In a recent podcast, a well-known theologian and reform-baptist John Piper answered a question regarding the biblical stance on homosexuality.
“Should a gay couple, once converted, stay married?” Cameron asked.
“No, I would not recommend that two men or two women living together, practicing homosexuality, remain in that relationship,” Piper began. “The reasons are several.”
Piper explained that while heterosexual couples can enter into a marriage in a way that goes against the Bible, they can make decisions to change that. When it comes to homosexual couples, they can’t change anything about their relationship to move it in a Biblical direction because at the basis, it is wrong.
“I conclude that while it was an adulterous act to marry under the conditions that Jesus disapproves of in Luke 16, nevertheless, it’s called a marriage,” he explained.
“A marriage is a matter of covenant faithfulness between a man and a woman. Therefore, I would encourage that couple to repent of what they did wrong and to ask for forgiveness and to consecrate their union, which, though it should not have happened, may nevertheless be holy before the Lord.”
Piper continued to explain that it’s impossible to consecrate a marriage if it was not a marriage in the first place. He argued that the union between two men or two women is not gay marriage, because it is not a marriage in the first place.
“You can’t consecrate a marriage that should not have taken place if it is not a marriage at all,” he said. “The union of two men and two women is not gay marriage — it’s no marriage. I don’t like the idea that so many people are willing to use the term gay marriage instead of calling it so-called gay marriage, because there is no such thing in the universe as so-called gay marriage.”
“That’s the main reason one relationship can be consecrated as a holy marriage and the other one can’t,” he said. “One is a marriage and the other is not a marriage — no matter how many thousands of times legislators and laws and judges and news commentators say that it is. It isn’t. That’s the first difference.”
Piper added that homosexuality is wrong because by nature it is a dishonorable and shameful act.
“In other words, sexual relations between a man and a woman are not, by nature, dishonorable and shameful,” he said.
He pointed out that no matter how much repentance, you cannot turn a dishonorable and shameful act into “an act that is holy or pure or honorable, the pastor explained.”
“That’s why I would encourage two men or two women involved in such acts to renounce the sin, repent, ask for forgiveness in the name of Jesus, and no longer make any provision for the flesh, as Paul says in Romans 13:14,” he concluded.