Can the gospel transform someone’s sexual orientation?
Two years ago I (Ron) was at the inaugural conference of the Restored Hope Network (RHN). One hundred leaders gathered to start a network of churches and ministries dedicated to the hope of the gospel for men and women struggling with homosexuality.
Their stated purpose is to be “dedicated to restoring hope to those broken by sexual and relational sin, especially those impacted by homosexuality. We proclaim that Jesus Christ has life-changing power for all who submit to Christ as Lord.”1
Many friends were present who have been transformed in their sexuality by the power of the gospel: Andrew Comiskey—former homosexual, now Catholic theologian—was there. He offers a powerful prophetic voice to the church that the gospel can transform anyone; he is married and has four adult children. He is a good friend and one of the first leaders who saw God’s calling on my life. He was instrumental in my transformation, and I am thankful for his good ministry. Anne Paulk, a former lesbian, has walked for decades in the powerful reality of Christ’s transformation. Dean Greer—a formerly gay man who contracted HIV in the lifestyle—is now living radically for Jesus, is married, and is the father of a beautiful son. These are just three among the countless stories of transformation and grace. As these amazing leaders shared their lives and proclaimed the good news of the gospel, I was reminded that in Jesus there really is good news. The gospel does change lives.
When I came to Jesus, my sexuality was in disarray. I had strong heterosexual feelings and strong homosexual feelings, all of it exaggerated. If I had to categorize myself, I’d use the term bisexual. I had had numerous sexual experiences, I was addicted to pornography, and I had broken through various biblical sexual boundaries. All that remained was a catastrophe. This is where Jesus met me.
Over the next five years, I was immersed in his community and his life. And during that time, I found radical transformation. As someone who has followed Jesus for seventeen years, has been a pastor for ten, and as someone who has seen countless men and women work out their salvation as it relates to their broken sexuality, I know that Jesus promises radical transformation for the sexual sinner.
I also know that these are controversial words these days both in our world and in the church. Some men and women have not experienced a consistent change in their sexual orientation, yet love Jesus and truly desire to follow him faithfully. According to their own testimony, they seek to submit their lives and bodies to God’s plan for sexuality, yet they experience same-sex orientation. It would be disrespectful to denounce the experience of these believers as untrue. It would be dishonoring to the Holy Spirit’s work to assume their continued struggle indicates some form of “second-class” Christianity.
But we can acknowledge some people’s experience without falling into the opposite extreme: denying that the gospel transforms. Today, even mentioning the idea of transformation is labeled as ridiculous. Our culture has reduced this question of transformation to a silly slogan: “Pray the gay away.” California and New Jersey are leading the way to make sure that therapists cannot help a person seeking to manage and change unwanted sexual desires. There is a strong wave of political correctness that is seeking to bar men and women, especially the young, from living out the biblical demands concerning their sexuality.2
The world, and even some in the church, has declared that the gospel has little to offer to the same-sex struggler. The question of whether a person can change his or her sexuality is a complex and significant issue, and I don’t pretend to have all the answers. But I do think the church as a whole is forgetting the transforming power found in the person and work of Jesus.
What follows is not a critique, nor am I trying to over promise what the gospel might accomplish. Instead, I would like the church not to lose what has always been true: The gospel of Jesus is good news to those who struggle with same-sex desire. This chapter is included as an apologetic of transformation.
Let’s Get Our Definitions Straight
“I was born this way” is the common refrain when talking about homosexuality these days. The very statement is meant to end debates, hush questions, and engender understanding and mercy in the hearers. Who can argue with such a truth claim, if it is true? But does this simplistic, one-dimensional account of human sexuality really make sense? Are people simply born with a sexual identity, bound to live in it their entire lives?
If our discourse is bound by the narrow vocabulary of conventional wisdom, then we will be cut off from describing the biblical reality of transformation. Unless we can broaden the range of perspective, we will be talking past each other as we engage our culture. This should not stop us from having the conversation. Instead, we must speak carefully. This careful speaking will help us when we come to the hard questions of transformation. Mark Yarhouse, in his excellent book Homosexuality and the Christian, offers some of the best sociological insights on the nature of sexual orientation, identity, and desire. These insights are foundational in answering the question of whether or not the gospel can transform our sexuality.
Desire
Think about the attractions you have. They are innate, they bubble up from your body. They are not a choice. For most people, sexual desire results in attraction to the opposite sex. They do not choose this desire, it just is. People who have same-sex desires are not choosing them. The desires simply exist in their bodies. They are physical. Yarhouse writes, “Certain people, regardless of the cause, have experiences of attraction to the same sex. . . . [This] is descriptive. We are simply talking about the fact that a person experiences same-sex attraction.”3 This is what we mean when we refer to same-sex desire.
Orientation
Orientation is the spectrum by which we experience our sexual desire. Yarhouse writes, “When people talk about having a homosexual orientation, they are essentially saying that they experience a same-sex attraction that is strong enough, durable enough, and persistent enough for them to feel that they are oriented toward the same sex.”4 Someone with a homosexual orientation is a man or woman who experiences homosexual desire to such a degree that their sexual orientation points only toward the same sex.
Sexual identity is a subjective, fairly modern cultural label. Yarhouse writes,
Although homosexual behavior has been practiced in other cultures throughout history, we are the first culture in which people refer to themselves in this way. There was never a language for it, and there has never been community support for this kind of identification or labeling. Until recently, there was not even a way to say it.5
Today in our culture, we find a don’t-overthink-it assumption that a person with a homosexual orientation must embrace a gay identity if he or she is to be true to himself or herself. The thinking goes: If you feel it, it must be real and exalted as the primary reality of your identity.
Sexual behavior
Sexual behavior is acting out one’s desire. It is the final step of a complex mixture of desire, orientation, and identity. We make choices about our behavior based upon who we are and who we desire to be. Behavior is the objective marker of who a person is. In a very real sense, I am what I do.
Is Transformation Possible?
Keeping these helpful definitions in mind, we can start asking the questions that are answerable. Can the gospel transform a person’s desires? A person’s orientation? A person’s identity? A person’s behavior? Hear these stunning words from Paul:
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
The Corinthian church was a wild bunch. They experienced sexual scandals, they had worldly values, and when they got into fights, they were known to take their Christian brothers or sisters to court! So here, Paul is seeking to get the Corinthian church on the right track. And here, as clearly as can be seen, Paul helps us answer the fundamental questions of whether transformation is possible, and if so, what it looks like.
Transformed identity—“such were some of you”
Paul reminds members of the church in Corinth of who they used to be: “Such were some of you.” Apparently, some members of the community in Corinth were former thieves, homosexuals, drunks, and swindlers. They were quite a church (one that I think I would have felt right at home in!). This is who they used to be. Now they have a new identification; they live in a new reality.
This new identity isn’t oriented around a sex act, or any other particular sin activity, but around the reality of God’s grace: “You were washed.” This great community of men and women in Corinth was immersed in the atoning mercy found in Jesus, and they were clean. There seems little doubt that the church in Corinth would have automatically heard this “washing” as an allusion to baptism.
Baptism is the act that signifies a new identity, one centered in the Father, Son, and Spirit. When Jesus told his disciples in Matthew 28 to baptize in the name of the Trinitarian God, he wasn’t just mouthing a slogan to be spoken like magic over the one being baptized. Instead, it was the proclamation of a new reality. The person baptized was being brought into a new family, a new community. This was now their primary identity.
For any follower of Jesus, our identity is in God himself, specifically the person and work of Jesus Christ. We are no longer the sum of our actions, desires, biological inclinations, or cultural pressures. We are his. This is true for everyone, even gay and lesbian strugglers. So we can say clearly, without equivocation, that the gospel can change one’s identity. As a matter of fact, this is precisely what the gospel does! Someone can be gay before meeting Jesus, having her whole life centered on her fractured sexuality; and then after finding Jesus, her identity can be centered on Christ. Notice something important: The goal of the gospel’s transformation is not healthy heterosexuality. It is total identification with Christ. This is what the gospel can do for a person’s identity.
Transformed behavior
Paul reminds the Corinthian church of the transformation possible in Jesus and his kingdom. In chapter 5 of 1 Corinthians, Paul lambasts the church because of their permissiveness as it relates to gross sexual sin. In chapter 6, he makes clear that those who center their lives on sexual sin will not inherit the kingdom of God. Paul is seeking to stir the Christian passions of his hearers.
Instead of permitting sexual sin, Paul calls the sexual sinner into the same redemptive story that others in Corinth had experienced. Instead of cheap grace (a grace that says anything goes because Jesus has paid the price), Paul invites the sexual sinner into biblical grace—one that demands repentance. He does all of this by reminding them of the reality they all face: judgment. “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?” Without changed behavior, there can be no assurance of salvation. A basic, underlying assumption for Paul is that the demand of the gospel can be fulfilled through the sanctification of walking with Jesus.
Can a person imprisoned in the passions of a homosexual lifestyle find purity? There seems little doubt that Paul would answer YES! The power of Christ and his cross has the ability to change our depraved behavior. This is hard work for sure, bloody in fact. It is not easy to die to one’s old passions. But the cross makes a way. Power is available for anyone who cries out to Jesus. Will there be suffering? Pain? Anguish? Yes! But make no mistake, there will be change.
Transformed desires
Can the gospel of Jesus change our attractions? Can a person struggling with homosexuality know with certainty that the gospel promises a change in desire? Of course, anyone who has same-sex desire and seeks to faithfully follow Jesus hopes the desire will go away. To walk with such a limp in this life is hard. I know. For some, including me, there will be significant change in desire. I have strong sexual desire for my wife. Praise God! This is a gift for which I am thankful.
But many will have to manage their same-sex desire in community and before Jesus. Nowhere in Scripture, and specifically nowhere in 1 Corinthians, does God promise that we will not be tempted with the old, dead things. We all have crosses to bear. And those of us whose cross is our homosexual desire can’t become victims just because ours is unique. Paul is right:
No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
1 Corinthians 10:13
We are offered enough grace for this life, no matter the struggle
To be honest, we will each make progress in this life to varying degrees. Some of us, full of holy intention and desire, will stumble through life taking two steps forward and one step back, but even that is the pathway to transformation:
But if you are a poor creature—poisoned by a wretched up-bringing in some house full of vulgar jealousies and senseless quarrels—saddled, by no choice of your own, with some loathsome sexual perversion—nagged day in and day out by an inferiority complex that makes you snap at your best friends—do not despair. He knows all about it. You are one of the poor whom He blessed. He knows what a wretched machine you are trying to drive. Keep on. Do what you can. One day . . . He will fling it on the scrap-heap and give you a new one. And then you may astonish us all—not least yourself.6
A day will come when the old aches and hungers are gone. There will be a day when all is made new and we will be fully whole. Some of us will begin to see this newness in this life. But even if we struggle with old desires, we need not despair. It may be night, but morning is coming.
The Journey of Transformation
I have many talents, but one of them is not a good sense of direction. I get lost all the time. I have gotten lost going to work from my house. One of the best tools I have is my GPS. I use it all the time because it helps me go where I need to go. I have found that I need the same directional leadership when it comes to walking out transformation in my life.
The Bible promises transformation. Though this is a theological reality, it can be difficult to actually get there in real life. What follows are GPS markers that have helped innumerable people find transformation. They are laid out here to show just how practical and real transformation is. Again, this is important, because if the path isn’t clear, simple, and proven, it can be hard to offer it humbly.
GPS marker #1—See the Son!
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 6:11
Seventeen years ago, I was broken, sinful, and desperate. I had said yes to Jesus’ offer of life, but life and hope seemed bleak. My same-sex passions were still strong. I was so hungry. My soul was broken—sexually confused, damaged from the many sexual partners, alone, addicted to porn—and my mind was under the bondage of lust. It was there, in profound darkness, that I met Jesus. This is why I love him so much. I remember those early days just spending hours worshiping him in my little room. I remember being so hungry for his presence. Real transformation happens in the reality of the Father, Son, and Spirit. St. Augustine, a sexual deviant just like me, who was touched by the great grace of God, writes this:
Those who want to find their joy in externals all too easily grow empty themselves. They pour themselves out on things which, being seen, are but transient, and lick even the images of these things with their famished imagination. If only they would weary of their starvation and ask, Who will show us good things? Let us answer them, and let them hear the truth: The light of your countenance has set its seal upon us, O Lord. . . . Ah, if only they could see the eternal reality within!7
This is true. If the same-sex struggler feeds on the petty, miserable, dark same-sex identity, desire, and sin, there will be no change. But if he sees Jesus—spends time with him, falls in love with him, and learns from him—transformation will most certainly happen. The reality of Jesus and his ability to raise our affections is beyond description. This does not mean that a same-sex struggler will no longer have same-sex feelings; it means that those feelings will get swallowed up in the greater affection he has for God. A flashlight is powerful in a dark room, but it is worthless in the glare of the noonday sun. Homosexual desire is powerful in the darkness of sin and death. But it is simply powerless in the light of the Son.
The hope for the sexual sinner is not a psychological breakthrough or great cognitive behavioral therapy, or even Christian practices. The great hope for the sexual sinner, what will begin to set things right, is to catch a glimpse of Jesus.
To catch a glimpse of Jesus is to simply delight in who he is. This is what we are made for. Sam Storms writes,
You weren’t created for boredom or burnout or bondage to sexual lust or greed or ambition but for the incomparable pleasure and matchless joy that knowing Jesus alone can bring. Only then, in him, will you encounter the life-changing, thirst-quenching, soul-satisfying delight that God, for his glory, created you to experience.8
I have experienced this many times, such as in reading and praying the Psalms, thinking about what they mean to me. I have experienced this in Sunday morning worship—his presence that sustains and feeds my soul. I experience this in Christian friendships that give me life and help me live the life I desire. Truthfully, as I seek the Lord, I find him, and it has made all the difference.
GPS marker #2—Self-denial
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived.
1 Corinthians 6:9
There is no doubt that having our eyes set on Jesus, actually experiencing the life he offers, is primary in our transformation. Jesus is foundational, but we must respond. The “unrighteous” in verse 9 are those who live just like the world. Paul wants to make sure that the Corinthian church is not deceived: Just believing in Jesus with intellectual assent is not enough. There must be repentance. There must be rejection of sin and its acts.
A false idea is floating about the church today hinting that we can enjoy the kindness of Jesus without obeying his clear commands. Nothing could be further from the truth. We must repent. John Calvin writes,
The service of the Lord does not only include implicit obedience, but also a willingness to put aside our sinful desires, and to surrender completely to the leadership of the Holy Spirit.9
Transformation for the same-sex struggler happens when he or she is willing to be obedient.
This is painful. In Colossians, Paul writes, “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you” (3:5). For those who have embraced sexual sin, when you seek to wean the body from the addictive fix of sexual gratification, it screams. I know. But you cannot have the life he offers if you are not willing to repent and be obedient.
We enter into repentance and obedience through self-denial. Again, Calvin writes,
It is an ancient and true observation that there is a world of vices hidden in the soul of man, but Christian self-denial is the remedy of them all. There is deliverance in store only for the man who gives up his selfishness, and whose sole aim is to please the Lord and to do what is right in his sight.10
Paul helps the Corinthians put this in context: For those who embrace unrighteousness, there will be no kingdom of God. But for those who put their flesh to death, the opposite is true. There will be a day when the suffering, pain, agony, and obedience will be worth it. We will be with him. This is the transformation he offers the same-sex struggler.
GPS marker #3—The church
Paul is writing to a church! These sexual sinners in Corinth who had experienced radical transformation realized such life change in a local community. I am the man I am today because I have decided to work out my salvation in and through the local church. This means bringing honesty and confession, and in return receiving comfort, correction, and encouragement. Men and women who struggle with same-sex desire and who desire real transformation must be firmly planted in a local church that is mature and prepared to walk with those who are seeking transformation. This journey out of the bondage of homosexual sin is hard enough. It’s next to impossible on your own.
One of the great comforts of the church is that it reminds us of the objective grace and love of Jesus. Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes,
In the presence of a psychiatrist I can only be a sick man; in the presence of a Christian brother I can dare to be a sinner. The psychiatrist must first search my heart and yet he never plumbs its ultimate depth. The Christian brother knows when I come to him: here is a sinner like myself, a godless man who wants to confess and yearns for God’s forgiveness. The psychiatrist views me as if there were no God. The brother views me as I am before the judging and merciful God in the Cross of Jesus Christ.11
In the church, we encounter the living Christ—his mercy and his judgment. Transformation, then, is with other brothers and sisters who are also seeking to be obedient to Jesus. I have seen this play out powerfully in small-group recovery ministries run in the local church. Using curriculum from ministries like Celebrate Recovery or Desert Stream,12 these small groups provide the spaces where men and women can work out their salvation. If a church is serious about standing for the truth of Scripture as it relates to sexuality, it must provide spaces for people to become the kinds of people who can live out the demands of the gospel. Otherwise, our gospel stand sounds like one more thing we are against. God desires to do much more.
The Change Is Real
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 6:11
Paul reminds those Corinthians who had actually experienced a life change how it happened. It wasn’t their effort that made it happen. It wasn’t ecstatic religious experiences that made it happen. It wasn’t some psychological insight that made it happen. Instead, the cross of Christ was the means of radical transformation. What was true for the Corinthian church is true for the same-sex struggler. The real work of transformation has already been done.
Through the cross, Jesus washes the same-sex struggler. The stain of shame that I felt as a man who had same-sex feelings and who had acted out was deep and wide. There were run-of-the-mill sinners, and then there was me. For me, same-sex sin was like a disease that had deep roots in my heart. And in those early days, months, and years of following Jesus, my soul reeked of shame. But in Jesus, I was washed. This happened. Paul reminds the Corinthian church that this is what the cross does. The cross of Jesus washes those who submit to him as Lord. We can be clean! The stain of sexual sin need not stay with us. What a relief.
Through the cross, the same-sex struggler—like all sinners—is justified. Same-sex sinners deserve the great wrath of God. They deserve not to inherit the kingdom of God. Their sin is foul. It deserves hell. I know. I have felt the condemnation of judgment that I rightly deserve because of my sin. Thank goodness for Jesus. Those who say yes to him find out that he has already said yes to them. The wrath of God is satisfied not by our moral efforts but by the Lamb of God slain.
The cross of Jesus sanctifies us. In 1 Corinthians 6:9–11, Paul is speaking of the dramatic ability of the act of Jesus’ sacrifice to fully change a person. In one sense, he is speaking of that moment when we will die and be fully changed into the image of the Son. In another sense, he is speaking of what we will experience in this life, slowly but surely as Christ has his way in us. And finally, he is reminding the Corinthians of the real change they had already experienced. All of this is true for the same-sex struggler as well. There will be a day when all the suffering, longing, pain, doubt, and sin will vanish and we will be fully what we were meant to be.
Even in this life we can experience this transformation to some degree. Some of us will see our very desire change. For others, desires will still be marked by sin, but we will have our eyes on him and not give in to the impulses of sin and death. Those who follow Jesus and who struggle with same-sex desire can look back and see just how good he is. Remember how gracious he has been and what he has done for you.