep him from building a nest there.” It is far better to be too careful than not careful enough.
(9) Homosexuality is “not convenient” (Ro. 1:28). This is katheko, “becoming, fitting, right, proper.” It is translated “fit” (Ac. 22:22). Thus, by a variety of words, Scripture leaves no doubt that homosexuality, both its lusts and its actions, are unacceptable to God.
The downward process described in this passage has occurred many times in man’s history.
- It occurred in the early days of man from Adam to Noah. In the beginning, all men know about the true God. They heard it from the very lips of Adam and Eve, who had walked with God in the Garden and had been clothed by Him after the fall. Adam lived for 930 years (Ge. 5:5). There were also prophets in those days, including Abel (Lk. 11:51) and Enoch (Jude 14-15). Yet by the time of Noah, the vast majority of men had rejected God.
- It occurred after the Flood, when most of the descendants of Shem, Ham, and Japheth followed Nimrod in the rebellion at Babel.
- It occurred after the division of the languages at Babel, when men spread out across the earth and established kingdoms, including the Egyptian, the Indus, the Elam, the Hittite, the Chinese, the Mesoamerican, the Phoenician, and the Greek. All of these people understood that their forefathers descended from the survivors of a great flood. The pagan flood accounts are slathered with mythology, but at the core is a collective memory of the flood of Noah’s day. At the beginning of these post-Babel kingdoms, the people retained some knowledge of the true God. For example, the early Chinese had a concept of a Supreme God that they called “Shangdi” (the First and Highest) or “Tian” (Heaven). This was based on the light that still existed from the time of Noah, plus the testimony of their own hearts and the witness of creation, but it quickly became corrupted by idolatry. This is described in Romans 1:18-23, and it happened all over the world in those days.
- It happens to nations and kingdoms. This downward process has been repeated in the history of nations that begin with moral laws based on the light of creation and conscience and sometimes even the Scriptures but end up in complete apostasy. It happened to Israel. It happened to Rome. It happened to England. It is happening to America.
- It happens to churches. New Testament churches begin with Christ and the faith once delivered; but they leave their first love; they are not careful to maintain a regenerate membership; they become lukewarm and worldly; and eventually they descend into complete apostasy.
- It happens to children who grow up in church. They know about God, but in many cases they are not thankful, they do not submit themselves to God and receive the gospel, they are not born again, and they go into apostasy.
“God gave them up.” This is repeated three times (Ro. 1:24, 26, 28). It is the Greek paradidomi, from para (to the side of) and didomi (to give), meaning “to deliver over or up to the power of” (Complete Word Study Bible). It is often used for delivering someone to prison or to some other punishment (Mt. 4:12; 5:25; 10:17, 19, 21; 18:34; 20:19; 24:9; 26:15; 27:2, 26). It is God delivering man up to the enslavement described in Ephesians 2:3. “Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.” Note that God responds to man’s actions. Man rejects God, and God rejects man. This is what we see throughout Scripture. We see it in God’s dealings with Adam, Cain, the pre-flood generation, Babel, Sodom, pharaoh, the Canaanites, Israel, those who take the mark of the beast (2 Th. 2:10-12). God gives a person over to that which he pursues. God strives with sinners but not always (Ge. 6:3).
God gave them up to “uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts” (Ro. 1:24). Man chose uncleanness, and God gave him up to it, to be a slave to it. We see that actions of uncleanness are the product of a filthy heart. Adultery begins with looking and thinking (Mt. 5:28). Pornography is not an innocent private entertainment. It defiles families and churches and societies and nations. Fornication and adultery are sins that “dishonor their own bodies.” God did not make man’s body for such things. “Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord” (1 Co. 6:13). God made man’s sexual appetite to be fulfilled in marriage, and outside of marriage sexual activity is unclean and dishonoring.
God gave them up unto “vile affections” (Ro. 1:26-27). This passage contains fundamental Bible teaching on the issue of HOMOSEXUALITY. The Bible leaves no doubt that God looks upon this as a great evil. It is condemned in the law of Moses (Le. 18:22, 25; 20:13). It was the reason why God judged Sodom (Jude 1:7). The New Testament teaches us that it is a sin that can be forgiven and cleansed through regenerating faith in Christ. Paul said that some of the believers at Corinth had committed homosexuality in their past, but they were born again, changed (1 Co. 6:9-11). Consider some lessons about homosexuality from Romans 1:
(1) Homosexuality is “vile.” This is atimia, which is translated “dishonor” (Ro. 9:21), “shame” (1 Co. 11:14), “reproach” (2 Co. 11:21).
(2) The error of homosexuality consists both of affections and actions (Ro. 1:26). God’s Word condemns homosexual desires as sinful. “Affection” is pathos, referring to a strong passion, a desire. It is translated “lust” (1 Th. 4:5). “Burned” is ekkaio, to burn intensely, referring to sexual passion. “Lust” is orexis, “stretching after, desire.” “It is reaching out after an object with the purpose of drawing it to oneself and appropriating it” (Complete Word Study Bible). This refutes the idea that homosexual desires are OK if not acted on. Christ made it clear that sinful desires are the same in God’s eyes as the actions (Mt. 5:21-22, 27-28).
(3) Homosexuality is “against nature” (Ro. 1:26). God’s Word is clear that the natural form of sexual activity is that between a man and a woman in holy matrimony. Anything outside of that is adultery (Heb. 13:4). This rule was established at the dawn of man’s creation (Ge. 2:20-25), and Christ pointed to it as the divine standard for today (Mt. 19:3-6).
(4) Homosexuality is “unseemly” (Ro. 1:27). This is aschemosune, “uncomely, indecent, shameful.” It is translated “shame” (Re. 16:15).
(5) Homosexuality is “error” (Ro. 1:27). “Error” is plane, “a wandering out of the right way” (Complete Word Study Bible). Homosexuality is not right; it is not according to truth.
(6) Homosexuality results in judgment (“receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet,” Ro. 1:27). According to the United States Centers for Disease Control (CDC) report on “Gay and Bisexual Men’s Health,” “Sexually Transmitted Diseases have been rising among gay and bisexual men.” These diseases include syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, papillomavirus, herpes, anal cancer, gay bowel syndrome, and AIDS. According to the report “Enteric diseases of homosexual men,” published by the US National Library of Medicine, “Certain enteric ailments are particularly common among homosexual men. They are primarily infectious diseases and include not only such common venereal diseases as gonorrhea and syphilis but also infections not usually regarded as being sexually transmitted.”
(7) Homosexuality is “reprobate” (Ro. 1:28). This is adokimos, “unacceptable, unapproved, spurious, disapproved.” False teachers are reprobate concerning the faith (2 Ti. 3:8). When tested by the faith, they are found disapproved. Nominal professors of Christ are reprobate concerning good works (Tit. 1:16). When tested by good works, they are found to be hypocrites. Likewise, when tested by godly morality and the truth of God’s Word, homosexuals are found to be reprobate.
(8) Homosexuality is a state of “mind” (Ro. 1:28). It begins with corrupt imaginations of the heart (Ro. 1:21). It is a product of allowing the mind to dwell upon filthy and wicked things. When a person allows his mind to dwell upon evil, allows himself to pursue evil in the imagination, he opens the door to every evil thing. FBI profiler Robert Kessler, who has studied serial killers, says, “My research convinced me that the key was not the early trauma but the development of perverse thought patterns. These men were motivated to murder by their fantasies. ‘It is a development,’ one killer reported, ‘Getting tired of a certain level of fantasy and then going even further and even more bizarre.’ ... All the murderers that we interviewed had compelling fantasies; they murdered to make happen in the real world what they had seen over and over again in their minds since childhood and adolescence. As adolescents, instead of developing normal peer-related interests and activities, where they couldn’t completely control what went on, the murderers retreated into sexually violent fantasies, where they could, in effect, control their world” (Kessler, Whoever Fights Monsters, p. 110). This is a very loud warning in the internet age and the video game age, when every type of vile imagination is available at the click of a mouse or the swipe of a finger. We cannot control what comes into the mind, but we can control what we willfully put into our minds, and we can control what we allow the mind to dwell upon. It has been said, “You cannot keep a bird from lighting on your head, but you can keep him from building a nest there.” It is far better to be too careful than not careful enough.
(9) Homosexuality is “not convenient” (Ro. 1:28). This is katheko, “becoming, fitting, right, proper.” It is translated “fit” (Ac. 22:22). Thus, by a variety of words, Scripture leaves no doubt that homosexuality, both its lusts and its actions, are unacceptable to God.
The downward process described in this passage has occurred many times in man’s history.
- It occurred in the early days of man from Adam to Noah. In the beginning, all men know about the true God. They heard it from the very lips of Adam and Eve, who had walked with God in the Garden and had been clothed by Him after the fall. Adam lived for 930 years (Ge. 5:5). There were also prophets in those days, including Abel (Lk. 11:51) and Enoch (Jude 14-15). Yet by the time of Noah, the vast majority of men had rejected God.
- It occurred after the Flood, when most of the descendants of Shem, Ham, and Japheth followed Nimrod in the rebellion at Babel.
- It occurred after the division of the languages at Babel, when men spread out across the earth and established kingdoms, including the Egyptian, the Indus, the Elam, the Hittite, the Chinese, the Mesoamerican, the Phoenician, and the Greek. All of these people understood that their forefathers descended from the survivors of a great flood. The pagan flood accounts are slathered with mythology, but at the core is a collective memory of the flood of Noah’s day. At the beginning of these post-Babel kingdoms, the people retained some knowledge of the true God. For example, the early Chinese had a concept of a Supreme God that they called “Shangdi” (the First and Highest) or “Tian” (Heaven). This was based on the light that still existed from the time of Noah, plus the testimony of their own hearts and the witness of creation, but it quickly became corrupted by idolatry. This is described in Romans 1:18-23, and it happened all over the world in those days.
- It happens to nations and kingdoms. This downward process has been repeated in the history of nations that begin with moral laws based on the light of creation and conscience and sometimes even the Scriptures but end up in complete apostasy. It happened to Israel. It happened to Rome. It happened to England. It is happening to America.
- It happens to churches. New Testament churches begin with Christ and the faith once delivered; but they leave their first love; they are not careful to maintain a regenerate membership; they become lukewarm and worldly; and eventually they descend into complete apostasy.
- It happens to children who grow up in church. They know about God, but in many cases they are not thankful, they do not submit themselves to God and receive the gospel, they are not born again, and they go into apostasy.
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