Or 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. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. – 1 Corinthians 6:9-11
John Piper, a longtime figure in the New Calvinism movement, has proven himself in recent years to handle even the most basic doctrinal aspects of the Ordo Salutis clumsily. After butchering the doctrine of Justification almost beyond the point of recognition, being accused of holding to a modified form of Federal Vision or denying Sola Fide altogether (the accusations are not without merit), Piper’s Desiring God has now denied the heart and substance of the doctrine of Sanctification. While claiming that there is a “final justification” that is based on increased holiness, Piper’s website now argues that homosexuals cannot expect to be made holy, leaving them damned in their sins as a tragic and ironic result. Written by guest contributor, Jackie Hill Perry, and posted by Desiring God, an article on September 4 argues that we should stop telling gay people that God can make them straight.
In other words, she argues, the Holy Spirit will not sanctify.
The article begins with the following words:
Stop telling gay people that if they come to Jesus, he will make them straight.
To make the point of the insane levels of Downgrade in this argument, let me illustrate it in the following ways:
“Stop telling murderers that if they come to Jesus, he will keep them from killing people.”
“Stop telling thieves that if they come to Jesus, he will keep them from thieving.”
“Stop telling blasphemers that if they come to Jesus, he will keep them from profaning his name.”
“Stop telling idolaters that if they come to Jesus, he will keep them from idolatry.”
The argument from Perry is sinister, sick, and perverse. That Desiring God would post the refuse is beyond incomprehensible. It is irresponsible, detestable, and destructive. In order to craft her narrative, Perry operates under the presumption that so-called “Same-Sex Attraction (SSA)” – the Bible would call this the desire for sodomy from a depraved and fallen heart – is not a sin. Although a shocking proposition to many evangelicals who haven’t been paying attention, the line of thought that SSA is not a sin has become a common one, advocated for mostly by the same New Calvinists who are a part of the new “woke” Social Justice movement and they speak in terms of “gay Christians” and “sexual minorities.” Even more shockingly, Perry says that telling gay people that God can reorient their sinful hearts is a “different Gospel.”
She writes:
I know, I know, some of us Christians believe that we are only pointing our gay and lesbian friends to the miraculous. To the power of God to make all things and them new. Well-meaning believers, in an effort to encourage or cast vision to their same-sex attracted (SSA) friends or family, preach this gospel often. This gospel is not the good news of Jesus however, but another gospel. A gospel that I call “the heterosexual gospel.”
Calling something “another Gospel” is a damning accusation from Perry toward anyone who believes in the doctrine of Sanctification, the belief that the Holy Spirit will continue a work in us after salvation, giving us a new heart with new desires. Paul says that anyone who is preaching another Gospel is “accursed” (Galatians 1:8). Essentially, Perry places all right-thinking and orthodox Christian believers (who have always identified homosexual desire as a sin) under the Galatian curse.
The woman continues:
The heterosexual gospel is one that encourages SSA men and women to come to Jesus so that they can be straight, or it says that coming to Jesus ensures that they will be sexually attracted to the opposite sex.
Clearly, mortifying sin and becoming like Jesus is one of the reasons one should want to come to Christ. New Calvinists should have no problem looking to Owen’s Mortification of Sin to examine this point further. In fact, a hatred of sin is a sign of the Holy Spirit’s work in conversion. Anyone with homosexual desires who God wants to save will want to come to Jesus to be straight (and to put to death the rest of their sin as well). Furthermore, we should rightly reject Perry’s claim that coming to Jesus won’t ensure they’ll be sexually attracted to those of the opposite sex, and we should clarify in the strongest terms that what the Scripture teaches (from the verse at the top of this article) is that if they don’t stop lusting after those of the same sex, they will have no part of Heaven.
Perry goes on to call heterosexuality “idolatry” and creates a false dilemma between “being straight” and “being made right with God.”
When the gospel is presented as “Come to Jesus to be straight,” instead of “Come to Jesus to be made right with God,” we shouldn’t be surprised when people won’t come to Jesus at all. If he is not the aim of their repentance, then he will not be believed as the ultimate aim of their faith. They will only exchange one idol for another and believe themselves to be Christian because of it.
While there are plenty of heterosexuals who are right with God, we can say with all the authority of Holy Scripture that there is no homosexual on Earth – anywhere – who is right with God. Romans 1 presents that sin in particular as a demonstration of lostness. Paul says that homosexuals will not inherit the Kingdom of God. In other words, while heterosexuality doesn’t make us right with God in and of itself, everyone right with God will be a heterosexual and their sexual desires will be properly oriented toward that which is natural and not grossly deviant.
Again, Perry’s argument doesn’t make any sense when applied to any other list of sins not championed by the religious left. At no point would you (or should you) hear Christians claim that the Holy Spirit’s work in our heart should not be expected in the life of a believer. Only in the most recent of days has homosexuality received a privileged, special status among evangelicals and the deviant desire seen as an exception to the power of the Spirit’s transforming work.
What the gay community needs to hear is not that God will make them straight, but that Christ can make them his.
First, there is no such thing as a “gay community.” Communities are built around shared values, not shared deviancies. We would not classify pedophiles, necrophiles, or murderers as a “community.” The nomenclature itself is compromised. Secondly, when Christ “makes them his,” he makes them straight. God has no homosexual children. That is the Scripture; deal with it.
God has not come mainly to make same-sex attracted men and women completely straight, or to get them hitched. Christ has come to make us right with God. And in making us right with God, he is satisfying us in God. That news is good for a reason. For it proclaims to the world that Jesus has come so that all sinners, gay and straight, can be forgiven of their sins to love God and enjoy him forever.
If the Spirit’s transformative work can’t make the sinner whole in Christ, then the news is not that good. What is missing from Perry’s article and John Piper’s Desiring God is any indication whatsoever that the doctrine of Sanctification even exists. It appears not even to be an afterthought or speedbump on her way to apostasy.
Perry claims that God has saved her out of the gay lifestyle, but uses her unique position as one of evangelicalism’s growing chorus of “gay Christian” voices to minimize the abomination of Same-Sex Attraction and preach against the work of the Holy Spirit to fully redeem sinners.
[Editor: JD Hall]
