John Stott writes in his commentary on Romans: “The intention of the Creator means his original intention. What this was Genesis tells us and Jesus confirmed” by quoting Genesis 2:24. “Then Jesus added his personal endorsement and deduction: ‘Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.’ In other words, God created humankind male and female; God instituted marriage as a heterosexual union; and what God has thus united, we have no liberty to separate. 

 

This threefold action of God established that the only context which he intends for the ‘one flesh’ experience is heterosexual monogamy, and that a homosexual partnership (however loving and committed it may claim to be) is ‘against nature’ and can never be regarded as a legitimate alternative to marriage.” 

 

In Matthew 15:19 Jesus said, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what make a man unclean.” 

 

The word for “sexual immorality” is also known as fornication. The Wycliffe Bible Encyclopedia says that this word is “used of illicit sexual intercourse in general…In a technical sense it is to be distinguished from adultery or social promiscuity after marriage…and from rape, which is a crime of violence without the agreement of the other party.”

 

Thus Jesus introduces Cultural Disorder. In our next visit we’ll see how Paul amplifies this.