If other sins in the Old Testament are no longer sins, then isn’t homosexuality also not a sin?
Question:
The Bible is the Word of God, but Leviticus, in which Moses wrote about homosexuality, also lists other sins that are on the very same level of homosexuality (because God says that every sin is as bad as every other sin).
Leviticus 19:19 says, "Do not wear clothing of different kinds of material." But surely you have worn a polyester shirt before. This sin is the same as homosexuality, and is even on the same page as Leviticus 20:13, the quote about homosexuality.
Leviticus 19:27 says, "Do not cut your hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard." Have you ever cut your hair or shaved your beard? This sin is as bad or worse than homosexuality.
Leviticus 19:33 says, "When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born." But aren't many good Christians against immigration?
Leviticus 21:13 says "The woman he (a man) marries must be a virgin. He must not marry a widow, a divorced woman..." But surely in our culture, a widow or divorced woman is still okay to be loved.
Leviticus is still the Word of God, but there are many laws of ancient Israel that we do not follow. Have you eaten pork? Have you eaten shellfish? Do you believe that a farmer who plants two crops in one field is going to hell? Have you ever thought something bad about your parents? The Bible says that the punishment for that is to put you to death in the center of the city. Do you think that is just?
Answer:
Homosexuality is not just condemned in Leviticus, though it is clearly described in "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination" (Leviticus 18:22). In the New Testament, we find similar condemnations.
"For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due" (Romans 1:26-27).
"Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God" (I Corinthians 6:9-10).
Therefore, the foundation of your argument is without merit. Homosexuality is a sin because the New Testament, like the Old Testament, condemns it as a sin.
But it is interesting that you pull and misapply laws from the Old Testament without understanding.
"You are to keep My statutes. You shall not breed together two kinds of your cattle; you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed, nor wear a garment upon you of two kinds of material mixed together" (Leviticus 19:19).
Some of God's laws in the Old Testament existed to teach concepts. Some scholars theorize that these listed practices were to keep Israel from following some of the idolatrous practices found in the nations around them. However, I find it more like that God is teaching a simple principle -- purity in religion -- by using several physical practices to illustrate the point. This would not be the only time. For example, the rules regarding uncleanness taught the people about the nature of sin, even though the items selected were not sinful in and of themselves. See "Uncleanness" for more details. Israel long had a problem of trying to mix God's worship in with idolatrous practices. These laws would serve as illustrative arguments that such is not to be done, just as the law "You shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing" (Deuteronomy 25:4) illustrated support for a worker in the field he is working. Paul points out that this law wasn't the result of only concern for ox. "For it is written in the law of Moses, "You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain." Is it oxen God is concerned about? Or does He say it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written, that he who plows should plow in hope, and he who threshes in hope should be partaker of his hope" (I Corinthians 9:9-10).
"You shall not shave around the sides of your head, nor shall you disfigure the edges of your beard" (Leviticus 19:27).
The New International Version, which you quoted from, does a poor job translating this verse by making the Hebrew statement vaguer than the original. The word that is translated as "shaved" even in this translation means to strike off with violence and the word rendered "disfigured" in this verse means to ruin, batter, or destroy. Therefore, this verse is not saying it is wrong to get a hair cut or to trim your beard as you claim but is forbidding the disfiguring of your looks by chopping the hairs to make yourself look ugly.
This was a heathen practice to show that a person was in mourning. "He has gone up to the temple and Dibon, To the high places to weep. Moab will wail over Nebo and over Medeba; On all their heads will be baldness, And every beard cut off" (Isaiah 15:2). "For every head shall be bald, and every beard clipped; On all the hands shall be cuts, and on the loins sackcloth" (Jeremiah 48:27). God is forbidding making a display of a person's grief.
It is similar to what He stated in regard to fasting. "Is it a fast that I have chosen, a day for a man to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head like a bulrush, and to spread out sackcloth and ashes? Would you call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the LORD?" (Isaiah 58:5). Instead, Jesus, like the Old Law, commanded people not to make a show of their grief. "Moreover, when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, with a sad countenance. For they disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward" (Mark 6:16).
The Old Law did not forbid cutting the hair because priests were told, "They shall neither shave their heads nor let their hair grow long; but they shall keep their hair well trimmed" (Ezekiel 44:20). Yet, you claimed that it might be "worse" than homosexuality. Yet God called homosexuality an abomination, but that word is not applied to disfiguring hair cuts.
"And if a stranger dwells with you in your land, you shall not mistreat him" (Leviticus 19:33).
Here the accusation is just plain silly. No, Christians are not against immigration. Our country was founded by men who believed in Christianity and from their knowledge of God's laws made laws stating that people in the United States, even if they are from a foreign nation, are to be treated like a native citizen. In other words, visitors to our country, if they commit a crime, are to receive a fair trial and have proper representation.
"He who is the high priest among his brethren, on whose head the anointing oil was poured and who is consecrated to wear the garments, shall not uncover his head nor tear his clothes; nor shall he go near any dead body, nor defile himself for his father or his mother; nor shall he go out of the sanctuary, nor profane the sanctuary of his God; for the consecration of the anointing oil of his God is upon him: I am the LORD. And he shall take a wife in her virginity. A widow or a divorced woman or a defiled woman or a harlot-these he shall not marry; but he shall take a virgin of his own people as wife. Nor shall he profane his posterity among his people, for I the LORD sanctify him'" (Leviticus 21:10-15).
This reference demonstrates, more than any other, your intellectual dishonesty. You took a verse that gave restrictions on the high priest because of the position he held and attempted to make it look like this was a command for everyone.
Christians don't live under the commands of the Old Law. We live under the New Law of Christ. Still, the laws of God are reasonable and sensible. The idea that homosexuality, which is specifically condemned in both laws can be justified by making fun of some Old Testament laws that you obviously do not understand or would rather misapply is foolishness on your part. It simply displays your contempt for God.
