Bart Ehrman is a New Testament scholar who chairs the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has both an M.Div. and Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary where he studied under the renowned scholar Bruce Metzger. Though he formerly considered himself a Christian and even pastored a church, he is now an avowed agnostic. Much of Ehrman's career has been dedicated to attempting to prove that history has been incorrect in suggesting that it was heretics such as Marcion who were responsible for tampering with the original texts of the Bible. He suggests and attempts to prove that it was those who professed faith in Christ who sought to change the Scripture to force it to adapt to their beliefs.

In the book Sex and the Supremacy of Christ, Al Mohler has written a chapter entitled “Homosexual Marriage as a Challenge to the Church: Biblical and Cultural Reflections.” He provides seven useful principles that can serve as a framework for a Christian response to the issue of homosexual marriage. They are:

1. We, as Christians, must be the people who cannot start a conversation about homosexual marriage by talking about homosexual marriage.
2. We must be the people who cannot ever talk about sex without talking about marriage.
3. We must be the people who cannot talk about anything of significance without acknowledging our absolute dependence on God’s revelation - the Bible.
4. We must be the people with a theology adequate to explain the deadly deception of sexual sin.
5. We must be the people with a theology adequate to explain Christ’s victory over sin.
6. We must be the people who love homosexuals more than homosexuals love homosexuality.
7. We must be the people who tell the truth about homosexual marriage, and thus refuse to accept even its possibility because we love and seek the glory of God for all.

As part of his third point, Mohler writes about the “yuck factor” that exists in the minds of many Christians and serves as their attempt to deal with homosexuality. Yuck factor is a term that I believe was first coined by C. Gerald Fraser in the early 80’s. It refers to “A revulsion or discomfort that influences a person’s attitude toward a thing or idea.” In other words, and to use Mohler’s definition, “it is an attitude of disgust that lacks any serious moral argument” (page 116).

I am convinced that the “yuck factor” towards homosexuality comes quite naturally to men (and boys). I think all men can remember their school days and think back of times when we expressed disgust at homosexuality. The very thought of what homosexuals do and celebrate brings boys to express the worst insults by implying these acts. It is possible that this shows some cultural conditioning, but I believe boys react naturally at the thought of men doing together what God designed for only man and woman to share (just as we feel natural revulsion to something as unnatural as death). After all, the union of man to woman is part of the perfect Creation ordinance and one that God has surely written on our hearts. Paul tells us as much in Romans 1.

Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

God will give people up to passions that are in no way natural. What a warning this is to us.

Back in the days before I began my own company and started working from home, I worked at an office (with other people). I became friends with Scott, a practicing homosexual. He was known around the office as “Scott the Fag,” a moniker he used of himself. His story was probably quite typical. He had grown up in a weak church, came from a broken family, and up until university had chased (and often caught) girls. But during college he began to be attracted to men and soon became a practicing homosexual. He marched down the streets of Toronto on Gay Pride Day and brought boyfriends to office parties. He was proud of his lifestyle.

I would often talk to him and ask him pointed questions about his lifestyle. I asked if it was true that homosexual relationships bred abuse, and he felt that was true. I asked if it was realistic that the average homosexual man had twenty or thirty or even more sexual partners in a year, and he felt that if anything those numbers might be a little low. He told me about practicing a lisp and teaching himself how to walk like a woman in front of a mirror in his room. He was quite willing to admit to me that there was nothing inherently natural about the homosexual lifestyle. He knew this, but as humans are prone to do, justified his behavior as freedom of choice. At times I cannot deny that I felt some of the “yuck factor” towards him. When he and his boyfriend took to the dance floor, swirling across the floor, cheek-to-cheek during the ballads, it was more than a little difficult to feel normal about it. When he boasted about the fun he had during Pride Week, I had to walk away (though I walked away from many co-workers talking about their heterosexual exploits as well).

I found, as has Mohler, that while the “yuck factor” may be instructive, it cannot be trusted as a moral argument. Though we should not simply ignore our immediate reactions, we also cannot place too much emphasis on them. We must note that “human beings have demonstrated time and again that we can overcome any amount of disgust if we are determined to rationalize behavior.” We are masters of rationalization, able to turn anything to our advantage. I’m sure that as a child Scott found homosexuals just as yucky as the average boy. But as he gave himself over to sin, and even more so as God gave him over to sin, he began to rationalize it all away. We should also note that before the believer has been regenerated, he harbors the same “yucky” attitude towards God. The unregenerate man, in his heart of hearts, feels the same was towards God as young boys feel towards homosexuals.

As Christians it will be most helpful to keep the “yuck factor” to ourselves. I do not know that we gain anything in our conversations with and about homosexuals by expressing our disgust towards their actions. We can always plead “love the sinner, hate the sin,” but this falls flat when we can barely look in their eyes because of the disgust we feel for what they do. The “yuck factor” is not consistent as a moral argument. We must dig deeper than that.

It is most instructive to heed Mohler’s advice and to love the homosexual more than the homosexual loves his homosexuality. Do note that we can show love and grace to the homosexual while still hating and condemning homosexuality. All sin is dark and disgusting in the eyes of God. We often do things that are vile before the eyes of a perfectly holy God. He could as easily avert His gaze from us in His disgust. But we know that when we were at our most vile, He came to us and loved us more than we loved our sin. As Charles Spurgeon once said, “God is infinitely more willing to forgive your sin than you are to commit it.” Similarly, God is infinitely more willing to love us despite our sin, than we are to continually pollute ourselves with it. Should we not show the same grace to others?

I’m going to keep it simple today. I just want to ask you a question and to hear your responses to it. This is a question that has been running through my mind for some time and one that arose after emailing back and forth with a friend.

The question has to do with giving money to charities or to ministries or to other organizations. Though the laws of Canada and the United States are the ones I am familiar with, I assume similar laws exist in many other nations. In North America we are able to give donations to organizations that have a certain kind of charitable status. At the end of the year we are given a receipt for any money given to them and all or a portion of this money becomes tax-exempt. In the end, charitable donations are able to lower your tax bills. It is an attractive way of inviting people to give money to an organization and it is not unusual to read a request for funds and at the end to see “Tax receipts will be provided.” Organizations know that this is a perk or a benefit.

Laws that allow us to lower taxes through charitable donations are a blessing, no doubt. But I sometimes wonder if they can also distract us from people or organizations who may be in desperate need of funding. Perhaps we can be hesitant to donate to organizations that will not reimburse us with a receipt that will in turn put a few dollars back in our pockets. Is it possible that, even in our sacrificial giving, we can allow ourselves to be swayed but what we might gain in return? Do we give with an eye to our tax returns?

My question is this: if the laws of the land eradicated the tax benefits of charitable donations, do you think you would change the way you give of your tithes and offerings?

Maybe these questions will help if you are not sure what to say: Would you give more of your money? Would you give less of your money? Would you be more likely to give to individuals rather than organizations? Would you be more creative in finding organizations to give to?

I look forward to your replies.

(And please, let’s not get distracted here by whether or not tithing is mandated in the New Testament.)

This morning began with John MacArthur’s second and final sermon. His topic was “Simultaneously Righteous and a Sinner” (or, to use the latin theological term, simul iustus et peccator). He turned first to the well-known story of the raising of Lazarus and on that basis titled his message (rather creatively, I might add), “We Have Been Raised but We Stink.”

He looked to the story of Lazarus and remarked on the fact that, even after Lazarus left his grave, the smell of death would have been upon him. His clothes would have been scented with death, so that though he was alive, death clung to him. MacArthur used that as a metaphor for Christians today—people who have been saved from sin but who still have death upon us. Of course eventually the metaphor breaks down. After all, once Lazarus removed his grave clothes, the smell of death would have left him. He could have bathed and all traces of death would have been gone. But our predicament is not quite so easy. We do not just have grave clothes that stink, but we have a full, dead carcass—the presence of sin that remains upon and within us. The stench of death is not just on us, but all through us.

From here he turned to Romans 6 and 7 and showed that there the Lord tells us that we are no longer slaves to sin because once a person dies he is no longer a slave. Death frees him. Through Christ’s death we have been freed from sin’s mastery—we are no longer in slavery to sin. Sin no longer rules or has dominion. We now need to consider ourselves dead to sin but alive to God. Having been freed from sins we now become slaves of righteousness. There was an entity in existence that is no longer in existence. There was a real death and this was a real transformation. We often hear that when we are converted we have a new nature added to our old nature. But this is not the language of the New Testament. It is not addition but transformation—the death of one entity and the creation of a new one. The change in you when you were converted is greater than the change will be at your death. Death is simply subtraction.

Can we become total masters over sin and achieve sinlessness? Is that our goal or objective? Those who hold to perfectionism necessarily separate the act that brings justification and an act that brings sanctification. They separate these so a person can, by an act of his free will, become entirely free from sin. To support this, they downgrade the definition of sin only to acts which are premeditated.

Even mature, theologically-informed Christians can fall into the trap and fall into wrong thinking about sanctification. Part of the cure is ensuring that we truly understand both justification and sanctification—the similarities and differences. If you know these things you can immediately dismiss all talk of perfectionism.

He outlined five similarities between justification and sanctification:

• -Both arise from the free grace of God.
• Both are part of Christ’s redemptive work of salvation.
• Both will (and must) be present in the same persons.
• Both begin simultaneously.
• Both are necessary to glorification.

And then he outlined five differences:

• In justification a person is counted righteous because Christ’s righteousness is imputed to him. In sanctification a person has to work out his salvation over time.
• The righteousness of justification is not our own, but Christ’s. The righteousness of sanctification is ours, though wrought by the Spirit.
• Our works play no part in justification but are critical to sanctification.
• Justification is instantaneous and instantly complete while sanctification is an incomplete and imperfect work.
• Justification does not increase or develop or grow while sanctification is progressive as Christians grow in their spiritual walk towards glorification.

MacArthur took us on a survey through Scripture to show that perfectionism simply cannot be supported by Scripture. The Bible supports no leaps into eradication or total consecration. Rather, the Christian life is a slow and steady climb towards increased holiness (or, as J.C. Ryle says, a slow climb up an inclined plane). While we try to do the right thing, all we do and all we are is permeated by the flesh, by that old man who cannot be entirely eradicated until we are glorified.

What do we do about it? Believers do everything they can to kill the sin that remains. They do not imagine that they have no sin, but instead endeavor by all the means of grace to mortify the sin that remains. They abstain from sin, they avoid sin, they read Scripture, meditate upon Scripture, pray constantly. It is a lifelong battle we fight daily. It’s a battle that must be fought with passion.

MacArthur closed by borrowing an Old Testament example. He turned to 1 Samuel 15 where God commands Saul to utterly destroy the Amalekites for their cowardly attack on the Israelite women and children. But Saul and the people disobeyed God, sparing Agag and the best of the plunder. Failure to obey God cost Saul his throne and cost him his kingly lineage. Finally Samuel commanded that Agag be brought before him and he hacked him to pieces, but did not wipe out all of his people. A few years later the Amalekites were stronger than ever and began to torment the Israelites with raids and with battle. David attacked but once more did not destroy them utterly. A few generations later Haman showed up (in the book of Esther) and once more sought to destroy the Jews. The analogy is this: that you need to be obedient to God, ruthlessly hacking sin to pieces or it will come back and will come back stronger than ever. Putting sin to death is a lifelong process and one that will be perfected only in the day of Jesus Christ. Until then we are and shall remain both righteous and sinful.