The fact that the New Testament continues the disapproval of same-gender sexual behavior makes it clear that the Mosaic prohibition against it is not merely a matter of ritual purity.
Sexual arousal is highly addictive and capable of being channeled in many destructive ways. Because of the close connection of sexual discipline to the preservation of healthy family and social relationships, cultures that are historical “survivors”—like the cultures represented by the major religious traditions—have always maintained strict guidelines in the area of sexual behavior, guidelines held so strongly as to be unconsciously assumed by nearly everyone.
The Greek philosopher Plato noted the social foundation for powerful, unconscious aversion toward certain kinds of sexual behavior.1 When societies lose their unconscious revulsion at destructive sexual behavior, they degenerate, lose their coherence, and collapse.
In ancient Israel, maintenance of high standards of sexual discipline was essential to the survival of the nation. Sexual self-discipline gave them a great advantage in their conflict with neighbors who indulged in all kinds of sexual license. The entire Mosaic law, including the ritual elements of its holiness code,2 powerfully reinforced Israel’s sense of being set apart as God’s chosen people. Its strict regulations against destructive sexual behaviors clearly represented God’s desire to instill a deep revulsion toward them. Although the code was not always effective in maintaining the purity of the people as a whole, those who were faithful to it were shielded from the dissipation and degradation that occurred among those who abandoned it. Those faithful to the holiness code represented the “heart” of the nation, carrying forward the hope of national redemption.
Anyone familiar with the holiness code realizes that it contained ritual elements that were no longer in effect after the coming of Jesus Christ and His church. Many things that weren’t in themselves immoral were ritually “unclean,” including childbirth, heterosexual intercourse, menstruation, and seminal emission. Purification from things unclean in merely a ritual sense could be achieved easily through sacrifice and ablution (ritual washing). However, the holiness code was not ambiguous when distinguishing between ritual and moral violations. Unlike things that were only “unclean” in a ritual sense, the law called homosexual behavior toebah.
“You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination [toebah]” (Leviticus 18:22 nasb).
Robert A. J. Gagnon notes:
Homosexual intercourse is singled out among other sexual acts in Leviticus 18 and 20 as a form of sexual misconduct particularly worthy of the designation toebah. It is difficult to see how one can speak of this or other acts in Leviticus 18 and 20 as ‘ceremonially unclean rather than inherently evil’ for the author or even for ourselves (The Bible and Homosexual Practice, p. 118).
Throughout the Old Testament, words derived from toebah refer to serious violations of moral law, including child sacrifice (Deuteronomy 12:31), sexual sin (Leviticus 18:22 ),3 idolatry (Deuteronomy 7:25-27 ), necromancy and wizardry (Deuteronomy 18:10-12), prayer of the disobedient (Proverbs 28:9), sacrifices offered by pagans (Isaiah 1:13), cheating with false weights and measures (Deuteronomy 25:13-15), lying and false witness (Proverbs 6:16-19), arrogance and abuse of power (Proverbs 16:5, 12), subversion of justice (Proverbs 17:15 ), and other serious sinful acts that dishonor God and are unworthy of anyone claiming to be obedient to Him.4
The New Testament confirms the cross-cultural validity of the moral elements of the Old Testament law.
Paul himself, the very apostle who proclaimed salvation in Christ “apart from the law,” clearly believed that there was considerable continuity in the divine will across the two covenants in matters of sexual ethics. That Paul consciously formulated his opposition to same-sex intercourse in the light of Levitical prohibitions is evident from the following. Paul’s stance against incest in 1 Corinthians 5 echoes the incest laws in Leviticus 18:6-18 (cf. the description “father’s wife” in 1 Corinthians 5:1 with Leviticus 18:7-8 LXX). His reference to same-sex intercourse, along with other vices as “worthy of death” in Romans 1:32 may have had in view the penalty of death prescribed for homosexual intercourse in Leviticus 20:13. His use of the word aschemosyne (“indecency, indecent exposure”) in Romans 1:27 coincides with its usage twenty-four times in Leviticus 18:6-19; 20:11, 17-21 (LXX) to describe various illicit sexual acts. The word akatharsia (“uncleanness, impurity”) in Romans 1:24 appears also in Leviticus 18:19; 20:21, 25 (LXX). Finally, the very term that Paul employed for men who take other males to bed, arsenokoites (1 Corinthians 6:9), is a compound formed from the words in Leviticus 18:22; 20:13 (LXX) for “male” and “lying” (Gagnon, 121-22).
The homosexual behavior clearly condemned as toebah in the Old Testament and condemned again in the New Testament by reference to the moral authority of Old Testament law cannot be characterized as a matter of mere ceremonial or religious “uncleanness.” Homosexual behavior is a clear violation of basic moral principle, not forms of merely ceremonial “uncleanness” that applied only to Israel.
1. A passage from Plato’s Laws (written in Greece in the early 4th century BC) illustrates the essential role these strictly reinforced guidelines play in restraining destructive human behavior:
Athenian stranger: Even at present . . . most men, however lawless they are, are effectively and strictly precluded from sexual commerce with [some] beautiful persons,—and that not against their will, but with their own most willing consent.
Megillus of Sparta: On what occasions do you mean?
Athenian stranger: Whenever any man has a brother or sister who is beautiful. So too in the case of a son or daughter, the same unwritten law is most effective in guarding men from sleeping with them, either openly or secretly, or wishing to have any connexion with them,—nay, most men never so much as feel any desire for such connexion.
Megillus of Sparta: That is true.
Athenian stranger: Is it not, then, by a brief sentence that all such pleasures are quenched?
Megillus: What sentence do you mean?
Athenian stranger: The sentence that these acts are by no means holy, but hated of God and most shamefully shameful. And does not the reason lie in this, that nobody speaks of them otherwise, but every one of us, from the day of his birth, hears this opinion expressed always and everywhere, not only in comic speech, but often also in serious tragedy…. (Plato’s Laws, 838A-C; [R. G. Bury, LCL]) Back To Article
2. Holiness Code: “Cultic laws concerning the tabernacle, sacrifices, priests, ritual purity, festivals, and ethical and ritual holiness (especially in sexual and social matters; cf. Lev. 18-26, the so-called Holiness Code) are scattered throughout Genesis through Numbers, Leviticus consisting almost entirely of this kind of material” (Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology, p. 468). Back To Article
3. “The word toebah is restricted in Leviticus to forms of sexual immorality that can be characterized in three ways: (1) a sexual act regarded by Yahweh as utterly detestable and abhorrent; (2) a sexual act which rendered the individual participants liable to the death penalty or being ‘cut off’ from God’s people; (3) a sexual act which, if left unpunished by the nation, put the entire nation at risk of God’s consuming wrath, God’s departure from the midst of the people, and expulsion of the people from the land of Canaan (18:22, 26-30; 20:13 ). Homosexual intercourse is singled out among other abominable sexual acts in Leviticus 18 and 20 as a form of sexual misconduct particularly worthy of the designation toebah” (The Bible and Homosexual Practice, by Robert A. J. Gagnon, pp. 117-18). Back To Article
4. “The word (toebah) is generally applied to forms of behavior whose abhorrent quality is readily transparent to contemporary believers. Worshiping other gods, child sacrifice, incest, bestiality, adultery, theft, oppressing the poor, false testimony in court against another person and deceit are not oddities of a superstitious, pre-Enlightenment people whose sole function was to keep the people of God separate from the surrounding culture. It is contextually clear that what is generally meant by toebah is something that ‘Yahweh hates’ (Deuteronomy 12:31; Proverbs 6:16 ). The passage of time produces changing conceptions of what is detestable to God (as well as changing civil penalties) but, in this case, what is striking is the high degree of continuity between the values of Israelite culture and post-Enlightenment culture” (The Bible and Homosexual Practice, by Robert A. J. Gagnon, p. 120). Back To Article