Grace Baptist Assembly 2013

Grace Assembly – The Gospel and the Homosexual

I believe I was invited to speak on this subject because I edited the book, ‘Homosexuality: Christian Truth and Love’.[i] The work that went into that is really my only qualification for doing so. It is not that I have never come across homosexuality in my ministry, I have; but I do not have any real experience of counselling and trying to help anyone struggling with a homosexual orientation and homosexual temptation. If there is time at the end I have some comments to add on useful books that are available.

I have given my address the title ‘The Gospel and the Homosexual’ because on the one hand we are gospel people. We have received the gospel and it has changed our lives and we are to live it out. On the other hand the gospel has to be made known to people; to everyone, for all are sinners and all need it. It is one thing to consider and discuss homosexuality in an abstract, arm’s length sort of way. It is quite another to think about homosexual people and how we react to them and bring the gospel to them.

1  Three Introductory Propositions

These are firstly, homosexual acts are sinful in the eyes of God and deserve his judgement. Secondly, the gospel offers mercy and forgiveness by God for everyone who repents and believes in Jesus Christ no matter how wicked their behaviour has been. Thirdly, the gospel is not a psychotherapy promising instantaneous or easy solutions to all our problems.

So: homosexual acts are sinful in the eyes of God and deserve his judgement, just as the same is true of fornication and adultery. Whatever else needs to be said – and I think there is much else to say – I believe this needs to be our starting point. I do not think it is possible to believe that the Bible is the word of God without coming to this conclusion. It is true that the Bible does not have a great deal to say on the subject. There are only eight places in the whole of Scripture that refer to homosexual behaviour, and only one of these explicitly refers to lesbianism, but these references are clear enough.

In unpacking this proposition I start with pointing out that the main focus of the Bible is on homosexual acts. Leviticus 18:22 says, ‘You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination’. One of our problems today is that people begin with a condition: some people, it is said, are born, or develop as, homosexual people, so it is natural for them to express what they are. We shall have to consider this further, but we must note for the moment that there are sexual acts that are forbidden by God. This is crucial for our teaching and our obedience.

Secondly, the acts we are considering are marked out as especially serious. Leviticus 18 groups three sins together. Child sacrifice, which profanes the name of God; male homosexual acts, which are an abomination, and bestiality which is perversion. Sometimes you hear of people who ridicule the Leviticus prohibition by comparing it to the law in the next chapter which says, ‘You shall not sow your field with two sorts of seed’. However, without attempting any further explanation it is quite clear that the two laws cannot be compared in that way. Homosexual acts are marked out as wicked, and this is also clear from the New Testament. For example, 1 Timothy 1:8-10 mentions several of the ten commandments, showing the most serious ways in which these are broken and uses this phrase: ‘men who practice homosexuality’.

Thirdly, same-sex intercourse is against the created order and the purpose of God in creating male and female. Romans 1 speaks of both women and men exchanging the natural relations for those that are contrary to nature. Nothing could be more plain and obvious than that. Once, however, people come to believe that the body is not a creation by God but has simply evolved over millennia then the body belongs to an individual to do with it whatever brings pleasure. For the Christian the body is for the Lord and is a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6).

Fourthly, sinful behaviour deserves the judgement of God, and that judgement is final and eternal. This is true for all sins, but we face a situation in which the majority view is that, far from homosexual acts being wrong, they are natural and right for some people. What is sinful, in the eyes of many, is being critical and judgmental of people who are only living according to what they are. Over against this common attitude that we find today, we have to repeat the warning of Paul in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, with its wide range of sins: ‘Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.’

However, the fact that people are excluding themselves from the kingdom of heaven by their sins should be a matter of deep concern for us. What can we do to rescue them from such a plight? This brings us to our second proposition: the gospel offers mercy and forgiveness by God for everyone who repents and believes in Jesus Christ, no matter how wicked their behaviour has been. We all subscribe to this, but we do not always live or act or speak in the light of its truth. There are several dangers which arise particularly with regard to sexual sins, and especially homosexual sins.

Many evangelical Christians are rightly disgusted by such sins and this disgust becomes extended to those who commit them. Understandable though this is, there are real dangers that we face in our attitudes. It needs to be clearly evident that while upholding the standards of God’s Word we also exhibit compassion and a loving desire for the forgiveness and spiritual renewal of unconverted people whoever they are and whatever they may have done. This is the more important in this case, because homosexual people in the past, and in the present, have often experienced hatred and sometimes violence. I don’t like the word ‘homophobia’, or the way it is bandied about, but it does express an ugly reality. Moreover, many gay people think that Christian teaching and attitudes influence and reinforce the homophobia that exists in society, and unfortunately there is almost certainly some truth in that.

Pastors and preachers need to set an example in this respect. I guess not many preach on homosexuality very often, more likely it is referred to in passing. How do we speak about it? Is it simply denunciation, perhaps with a look of horror on our faces? The fact is that in any congregation of above seventy people it is probable that there will be someone who has at least been troubled by homosexual feelings. If, for example, you knew that in the congregation there was a mother whose heart was torn because one of her own children was dabbling with a same-sex relationship how would you refer to homosexuality? I mention this simply because I myself have been in that position.

Let me just widen this out a little. We must be more realistic in our preaching. Unconverted sinners, and those troubled by sinful feelings and desires, are not just out in the community somewhere, they may be sitting there listening to those who open the Word. After I had written these words I came across this quotation in a book by Rosaria Butterfield[ii] that I shall refer to again later: ‘That morning… I emerged from the bed of my lesbian lover and an hour later was sitting in a pew at the Syracuse Reformed Presbyterian church. I share this detail with you not to be lurid but merely to make the point that you never know the terrain someone else has walked to come and worship the Lord.’ It is possible for us to pray for the unconverted to come in and then preach in such a way that they are never likely to come again.

Even if such people are not in our congregation, attitudes are formed or changed, reinforced or modified, by what the hearers that are there take in. Moreover, Christians themselves are not immune to all the different sorts of temptations that there are and often have their own secret struggles. This does not mean we are to downplay the seriousness of sin; rather preachers are to show carefully just what sin is, why it is so serious and how much we all need the forgiving mercies of a gracious Saviour. God in Christ calls all sinners to repentance and assures the worst of complete pardon and a new beginning. Moreover, preachers must preach and Christians live as those who are themselves undeserving debtors to divine grace – and as those who take heed, lest thinking we stand, we may yet fall – as indeed far too many have.

I am going to move on now to the third proposition, because these are by way of introducing the subject: the gospel is not a psychotherapy promising instantaneous or easy solutions to all our problems. I say this because when as evangelical Christians we think of homosexuality, we too frequently seem to believe that our understanding of what the gospel promises the homosexual must include a change of sexual orientation. The gospel, however, says nothing whatever about such a change. In certain respects the gospel calls people to a harder life than before. No longer can you simply give in to temptation, you have to resist, and if you have been in the habit of giving in and just doing it – as the phrase goes – then it will be hard. There will be grace given to resist; but receiving grace to do hard things is not the same as doing easy things.

We expect unmarried heterosexuals to keep themselves from sexual intercourse, but we don’t always realise what a problem this can be for them. I’m going to quote from a little booklet[iii] written by a Christian woman whom I knew when we were both in our twenties, and I got married and she didn’t. ‘Celibacy was so difficult that the only way I could cope with it was through prayer and fasting. I learnt that if I thought in psychological terms and said, “Poor me, I am repressed and that is bad for me,” the battle was lost. If I called sinful desires “sin” and asked God’s forgiveness and help, the victory was won.

‘For many single people, sex can become an over-important issue because of the fact that they do have to live a celibate life 365 days a year, year in, year out. Where food is concerned people who have regular meals and a full pantry usually do not think excessively about eating. Starving people do. My feeling in the church was that married Christians seemed to think single people had no sexual feelings, whereas celibacy can make them a great problem for many, especially younger people…. It was hard to be preached at by a happily married man, “You must be content, you mustn’t grumble,” and “Sex is only for married people.” However, I sought to accept the preaching of God’s Word to me and struggled to ignore the circumstances of the messenger.’

Sadly, this lady was to have a nervous breakdown, but later God wonderfully broke into her heart in an exceptional manner and gave her peace. It was years later that she wrote about her experience. Every unmarried person may not feel exactly as she did, but probably more do than we realise. Similarly, it is often not at all easy for someone with homosexual desires to live a celibate life, especially if they have already begun sexual activity. What I am saying is just this: conversion is not a magic bullet that makes everything easy – it may make things harder. Understanding this we must realise the need, not to downplay the standards of God’s Word, but for real insight and compassionate help.

Having said all this it is vital to remember that all who repent of their sins and put their trust in Jesus Christ, whoever they are, however they feel and whatever they’ve done, all have peace with God and are justified in his sight. The gospel is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes. It brings new life, it joins to Jesus Christ, it results in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Every believer has access to God in prayer; every believer whether single or married has a life of service for Christ ahead which can be fruitful and fulfilling. This is gospel truth to be made known to everyone, including homosexuals. However, generally speaking, converted homosexuals are likely to need special understanding and compassionate support by their brothers and sisters.

2  Homosexuality in the UK today

We now turn to focus on homosexuality as we see it today in our country. How many homosexuals are there in the United Kingdom? The evidence is confusing. If you look at Wikipedia[iv] you will find two figures cited in January of this year. The first is 5%, taken from an article in the British Journal of Psychiatric Research; though the article in question is actually dated 2004. The second is 6%, quoting a Whitehall figure. This is taken from an article in The Observer from 2005. Given that there are some 63 million people in the UK this would mean around 3.6 million homosexual people.

However, Peter Saunders of the Christian Medical Fellowship, in a review of a book by Peter Tatchell says: ‘The best evidence suggests that only a very small percentage of men (1-2%) and women (0.5-1.5%) experience same sex attraction throughout their life-course. But bisexuality appears to be more prevalent than exclusive homosexuality.’ This comes in an article in the CMF magazine Triple Helix, dated Spring 2012.[v] The Affinity statement on Homosexuality[vi], updated in February this year states: ‘A recent survey carried out by the Office for National Statistics found that 1% of the British population professed to be homosexual or lesbian, while 94.8 indicated that they were heterosexual and 0.5% bisexual.[vii] However, an even more telling statistic is a finding that 90.3% of men and 95.8% of women who profess to have a same-sex orientation at some time also had heterosexual intercourse, whereas 90.1% of heterosexual men and 92.7% of heterosexual women have only ever had sex with an opposite partner.’[viii] These last figures date from 1994, so there may have been some alteration since that time.

It might be of interest to mention that the number of civil partnerships in England and Wales, as revealed in the 2011 census, is 105,000. If you take the figure of 3.6 million, homosexual and bisexual, that would mean that less than 6% of such people were in a civil partnership. On the Saunders figures it is still less than 14%. In general it seems that the homosexual community is not greatly concerned with committed relationships, though we must not overlook the fact that some are. The gay marriage take-up, if that ever comes about, is likely to be even less.

What are the causes of homosexuality? There is no single or simple answer to this question. The authors of ‘Unwanted Same-Sex Attraction’[ix] write: ‘All variations in the patterning of human sexual desire are likely to result from a developmental interaction between biological (including genetic) factors, environmental factors and the influence of personal human agency. This includes whether one is attracted to those of the same sex, opposite sex or both sexes. As with most complex human behaviours, our understanding of the relative contributions of these different factors is poor. Furthermore, their respective contributions will vary between individuals. We still have a great deal to learn about how sexual behaviours vary across cultures, how they fluctuate through childhood and adolescence and the influences of cultural and social factors on early sexual development.’

Some homosexuals as they grow up are only conscious of an attraction to those of the same sex. Alex Tylee in her book ‘Walking with Gay Friends’[x] records the experience of a woman called Ruth: ‘I was only about three when I first remember being aware that I was attracted to other girls. So it was hard to remember how I felt, because I suppose it just felt quite normal and natural because it’s what I grew up with. It wasn’t until I started to realize that that wasn’t the ordinary way of things that it probably started to cause me problems… I suppose I realized I was different when I was at secondary school; around thirteen or fourteen, when people are starting to get boyfriends and things like that. I think that was probably when I thought that this wasn’t a phase that I was going through or a normal stage in my development, but that in actual fact, I seemed to be quite different from other people and that seemed to be a lasting thing.’

It is not difficult to feel a sense of compassion when you read a testimony like that. Nor is it difficult to understand that someone like that will only feel really comfortable in the company of others like herself. ‘Birds of a feather, flock together’; that’s where they feel understood, accepted and at home. In the past those with feelings of same-sex attraction struggled largely on their own and perhaps many often did their best to fit in to the world as it was, but now gay pride has brought homosexuality out into the open with gay bars, pubs and clubs. Homosexual people can find a sense of identity and acceptance with others like themselves. And in a society which takes for granted that if you are in what is called ‘a relationship’ then that will include sex whether you are married or not, homosexuals inevitably follow suit.

We must remember, too, that people have more than the desire for acceptance and identity, or even for sex considered on its own. The desire for love, for someone special, for someone to whom we can be united is a powerful desire in most of us. It is true that sexual promiscuity has been a feature of the history of humans since the fall; and this is also a major feature of the gay scene. Nevertheless, even if relationships between homosexual people may be less stable than amongst heterosexuals, it is perfectly understandable if a homosexual seeks someone whom he or she can love and cherish, someone, inevitably, of the same sex. 

It is likely that in many cases influences during childhood play a significant part in sexual development, just as they do in many others areas of life. Andrew Comiskey[xi] has written: ‘Children require a two-party system – a mother and a father. A child needs both masculine and feminine love. That is especially clear in his or her acquisition of a healthy gender identity. A child needs to be awakened to the good of their own gender by the same-sex parent, and granted a clear, trustworthy vision of the opposite gender through the opposite-sex parent. Through two cooperative parents who hold each other accountable to raise the one they created, children become secure and empowered in love. They navigate well the journey to sexual and relational wholeness.’

The problem is, however, that we are all sinful people in a fallen world. Christians, as well as others, can struggle with parenting because of circumstances and their own inadequacies. Indeed, the parents’ own upbringing and background will themselves affect how they relate to their children; the nurture of children is not always easy for any of us. In our day, sadly, many children are brought up in homes that are broken in various ways. However, while parents in most cases obviously have the greatest influence on the development of children, other relatives, neighbours, friends and school can also have considerable influence either for good or ill. We cannot simply hold parents responsible for all that their children turn out to be.

While early childhood development is very important for everyone in many ways, it is also true that children react differently due to their different psychological make up. For example, consider the case of children losing a parent while very young. One child might react by developing a hardened and self-contained attitude to life and people, another might continue to feel a sense of loss and always search for someone who can compensate for it. I speak not only from what I have read, but also as someone who has tried to understand my own experience and that of people whom I know, including those whom it has been my responsibility to shepherd.

There is another factor about homosexuality that I think should be mentioned. The article in the British Journal of Psychiatric Research which I referred to earlier was entitled: ‘Rates and predictors of mental illness in gay men, lesbians and bisexual men and women’. This was its conclusion: ‘Gay, lesbian and bisexual men and women have high levels of mental disorder, possibly linked with discrimination.’ It would, I think, be very surprising if discrimination had nothing to do with these high levels of disorder. On the other hand if homosexuality can be largely rooted in damaging childhood experience then this is surely likely to be another significant factor.

Can homosexuals change? I was interested to see in a newspaper that the latest partner of the novelist Jeanette Winterson was described by her as ‘a post-heterosexual’. If there can be post-heterosexuals why can’t there be post-homosexuals? However, while there is no doubt that some have experienced change there is no simple, straightforward answer that can be given. The Bible doesn’t call everyone to be married; it does call everyone who is unmarried to live a life of celibacy and purity. This is just as much the case for heterosexuals as for homosexuals. If heterosexuals can live celibate lives, as many do in our churches, then homosexual people can do so also.

Nevertheless, where homosexuality is the result of various childhood influences it is certainly possible that new, positive gospel influences may lead to considerable change; we dare not under-estimate what the Holy Spirit may do. But we cannot necessarily expect the change to be complete or permanent. If homosexuality is a psychopathology – and I do not use this shorthand word pejoratively – then it is likely that it will be subject to the same sort of outcomes as other psychopathologies have when counselling takes place. It is possible there will be relapses, at least in feelings, probably partial but perhaps almost back to square one. If, for example, a child has lived through war and bombing – and that has been the experience of some of us – we would not be surprised if the psychological effects of that were to take a long time to dissipate nor if they were to reappear to some extent at a later date. The fact is that struggling with sexual temptation of some sort or other is the lot of nearly everyone, married or single.

3  The Bible Teaching about Sin

At this point we turn to consider all this in the light of the Bible and especially what it reveals about sin. Most books I have read don’t say a great deal about this, except for David Field in ‘Holiness and Sexuality’.[xii] He has two fairly long chapters entitled ‘Radical Disorientation’ (I) and (II). We might notice the change of language. ‘Sexual disorientation’ has a different connotation to ‘homosexual orientation’, and is surely more accurate. However, we should note that ‘disorientation’ has no necessary moral denotation. The eating disorientation, anorexia, is suicidal in its trajectory and sadly sometimes in its outcome, but we would not say that it was a moral wrong.

Firstly, at the heart of sin is a rejection of the authority and goodness of God. At the very beginning God gave a simple prohibition to Adam; ‘You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.’ The Lord God gave no explanation to Adam. He did not give any reason why he ought not to eat of the tree, he did not explain why eating would result in death, he simply warned him of the consequences of disobedience. If Adam recognised and acknowledged the authority and goodness of God then he would obey. If he disobeyed it would be clear that Adam was disregarding both the authority of God and the penalty that he had been warned about. At its heart that is what sin urges people to do: to disregard God and what he has said, to deny his authority, to doubt his goodness, and to assert one’s own independence and preferences over against his Word.

Secondly, however, we need to look at the role of Eve in the fall into sin. When she looked at the tree she saw that its fruit was good for food and a delight to the eyes. These things were true and there can have been no sin in Eve looking. After all she and Adam must have known which tree the Lord had forbidden and when they saw it in passing by there was no sin in recognising it or its intrinsic goodness as a fruit tree. The only thing that was wrong at that point was the suggestion of the devil that the fruit would make her wise. Eve was deceived by him and took of the fruit but it was only at that point that sin entered. It was not sinful for her to look nor was it sinful for her to be tempted. Jesus himself was tempted in all points like us; temptation is not sin if it is resisted.

We cannot pursue Eve’s story any further or enter into some of the difficulties the narrative presents, but the point is clear – and could be made from other passages in Scripture. Looking and being delighted at what you see is not sinful in and of itself. Not every look at a woman on the part of a man is a lustful look, nor is every look at a man on the part of a woman. The fruit was good for food, it was a delight to the eyes, but it was simply not for Eve or Adam. There is an old children’s chorus which contains the words: ‘Be careful little eyes what you see’, but we must also be careful not to take that too far. We live in a world in which we cannot avoid seeing many things which could become a cause of temptation and sin. The answer is not to walk around with our eyes shut but to garrison our hearts with the truth and purity of grace.

Thirdly, I need to elaborate on what can be called the temporal consequences of sin. Under this heading comes all the sickness that human beings experience and all the suffering that that brings. This includes children born with various genetic disorders and a whole range of disabilities and vulnerability to various diseases and conditions. Over the past few summers it has been my privilege to speak at the annual holiday of the Disabled Christian Fellowship. This has always been a very humbling and yet uplifting experience. My wife and I have seen some fearfully disabled people who trust in the Saviour and join in his praises as best they can. But actually the Fall has disabled us all in non-moral as well as moral ways and most people know that we all have struggles with health and aspects of our personalities.

This can affect sexuality just as it can affect every other area of human life. We have to recognize this and at the pastoral level we have to understand that many more people struggle with various sexual temptations than we would like to think was true. We also have to realise that attempting to give help in this area is fraught with real danger. It needs dependence on the Lord and grace from him, and wise arrangement so that a man does not visit a woman on his own. There is almost certainly a correlation between pastors trying to help people in struggling marriages and pastors falling into sexual sin.

This reminds me that Erroll Hulse has written of pastors: ‘I have noticed that more have fallen into sexual sin than in any other area of life. I would say the casualty rate has been one in twelve.’[xiii] So if the proportion of homosexuals in society is around 2%, the proportion of pastors who fall into sexual sin is four times as great. And homosexuals live now in a society which constantly tells them that gay sex is quite all right, whereas the pastors who fall not only know that extra-marital sex is wrong but have almost certainly publicly preached that it is so. A little humility, not to say humiliation, befits us all.

Fourthly, the fundamental problem is not what we look at, nor does it lie in our natural appetites, it lies in the sin which has now corrupted every one of us. Paul wrote about his own experience of the power and deceitfulness of sin in Romans 7. Sin is such a terrible and deceptive power for evil that it can take even the good commandments of God and use them to cause us to fall.

However, what is so difficult is that sin operates in people who have also to live with the disabilities that sin itself originally caused. Sin and our personalities and frailties are tangled up together. Consider a simple example. On the one hand sin causes some Christians to become legalistic, it causes others to become antinomian; yet it certainly looks as if temperament enters into the mix in both cases. We would not usually expect to find an antinomian Highland believer, I think, or a legalistic English charismatic! In understanding and trying to help people we have to take account not only of sin’s present active power but also the legacy of its consequences.

We should remember, too, that sin still tries to deceive us all. It takes us in; it deceives us about our motives, about our self-judgements, about what is good or bad for ourselves or for others. It deceives the unconverted into thinking that they are safe and can partake of what God has forbidden. It also deceives believers – and preachers – into thinking that angry and arrogant attitudes and words towards others are righteous and appropriate when they may damage individuals and the Christian cause. I was reading Job as I prepared this address; his friends had nothing to say to him except to condemn and call for his repentance.

Fifthly, we must look at what sin has done in our society more closely. To judge by what we hear and read about almost every day now there are two groups of people, heterosexual and homosexual. There is the gay community and the straight community. This, however, is a gross over-simplification and extremely misleading. We know that some adults are sexually attracted to children. The publishing world has recently seen the phenomenon of a series of books selling in their millions which describe heightened sexual experience through the infliction of pain. There is a whole variety of sexual fetishes and compulsive desires. There are people who hate themselves when they give way to some sordid desire and yet cannot resist when the next temptation comes.

I am sorry to have to bring these things into the open, but we cannot examine this subject without taking the bigger picture into consideration. Any pastor who stays for some years in a church and gets to know the people well will find his eyes opened to a sadly murky scene. In churches you will find women who have been abused as children, perhaps by professing Christians, even by real Christians. You may still find people who struggle with sex because it has been drummed into them from an early age that the whole subject is dirty. You will find others, perhaps converted out of a non-Christian background, who are far too influenced by the lax attitudes of the world.

Why do I take time to mention all these unpleasant things? Partly because in our minds, perhaps quite unthinkingly, most of us make a distinction between ordinary heterosexual sex and its temptations, which we understand, and homosexual feelings and temptations which most of us don’t experience and therefore think about in a different way; partly also because we can sometimes think of homosexuals as people like ourselves who simply have unclean hearts and want to explore all the possibilities of sexual experience. There are people like that who are found in the gay scene, but I doubt that is the general truth.

I finish this section with this sentence in the book by Rosaria Butterfield: ‘I believe that the Lord is more grieved by my current sins than by my past life as a lesbian’. How honest and true those words are. Some of us have been believers for many years. How much more serious and God-dishonouring are our sins now than before we were converted. How far, I wonder, do our behaviour and attitudes match up to our knowledge and privileges? Let us learn to judge ourselves, even as we judge the needs of others.

4  Responding in the churches with God’s grace to those who desperately need it

At this point I want to try and be positive and firstly remind you of what Scripture says about the way we are to behave towards unbelievers and speak to them, whoever they are. Colossians 4:5-6 says: ‘Conduct yourselves wisely toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.’ And Paul’s words to Titus (3:1-5): ‘Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarrelling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people.’ Why? ‘For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Saviour appeared, he saved us.’

So in conversation we should speak calmly and honestly, answering questions and responding to any accusations or anger straightforwardly. We may need to acknowledge that Christians have at times got things wrong and spoken harshly or out of ignorance. We must, however, be quite clear about behaviour which is wrong in the eyes of God. As far as possible we should speak of Jesus Christ and his work, also emphasizing that it is from his example and authority that we believe the Old Testament picture.

Secondly, I want to turn briefly to Colossians 3. The chapter begins with an exhortation to seek the things that are above, setting our minds upon them, because we have died with Christ and been raised with him so that our lives are hidden with him in God. Then we are told: ‘Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming.’ The first four items Paul mentions here are all related to sex and sexual behaviour. This is not surprising because immorality, including homosexual behaviour among males, was prevalent in Greco-Roman culture. The point to notice is that these things are not yet dead. They didn’t die when the Colossians died with Christ and were raised with him; they still have to be put to death. In fact they have an extraordinary survival capacity and can suddenly spring to life again even when it seems as if they had been finally dealt with.

After another list of sinful attitudes and actions to be put away Paul turns to the positive: ‘Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.’

Why do we need these qualities, why this bearing with one another and forgiving one another? Because sexual immorality, impurity, passion, and evil desire may appear to be dead, but they don’t lie down. They break out in the lives of fellow believers, even elders and deacons. The church is like a body attacked by all sorts of germs and infections from within and without. The body must seek to restore itself from these things, if possible without any amputations, and it will never be able to do this without compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another. A church which takes this passage seriously is one equipped to help struggling believers, including those with same-sex temptations.

Thirdly, homosexuals surely constitute one of the most difficult groups of people to reach. It is not likely that many will want to visit our churches. If we are going to engage with gay people we need to understand that generally speaking most simply don’t understand our convictions at all. They look upon us at best as people who are holding on to an outdated, inherited attitude which is harmful to them and their friends. To them we are old-fashioned, simplistic, ill-informed and prejudiced and the sooner we get liberated the better for everyone. And, to be frank, we can hardly blame them for this. They are taught the legitimacy and goodness of homosexuality at school, the media promotes it, it is now the received wisdom and the law increasingly enforces it.

Yet we of all people ought to be able to understand and enter into the mindset of gay people. Don’t we often feel marginalised? Don’t we react against the invective of a Richard Dawkins or the ridiculing in the media of anyone who is silly enough to believe in creation? Haven’t some of us, perhaps especially ministers and their wives, worried about the treatment our children sometimes receive in school from other children? How did some of us fare at university if we studied science or even English literature? Aren’t we really glad when we can meet with fellow believers, don’t we enjoy getting away with brothers and sisters in Christ – just as we are doing now? We can surely understand, even when we can see the sin and harm that people are doing to each other.

Fourthly, in the church there needs some to be prepared to engage with homosexuals for they may well be met in evangelism and there may be some already within the general scope of the church. In particular I believe that evangelists and pastors must be able to meet and speak appropriately with gay people. Pastors are primarily shepherds of the flock. They should have a biblical understanding themselves, but should also mould the attitudes of their congregations.

I also add that, if possible, each church needs a woman who is able to counsel other women. My own view is that 1 Timothy 3 and Romans 16:1 justify the role of women deacons – or to translate the word – servants. I also think that deacons were never intended to be people who simply form a committee that meets every month or so to discuss church matters, but rather, as in Acts 6, those who are given a specific servant ministry to perform in the church. As most churches today have more women than men it is surprising how little consideration is given to this.

Fifthly, if any gay people were to show real interest or profess conversion they are likely to need a great deal of wise counsel and support. So let me say something about counselling. David Powlison of the Christian Counselling and Educational Foundation has distinguished two approaches to Christian counselling, what he calls Vitex and Compin.[xiv] The first states: ‘Psychology must make a VITal EXternal – hence Vitex – a vital external contribution to the construction of a wisely Christian model of personality, change and counselling.’ And the second approach, which he favours: ‘There are COMPrehensive INternal – hence Compin – comprehensive internal resources within the Christian faith for the construction of a wisely Christian model of personality, change and counselling.’

However, I would like to suggest, with great temerity, a possible third option, Intex. ‘There are sufficient INTernal resources within the Christian faith to give a moral and spiritual framework and inward attitudes of mind and heart to enable the Christian to go into the world as it is and through EXperience – hence Intex – construct a wisely Christian model of personality, change and counselling.’ This might be considered an extension of the hermeneutical spiral. We seldom fully understand the way the Bible applies to life simply by reading it at home. It is as we bring it into the light and need of real situations that we begin to understand it better and can apply it more appropriately. However, we must also take care not to try and act beyond our sphere of understanding and competence. If numbers of homosexuals tend to have ‘high levels of mental disorder’, as already quoted, then we need to be wise and recognise our limitations.

Sixthly, in addition to counselling, and even more important, those struggling with sexual temptation need positive ways to live and healthy relationships with peers. One the most valuable helps towards these ends is a support network of Christian friends. Regrettably, many churches are too small for this to be possible within them. This means we will need to go beyond the local church and gain the help of a wider group of evangelical believers. 

However, along with real Christian fellowship, we need to make much more of the positive value of the individual Christian and of singleness. Some years ago there was a book published with this title, One is not Un; that is unmarried, unsatisfied, unfulfilled, unhappy. We should remember that Jesus himself never married; he also spoke of those who will give up marriage for the kingdom of God’s sake. Paul either never married or was widowed. He wrote that some have the gift of singleness, while others have the gift of marriage. We can make too much of marriage and marriage counselling; especially as in most of our churches we have significant numbers of women who have never married – in our small church we have eight, nearly 20% of the membership.

5  Conclusion

I had nearly finished preparing this address when I remembered two men. One brought up in a godly Baptist family related to me by marriage; the other, one of five of us sharing the same room in London Bible College for nearly three years and afterwards entering the pastorate. Now, as far as I know, both of them have come out as gay and are far from the Lord.

I was also reminded of Jesus in the temple: ‘O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!’  Matthew 23:37. Jesus speaks powerfully in this chapter against the evils seen in the lives of the scribes and Pharisees, but he finishes by grieving over the murderers of the prophets sent by the same Father who sent him. He knows also that within days the city is going to ring with shouts of ‘Crucify him! Crucify him!’ and he will suffer the same fate as all the others who were sent. Yet how tender and how plaintive are his words and how warm and inviting the image he uses: ‘How often I would have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her little chicks under her wings.’ How often have we longed for sinful people to be gathered under the wings of Jesus? How can we win them for him?

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[i] Day One, 2007

[ii] The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert, Rosaria Butterfield, Crown and Covenant Publications, 2012

[iii] Singleness and God’s Deliverance, My personal experience, Betty Vivian; published privately, no date

[iv] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_Kingdom. See references given there.

[v] See http://pjsaunders.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/changing-views-about-sexual-orientation.html

[vi] I haven’t been able to access this on the Affinity website, but I have a copy on my computer.

[vii] Measuring Sexual Identity: An Evaluation Report (ONS, September 2011)

[viii] Sexual  Attitudes and Lifestyles (The Wellcome Trust, 1994)

[ix] Unwanted Same-Sex Attraction, Issues of pastoral and counselling support, by Andrew Goddard and Glynn Harrison, Christian Medical Fellowship; 2011

[x] IVP, 2007

[xi] Naked Surrender, Andrew Comiskey, IVP, 2010

[xii] Holiness and Sexuality, ed. David Peterson, Paternoster, 2004

[xiii] This was in an issue of Reformation Today

[xiv] The Care of Souls and Modern Psychotherapies, in Care for the Soul, eds. McMinn & Phillips, IVP USA, 2001

Recommended Books

Homosexuality: The Use of Scientific Research in the Church’s Moral Debate, by Stanton L. Jones & Mark A. Yarhouse, InterVarsity Press, USA; 2000. This is Christian scholarship and academic study at its best. Although it is 13 years old I doubt its findings will need to be substantially revised.

The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert, by Rosaria Butterfield, Crown & Covenant Publications; 2012. This is autobiographical. It is the story of an academic professor, a lesbian, a communist and gay rights activist and her – well, as she said: ‘This word – conversion – is simply too tame and too refined to capture the train-wreck that I experienced in coming face to face with the living God.’ She is now a Reformed Presbyterian rather than a Reformed Baptist but her story is gripping and instructive. You may have to get this as an e-book.

Homosexuality: Christian truth and love, Day One; 2007. This includes a chapter on how the church has always viewed homosexuality; it has two chapters of biblical exegesis, a chapter on pastoral response as well as an abridgment of Martin Hallett’s book Still Learning to Love. This is about his life and homosexual orientation and the founding of the organisation called the True Freedom Trust.

Holiness & Sexuality, edited by David Peterson, Paternoster; 2004. This overlaps with the previous book in one chapter and also has one by Martin Hallett. Its emphasis on holiness is important as are the chapters by David Field.

Walking with Gay Friends, by Alex Tylee, IVP; 2007. This also is written by a lesbian now living a single life. Her name and others mentioned in the book are not their real names. That this should be necessary indicates something about the days in which we live. It is primarily intended for students I think. I don’t agree entirely with everything it says, but this is a sister in the Lord to whom we should listen sympathetically and thoughtfully.

Unwanted Same-Sex Attraction, Issues of pastoral and counselling support, by Andrew Goddard and Glynn Harrison, Christian Medical Fellowship; 2011. This is a valuable booklet and pastors and all who may in various ways give some counsel or support to those who experience same-sex attraction should read it carefully.

A Sermon for the last Sunday of the year

Looking Back

 

a)       Psalm 77 has a note of realism about it. Sometimes it seems as if today we are given a picture of Christian experience which is pure fantasy, but this Psalm as God’s Word is real. Have you ever felt your soul refused to be comforted? Have you ever remembered God and yet were troubled, so troubled perhaps that you could scarcely speak? Have you ever felt like asking some of the questions the Psalmist did? I think it almost certain that most of us can identify only too well with what the Psalmist says here.

b)       My real reason for turning to this Psalm, however, is because of the remedy that the Psalmist found – he remembered, v.10,11. The answer to all his questioning, the remedy for his anguish was to remember, to look back, to look away from what the present seemed like, to what God had done in the past.

1         Look back with thankfulness

a)       There is always something to thank God for and generally speaking Christians don’t have to look very far or hard to see it. We should be thankful that we are here tonight – not only that we have the health and strength to do so, but that we have the desire in our hearts. We are here to worship God; we are here to listen to his Word; we are here because – at least to some extent – we want to know him better, we desire his grace and blessing at the end of the year and look forward to the New. God has kept us through 2012 and we can look to the future trusting to him. We are here to thank him and to worship him

b)       We should be thankful for the coming of Jesus Christ. These past few days have been days of celebration and holiday, but at the heart of it all we remember that Christ Jesus came into the world to save us from our sins. We have been reminded of the way he humbled himself, of the astonishing incarnation, of the miracle and mystery of the Son of God made flesh. We cannot estimate the love and grace displayed in this – we can worship and rejoice and entrust ourselves in humility and gratitude to him.

c)       We should be thankful for our homes and families and family life. For most of us, at least, these past days have been days when we have met with family members; when we have heard from relatives and friends who live at a distance, when we have received cards, letters and gifts. It is God who ordained the family; all the blessings and joys of family life are his gift to us. Even those who now have few family members, or who find most of them far away, are reminded of old times. Those who are rather lonely at Christmas – and there are numbers of people who are – can generally look back and can be thankful for the past.

2         Look back with repentance

a)       I think we sometimes forget that repentance is a lifetime requirement. We know we start the Christian life by faith in Jesus Christ and we recognise our need to continue trusting in him through all the changing scenes of life. Somehow, however, we are inclined to think that repentance goes along with faith at the beginning but gradually becomes less important. But that is not true. An honest look back will remind us of many failures, many sins, much that spoilt our relationship with the Lord and grieved him, much of which we are ashamed and are glad that others don’t know about. I am not sure that in our worship and in our walk with the Lord we give the place to repentance that it ought to have. Let each one examine himself or herself.

b)       Part of our problem may be the attitudes in society around us. How often do we hear someone who has done wrong owning up to having made a mistake? Not committed a sin, not done or said something that ought never to have been done or said, but made a mistake. Sin is sin; it is wrong and evil in the sight of God. A mistake is when I misspell a word in my notes; but when I lose my temper and say hurtful things to a brother or sister in Christ that is sin. It must be acknowledged as sin and repented of as sin – otherwise it cannot be properly forgiven. We also hear people say after they have done something wrong that they deserve a second chance. You can’t deserve a second chance. Love, understanding, kindness may give you a second chance but it is not anything someone can deserve. God gives us second chances, not because we deserve them, but because he is gracious and merciful.

c)       The sins which we commit now as Christians are much more serious than the sins we committed before we trusted in Christ. I was reading a very honest and remarkable book and was startled by this sentence: ‘I believe that the Lord is more grieved by my current sins than by my past life as a lesbian.’ The Christian woman who wrote this is right. The sins I commit now are much worse than those committed when I was a teenager; it is much more grievous for me to sin after all these years and my repentance needs to be real and deep – and so it is for you. You are now a year older than this time last year – you have attended church, read the Bible, heard sermons over the year. The further we go in the Christian life the more grievous are our sins and the more seriously we should take repentance.

d)       Repentance can be acknowledged together, but it usually needs to be carried out privately. It will sometimes involve apology and asking for forgiveness; perhaps within the family, perhaps within the church. And that is hard, but it is needful.

3         Look back with thoughtfulness

a)       Looking back takes our eyes off the present problems to focus on what God has done in the past. There is an unprofitable way of looking back, just wishing we could have the old times back, seeing the past through rose-coloured spectacles; there is also a wise way of looking back, a thoughtful way. Asaph continues in vv.12-15. Then his soul is lifted up and he sings out a sort of poetic and dramatic retelling of the crossing of the Red Sea, finishing with v.20. The God who is Lord over the sea and all the elements is also the One who led his people by his servants Moses and Aaron. The same sovereign Lord leads his people today by ordinary men and women, pastors, teachers, brothers and sisters. And he will lead us.

b)       The past often shows us that God has been at work when we haven’t been able to see it. Has God forgotten…? vv.8,9. There are times when it looks as if he has. The situation Israel found itself in, in Egypt, was a very grievous one and they cried out to God year after year. But they did not know that for forty years God had been preparing Moses to lead them out and across the desert to the promised land. The answer was already being prepared.

c)       Reviewing the past leads to personal encouragement and then to encouraging others, cf. 2 Cor. 1:3,4; 8-10. Would Paul have been able to comfort others as he did, if he had not himself first of all gone through hard experiences? No, surely not. That’s one reason why pastors so often have to go through difficult experiences; they have to learn to trust, they have to know what it is to receive comfort and strength from the Lord so that they can then comfort and encourage others. That is what is so wonderful about the Lord Jesus, Heb. 2:17,18; 4:15,16.

d)       Considering what God has done in the past can bring quietness and peace into the soul. Ps.116, v.3 I found trouble and sorrow; v.6,7. What a beautiful phrase: Return to your rest, O my soul. That’s why we sang the last hymn – ‘Be still, my soul, the Lord is on your side’. How do we know the Lord is on our side? We can know for various reasons, but going back over his goodness and mercy in the past demonstrates to us that he is on our side. ‘Be still my soul: the Lord will undertake, to guide the future as he has the past’. This leads to our final heading – 

4         Look back with anticipation

a)       This doesn’t seem to make sense – how can you look back with anticipation? Well it is almost a reflex action and this leads me to a verse from our last hymn: ‘His love in time past forbids me to think, he’ll leave me at last in trouble to sink; and can he have taught me to trust in his name and this far have brought me to put me to shame?’ The logic is inescapable, isn’t it? Does God string us along for a while and then drop us? Does he draw us with his love and bring us to trust him only to show us we can’t trust him to carry us on and see us through? No! His goodness and mercy in time past toward us assure us that whatever we go through he will not let us go. What can we anticipate?

b)       We can anticipate conversions. God saves, but he does it in his own way and in his own time. I know that conversions sometimes seem few and far between, I know that we cannot compel anyone to believe, but God does and will save. There are times of sowing and then sometimes times of reaping, times when there is a harvest. We can’t control that, it’s in God’s hands. Our labour is never in vain in the Lord.

c)       We can anticipate surprises; I know that there are different sorts of surprises and of course you never know when a surprise is going to take place. They can take many different shapes and forms. There are little surprises and sometimes big surprises. I don’t want to define them any more, we simply can’t tell in what way the Lord might surprise us.

d)       We can anticipate answers to prayer. God hasn’t given us prayer in order to mock us. Of course, prayer can’t force God to do something that is not his will. We must always have the attitude that Jesus showed, ‘Not my will, but yours be done’. God does answer prayer; not always in the way we expect, not always at the time we hoped, but every Christian knows that God answers prayer –  as we look back we can see that he has in the past and so we know that he will do so in the future as well.

e)       We can anticipate guidance. Guidance is not an easy matter, and we must be guided supremely by the Word of God, and we are to use the minds he has given to us – but in subjection to the Word. He guides individuals, he guides families, he guides churches – he has done so in the past so we know he will do it in the future. Ps. 32:8 says: I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will guide you with my eye. But it also goes on to say: Do not be like the horse or like the mule which have no understanding, which must be harnessed with bit and bridle, else they will not come near you. We mustn’t just rush ahead without thinking as animals might, be must be humble and teachable and be willing to be led step by step.

f)         We can anticipate forgiveness. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. There is scarcely a more wonderful verse in the whole Bible. The past teaches us that we shall go on failing and falling in the future, the battle against sin is never over while we are in this world. We must seek to grow in holiness, but progress is often slow. We must never use the promise of forgiveness as an excuse for slackness and for easing off. John’s words are so true and important: My little children, these things I write to you, that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And he himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.

g)       We can anticipate glory. Whatever happens, however long or short the rest of our lives might be, for every Christian the final outcome is not death, it is glory. Moreover whom he predestined, these he also called; whom he called, these he also justified; and whom he justified, these he also glorified. But how does looking back enable us to anticipate glory? God has already raised up Jesus Christ and glorified him and Jesus Christ while he was here on earth prayed for all who believe in him, including these words: And the glory which you gave me I have given them.

Christ in the Old Testament

This is an address I hope to give to our ministers' fraternal on Wednesday.

Christ in the Old Testament

There are three reasons that led me to this subject. The first is a seminar in two parts given by Dominic Smart of Gilcomston South Church of Scotland earlier this year, the day after an address he gave at the Lakeland Christian Fellowship meeting in Parr Street. This was very thoughtful, stimulating and yet left me still with some questions. The second reason is that a little before that I had purchased Graham Goldsworthy’s latest book entitled Christ-Centred Biblical Theology. Goldsworthy has been writing about a Christ-centred approach to Biblical Theology for many years and this is perhaps his final word on the subject. If I might mention an earlier book of his, Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture is also extremely valuable and thought-provoking. The third reason is simply that how and in what way we are to see Christ in the Old Testament are perennial questions for any expositor of the Bible.

PART 1

First of all, in order to set the scene, I want to say that I have some doubts about a Christ-centred biblical theology, at least if that is set out as the primary way in which we are to approach the Bible and, in particular, to handle and preach from the OT. Biblical theology is not the final form of theology; it is a discipline on the road to theology. Biblical theology explores themes and periods of revelation, but the whole has to be systematic theology. That, after all, is the meaning of the word ‘systematic’; it brings all the different parts together into one overarching system. My own approach would be along these lines, I think. If I have to put the whole Bible into a nutshell I would describe it as the revelation of the redeeming God. It is not simply about a big story; if you want to use the word story, it is a story about a great God. Nor is it just a revelation of God per se, but in particular it reveals a triune God as a God who redeems. So care must be taken not to focus on one person of the Trinity to the exclusion of the other two.

The problem with biblical theology, as Goldsworthy points out, is to work out what, if any, is the central, cohesive theme that unites all the other themes together. If God has spoken at many times and in many ways to our fathers by the prophets, and in these last days has spoken to us by his Son, how do we bring all that together into a unity? Moreover, as he also acknowledges, how does the wisdom literature fit into the picture? Even if we can trace a storyline through the OT what do we do with Proverbs, for example? So while there is much that is thought-provoking and indeed valuable about his books I am not sure that they are the last word – though he would probably agree with that himself.

On reflection I think that I have also been influenced in my understanding by writing a biography. In a biography you tell a story which develops over time through many different events. But through all that happens you are seeking to bring out the character of the subject about whom you are writing. The events, the actions and reactions of the person concerned reveal the essential person. Moreover, in some cases, as with Ernest Kevan, the subject of the biography has himself written various books. But what he has written also reveals more about him and therefore his writings are not a problem, they add to an understanding of his personality and priorities. However, there is this vital difference when it comes to the Bible. Any human being will develop and change over time, but this is not the case with God. His acts and words are appropriate to the times in which they take place, but in himself he is always the same.

So if we see the Bible as the revelation of the redeeming God, what does that mean? Firstly, God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit and, as Dominic Smart emphasised, all the works of God outside of himself involve all three persons of the Trinity. Within the Godhead the persons act in love upon each other. In divine dealings with the created universe, including the angelic universe, the persons all act together, though not necessarily all in the same way. So in creation, the Father speaks and acts by the Word who executes the will of God by the Spirit. God is one in willing and one in acting, though there may be order and differentiation within the willing and acting. When it comes to divine dealings with human beings, in general we can say that God makes himself known, speaks and acts in and through the Son and by the Spirit. So to say the Bible is Christ-centred is at the same time to say that it is God-centred, but I think that this needs to be made explicit.

The Bible reveals God in two ways. It is an inspired record in which human authors reveal God to us by their words about him, including of course reporting his own words, but also by recounting his acts. In this case actions do not speak louder than words, but both words and acts combine together to complete our understanding. From the first verse, speaking of creation, until the last verse, speaking of what is yet to take place, we have a record of a God who has spoken to us, as we saw before, at many times and in many ways. However, through all that God has revealed runs the thread of redemption, or if you prefer it, salvation – I use the word redemption because it speaks of deliverance by a price or cost. The opening chapters set the stage on which we see the fall of man into sin, and from then on we see God at work in various ways, leading up to the climactic occasion when on the cross, God was, in Christ, reconciling the world to himself. That, of course, still awaits a final consummation, as is testified in the now completed word of revelation.

The theme of redemption is particularly important in two ways. Firstly, an act of redemption is not what we would necessarily expect of God. Anyone who believes in one God is likely to think of him as all-powerful, eternal, all-knowing, creative and above us in every way. But that he should deliver those who have sinned against him, and do it himself by incarnation and an atoning death goes beyond human expectation and imagination. General revelation tells us nothing about a God who redeems. Incidentally, a Unitarian god could never have redeemed by incarnation and an atoning death. If he died he would remain dead. Secondly, it is just at this unique point that so many who profess to be Christians go wrong. Redemption is compromised by the idea that we have to pay for our own sins, or that our good deeds count towards salvation or that God simply lets us off, especially if we do our best. However, a redeeming God is a uniquely biblical revelation and this truth must be zealously guarded and made known as widely as possible.

There are three important themes bearing on this subject that I believe must be considered before we go any further. The first is the place and, I think, the priority of the Father. What I mean by that is best brought into focus by reminding ourselves of the most well-known verse in the Bible: God so loved the world that he gave his only Son. Supremely it is the love of the Father which is manifested in the incarnation and saving work of Jesus Christ. In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Similarly, God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. That is extraordinary, isn’t it, not Christ shows his love for us by his death, but God shows his love for us.

 I am also struck by the way in which God speaks in Isaiah: Behold, my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights. And at the beginning of the fourth servant song: Behold, my servant shall act wisely, he shall be high and lifted up, and shall be exalted. It is God the Father himself who delights in his Son and draws our attention to him. We are to look at the Son because his Father tells us to. The New Testament equivalent is: This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased.

There are two aspects to this which I think we need to reflect on. Firstly, does a Christ-centred biblical theology adequately express, or make room for, this truth? Some years ago there was a book written with this title, The Forgotten Father. I haven’t read it so I do not know what it says, but sometimes it does appear as if the Father is rather overlooked. Is the human Jesus more appealing in these days to people than a gracious and loving God? I think we have to be careful not to forget the Father or his love.

This leads, secondly, to this question: isn’t the gift of the Son by the Father actually the highest and greatest demonstration of love? This is a tricky point, and we must not try to contrast the roles of Father and Son unnecessarily and we must acknowledge that we are in the realms of the mystery of a triune God. However, the language of John 3:16 clearly picks up the language used by God to Abraham: Because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you. Wouldn’t it have been easier for Abraham to have offered himself, rather than his only son? What father, with an only son, would not prefer to give his life – perhaps already half-lived – rather than sacrifice his only son? Surely, we can’t help thinking like that. In the mystery of God in our nature forsaken by God, there is a depth of suffering, love and grace that goes beyond anything that we can imagine. We dare not overlook this greatest aspect of the love of God.

John Owen addresses this matter in a slightly different way. ‘The foundation of the whole [we might say, at this point, the whole of salvation] is laid in a sovereign act of the will, the pleasure, the grace of the Father. And this is the order and method of all divine operations in the way and work of grace. They originally proceed all from him; and having effected their ends, do return, rest, and centre in him again.’ He bases this statement on Ephesians 1:3-6: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.

Has anyone ever published a book on a Father-centred biblical theology? I’ve never heard of one. Yet isn’t that precisely what Ephesians 1 presents?

The second important theme concerns how we are to understand the Wisdom literature in its relationship to the overall theme of the Bible. In this connection it is really the books of Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon that are in question. It may be helpful to look at each briefly in turn.

Job is about the problems which arise when a godly person suffers, greatly, randomly and exceptionally. It describes inadequate, mistaken and hurtful attempts by friends to understand and explain what has happened. It pictures the fluctuations of hurt, doubt and faith experienced by the godly. It finishes with the greatness, sovereignty and grace of God. All this is of lasting importance.

Proverbs is primarily about ordinary life. It promotes wisdom in daily life not only by basing it on the fear of the Lord, but by bringing it right down into details. Proverbs are not promises or absolute statements of truth, but general principles and wise instructions which are generally true and have to be understood and applied with wisdom.

Ecclesiastes is about the uncertainty, fragility, frustration and emptiness of life as it is under the sun. Though this is primarily true for the unbeliever, who has no hope above and beyond the sun – that is from outside the universe – the believer too lives in the same world. To fear God is the answer; this radically alters the way the believer lives, but it does not alter the world in which he lives, for that he has to look for a better world.

The Song of Solomon is a song, or songs, in praise of love. It pictures the highest form of human love, the joyful, ecstatic love of a man and a woman. Coming immediately after Ecclesiastes it presents an astonishing contrast and reminds us that – if I can quote this – ‘love changes everything’. It is firstly the love which is expressed by a man and woman in marriage, but this can point us to the love of God for his people – at the time of writing this was Israel of course.

It seems to me that the only one of these books which can be fully made to fit a Christ-centred biblical theology is the Song of Solomon understood as an allegory. If, however, we think of the Bible as a revelation of God – ultimately Father, Son and Holy Spirit – then we have God expressing himself through history, through the words of the prophets and through wisdom literature. This does not sideline Jesus Christ and his saving work; it simply puts it in a fuller context. We must remember in particular that redemption is not merely justification and forgiveness, it continues in sanctification and a life which aims to be well-pleasing to God. This continuing process belongs to both Testaments and the wisdom literature is very valuable in this connection. My feeling is that when people talk about Christ in the OT they are almost always thinking simply in terms of a message of salvation to unbelievers without reference to the ongoing life of the redeemed community.

So, for example, it is not moralism to preach from Proverbs, it shows how God’s people, ultimately all saved by Jesus Christ, can live in the details and nitty-gritty of everyday life. Actually Christians often need such detailed guidance and perhaps don’t always get it as they should. You know the acronym WWJD – what would Jesus do? It is interesting to remember that Jesus would have known the Law, the prophets and Proverbs. What he would do would be the outcome of his knowledge and perfect understanding of the OT. We don’t need to guess what Jesus would do – we have the Word he sanctioned, Old and New Testaments, to guide us.

This leads to the third important theme which concerns the OT law in its fullness. It is now nearly forty years since Chris Wright’s ground-breaking book, Living as the People of God was published. This has now been enlarged and superseded by a much bigger book, Old Testament Ethics for the People of God. I confess I have only dipped into it but I did read the earlier book and also his commentary on Deuteronomy which I found very helpful. What Wright did was to show that all the OT laws enshrine principles and moral perspectives that are valid and timely throughout history for the people of God. I am not going to enlarge on this; all that I am maintaining is that redemption has always issued in an ongoing life of holiness. In a certain sense, too, the initial saving act of faith is continually recapitulated as people confess their sins and receive forgiveness through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

To sum up so far in a sentence: any overall approach to the OT must be able to embrace the priority of the Father’s love in a redemption which only reaches its finale in glorification, the full range of the Mosaic law, and the wisdom literature. I think it is doubtful that a Christ-centred approach, by itself, is adequate to that task. I am also fearful that an over-emphasized focus on Jesus can lead to a reduced impression of what the Bible actually says.

However, there is another very important side to our whole subject which I acknowledge has to be taken into account. There are two aspects to this. First, redemption is the specific work of Jesus Christ and has been accomplished by him: his incarnation, atoning death, resurrection and glorification were essential to it. Second, we can only come to know God in and through Jesus Christ. We cannot know the Father apart from the incarnate Son. It is, of course, the Spirit’s ministry to show Christ to us and to enable us to embrace him in faith, but it is to Christ himself that we must come, and through him we come to the Father. Both these points mean that insofar as preaching the gospel is concerned the focus is, and must be, on Jesus Christ, but it should not stop there. Nor, for that matter, does it need to begin there. In fact, unless you bring in God the Father at some point you are going to distort the gospel message. To love our Lord Jesus Christ means to love the Father too, with a love shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

Let me sum up this first part of my address with three quotations. The first is from Vern Poythress [The Shadow of Christ in the Law of Moses]: ‘To be Christ-centred in interpretation is not, however, to be Christomonistic.’ So is the second: ‘To read the Old Testament Christocentrically need not mean collapsing creation into redemption or suppressing the revelation of God the Father in the Old Testament. Rather, it means appreciating the Old Testament for what it is in the design of God: a witness, foreshadowing, anticipation and promise of salvation as it has now been accomplished by the work of the triune God in Jesus Christ incarnate.’ Personally I would want to add to this that while in a vital sense salvation has been accomplished it has not yet been fully implemented or brought to its grand conclusion. Thirdly, Thomas Schreiner, writing on New Testament theology [in Introducing Scripture] says: ‘New Testament theology, then, is Christ-centred and God-focused, for what Christ does on earth brings glory to God.’ Perhaps we might say about Old Testament theology that it is God-centred and Christ-focused because it is the Christ who will fulfil all the saving purposes of his Father.

PART 2

In a sense all that I have said so far is introductory to the main theme of Christ in the OT, but I believe it is essential to try and sort out the parameters within which we are to consider our subject. Now, in the second place, I believe we need also to clarify our approach to Christ and the Old Testament. You will see what I mean from the points that I cover.

Firstly, we need to look at the word ‘Christ’ itself. The trouble is that we often give to the word a broader connotation than it has in Scripture. We frequently use it in a general way to refer to the whole person, Jesus Christ our Lord. We use it as a name rather than as a specific title. For us preaching Christ covers preaching on any aspect of the person or work of Jesus Christ, but not in the Bible – or at least, not generally. In Acts 8:5 when Philip went to Samaria and, in the words of the AV, preached Christ unto them, what he did was to demonstrate that the Messianic hope was fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth. So also when Paul came to Thessalonica he went into the synagogue and reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead and saying, ‘This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.’

As you all know, Christ is the anglicised Greek for the anglicised Hebrew ‘Messiah’. The word means ‘the anointed one’. In the OT three sorts of person were anointed: prophets, priests and kings. This is why the work of Jesus Christ is generally considered under these three heads. Personally I think it is best to think of Jesus under these headings as Messiah rather than to add others. For example, wise man – or wisdom personified – and shepherd, both come under the heading of king; Solomon was the wisest man and David the shepherd king. Also, I do not think it is wise or right to speak of Jesus being in the OT. The OT points in various ways to figures, institutions and actions which all prove to be summed up in the one person of Jesus. There is much in the OT that leads us to Jesus, but we should not import him back into the OT. However, as we shall see, the Son of God is in the OT, but that is to anticipate.

Secondly, I believe we need to understand Luke 24 in a realistic way. In v.27 we are told that beginning with Moses and all the prophets, Jesus interpreted to the disciples in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. This surely does not mean that we are to find a reference to Christ in every verse or even in every chapter in the OT. It means that all through the OT you will come across persons, institutions and events which in various ways anticipate and point to the Christ. I have heard some extraordinary applications of various verses and passages to Christ which I am sure are simply evidence of a vivid imagination – I only wish I had made a note of some of them to demonstrate what I mean, but you have probably come across some yourselves. Regrettably, these sorts of ‘interpretations’ have done great harm and turned expositors away from legitimate anticipations of Christ. Finding Christ in the OT is not an exercise in human cleverness but in searching out real connections between the Testaments.

Thirdly, the flow of history and development of the people of God in the OT, with the gradual and deepening revelation of truth, is important in its own right. The first question we ask when we come to an OT passage is not necessarily, ‘How can I get to Christ from here?’ The OT deals with real people and their relationship with God; there is therefore much that we can learn about how God deals with people from its pages. Incidentally, when we read the word ‘God’ in the Old Testament we are actually reading about the divine nature of Jesus Christ, though not the person. I shall say more about this later.

Dominic Smart, in his seminars, sought in particular to show how Boaz functions in a way that clearly prefigures Jesus Christ. He was very persuasive in presenting his case, and quite clearly wished to honour Christ, but I still find what he said unsatisfying. So I want to say something about the book of Ruth, though it must be very brief. The hero, or rather, heroine, of the book is surely Naomi. Through great sorrow she nonetheless won the affection of her two daughters-in-law so that both desired to return with her to Bethlehem; their testimony to her is deeply impressive. Eventually she persuaded Orpah to go back but Ruth clung to her and spoke those immortal words, Your people will be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. I don’t think we should judge Orpah too harshly; after all, how would three widows make ends meet back in Israel? I wonder, too, whether there aren’t people somewhat like Orpah around today.

Moving on, it was Naomi who took the initiative in gaining Boaz as a husband for Ruth, not Boaz himself, nor God. She was rewarding Ruth for her faithfulness to her. Was Boaz a widower, I wonder, or an older single man – surely unlikely in that culture – or would Ruth even be a second wife? The way Naomi told Ruth to go about gaining a night-time rendezvous with Boaz seems strange and a little dubious – especially if you know anything about customs in rural England only a few generations back. To be truthful, by what she did Ruth put Boaz on the spot; ‘you can have me if you want me’. The story then becomes complicated. Why did Boaz bring a field into the situation, so far nothing has been said about Naomi selling any land? Although in the event Boaz bought both the field and Ruth with it, it looks as if he could have married Ruth – assuming the nearer kinsman did not want to as was obviously the case – without making any payment. Moreover the fact that there was a nearer kinsman at all seems to militate against too close an analogy with Christ.

The main point of the book is clearly to show that Ruth, a Moabitess, features in the genealogy of David, and hence of course ultimately in the genealogy of Christ himself. We should not overlook the remarkable words of the people and elders of Bethlehem: May your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah, because of the offspring that the Lord will give to you by this young woman (4:12). Here was another woman, one who became pregnant by pretending to be a prostitute, almost certainly a Canaanite, who was accepted into Israel and became the example for Boaz and Ruth. So the book ends with the line from Perez down to David who in a number of ways prefigures the Christ.

So, I have doubts about making too much of Boaz as a picture of Christ. The Lord acts in this book twice. In 1:6 he visits his people again to give them food, and that brings Naomi and Ruth back to Bethlehem. In 4:13 he visits Ruth and gives her conception and that secures the line from which the Christ will come. The flow of the whole book points towards the Christ who is yet to enter the world. God is already at work in preparing for the redeemer and the introduction of a Moabite indicates that, while born from Judah, he is a redeemer for the whole world, including nations however pagan and excluded.

Fourthly, I believe it is important not to marginalise or downplay the importance of the giving of the law. The law was written on the heart of Adam and Eve at the very beginning; but the fall and indwelling sin means that man also needs an external, objective writing of the law. The law delivered by Moses and enshrined in the 10 commandments is not another or lesser law. Paul’s words in Romans 2:12-16 cannot possibly be understood in that way. Because conscience itself is affected by sin an external, unbiased standard of right and wrong is essential. I like the words of John Collins: ‘The “law”, given through Moses, plays a vital role in the Old Testament. It is uniformly presented as an object of delight and admiration (e.g. Psalm 119), because it is a gift from a loving and gracious God. The law is never presented in the Old Testament as a list of rules that one must obey to be right with God; rather, it is God’s fatherly instruction, given to shape the people he has loved and saved into a community of faith, holiness, and love, bound together by mutual support and care.’ As such it has a continuing role in the life of the Christian church and its members.

Fifthly, and simply in passing, we need to be guided by the NT in our understanding of Christ in the OT. But that requires another paper!

PART 3

So, at last, we get to what you thought was the subject of this paper! Firstly, if Jesus Christ is God, then whenever we read about God in the OT we are learning about the divine nature of the Christ. This is important for several reasons. To start with it means we cannot talk about a great, remote, overwhelming Being in the OT and contrast that with a near-at-hand, loving Christ in the New. Liberals and unbelievers would often make the contrast even more stark than that, but we ourselves need to take care that our language does not actually promote such an idea. This reaches its heretical climax in the idea that a loving Jesus interposed himself on the cross to appease an angry God. In order to avoid such a conclusion it is vital to have a God-centred theology in which the Father has a certain priority all the way through, as we were thinking earlier.

What we find in the OT about God is also important for seeing the deity of Christ in the NT. So often what Jesus does in the NT reflects on the activity of God in the OT. Sometimes this is made explicit, as in John 1:3: All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. The miracle of the feeding of the 5,000 shows Jesus is the creator, and the turning of water into wine shows him as the active power at work in the natural world, as also does the stilling of the storm. Psalm 107 says: He made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed. Then they were glad that the waters were quiet, and he brought them to their desired haven. Sometimes OT descriptions of God are actually fulfilled in a remarkable way in Jesus Christ, for example: For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite’ (Isaiah 57:15). It is One who was high and lifted up who came down very literally to dwell with those of humble and contrite spirits.

Secondly, all the theophanies in the Old Testament, that is appearances of God in angelic or human form, are actually Christophanies, or to be even more accurate, appearances of the Son of God, the second person in the Trinity. In Genesis 16 we have the first appearance of the angel of the Lord. This figure is both identified with God and yet is distinguished from God by his very title. In the light of further OT evidence and the NT it is not difficult to see that this must be God the Son. The key passage is Isaiah 6 where Isaiah sees the Lord, high and lifted up. In John 12, John writing about the unbelief of the Jews of his own day quotes from Isaiah 6 and then, referring to Jesus, writes: Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him. These early appearances of God the Son are anticipations of the incarnation, but they are also indications that the Son was present and active in the world in the OT period.

Thirdly, there are explicit messianic promises. When I say, explicit messianic promises, I do not mean that the word Messiah is actually used, but there are promises of someone to come which are clearly only fulfilled ultimately in the person of Jesus Christ, though in some cases there might be a preliminary and partial fulfilment. For example, there is the seed of the woman, Gen.3:15; the prophet like Moses, Deut.18:15,18,19; the Davidic king, 2 Sam. 7:12-16; the servant of Jahveh, Is.42:1-4; 49:1-6; 50:4-9; 52:13 to 53:12; the branch, Jer. 23:5,6; 33:14-16; the priest like Melchizedek, Ps.110:4; wisdom personified; Prov.8:2-31.

This, I think, also enables us to see that there are other specific figures which point us forward ultimately to Jesus Christ. For example, Joseph, the saviour of his people, would come into this category. This would be the case with other deliverers also, and in this connection we can think of the judges, who were much more military figures than our judges. The deliverances of Joseph and the judges, in my estimation, would come under the heading of kingly rule, even though there were not anointed kings.

At this point, however, we have to consider a very important principle, that of contrast as well as continuity. All, whoever they were, who came before Jesus were failures – that’s why Jesus had to come. Eli was the high priest but the man of God who came to rebuke Eli and his sons said, in the name of the Lord: And I will raise up for myself a faithful priest, who shall do according to what is in my heart and in my mind (1 Samuel 2:35). I will come back to this point a little later.

Years ago I heard a minister whom I respected apply what we are told about Samson to Christ: at midnight he arose and took hold of the doors of the gate of the city and the two posts, and pulled them up, bar and all, and put them on his shoulders and carried them to the top of the hill that is in front of Hebron. I think he applied, or rather misapplied, this picture to Christ storming and overthrowing the gates of hell. In the context Samson had been spending the night with a prostitute and it seemed to me utterly inappropriate to try and introduce a reference to the Son of God at this point, even keeping in mind the principle of contrast. I think, therefore, that we have to be careful in our applications.

I recently read Henry Law on both Joseph and Judah. He took Joseph to be a type of Christ and Judah to be a type of Judas Iscariot. Yet Psalm 78:67,68 says of the Lord: He rejected the tent of Joseph, he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim, but he chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which he loves. It is Judah, the fourth son of Leah, not Joseph, the firstborn of Rachel, who features in the line that leads to Jesus – how remarkable! The truth seems to be that while Joseph as a deliverer does foreshadow a greater deliverer, it was because Jesus Christ came to save sinners that he came from the line of Judah – a saved sinner par excellence.

Having introduced the word ‘type’ this brings us to the fourth way in which we see Christ in the OT. Vern Poythress defines the word like this: ‘A “type”, in the language of theology, is a special example, symbol, or picture that God designed beforehand, and that he placed in history at an earlier point in time in order to point forward to a later, larger fulfilment’ (Introducing Scripture). The word type originally meant the mark made by a seal, so the image made was the exact representation of the letter, word or symbol on the seal. Paul uses the word several times in his letters, as in 1 Corinthians 10:6,11, generally translated as ‘example’. Though, of course, in this case Paul does not want the Corinthians to follow the example set by the Israelites.

A type, in the sense it is usually used in biblical interpretation, can be a person, Melchizedek, for example; an event, such as the exodus, or an institution, the sacrificial system. In every case the type is only an inexact approximation; Christ and his work constitute the reality, the fulfilment. Personally, I think there is an ambiguity in using the word ‘type’, particularly in sermons, because in English ‘type’ generally means ‘sort of’’. It is not helpful for people to get the idea that an OT character is a ‘sort of Christ’ – and I believe that some do begin to think like that. So I much prefer to speak of someone or some thing pointing towards Christ, or picturing some aspect of his person or work; an indication given by God of future grace and salvation.

Another word, used in Hebrews, is the word ‘shadow’. We often speak about ‘types and shadows’. I think generally the idea that most people have is that, as with types, various people, institutions and events in the OT foreshadow what comes through Jesus Christ and his work. There is nothing wrong with understanding it in that way. I have wondered whether it isn’t better to look at it slightly differently and start with the New Testament – perhaps with Hebrews. The light of Christ casts a shadow backwards over the OT, drawing attention to those things that relate to him. What is helpful about this is that it means we take our starting point as the NT and then look at the OT from that perspective.

We have to be careful when we talk about types, though. We can say that the temple is a type for it is a picture of Jesus, who is the dwelling place of God. We find this made explicit in John’s gospel. But the temple is also a type of the church, of the Christian and of a Christian’s body – all these uses are found in 1 Corinthians. These other uses are related to Christ and come about because of Christ, but they do not directly refer to him.

A second important point is to notice that when we speak of an OT person being a type of Christ, we are not actually referring to the person as such, but to some status, action or experience that is true of the person. All the people we meet with in the OT were sinners who needed salvation by Christ. All of them did things which do not point to Christ; all of them were guilty before God and needed the salvation which was to come through Christ. This means we must never give the impression that some people are types of Christ because they were generally better than others. This, I think, would be to miss the point. After all, David was in many ways a type of Christ, and wrote some amazing messianic Psalms, most notably Psalm 22, yet his fall into sin was terrible, even though he was pardoned.

Speaking practically, I think we need to say that there are often different ways of looking at and preaching from the same passages of Scripture. You can hear several different preachers taking the same text – I don’t necessarily mean ‘verse’ by that – and yet the sermons may be quite different in their emphasis. This is quite possible and we should not think there is only one way of tackling a portion of Scripture.

Let me take Genesis 43 as an example, the passage which refers to the second visit of Joseph’s brothers to Egypt and Joseph. Some time ago this passage featured in a series of sermons on Joseph by Jeff, so his main emphasis in the passage was on Joseph. On the other hand I preached a sermon on Judah and focussed on the opening verses and the astonishing change which took place in Judah since he last appeared in chapter 38. In Northern Ireland earlier this year I heard a sermon on the chapter which began with the famine and ended with the feast and was very definitely gospel oriented and to that extent brought Christ into the picture. I also remember hearing a sermon in which the way Joseph dealt with his brothers was used to picture the way Jesus Christ often deals with sinners in bringing them to conviction of sin. In each case I believe that what was preached was valid and helpful – at least I hope it was in my case.

Conclusion

So, to sum up: In our treatment of the OT we must be Trinitarian in our understanding of God. We must not be reductionist in our preaching; there is a great variety of ways in which much of the OT can be handled. There is more than one way of discerning the Christ in the OT and we must be sensitive to this. We must take care not to reduce Jesus Christ by our usage of typical persons, but always show that he is superior in every way to all OT figures. Moreover, while salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ is clearly revealed in the OT and therefore can be preached from the OT, conversion to Christ is only the beginning of a lifelong saving experience and there is much in the OT that helps us in our understanding of living a Christ-centred, Holy Spirit empowered, godly life.