Terms used in various translations of Scripture:
Effeminate, sodomite, homosexual, men
lying with men, women lying with women
|

John 3:17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
Remember: God does not hate homosexuals, he sent Jesus for all mankind. Those in deep sin are blind to their bondage. Minister to them from the love of Christ in your heart! |
John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes on Him shall not perish but have ever lasting life
OLD TESTAMENT
Leviticus 18:22 You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination.
Leviticus 20:13 If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be
put to death; their blood shall be upon
them.
NEW TESTAMENT
Romans 1:26-27 26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their womendid change
the natural use into that which is against nature: 27 And likewise also the
men, leaving the natural use of the
woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men
with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence
of their error which was meet.
I Cor. 6:9-10 9 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, 10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will
inherit the kingdom of God. |
|
MATTHEW HENRY'S COMMENTARY
Verses 9-11
Here he takes occasion to warn them against many heinous evils, to which they had been formerly addicted.
I. He puts it to them as a plain truth, of which they could not be ignorant, that such sinners should not inherit the kingdom of God. The meanest among them must know thus much, that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God (v. 9), shall not be owned as true members of his church on earth, nor
admitted as glorious members of the church in heaven. All unrighteousness is sin; and all reigning sin, nay, every actual
sin committed deliberately, and not repented of, shuts out of the kingdom of heaven. He specifies several sorts of sins: against the first and second commandments, as idolaters; against the seventh, as adulterers, fornicators, effeminate, and Sodomites; against the eighth, as thieves and extortioners, that by force or fraud wrong their neighbours; against the ninth, as revilers; and against the tenth, as covetous and drunkards, as those who are in a fair way to break all the rest. Those who knew any thing of religion must know that heaven could never be intended for these. The scum of the earth are no ways fit to fill the heavenly mansions. Those who do the devil’s work can never receive God’s wages, at least no other than death, the just wages of sin, Rom. 6:23.
II. Yet he warns them against deceiving themselves: Be not deceived. Those who cannot but know the fore-mentioned truth are but too apt not to attend to it. Men are very much inclined to flatter themselves that God is such a one as themselves, and that they may live in sin and yet die in Christ, may lead the life of the devil’s children and
yet go to heaven with the children of God. But this is all a gross cheat. Note, It is very much the concern of mankind that
they do not cheat themselves in the matters of their souls. We cannot hope to sow to the flesh and yet reap everlasting life.
III. He puts them in mind what a change the gospel and grace of God had made in them: Such were some of you (v. 11), such notorious sinners as he had been reckoning up. The Greek word is tauta—such things were some of you, very monsters rather than men. Note, Some that are eminently good after their conversion have been as remarkably wicked before. Quantum mutatus ab illo! How glorious a change does grace make! It changes the vilest of men into saints and the children of God. Such were some of you, but you are not what you were. You are washed, you are sanctified, you are justified in the name of Christ, and by the Spirit of our God. Note, The wickedness of men before conversion is no bar to their regeneration and reconciliation to God. The blood of Christ, and the washing of regeneration, can purge away all guilt and defilement. Here is a rhetorical change of the natural order: You are sanctified, you are justified. Sanctification is mentioned before justification: and yet the name of
Christ, by which we are justified, is placed before the Spirit of God, by whom we are sanctified. Our justification is owing
to the merit of Christ; our sanctification to the operation of the Spirit: but both go together. Note, None are cleansed from
the guilt of sin, and reconciled to God through Christ, but those who are also sanctified by his Spirit. All who are made
righteous in the sight of God are made holy by the grace of God.
Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the
Bible, (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers) 1997.
|