Naked and Unashamed

A Biblical Framework for Understanding Marriage and Sexuality

in Light of the Narrative of Creation

Written by Matt Anderson

Luther Seminary

3/3/05

            We, the church, have a unique challenge before us.  We must find a way to understand and affirm both marriage and sexuality in an increasingly diverse and changing culture.  As we will see, this pluralistic landscape creates tension and confusion in all forms of ministry to and with God’s people, and nowhere is this more true than with the marital and sexual aspects of the community.  In this analysis I explore the ramifications of the Creational narrative and watch how it shapes the rest of the Christian canon.  In addition I devote significant space to the question of homosexuality, because it has become a significant factor that has reframed the entire issue.  Finally, I will draw from the Lutheran confessional heritage to arrive at a conclusion, all the while referring to a wide variety of authors and opinions.  The eventual goal, however, is not to formulate a list of appropriate behaviors to then to demand conformity.  My interest here is pastoral.  With this essay I seek to create a framework, from which to operate pastorally—one that is supported and undergirded by solid biblical interpretation and orthodox theology.  While this paper is concerned with developing that framework, my next essay will formulate an effective plan for pastoral care and ministry that corresponds to my theoretical conclusions.  

From the Beginning...

J. Andrew Dearman shows that both Testaments can inform our understanding of marriage and sexuality.  He argues that, while various “cultural assumptions” of ancient Israel’s marriage practices were purely contextual, the Old Testament reveals the “transcultural” nature of marriage in two important areas: marriage is the means through which God nurtures “humankind in community,” and marriage is persistently used as a way of communicating and demonstrating the appropriate nature of God’s relationship with his people.  Because of these two factors, the Old Testament becomes a significant and credible source for the New Testament authors as they deal with questions pertaining to marriage and sexuality in light of arising questions, realities, and perspectives.[1]

            Genesis 1 and 2 are foundational in both Testaments, and therefore for all contemporary discussion on the same matter, offering two meaningful creation accounts upon which to build a framework for understanding marriage and sexuality.  In the first account (1:1-2:3), man and woman are simultaneously created in God’s image and likeness.  Here we can note the juxtaposition of the creation of humankind (as male and female) alongside the functional reality of their vocation as caretakers and stewards over the fauna (1:26).  God creates this first pair and, while they are still wet behind the ears, God gives them a job to share.  After God ordains that humankind, as man and woman, would have dominion over other creatures, God blesses them, charges them to “be fruitful and multiply...” (v. 28), and designates plants from which humans and animals will receive their respective sustenance.  This creation, God finally recognizes, was “very good.”

            Reflecting upon this narrative, Dearman notes that the creation of male and female in God’s image and likeness shows that they are “exalted” as functional representatives or images which point back to their source.   Says Dearman, “nothing else in the Old Testament bears this privilege of image and likeness because nothing else represents God’s own relationship to creation as does humanity in its kind as male and female.”  Thus, Dearman argues that God’s creative union of male and female is a blessing which enables them to have a privileged responsibility in Creation as God’s “theomorphic” representatives”[2] One can also recognize that the male/female pairing is imbedded into the very foundation of humanity; for through this union of man and woman, God’s people are to be nurtured into the human community.

            The second account begins in Genesis 2:4, where God forms man out of the earth and breathes life into his nostrils.  Again, the man is immediately given a caretaking role in Creation, but this time he is alone.  And so, alone he labors in the paradise of the garden, where he is permitted to eat from every tree save the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Yet, after the vocation and restrictive command are given to the man, God makes a keen observation: “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.”  From the man’s own rib this helper/partner is made, but only after every other creature in creation is found unsuitable to be both a helper and a partner to this man in fulfilling God’s vision for creation.  At last, the mysterious and glorious confrontation of man and woman captures the primal beauty of God’s creative design and initiates the marital heartbeat which has pulsated through every community in human history. 

When analyzing this narrative, it is certainly not too early to speak about marriage, because Genesis 2:24 forces the issue.  This verse demonstrates the author’s retrospective inspiration regarding God’s design for marriage as the bedrock for human society.  Man, ever aware of the deep, physical, and natural bond with woman, timelessly separates from his own family in order to cling to his new wife, as the two become a single flesh.  Around this union God chooses to build families and whole societies, so that the marital unit becomes a primary means through which God provides for and sustains his creatures.  Thus, sensing the responsibility and approval with which the Creator has blessed them and called them good, this first couple stands both naked and unashamed. 

Dearman helps us by making several noteworthy points about this second narrative.  First, he argues that the creative partnership of man and woman is neither incidental nor peripheral, since “no other creature except the woman, not a human male, not even one of the semi-divine ‘sons of God’ is able to bond fully with the first Adam.”  The woman is made of the man’s very own flesh and blood, “organically related and made for him” in a union like no other.  Says Dearman, the nature of their being “one flesh” assumes both a “sexual union and a resulting bond,” but even more powerfully, it implies a level of kinship that supercedes all prior familial ties by creating a new family unit out of the marital bond.  This is “the etiology of both marriage and family in a nutshell.”[3] 

Then the Fall.  The couple is coaxed by the serpent to consider an intriguing argument, in which the ideal modes of God’s creative blessings and mandates appear to be unrealistic or untrue.   The serpent even directly challenges God’s literal statement (dying after eating the forbidden fruit), convincing the couple that they in fact can get away with an act of disobedience, and that they will actually profit immensely from the experience.  The serpent eventually convinces them that God cannot be trusted, since God’s command is a selfish and unjust limitation upon their ability to reach their potential.  As they look, they see that the fruit is a “delight to the eyes” and would even make them wise, and so they sink their teeth into the foulest morsel ever ingested. 

These first six verses of Genesis three are noticeably different than all of chapters one and two in an important way—God seems to be absent.  In this supposed Godlessness, the humans are vulnerable to arguments that distort God’s words and direct them toward disobedience.  They act sinfully because they are convinced that, by their own actions and deeds, they can achieve more and exceed the arbitrary limits with which God has unjustly burdened them.  Their covenant fellowship with the creator has been superceded by their individual quest for pleasure and self-actualization.  But tragically, as soon as the power of sin opens their eyes, they become ashamed of their own bodies.  Thus, they sew loincloths for themselves with fig leaves and hide from their God.     

How we have ignored the life-giving truth and power that underlies these narratives by catering to a disinterested culture which cares little for God’s providential will and only for the new, the convenient, and the sensual (or “delightful”).  As we think back to Genesis 1 and 2, we sew our own fig leaves in order to cover up the pure and shameless nudity of our Creator’s finished product.  Our faces flush red as we seek an excuse for these two naive figures of an embarrassing and idealistic past.  We refuse to make eye contact with the silent testimony of their liberating beauty, insisting that they pull on a set of realistic trousers so that they are better suited for the contemporary age.  In a classic example of irony, it is we are ashamed of their nakedness.

For a moment, let us entertain the notion that the story of this first couple is fact our story—the story of every living person, without a single exception.  To do so, we must build a bridge between Genesis 2 and Genesis 3, thereby linking Creation with the rest of the Christian canon.  We must build or rebuild this bridge, through a seemingly impermeable divide, in order to show that God’s ideal can meaningfully shape our reality today. As we partake in this endeavor, we must decide if Creation is our story, or if, because of the reality of sin, we can only lay claim to a compromised, diluted, and defective version of a story that no longer makes sense.  In short, the church must honor its vocation to serve God’s people by reminding them of the blessed time when man and woman stood naked and unashamed. As we will see, such a reminder will also cause our eyes both to look back to Genesis 1 and 2 and to look forward, through the cross, to God’s fulfillment of Creation in the redemption that is to come.

Some scholars recognize this gap and seek to reconnect our reality to the story of the original Creation.  To build that bridge, one must carefully deal with the advent of sin and the ensuing curses in Genesis 3.  Lisa Cahill argues in line with Terry Fretheim in saying that “supremacy and subordination” resulted from human disobedience in Genesis 3 and had no part of the original creation.  These fracturing realities arise only as a consequence of sin in human relationships. [4]    Therefore, God’s judgmental pronouncements in Genesis 3:14-19 function descriptively in the canon, not as a prescriptive warrant for the subordination of women and the like.  In creation, man and woman have “equal responsibility and dignity” in fulfilling God’s “divine mandates” which are their “commanded roles of dominion of other creatures and propagation of their own species.”[5]  The parity of male and female in Genesis forbids a “normative understanding that denies to either sex full human status,” while it also “implies not only that this distinction is necessary for humanity’s completion but also that it is part of the human creature’s good, appropriate, and blessed finitude.”[6]  

Notice the effort here to separate Genesis 3 from the creation narratives.  It is precisely because we believe that Genesis 1 and 2 are prescriptive and relevant for shaping our world today that we seek to distinguish that narrative from the Genesis 3 curses.  By doing so, we see prevent ourselves from confusing the effects of sin with the mandated aspects of God’s good creation. 

Unfortunately, however, Cahill follows many thinkers in making the logical move that creates ethical confusion and leads to the subordination of Genesis 1 and 2 (we will later examine the results of this confusion in her own work).  She states that the man and woman’s “psycho-social partnership finds significance in the context of [God’s] divine mandates.”[7] While this statement is true on one level—man and woman are jointly given a specific role in creation in which their vocational partnership is given full expression—on another level, it reflects the over-contextualization of the Creational male/female dichotomy that leads us to downplay its significance in changing cultures and circumstances.  When taken to a logical extreme, this argument says that if the animals are under control and if the world is populated, then the divine mandates are fulfilled satisfactorily. Thus, the prescribed union between man and union, and all that it entails, can be downgraded to a secondary status—optional at best.  As we have seen in recent years, this move has disastrous consequences for marriage and sexuality, creating an unfortunate rift between the mandated aspects of God’s good Creation and the real lives of God’s people. 

The Contemporary Picture

Shifting to our own context, Cahill persuasively argues that “post-Lockean liberalism,” which is informed by Enlightenment philosophy and which stresses the “relationality, freedom, and autonomy of the individual,” has deeply influenced North American culture and politics (and sexuality).  This view asserts that the “autonomous adult exists to fulfill independently his or her own interests and needs, and is limited in attempts to do so only by the parallel and sometimes competing rights of others to do likewise.” Cahill describes the disturbing synthesis, in which John Locke’s autonomous individualism, Kant’s “respect for person,” and the “existentialist philosopher’s absolution of choice” lead to a rabid lust for “individual liberty and self-determination, which the community exists in order to serve.”  For her, liberalism has supported the moral and legal “legitimacy of any liaisons, sexual or otherwise, between consenting adults, so long as they do not harm others.”[8] 

To combat this tendency in our culture, Cahill suggests a healthy middle ground between the overt relativism and self-absorption of liberal philosophy, and the traditional Christian ethic that has too narrowly defined sexual activity in purely procreative terms.  This happy medium, she believes, is the New Testament understanding of community. She marvels at the “strikingly corporate” nature of the biblical images for God’s people (covenant people, Kingdom of God, Body of Christ...), which reject a legalistic approach to sexuality, yet which affirm the individual’s responsibility to the community.  Thus, the New Testament understanding of community excludes both legalism and relativism by stressing the importance of moral choices as part of one’s life in the family of God.[9] 

To inform this balanced approached to ethics, Cahill argues that scripture provides no timeless code of appropriate sexual behavior.  Yet, she recognizes that scripture does favor  the “institutionalization of sexuality in heterosexual, monogamous, permanent, and procreative marriage that furthers the cohesiveness and continuity of family, church, and body politic, and that respects and nurtures the affective commitments to which spouses give sexual expression.”  She also recognizes that the bible provides “specific condemnations of deviations from this general norm” that are “incompatible with the life of faith in the covenant community,” such as adultery, fornication, porneia (a form of sexual immorality), and “homosexual acts.”[10] 

Cahill tempers these strong arguments by restating that these biblical prescriptions and prohibitions are not systematized and therefore must be left to the practical discernment of the faith community.  In its discernment process the community must combine empirical evidence with scripture, tradition, and normative human accounts in order to define sexual standards and norms.  The community must also define the acceptable and unacceptable instances of divergence from those criteria, being mindful of the complexity of many moral decisions. 

Eventually, Cahill herself proposes two “essential criteria” for responsible Christian sexual practice, which she believes expresses the unitive and procreative fundamentals of human sexuality. First, sexual activity should occur within an “intentionally permanent commitment of partnership and love,” and second, it should parallel the couples willingness “to welcome and nurture... any children that result from their union.”[11]  Surprisingly, despite her prior recognition of the heterosexuality of the biblical mandates, she makes no mention of gender in either of these “essential criteria.” Rather, she has decided against the centrality of the male/female partnership in favor of simple monogamy (a move we will later examine in greater detail).  She reasons that in some cases, the “norm of procreative, heterosexual monogamy is inappropriate, difficult, or impossible.”[12]  To restate this, an individual can be expected to honor the biblical norms for marriage and sexuality only if the biblical prescriptions seem appropriate, easy, and possible.  Says Cahill, heterosexual marriage is an ideal, the necessary preconditions for which do not exist “always and everywhere that human sexuality is present.”[13]

We ought not miss the logic here.  The biblical ideal for marriage and sexuality, spelled out in Genesis and upheld by the New Testament, can now be trumped by the existence of conflicting sexual realities which coexist in society.  The rational for this deference rests in the idea that individuals must not be restricted by “inappropriate, difficult, or impossible” standards.  Thus, Cahill seems sympathetic to the very individualism and self-determination that she earlier reproached, basing the validity of the biblical ideal upon the motivation, orientation, and ability of the individual.

While Cahill helps to clarify many important issues in our discussion, we must seek a more effective and faithful way to reconnect with the Creational narrative.  In a move that seems like common sense, we must follow the New Testament example.  For example when New Testament figures like Jesus and Paul address the issues of marriage and sexuality in light of changing times and circumstances, they make an essential move.  They avoid turning the issues of their respective context into the standard through which to judge and filter God’s created ideal; on the contrary, Mauser says, the New Testament “has resolutely chosen to make the revelation in Genesis 1 and 2... the measure and judge of our conduct, not the other way around.”[14]

The New Testament Witness

Let us move into the New Testament for some examples of this pattern.  In Matthew 19 the Pharisees seek to test Jesus through a legal debate.  They ask him if it is “lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause” (v. 3).  While their question is phrased in the language of ancient Judaism, Jesus’ answer obliterates their narrow understanding of marriage.  “Have you not read,” Jesus replies, “that the one who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?” (v. 5-6).  So far, Jesus doesn’t seem to be answering their question, merely recounting a story from an idealistic past.  But in reality Jesus is showing that Eden is the only place to look in such debates, and so he concludes with the addition, “So they are no longer two, but one flesh.  Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate” (v. 6). 

Jesus short sermon over Genesis 1 and 2 speaks a thousand words.  To understand Jesus’ message, we must remember why the Pharisees have come: they seek to lure Jesus into a trap with a disembodied, legalistic debate about marriage.  They make marriage into a justice issue, so that their question is concerned with an individual’s legal rights to marry and divorce in various circumstances. Jesus, however, will have none of this nonsense.  He slaps the Pharisees upside the head with a Creation 101 textbook, strictly addressing their quibble with a summary of the Genesis narrative and a brief commentary thereof.  Jesus reveals that marriage is not a justice issue, formed merely by the individual rights and liberties that each party can claim; rather, marriage is a Creation issue.  From the beginning God made man and woman to leave and cleave to one another as one flesh.  This one-flesh union, Jesus says, has been joined together and ordained by God, and because of this, no human being has the right to separate it.  Jesus refuses to myopically focus upon rules through which individuals can excuse themselves from the marriage ideal; instead, he reminds them of their responsibility to affirm and nurture the relationships that are a result of God’s creative work.

Now, however, the Pharisees think they really have Jesus, because they can demonstrate that he is at odds with Moses, who allowed Israelite men to give a certificate of divorce to their wives.  But again, Jesus shreds their flimsy argument and exposes their distorted views, saying that Moses’ allowance was merely a tragic consequence of their hard hearts.  In an almost redundant pattern, Jesus again refers to the “beginning,” the time in which God intended otherwise for marriage (v. 8).  He then makes the bold statement, setting himself above Moses as he recapitulates the Creational ideal: “And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another commits adultery” (v. 10).  Jesus will accept no other image or ideal for marriage than the one ordained by the Creator, and he refuses to turn marriage into a free marketplace where people jockey for positions of freedom and legal loopholes.  Thus, even in circumstances far different from those of Adam and Eve, the design of God is affirmed.

 The dialogue now shifts to broader sexuality issues, which proves quite helpful for our purposes.  Jesus’ disciples, overhearing the debate, marvel at the stringent and inseparable bond of marriage: “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry” (v. 11).  Jesus’ reaction to this statement is crucial.  He does not lower the bar and ease the rigorous restrictions for marriage; instead, Jesus readily admits that this teaching is difficult to accept.  Yet, he points out that some eunuchs have made themselves so, “for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” (v. 12).  To his listeners he concludes, “Let anyone accept this who can.”  Apparently, Jesus doesn’t think that personal rights and fulfillment are the ultimate realities in Creation.  In fact if we remember properly, the insatiable lust for those things led to the Fall in the first place.  Instead, Jesus indicates that God’s  Kingdom is of ultimate worth and surpassing value, so that some admirably choose to forfeit rights or endeavors which would otherwise hinder their devotion to the Kingdom. 

Andreas Kostenberger helps us at this point, by demonstrating the priority that scripture affords to the life of discipleship:

“Marriage, while remaining the foundational divine institution for humanity, is therefore to be viewed not as an end in itself but as properly subordinated to God’s larger salvific purposes...”  which are culminated in eternity when we are like angels, no longer marrying.”[15]

Sex and marriage are not imperative aspects of an individual’s identity, nor should they take priority over one’s discipleship.  Rather, these are subordinate to the reality of God’s mission for the world, created and affirmed by God for God’s creative and redemptive purposes.  Marriage and sexuality, when properly understood as being “under” the kingdom, can serve the eschatological vision of God is fantastic ways, whereas, as ends in themselves, they would merely serve the individual. 

In this line of thought Kostenberger expounds on the aspects in which the institution of marriage furthers God’s care for Creation.  First, the image of marriage is used repeatedly by the Old and New Testaments to describe the relationship between God and God’s covenant people.    Humanity is described as an adulterous and promiscuous spouse, whom God judges, forgives, and reclaims out of immeasurable love and grace. Ephesians 5 (and many other texts) draws upon the marital image to describe the mysterious union that Christ has with his church.  Rehearsing the foundational Genesis 2:24 statement, the author applies Creation’s unitive imagery to the union of Christ and the church.  Having done so, the author then reflects back upon the marital union in light of Jesus’ loving, sacrificial, and faithful relationship with believers.  The informative interplay here between marriage and Christ’s relationship to the church is rich and provocative.  We can better understand Christ’s connection with the church by looking at marriage, and we can better understand and serve our marriages by looking to Christ’s service of the church.  In addition, Kostenberger notes that marriage can be more broadly viewed in terms of the “Christian witness in an unbelieving environment.”  This witness occurs both when the husband and wife “live out God’s purposes for the Christian couple” and as the church “actively propagates the gospel message.”[16]   All this is to affirm that, biblically speaking, marriage and sexuality are placed beneath the mission of God’s kingdom and are designed to serve its purposes. 

The New Testament doesn’t always refer to creation in dealing with marital issues.  Yet, in texts where Genesis isn’t directly quoted, we see a consistent pattern that affirms and assumes the Genesis ideal in light of the self-giving reality of the cross.  For example, in I Corinthians 7 Paul describes marriage in terms that underscore the mutuality and partnership of the Genesis model.  Living within the one-flesh union, Paul calls both men and women to openness and to the loving exchange of physicality that befits marriage.  Interestingly enough, he apparently feels the need to remind these married Christians to have sexual intercourse, probably because of the ascetic and eschatological notions that were leading some couples to avoid sex altogether.  As Paul does so, he doesn’t urge them to claim their personal rights, but rather to provide for the rights and needs of the other: “For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.  Do not deprive one another...” (v. 4-5a). Since God had ordained that sexual activity would take place within the marital union of man and woman, and they should give themselves to the other, sexually and otherwise, whether they feel like it or not.

It is also helpful to point out that just before this passage, Paul had condemned sexual fornication as a sin “against the body itself” (I Cor. 6:18).  In a supposed play on words, both the individual’s body and the Christian body lose when sexuality is used for self-seeking and extramarital ends.  Thus, Paul moves into chapter seven by concluding that “your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God... you are not your own.  For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body” (v. 19-20).  Anyone who claims that sexual behavior is a right, and who demands personal license for promiscuous sexual activity, has no grasp of God’s design for marriage.  For those who marry do not lay claim to sexual privileges but give themselves away freely and in service to God and spouse.

The Big Picture

            Richard Hays provides us with a masterful framework through which we can look at biblical ethics for marriage and sexuality.  Aware of the rampant proof-texting that occurs in biblical debates, he offers three “focal images,” which draw from scripture as a whole to characterize the shape of our identity. 

His first image is that of community.  The Christian Church is a “countercultural community of discipleship, and this community is the primary addressee of God’s imperatives.”  Like Cahill, Hays argues for an ethic that strays from the individualism of both legalistism and relativistism.  He emphasizes that the “corporate obedience of the church” is the “primary sphere of moral concern.”  In other words the question is not “what should I do?” but “what should we do?”.[17]

Hays’ second image is called cross.  The biblical narrative assumes that “Jesus’ death on the cross is the paradigm for faithfulness to God in this world,” as the church experiences and expresses and presence “by participating in the ‘koinonia of his sufferings’ (Phil 3:10)” and in his “self-giving love.”  God’s people are not to judge their efforts by some preconceived success rate or “desired results,” but only by “their correspondence to Jesus’ example.”  This, of course, is a scandal to the world, and even to the church, just as it was to Peter in Matt 16. Yet, Christ calls us nonetheless to conform to his example of mercy, self-giving sacrifice, and willingness to suffer.[18]

            Hays’ third and final image is that of new creation.  We, as a church, live in and through the power of Christ’s resurrection, while we wait for full redemption in the future.  This means that Christ’s redemptive work in bringing about the new creation exerts a powerful influence in our lives and world.  Yet, even as we enjoy the fruits of Jesus’ salvific labor, we see clear signs that the new creation is not yet complete.  For Hays, “all attempts to assert the unqualified presence of the kingdom of God stand under judgment of the eschatolotical reservation: not before the time, not yet.”  The New Testament turns us toward this ultimate destiny, but our calling is to live in a “hope-filled interval.”  We have no excuse for complacently pretending that sin and evil no longer exist, nor can we despair as if the end will never come.  We faithfully trust God’s promises in a world of hope, sin, and suffering.[19]

            Hays also provides a helpful addition to this discussion by showing why he has not added two addition images to his threefold list.  He rejects the use of love and liberation as thematic images for interpreting scripture, because he finds them deficient in some key areas. 

            Love: Hays points out that major New Testament texts such as Mark, Hebrews, and Revelation, “call the church to a rigorous, suffering obedience following the example of Jesus.”  The word love isn’t even used in the book of Acts, because that book is about the nature of God’s power and expanding reign, not a discourse on love.  Further, love has “become debased in popular discourse” and is actually used in attempts to sanction sin, self indulgence (often of the sexual nature), and to distort many of the biblical standards for Christian discipleship.  Finally, adding love to this list would be redundant, because the word cross is already there.  The cross is the form that love takes on this side of eternity, in that “the content of the word ‘love’ is given fully and exclusively in the death of Jesus on the cross; apart form this specific narrative image, the term has no meaning.”[20]

            With all of this in mind, Hays also rejects liberation as an overarching image through which to collectively view scripture.  Like the word love, liberation has a whole host of meanings and is subject to deep misunderstandings (Its social and political implications in today’s language make it even more challenging).  Further, the biblical nature of liberation is already expressed in the above discussions of cross, community, and new creation, so that  adding this elusive term would be useless as well.[21]

            Through these lenses, Hays declares that marriage is a permanent union between one man and one women.  In this partnership we see the “literal embodiment of God’s will in creation” and a “figurative sign of the long-for eschatological union of Christ and the church.”  Marriage is also public, designed for the health, stability, and upbuilding of the whole community.  Finally, marriage can be a painfully difficult and costly struggle in which the spouses struggle to surrender rights and power to the other, to resist sin and evil, and to serve God amidst a world of joy and sorrow.[22]

The Homosexuality Debate

            This leads us directly into the contemporary debate over homosexuality, an issue that divides families, churches, and whole societies.  As we examine the issue, we do so in light of our findings above, unashamed of God’s creative ideal from Genesis 1 and 2.  This topic is an important addition to an analysis of marriage and sexuality, since any responsible discourse in this field must come to terms with the notions of the same-sex debate.  Further, we find that the dialogue itself has a way of defining marriage and sexuality that would otherwise be impossible.  In order to speak about God’s vision for his people regarding marriage and sexuality, we must also know the boundaries to that call.  In order to know what marriage and sexuality are, we also must know what they are not.  The goal is ultimately pastoral, since church leaders who minister to people from across the sexual spectrum, must do so in a way that directly relates to God’s intentions for responsible sexuality. In the discussion below, I devote significant space to specific biblical passages, allowing for divergent viewpoints along the way, and I conclude with a confessional argument. 

Scripture

            Because the biblical text was assembled by the church, for the sake of the church and world, its contents must be given the primary place in the homosexuality debate.  Following Hays closely, I will list and briefly analyze the relevant texts.

            Genesis 19:1-29

            Most scholars, including Hays, find that this text is not useful to the discussion, because of the violent aspects that the Sodomite’s attempted gang rape.  In my opinion, however, two questions do remain, which make Genesis 19 at least partially relevant in framing the issue.  First, why is the Hebrew word for ‘men’ (enosh) emphatically mentioned and repeated.  The term (adam) is usually used when more broadly referring to ‘people,’ while enosh specifically refers to men. As Genesis 19:4 says, “the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house; and they called to Lot, ‘where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, so that we may know them’” (italics mine). 

            Secondly, according to Genesis 18:20, the Sodom’s sinfulness was rava, an adjective meaning much, many, great, or numerous.  This term is also used in the flood story in Genesis 6:5, in which the wickedness of the human race had become so great (rava) that every thought and inclination was evil at all times.  Thus, it is not appropriate to point out a solitary area of sinfulness exhibited by the men from Sodom, just as it would not be appropriate to do so in the flood story.  In both cases the people had become a terrible lot (no pun intended), whose sin had reached a grievous level in all respects.  That the men of Sodom sought to commit atrocious evils upon the visitors (whom they perceived as men) is no surprise.  Their sin was rava.  Every aspect of their behavior was enslaved to the power of sin and darkness, so that even their sexuality was utterly distorted.  In place of displaying the virtue of hospitality to strangers, these man seek to violate them indiscriminately.  Instead of safeguarding their sexual activities in a monogamous and self-giving marriage, the outlet for their lust is found in corporate and aggressive acts of rape.  Can we not also say then, that in place of natural intercourse with women (as ordained and affirmed in creation), these men were consumed with sexual desire for those who appeared to be men?

            I lift up these two questions because our answers to them will assist us in our treatment of this and other biblical texts.  As is the case with more central texts, no scripture should be unfairly included or excluded from the debate.

            Leviticus 18:22, 20:13

            Hays points out that this text, found in the Levitical holiness code, “explicitly prohibits male homosexual intercourse.”  The passages refer to the homosexual act itself, assuming that “motives for the act” are not a “morally significant factor.”  Further, this “unambiguous legal prohibition stands as the foundation for the subsequent, universal rejection of male same-sex intercourse within Judaism.”  While Leviticus alone does not settle the matter, it does provide a foundation from which later communities and biblical writers are able to draw.  On the other hand, because Leviticus does not distinguish between its numerous moral and ceremonial laws, it can be challenging to appropriate its precepts.  Thus, the church’s mission is to discern which of these laws are still relevant today.  Thankfully, we can use the rest of scripture to help with this task.

            I Corinthians 6:9-11

            Here Paul strongly condemns a list of sinful behaviors.  In terms of homosexuality two words come into question: malakoi and arsenokoitai.  Malokoi appears frequently in Hellenistic Greek as a slang term for the ‘passive partners’ in homoerotic activity.  Often, such partners are youth.[23]  While some scholars believe that the term refers only to male prostitutes (such as Robin Scroggs[24]), others, such as Dale Martin, argue that malokoi has been intentionally twisted by the church.  Rather, he says, it merely refers to something that is soft or ‘effiminate’ and “nothing more.”[25]  Martin’s view seems contextually insufficient, however, since it would be unlikely that Paul would condemn those who simply appear effeminate.  Robert Gagnon notes that Paul, who elsewhere prohibits things that we would not today (women speaking in church), speaks here with a monumental degree of force.  For in this text, Paul argues that offenders will “not inherit the kingdom of God.”  Therefore, drawing both from Paul and from the writings of Philo, Gagnon shows convincingly that malakoi refers to “the passive partners in homosexual intercourse.”[26] 

            The second term of the passage, arsenokoitai, is a unique term, because this text is its earliest recorded usage.  Scroggs and other scholars have demonstrated how arsenokoitai is directly derived from the Leviticus texts above.  Hays declares that the Septuagint translation (the Greek translation of the Old Testament used by Jews in Paul’s time) of Leviticus 20:13 is “almost certainly the idiom from which the noun arsenokoitai was coined.  Thus, Paul’s use of the term presupposes and reaffirms the holiness code’s condemnation of homosexual acts.”[27]

            It must be stated that not all scholars agree with this characterization.  Herman C. Waetjen argues that both molokoi and arsenokoitai refer respectively to the young and old partners of pederastic sexual relationships, since no example of “age-matched couples engaging in sexual activities is to be found in antiquity.”[28]  Dale Martin seeks to cast mystery upon arsenokoitai by referring to later references in ancient literature in which the word may have different meanings.[29]  However, both arguments appear to be interpretive leaps that pay little attention to broad swaths of ancient data and to the canonical context of this scripture. 

            Romans 1:18-32

            This proves to be the most “crucial text for Christian ethics concerning homosexuality,” since it clarifies the “condemnation of homosexual behavior in an explicitly theological context.”  Further, it proves to be the only biblical text that deals with lesbian sexual activities.  Hays notes that this text is not a categorical list of vices, but a “diagnosis of the human condition” and a story of the Fall of humankind.  In this sad saga, God paradoxically lets humans have their own way, a way that only results in immorality and chaos.  This, Romans says, is itself God’s wrath, in which humans are allowed to bear the self-destructive and world-distorting results of their sin.  All told, the text shows that humanity is “deeply implicated in unrighteousness.”[30]

            A key term in this passage is metallaxan (exchange).  It is used to strike a parallel between our rejection of God and our rejection of our created roles.  Repeating it “forges a powerful rhetorical link between the rebellion against God and the ‘shameless acts’ (1:27) that are themselves both evidence and consequence of that rebellion.”  As humans exchanged the truth of God for a lie, worshipping and serving creation instead of the Creator, “God gave them up to degrading passions” (v. 26).  Thus, the text says, they exchanged and abandoned natural intercourse in favor of unnatural intercourse. 

            The expressions “natural intercourse” and “unnatural intercourse” were common categories in Greco-Roman moral philosophy and literature, but were adopted by Hellenistic Jews and applied to homosexuality.  Thus, Pauls speaks from his “Hellenistic-Jewish cultural context in which homosexuality is regarded as an abonimation, and he assumes that his readers will share his negative judgment of it.”  Nature, for Paul, is not some “empirical observation of what actually exists; instead, it appeals to a conception of what ought to be, of the world as designed by God and revealed through the stories and laws of Scripture.”  Hays continues, “Those who indulge in sexual practices para physin (against nature) are defying the Creator and demonstrating their own alienation from him.”[31]

            This text is not meant to single out one sin as worse than others, but rather to characterize the global manifestation of creaturely rebellion.  The specific sin of homosexual intercourse is particularly helpful in this case, because it graphically demonstrates how “human fallenness distorts God’s created order.”  Yet, it is no worse than any others that are listed here or elsewhere, including gossiping and boasting.  Each sin is evidence of a broken relationship between God and humankind.  Further, because this text deals with the “fallen conditions of the pagan world,” it leaves no wiggle room for sexual orientation.  Paul conclusively argues that homosexual acts are “prima facie evidence of humanity’s tragic confusion and alienation from God the Creator.”[32]  When humans engage in such behavior, they “enact an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual reality: the rejection of the Creator’s design.”[33]

            So we are once again sent to the Garden to gawk at the nude bodies of the first couple.  Since the New Testament constantly sends us back to creation in dealing sexual matters (and not to the Fall), we can affirm that human sexuality is a “fundamental continuance of God’s good creation.”  But more than that, we can recognize that the original polarity of male and female remains good as well.  A sinful humankind, however, is bound to reject this notion.  As Mauser says, “the distortion or absolution of this one crucial reality of being human...is seen in the New Testament as outrage against the Creator.”  In other words the desire to abandon the Genesis ideals and boundaries for sexual activity is outright rebellion against the Maker.  Homosexuality, Mauser continues, practically and theoretically denies “that the human being is good as God’s creature in the polarity of being male and female.”  Because of this, “homosexual conduct fears or denies, despises or ridicules, the goodness of God’s creation of male and female.”[34] 

            Scholars are sure to disagree with this reading of Romans 1.  Christine Gudorf argues that, if Paul is declaring homosexual acts to be the outcome of one’s “turning away from God,” we should “be able to discern homosexuals by their generally evil conduct.  But this is not so,” she says, as most homosexuals are unrecognized, shamed into the closet, or contributing marvelously to society.[35]  Her argument fails on two points.  First, Paul is arguing that all people, not just homosexuals, have turned away from God. Speaking in this theological way, Paul sees no need to ‘justify’ his condemnation of homosexual intercourse by proving statistically that such behavior has negative empirical outcomes.  Further, as would be the case with idolatry, it seems pointless to demand empirical proof that something is sinful before honoring the biblical prohibitions.  This is especially true when we see that Paul is showing homosexual behavior to be in itself a negative empirical outcome of rejecting the Creator (Rom 1:27b).  As deluded sinners are handed over to our own designs, not God’s, such activity is symptomatic of God’s wrath against humankind, whether we agree with it or not. Secondly, the homosexual lifestyle has not been found to be above reproach and without negative ramifications.  Robert Gagnon argues persuasively that homosexual behavior may have serious, negative consequences, both on an individual and corporate scale.[36] 

            David Frederickson argues that Romans 1 (as well as I Cor 6:9) merely condemns the dishonorable passions and unjust motives that motivate immoral behavior.[37]  But, as Hays has shown, Romans 1 is primarily concerned with activities that demonstrate the universal fallenness of humankind, using homosexual intercourse as an illustrative example.  Finally, Herman Waetjen declares that Romans 1 refers only to the ‘old order,’ which was “under sin,” but now has “no relevance for the ethics of the eschatological reality of God’s rule.”[38]  This may be the least persuasive of all arguments, since the text is written by, to, and for Christians who are categorically implicated with the charge of unrighteousness (For all have sinned...). As Hays’ three focal images have reminded us, the eschaton is ‘not yet’ here.  Any attempt to treat evil as a benign artifact, leftover by some extinct “old order,” is an inexcusable misreading of scripture that overlooks the realities of sin and injustice against which God’s people are commanded to struggle.

            Having moved through the broader biblical narrative, Hays leads us in reflecting upon our findings.  First, he notes that both Testaments consistently affirm that “God has made man and woman for one another and that our sexual desires rightly find fulfillment within heterosexual marriage...”  Thus, as we debate the validity of texts which deal with homosexual behavior, we must always keep this “positive backdrop” in mind.  Second, the Bible recognizes that humans are deceived into thinking that we have the power of free moral thinking.  Quite the contrary, we all have fallen and are ‘not free not to sin.’  An evil act is not so because the actor freely chose to perform it, since the “very nature of sin” is “not freely chosen.”  Humanity is in bondage to sin, while at the same time, we are fully responsible for our deeds before “God’s righteous judgment.”  Thus, no one can argue that one’s sexual orientation “is morally neutral because it was voluntary.”[39]  This bears repeating: those who claim the right to same-sex intercourse cannot justify their behavior merely by appealing to orientation.  These people are bound by the same dark force that binds all of us.  No one but Jesus can claim that aspects of their personality or behavior are free from sin’s encompassing grasp.  Third, scripture demythologizes sex, undercutting “our cultural obsession with sexual fulfillment...” showing instead that sex is “of secondary importance.”  If this is true, Hays says, our sexual drives and urges must, through marriage or disciplined abstinence, be prayerfully and faithfully restrained, prevented from dictating our behavior and identity.[40]   

            Looking at these conclusions through his three focal images, Hays makes some additional points.

Community: Leviticus shows that the concern for sexuality is a public matter, an issue relating the “health, wholeness, and purity of the elect community.”  Those who violate the prohibitions “defile not merely themselves but the whole land, jeapardizing the community as a whole.  Further, Paul shows that sexual immorality “defiles the body of Christ.”  Having been baptized into a “corporate whole,” such sins are like an infection which endangers the health of all members.  They are not private decisions about morally neutral issues.[41]

Cross: As Romans says, all people have sinned and are without excuse. None are exempt from this bleak picture.  Rather than ignoring this reality, the church is called to engage sin through “sacrificial service.”  Through the “transforming power of the cross,” the good news of hope can be shared with “Christians who... struggle with homosexual desires.”  We must therefore read Romans 1 with the rest of that book to affirm its message of “grace and hope through the cross of Christ.”[42]

New Creation: We live in the already/not yet tension in which Christians are freed from sin’s power through Christ but “must continue to struggle to live faithfully in the present time.”  As a product of this reality, some Christians, either heterosexual or homosexual, may “find disciplined abstinence the only viable alternative to disordered sexuality.”[43] 

In the end, instead of offering a loophole through which to excuse same-sex activity in certain circumstances, the New Testament provides only universal prohibition of all such practices, remaining “unambiguous and univocal in its condemnation of homosexual conduct.”[44]  It affirms God’s creative design and encourages us with the power of the cross through which we may trust Christ and resist sin until the eschaton.

Exceptions?

Before moving on to confessional issues, we do well to note the divergence on this crucial point.  Many scholars and laypersons strongly disagree with the traditional restrictions on homosexual activity and argue that there must be an exception through which same-sex inclinations can be physically expressed.  To do so, however, they must grapple with the imposing reality of the first couple in Genesis, nakedly exposed in two genders.

For instance Mark Allen Powell declares that scripture “unanimously” and “overwhelmingly” portrays ‘homosexual activity in a negative light.”  However, he says, most people today commit such acts because of their “orientation” and cannot find “sexual fulfillment in heterosexual marriage.” The heterosexual ideal, he says, is “inappropriate” to those who’s orientation calls them to live otherwise.[45]

            Powell’s logic hinges upon four shaky points.

1)      Regardless of what the scriptures say about same-sex behavior (he admits that they are “overwhelmingly” negative), biblical prohibitions do not apply to individuals whose same-sex attractions are significant enough to be labeled as an ‘orientation.’ 

2)      A person’s attraction to either sex (or both?) shapes one’s identity in

significant ways and should be allowed to dictate the means in which one finds relational and “sexual fulfillment”

3)      Sexual fulfillment is the inherent right of every person.

4)      In language we’ve heard before, the Genesis ideal for marriage and sexuality is “inappropriate” to homosexuals. 

Powell is typical of scholars who think in terms of sexual rights and privileges, seeking to grant all people an opportunity to realize, express, and enjoy their sex drives.  For these thinkers, sexual self-denial and celibacy is nonsense, a bitter pill given unjustly by a misguided, out-of-touch, and legalistic church, which seeks to prevent homosexuals from realizing their sexual potential.  For Powell, the logic is simple.  Genesis 2:24 clearly shows that each person is made with the basic need for the intimate companionship of the one-flesh bond.  Since homosexuals cannot enjoy such companionship with members of the opposite sex, Powell ignores the gender of the couple in Genesis 2:24 but argues that all people are created to enjoy their union. Because of sexual orientation, Powell has a new hermeneutic, in which the Genesis narrative actually encourages homosexuals to “become one” with a consenting member of the same sex. After all, Powell argues, God says that it is not good for an individual to be alone. [46] Thus, the church, which cannot unjustly torture homosexuals with therapy and celibacy, can only affirm their activities.

            Martha Ellan Stortz makes a different move with Genesis 2:24, but ends up in a similar place.  She argues that Christians should look to baptism, in which gender is not central, when dealing with matters of sexuality.  To arrive at this conclusion, she says that since Genesis 2:24 is used by Paul to describe the union between Christ and his church,   and since we enter the church through baptism, we can become one flesh with others through our baptismal identity, and not by pre-assigned gender restrictions. 

            To illustrate the extent to which some interpreters go to bypass gender in this debate, we need look no further than Herman Waetjen. He argues that the categories of male and female are inappropriate, because of the fact that a small percentage of births (he says up to 4%) have “intersexual” characteristics.  He therefore declares that “the binary differentiation of male and female is being subverted by science and technology,” which means that humans can no longer be narrowly described as male or female.  To further his point, he refers to Paul’s baptismal formula in Galatians 3:28 (There is no longer... male nor female...), which he says “negates the fundamental binary differentiations of the ancient world.”  This formula, he says, with its rejection of the outdated categories of male and female, is “equally pertinent today.”[47]

Notice that all three of these authors, Powell, Stortz, and Waetjen, struggle to get beyond the male/female reality of the created order.  They obviously realize that the narrative of the first couple in Genesis creates serious interpretative obstacles for the affirmation of same-sex activity.  Unfortunately, as we have already noted, the move to deny God’s creative design is an act of rebellion, a rejection of the finitude of our created humanness. Further, it misunderstands the nature of Christ’s redemptive work, as if the cross erases our gender and cancels gender’s inherent responsibilities. In the end, none of these arguments can overturn the grace-filled and providential nature of God’s creative purposes, which is upheld and affirmed from Genesis to Revelation.

We also must recognize that, were we to ignore gender in defining sexual boundaries, it would be extremely difficult to justify monogamy and other basic, biblical ideals.  If we disregard the canonical imperative by affirming any form of homosexual practice, on what basis could we impose other mandates that scripture affords to us?  Why impose a one-partner limit upon someone who has no desire to marry (or to have an exclusive relationship), or upon an individual who claims to have a bisexual orientation?  Indeed, how can we impose marriage at all?  After all, many great biblical figures had multiple wives and extramarital partners, including David, a man after God’s own heart.

These are certainly not ridiculous questions, nor are they purely theoretical.  Gagnon explains that some homosexuals and scholars have already rejected monogamy as a model for homosexual relationships, because that standard is “stifling” and should not be imposed upon such individuals.[48]   Thus, our Western culture, which thinks in terms of rights, self-determination, and which glories in sexual fulfillment, has largely drawn sexual our boundaries today.  As we have seen, this leads nowhere but to compounding disregard for scripture, disdain for our created, human finitude, the relegation of sex to the personal realm, and to the rejection of the cruciform and self-denying aspect of discipleship and marriage.

The Lutheran Heritage

            James Nestingen addresses the central issues of the homosexual debate from the perspective of the Reformation.  The Reformers, he says, who criticized many of the Catholic sexuality standards and doctrines, accepted the church’s stance against homosexual activity without a word and would be shocked that the issue is up for debate today.  Nestingen’s work is helpful in that he reminds the church of its Reformation ideals.  The church exists, as a gathering of sinners, to “assure those caught up under the powers of the world as we know it... of the triune God’s love in restoring the creation.”  This proclamation is directed to sinners, “sexual or otherwise,” who stand in need of God’s grace, which is able to restore creation.  This is a free, unearned, and undeserved gift which comes directly from God.[49]

While this gospel comes from God, it comes through humans, who must understand that such a proclamation rests upon several key realities. First, we must properly distinguishes between law and gospel. Both the gospel, as described above, and the law are imperative.  The law restrains sin and reveals the need for justice in families and societies.  It also accuses sinners, exposing the guilt and shame that result from ungodly activities, relationships, and attitudes. Even though an individual cannot achieve righteousness through sexual discipline (even celibacy), it is imperative for the individual and community that sexual activity is “restrained by law.”  Sex is an area in life in which “sin expresses its power and so demands regulation for everyone concerned.”  This does not mean that sex is evil, since God uses the marital sexual union as a means of blessing the world.  It means that sexuality has both benefits and limits.[50]

Additionally, the Two Kingdoms doctrine is another key reality, helpful to us in discerning the Reformation’s legacy in matters of sexuality.  One of these Kingdoms comes through the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ, extending “from the present into the future.”  The other is a collection of “cultural assumptions, relationships, institutions, systems and structures of this life,” the earthly realm through which God provides for the entire world.  Christians are freed by the first kingdom to vocations in the second, through which they serve the just causes of God in the world.  In this second kingdom especially, rules and laws become necessary means of God’s care and providence.[51]

In light of these Lutheran ideals, Nestingen notes that both scripture and church tradition “insist that God gave sexuality for marriage” and prohibit “mutual genital activity outside of marriage.”  However, he declares, we all must remember the pervading nature of sin in sexual matters and affirm that the forgiveness of sins has priority in the church.  This is not an us/them, righteous/unrighteous issue, he says, because all stand in need of God’s merciful pardon.  Yet, despite the fact that the gospel has the “last word,” Nestingen continues, the law must have “a word” in shaping our lives and relationships.  Sexual relationships are indeed a public matter, through which God works for good, but they can also be destructive.  Thus, none can claim an entitlement to act upon their desires for mutual genital activity, nor does one’s desire provide a “positive basis of personal identity that entitles a person to special recognition by the community.”  Since sexual desire can be used for good or ill, it must be restrained by the law for the sake of the whole community.[52]

We also must recognize the cultural milieu in which this debate is taking place.  Says Nestingen, the Reformers cleared a place for the individual during the highly communal sixteenth century, which initiated a trajectory toward individualism that was bolstered by America’s ‘Founding Fathers.’  This increasing level of autonomy has extended to the sexual realm, especially since the Roe v. Wade decision, so that contemporary Western thought takes for granted that sexual matters are private and protected from public regulation.  This notion has been quietly adopted by the mainline church, which is now expected to willingly bless and ordain practicing homosexuals for whom sexuality is both a genetic matter and one of private choice.[53]

But, according to Nestingen, both Lutheran and civic realities contradict such thinking.  Lutherans believe that no sphere of life, including sexuality, is a “law unto itself” and therefore free from restrictions and limitations.  Further, and quite ironically, secular society recognizes the need to protect the community against unlawful or “unwelcome sexual advances,” proving that society feels obligated to care for its members by keeping sexual activity within specific parameters.  Sex can never be a private matter of personal choice, which means that “sexual autonomy” is impossible.  And what is true in society is true all the more in the Christian Church, where the “language of rights and the language of love are mutually exclusive—rights are established to preserve entitlements; love brings people together in mutual consideration.”[54]

This Christian understanding of relationships is refreshingly unique, because it champions a new and “different kind of freedom.”  This is not the American notion of freedom, with its value of choice and liberty, but rather a freedom “from choice, freedom to enter irretrievably into the defining relationships of everyday life in service to the neighbor.”  Each of these relationships, Nestingen says, involves a cross, a dying with Christ that occasionally savors in the promise of resurrection.  There is no self-entitlement and autonomy under the cross, only the freedom to lose one’s life for the sake of Christ.[55] 

Nestingen reiterates the central theme of our Reformed Heritage—justification of the ungodly.  The righteousness that comes to us comes from God, Lutherans say, and not from our aspirations, labors, efforts, and understanding.  Yet, the serpent still seeks to coax us into finding our own way and to reach our potential on personal merit, apart from the grace of our Creator and Redeemer.  Human creatures endlessly hunger for self-justifying schemes which look for “significance or value of one’s self in personal terms.”  But as we have seen, this is itself sin at work; for all attempts to “establish an identity beyond God’s judgment... is idolatry,” an attempt to justify oneself through religious or irreligious works.  This underscores the mission of the church, in which it proclaims the means of God’s justification, declaring “Holy Absolution” to self-justifying sinners.  As our mission plays out, the gospel has the final word, but the law also has a word in revealing and restraining sin in our marriages and relationships.[56] 

Conclusion

            Though the Christian canon is concerned primarily with proclaiming Christ as the source of life and salvation, it also provides practical insight and guidance for us as we minister to all of God’s people.  Scripture demonstrates clearly that marriage, as a lifelong union between a man and woman, is mysteriously imbedded in God’s creation and proves to be the foundation of the human community.  Through this union, God populates the earth, provides (ideally) a safe and effective place to raise offspring, affirms and restrains sexual passion, and teaches us about God’s own relationship to his people.  This does not mean that only married couples can be used in these and other significant ways by God, but only that marriage is specifically created to serve the Kingdom of God through these ends.  Furthermore, through marriage God points us to the marvelous wedding banquet that is to come, in which all marital unions find their true fulfillment and meaning. 

            Until that glorious ending to this earthly saga, we live in a time of tension, longing for wholeness as we live, serve, and suffer beneath the cross of Christ.  Discipleship in such an age means embracing God’s promises and resisting sin and evil, all the while following our Savior’s example of self-sacrifice and devotion to God’s purposes.  As we do so, we may proudly look back to the way in which God has designed his good creation, holding firmly to the Genesis 1 and 2 ideals in shaping our marital and sexual relationships.  Homosexuals and heterosexuals alike are encouraged to affirm the purpose of God in bestowing the blessing of marriage and sexuality upon humanity, fully respecting the boundaries that God has chosen to draw. 

            Thus, the bridge is complete, so that Genesis 1 and 2 are forever united with the whole canon and inseparably linked with society today.  We dare not ignore the precise nature of God’s creative intentions, nor should we feel hesitant to draw from the model set forth in the primal narrative while dealing with sexual matters.  God’s people, who live on this side of the Fall, can look back with praise and thanks for the way that God made humankind amidst the trees of Eden—male and female, naked and unashamed.   Moreover, we praise God all the more because God has come to redeem His good creation.  For God has sent His Son, who himself hung upon a tree, naked and bearing our shame, so that we could once again experience the joy of standing before God, joyfully exposed and shameless in our full humanity.