Does Jesus support gay marriage?

Without doubt, the issue of gay marriage is one of the hottest topics around at this particular point in time.  As a Christian, it’s something I often get asked about, and sometimes lambasted about.  From one perspective, perhaps, this is all understandable.  For some, the progress towards what these days is often called 'marriage equality' represents a great triumph of reason over religion, and it is a great testament to the increasing irrelevance of ‘the church’.

Does Jesus support gay marriage?
Source: http://www.smh.com.au/world/gay-couples-win-landmark-case-20130627-2p04f.html

The issues involved in the debate are highly personal, and very sensitive.  For members of the GLBT community who would like to be married, it may well be personally painful, as well.  And undoubtedly, some people consider any Christian opposition to gay marriage as simply one expression of a much more general hostility towards gays.  For example, a gay couple once told me a story of how they were physically assaulted by a group of young men late one night in Sydney’s inner west.  I was appalled by their story.  And yet it’s possible that some people would consider Christian opposition to gay marriage in exactly the same basket - it’s just less physically intimidating and more institutional!

Without playing for extra sympathy, but simply to state the fact, if and when people do make put these responses into the same category, it puts Christians in a very difficult position.  In fact, it puts us into what is virtually an impossible position.  We seem to have gotten to the point where we have excluded even the possibility of Christians having a gentle, humble, and loving disposition towards gays, at the same time that they argue for a reasoned opposition to gay marriage.

Recently, however, I was struck by a photo of a man at a rally in support of gay marriage.  The rally took place in America, and was in response to the US Supreme Court striking down the Defence of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defines marriage as between a man and a woman, as well as a Californian state law prohibiting gay marriage.  The man was dressed as Jesus, and held a placard which read, ‘Marry who you love.’

On one hand, of course, such a statement being associated with Jesus probably has a certain plausibility to it, doesn’t it?  After all, Jesus was renowned for preaching a gospel of love.  What's more, he himself regularly, and scandalously, associated with prostitutes and tax collectors.  Surely, the church must be out of step with its master, mustn’t it?  Surely, Jesus would tell us to marry who we love, wouldn’t he?

But, in fact, no he wouldn’t.  And he didn’t.

In Matthew 19:3, some Pharisees come to Jesus with a question about the legality of a man divorcing his wife for any reason.[1]  Jesus answered,

“Haven’t you read that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’?  So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”  (Matthew 19:4-6)

In answer to their question, Jesus goes back to the creation account of Genesis 2, showing that marriage from the beginning, in God’s good design, is both heterosexual and lifelong.

The Pharisees come back to Jesus in Matthew 19:7 asking that if this was what God intended for marriage, why did Moses give a command concerning divorce.  Jesus answered,

“Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery.”  (Matthew 19:8-9)

In other words, the law about divorce does not overturn God’s plan in creation, from the beginning.  It was simply a concession, given because of the hardness of people’s hearts.  Even in such a situation, however, remarriage could not be assumed simply as a right.  In fact, but for a situation of marital unfaithfulness, remarriage constitutes adultery.  Unexpectedly, then, the category of marriages that Jesus is opposed to is far greater than gay marriage only.

In Matthew 19:10 we hear the response of Jesus’ disciples:

“If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.”

This is a great demonstration to us that the teaching of Jesus is not just foreign to our own day.  I think we sometimes imagine to ourselves that ‘back then’, people were naïve and gullible, and liable to be swayed by just about anything, but that in our day we are mature and enlightened, and we’ve ‘grown out of’ older positions on topics like marriage.  Such a view simply doesn’t line up with the evidence.  Jesus’ teaching was as challenging for his disciples then as it is for us today!

Yet still Jesus has more uncomfortable things to say:

Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.” (Matthew 19:11-12)

Jesus doesn’t dispute the disciples’ conclusions that a person would be better not to marry, given the tight restrictions he has just placed on marriage and remarriage.  He accepts them completely!.  And then he identifies three examples of those who fit the category of unmarried:

1. those who are born that way
2. those who were made that way by men
3. those who have renounced marriage voluntarily, because of an understanding of the greater realities of the kingdom of heaven

With respect to marriage, then, Jesus considers that there are only two groups of people: those who are in lifelong, heterosexual marriage, as God intended it from the beginning, or those who are unmarried, as he was, which could come about as a result of a number of causes.  One of these – those who are born as eunuchs – is particularly relevant for those who point to homosexual orientation as something that a person is born with, and therefore something that constitutes an illegitimate basis upon which to refuse marriage to someone. 

However, for Jesus, the fact that a person was born into this or that circumstance does not change the Bible’s basic teaching on marriage, which is that from the beginning God intended us to be either in lifelong, heterosexual marriage, or singleness.

We cannot understate how confronting such teaching is, not just for modern ears, but as we have seen, even for ancient ears as well.  However, what is important to recognise in all this, is that Christian ethics is always properly done ‘under authority’ - the authority of Biblical teaching.  This is because of the Christian conviction that the Bible is God’s powerful and authoritative Word.  Christian opposition to marriage is not, in the end, based on arguments from experience.  Or on arguments that use reason.  Or on arguments based on tradition.  Broadly speaking, these are the three main 'families' of argument that could be mounted as an alternative to arguments from Scripture.  But, no, Christian ethics must in the end be deduced from arguments based on Scripture.

Without doubt, Christians must learn to demonstrate a gentle, humble, and loving disposition towards gays - although this is, in fact, no less and no more than what we owe to everyone.  Yet it an area of enormous growth for many Christians that we express in attitude and action that homosexuality is no worse than any other category of sin.  After all, does not Paul include it right alongside disobedience to parents and gossip (e.g., Romans 1:26-32)?  Yet we have often not acted as though this were the case.

In the end, however, Christians are not free simply to ‘think up’ our own ethical answers, much less to ‘follow the leader’, which in this case may well be the shift in society’s answers on marriage.  It will not find us favour with the world, for almost by definition, the world does not accept the powerful and authoritative Word of God.  But this is the authority under which Christians must continue to find answers on how to live.

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[1] I owe a great debt for the whole shape of this argument to a chapter in an excellent book called Battles Christians Face, by Vaughan Roberts.