by Al Mohler
Western society is currently
experiencing what can only be described as a moral revolution. Our
society’s moral code and collective ethical evaluation on a particular
issue has undergone not small adjustments but a complete reversal. That
which was once condemned is now celebrated, and the refusal to celebrate
is now condemned.
What makes the current moral and sexual revolution so different from
previous moral revolutions is that it is taking place at an utterly
unprecedented velocity. Previous generations experienced moral
revolutions over decades, even centuries. This current revolution is
happening at warp speed.
As the church responds to this revolution, we must remember that
current debates on sexuality present to the church a crisis that is
irreducibly and inescapably theological. This crisis is tantamount to
the type of theological crisis that Gnosticism presented to the early
church or that Pelagianism presented to the church in the time of
Augustine. In other words, the crisis of sexuality challenges the
church’s understanding of the gospel, sin, salvation, and
sanctification. Advocates of the new sexuality demand a complete
rewriting of Scripture’s metanarrative, a complete reordering of
theology, and a fundamental change to how we think about the church’s
ministry.
IS “TRANSGENDER” IN THE CONCORDANCE?
Proof-texting is the first reflex of conservative Protestants seeking
a strategy of theological retrieval and restatement. This hermeneutical
reflex comes naturally to evangelical Christians because we believe the
Bible to be the inerrant and infallible word of God. We understand
that, as B.B. Warfield said, “When Scripture speaks, God speaks.” I
should make clear that this reflex is not entirely wrong, but it’s not
entirely right either. It’s not entirely wrong because certain
Scriptures (that is, “proof texts”) speak to specific issues in a direct
and identifiable way.
There are, however, obvious limitations to this type of theological
method—what I like to call the “concordance reflex.” What happens when
you are wrestling with a theological issue for which no corresponding
word appears in the concordance? Many of the most important theological
issues cannot be reduced to merely finding relevant words and their
corresponding verses in a concordance. Try looking up “transgender” in
your concordance. How about “lesbian”? Or “in vitro fertilization”?
They’re certainly not in the back of my Bible.
It’s not that Scripture is insufficient. The problem is not a failure
of Scripture but a failure of our approach to Scripture. The
concordance approach to theology produces a flat Bible without context,
covenant, or master-narrative—three hermeneutical foundations that are
essential to understand Scripture rightly.
A BIBLICAL THEOLOGY OF THE BODY
Biblical theology is absolutely indispensable for the church to craft
an appropriate response to the current sexual crisis. The church must
learn to read Scripture according to its context, embedded in its master-narrative, and progressively revealed along covenantal lines.
We must learn to interpret each theological issue through Scripture’s
metanarrative of creation, fall, redemption, and new creation.
Specifically, evangelicals need a theology of the body that is anchored
in the Bible’s own unfolding drama of redemption.
Creation
Genesis 1:26–28
indicates that God made man—unlike the rest of creation—in his own
image. This passage also demonstrates that God’s purpose for humanity
was an embodied existence. Genesis 2:7
highlights this point as well. God makes man out of the dust and then
breathes into him the breath of life. This indicates that we were a body
before we were a person. The body, as it turns out, is not incidental
to our personhood. Adam and Eve are given the commission to multiply and
subdue the earth. Their bodies allow them, by God’s creation and his
sovereign plan, to fulfill that task of image-bearing.
The Genesis narrative also suggests that the body comes with needs.
Adam would be hungry, so God gave him the fruit of the garden. These
needs are an expression embedded within the created order that Adam is
finite, dependent, and derived.
Further, Adam would have a need for companionship, so God gave him a
wife, Eve. Both Adam and Eve were to fulfill the mandate to multiply and
fill the earth with God’s image-bearers by a proper use of the bodily
reproductive ability with which they were created. Coupled with this is
the bodily pleasure each would experience as the two became one
flesh—that is, one body.
The Genesis narrative also demonstrates that gender is part of the
goodness of God’s creation. Gender is not merely a sociological
construct forced upon human beings who otherwise could negotiate any
number of permutations.
But Genesis teaches us that gender is created by God for our good and
his glory. Gender is intended for human flourishing and is assigned by
the Creator’s determination—just as he determined when, where, and that we should exist.
In sum, God created his image as an embodied person. As embodied, we
are given the gift and stewardship of sexuality from God himself. We are
constructed in a way that testifies to God’s purposes in this.
Genesis also frames this entire discussion in a covenantal
perspective. Human reproduction is not merely in order to propagate the
race. Instead, reproduction highlights the fact that Adam and Eve were
to multiply in order to fill the earth with the glory of God as
reflected by his image bearers.
Fall
The fall, the second movement in redemptive history, corrupts God’s
good gift of the body. The entrance of sin brings mortality to the body.
In terms of sexuality, the Fall subverts God’s good plans for sexual
complementarity. Eve’s desire is to rule over her husband (Gen. 3:16). Adam’s leadership will be harsh (3:17-19). Eve will experience pain in childbearing (3:16).
The narratives that follow demonstrate the development of aberrant
sexual practices, from polygamy to rape, which Scripture addresses with
remarkable candor. These Genesis accounts are followed by the giving of
the Law which is intended to curb aberrant sexual behavior. It regulates
sexuality and expressions of gender and makes clear pronouncements on
sexual morals, cross-dressing, marriage, divorce, and host of other
bodily and sexual matters.
The Old Testament also connects sexual sin to idolatry. Orgiastic
worship, temple prostitution, and other horrible distortions of God’s
good gift of the body are all seen as part and parcel of idolatrous
worship. The same connection is made by Paul in Romans 1. Having
“exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal
man and birds and animals and reptiles” (Rom 1:22), and having “exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator” (Rom 1:25), men and women exchange their natural relations with one another (Rom 1:26-27).
Redemption
With regard to redemption, we must note that one of the most
important aspects of our redemption is that it came by way of a Savior
with a body. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14; cf. Phil. 2:5-11). Human redemption is accomplished by the Son of God incarnate—who remains incarnate eternally.
Paul indicates that this salvation includes not merely our souls but also our bodies. Romans 6:12 speaks of sin that reigns in our “mortal bodies”—which implies the hope of future bodily redemption. Romans 8:23
indicates part of our eschatological hope is the “redemption of our
bodies.” Even now, in our life of sanctification we are commanded to
present our bodies as a living sacrifice to God in worship (Rom. 12:2). Further, Paul describes the redeemed body as a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19) and clearly we must understand sanctification as having effects upon the body.
Sexual ethics in the New Testament, as in the Old Testament, regulate our expressions of gender and sexuality. Porneia,
sexual immorality of any kind, is categorically condemned by Jesus and
the apostles. Likewise, Paul clearly indicates to the church at Corinth
that sexual sin—sins committed in the body (1 Cor. 6:18)—are
what bring the church and the gospel into disrepute because they
proclaim to a watching world that the gospel has been to no effect (1 Cor. 5-6).
New Creation
Finally, we reach the fourth and final act of the drama of redemption—new creation. In 1 Corinthians 15:42-57,
Paul directs us not only to the resurrection of our own bodies in the
new creation but to the fact that Christ’s bodily resurrection is the
promise and power for that future hope. Our resurrection will be the
experience of eternal glory in the body. This body will be a
transformed, consummated continuation of our present embodied existence
in the same way that Jesus’ body is the same body he had on earth, yet
utterly glorified.
The new creation will not simply be a reset of the garden. It will be
better than Eden. As Calvin noted, in the new creation we will know God
not only as Creator but as Redeemer—and that redemption includes our
bodies. We will reign with Christ in bodily form, as he also is the
embodied and reigning cosmic Lord.
In terms of our sexuality, while gender will remain in the new
creation, sexual activity will not. It is not that sex is nullified in
the resurrection; rather, it is fulfilled. The eschatological marriage
supper of the Lamb, to which marriage and sexuality point, will finally
arrive. No longer will there be any need to fill the earth with
image-bearers as was the case in Genesis 1. Instead, the earth will be
filled with knowledge of the glory of God as the waters cover the sea.
THE INDISPENSABILITY OF BIBLICAL THEOLOGY
The sexuality crisis has demonstrated the failure of theological
method on the part of many pastors. The “concordance reflex” simply
cannot accomplish the type of rigorous theological thinking needed in
pulpits today. Pastors and churches must learn the indispensability of
biblical theology and must practice reading Scripture according to its
own internal logic—the logic of a story that moves from creation to new
creation. The hermeneutical task before us is great, but it is also
indispensable for faithful evangelical engagement with the culture.