Jesus’ Opinion on Homosexuality

“And He answered and said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female,”

-Matthew 19:4

Jesus Never Talks about Homosexuality?

In the conversation about the morality of homosexuality or lack thereof, one point brought up by those arguing for the legitimacy of homosexual unions is that the Bible only condemns it in about six places, and none of those are from the mouth of Jesus.Since Jesus is the leader of the Christian religion, we must follow Him and if He never condemns homosexuality, then neither should we.

The first issue with this is that every word in the Bible is inspired, whether it comes in red or black letters. The words of Moses or Paul are no less inspired than the words of Matthew or Luke that were originally spoken by Jesus.

However, this is not the only flaw with this argument as Jesus actually does address homosexuality, just indirectly rather than explicitly condemning it.

From the Beginning He Made Them Male and Female

In Matthew 19, Jesus is asked a question about marriage and divorce. We read His response in verses 4 through 6: “’Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh”? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.’”

If we are to only consider explicit condemnations of homosexuality, then this passage does not meet that requirement. However, we must not interpret Scripture with only explicit verses as proof texts. The good and necessary consequence of Scripture is vital. For example, Jesus never says, “I am God. Worship Me,” and this is a point that our Muslim friends often point out. But statements made all throughout Scripture, by Jesus Himself as well as the other authors, all point toward the divinity of Christ.

Using that same concept, when Jesus is asked a question about marriage and He points to Adam and Eve in Genesis, that implies several things. One is that Adam and Eve are real people in history, not fictional characters in a mere poem by Moses.

Another implication, the one related to the main point of this article, is that Jesus makes Adam and Eve and the account in Genesis as the standard for all marriages. God made them male and female. He created the first marriage with a man and woman. God did not create two women, nor two men, nor a man with multiple women, nor a woman with multiple men, nor a single man, nor a single woman. He created one of each, handed the woman off to the man, and thus performed the first marriage ceremony.

When someone claims that Jesus never explicitly condemned homosexuality, they are avoiding passages where He addressed marriage and only described it as between one man and one woman, thus implicitly condemning homosexuality because two men or two women is not a union between one man and one woman.

Once again, this is similar to when someone claims that Jesus is not God because He never said, “I am God. Worship Me,” when He made many implicit statements, such as, “Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58). It was obvious to His hearers what He was saying here, as they tried to kill Him for blasphemy over this statement (v. 59). Likewise, it is obvious that when Jesus understands the account in Genesis as the standard for all marriages, to the point that divorce is unacceptable because that would contradict Genesis 2:24, He would understand all marriages as needing to follow the one male and one female pattern established in that same passage.

Conclusion

But that is only one passage, you say. It’s Scripture; one passage is all we need. Quantity of passages cited is irrelevant in proving points; what is important is to make sure the passage(s) are being interpreted correctly. Also, we do have multiple such passages, as Jesus says the same thing in Mark 10:6-9.

So in short, the clear teaching of the Gospels is that Jesus cited Genesis 2 as the pattern of marriage for all others to follow, which is one male and one female, solely with each other, for life. Jesus condemns homosexuality, even if He doesn’t explicitly state those words in any of the Gospel accounts.