Lux Lucet

Same-sex marriage supporters rejoice outside the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. on Friday after the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a ruling regarding same-sex marriage. The high court ruled that same-sex couples have the right to marry in all 50 states. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

“When Christians go wrong,” my minister friend remarked me over coffee and doughnuts one morning, “it’s usually over something simple.” He had a good point. When a man falls into flagrant heresy, when he stumbles into gross sin, it generally is related to some simple issue. King David was a good case in point. It doesn’t require any deep knowledge of theology to understand that adultery and murder are wrong. These things were clearly condemned in the Law of Moses. They are ideas so basic that Children can grasp them with perfect clarity. Surely David did as well. But for all that, David fell and fell hard.

The past several years have seen, at least in the West, a debate over something so basic that it is astounding to this author that there was even a debate at all. Of course, I speak of the debate over the definition of marriage. Chapter 24 of the Westminster Confession defines marriage thus: Marriage is to be between one man and one woman: neither is it lawful for a man to have more than one wife, nor for a woman to have more than one husband at a time. This is not complex theology. It really is a very simple idea. And yet the entire Western world seems to have stumbled at this point. Intellectuals, government officials, legal scholars, the business community, and the mainstream media for years have waged war on the Christian definition of marriage. This past Friday, they won their biggest victory yet. For on that day, the Supreme Court of the United States voted 5-4 to dump a bucket of the vilest moral filth imaginable on the collective head of the nation. It did so by its ruling that the Constitution requires states to recognize gay marriage. The will of the American people, large numbers of whom have vehemently opposed gay marriage, large numbers of whom have spoken out against it, large numbers of whom will never accept it, mattered not a whit. This decision represents the apotheosis of decades of deliberate and sinful effort by the homosexual lobby to legalize what is an abomination in the sight of God.

As the saying goes, I’m shocked, but not surprised, at the ruling. Shocked, because the very idea of gay marriage is strikes the ear as an absurdity. It is the logical equivalent of a square circle. Not surprised, because for years the West not only has tolerated absurdity, but passionately embraced it as well. The West is so badly decomposed morally and intellectually that it is probably asking too much for people, especially for those in positions of authority, to even recognize just how asinine the concept of gay marriage is.

Friday’s Court ruling really is not just another bad decision, of which there have been plenty as of late. Speaking of the Court’s decision this morning, the minister at my church commented that it moves our nation further from the will of God that it ever has been in its history. He’s right to say this. The Bible reserves the strongest possible language for the condemnation of sodomy, calling it an abomination. Not every sin is called an abomination in the Bible, for not every sin is equally heinous. “If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them” (Leviticus 20:13), is representative of God’s view of homosexual activity. And yet the Supreme Court, failing in its God appointed to duty to praise the good, holds a different opinion. And what shall be our response but woe to them! As the prophet says, “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness and darkness for light; who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!” (Isaiah 5:20, 21). Five lawyers on the Supreme Court have the arrogance to usurp, not only the Constitution of the United States, but the very law of God. They have called the abomination of sodomy good and said those who oppose it are in the wrong. Woe to them!

Here locally, the reaction to Obergefell vs. Hodges (this is the name of the Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage in all 50 states) was swift. No doubt, some of the was due to plaintiff being from Cincinnati. Within a few hours of the ruling, Cincinnati mayor John Cranley presided over the marriage of five same-sex couples in the very heart of the city on Fountain Square. Woe to you, John Cranley! For although the apostle Paul declares that you ought to have used your position to serve as a minister for good, you went out of your way deliberately to use your office to promote what stinks in the sight of God. Woe to you! Do you not know that you will have to answer to God for your words and your actions? Do you not know that, far from being an excuse to cast the law of God behind your back, the fact you are mayor of Cincinnati actually aggravates your sins before the bar of God’s justice? By your words and your actions, you have confirmed many in their sins, making them twice the sons of hell that they were. Woe to you for your foolishness!

How should we then live?

How should Christians react to the Obergefell vs. Hodges ruling? A while back in a post called Practical Calvinism, I pointed out some of the benefits Christians receive from a proper understanding God’s sovereignty. Among them are confidence and comfort. God was not surprised at the decision of the Supreme Court. He knew it was coming. But more than that. Not only did God know it was coming, God himself brought that ruling about. From all eternity, God in his wisdom decreed that the Supreme Court would find in favor of the plaintiff in Obergefell vs. Hodges. The Westminster Shorter Catechism summarizes
the Biblical doctrine of God’s sovereignty this way,

Question: What are the decrees of God?

Answer: The decrees of God are his eternal purpose, according to the counsel of his will, whereby, for his own glory, he hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass.

There is nothing that occurs outside the eternal purpose of God. The Black Death, the Spanish Inquisition, Adolph Hitler, 911 and Obergefell vs. Hodges were not merely known to God ahead of time, they were all part of the eternal counsel of his will. He brought them about, and did so for his own glory. But although God is the ultimate cause of all these evils, he is not responsible for them. Responsible means to be liable to give and answer. And to whom does God answer? No one. As the apostle Paul put it, “will the thing formed say to him who formed it, why have you made me like this?” (Romans 9:20).

But God does not merely bring about whatsoever comes to pass, as if that were a small thing. No, but more than that, there is not one thing that comes to pass, however evil it may seem at the time, that is not ultimately for the benefit of his people. Paul makes this point crystal clear when he writes, “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28). Just as God brings all things about, so too do all those things work for the good of his elect.

“How,” one may ask, “can the monstrous sin of legalizing gay marriage work for the good of God’s people?” Although it is not possible fully to answer that question, a few ways do suggest themselves. For one, it may serve to knock the love of the world out of some Christians. When the Alaric sacked Rome in A.D 410, many were perplexed that the Christians suffered along with the rest of the Romans. To this, Augustine answered,

We [Christians] tend culpably to evade our responsibility when we ought to instruct and admonish them [unbelievers], sometimes even with sharp reproof and censure, either because the task is irksome, or because we are afraid of giving offence; or it may be that we shrink from incurring their enmity, for fear that they may hinder and harm us in worldly matters, in respect either of what we eagerly seek to attain, or of what we weakly dread to lose. And so, although the good dislike the way of life of the wicket, and therefore do not fall into the condemnation which is in store for the wicked after this life, nevertheless, because they are tender towards damnable sins of the wicked, and thus fall into sin through fear of such people (pardonable and comparatively trivial though those sins may be), they are justly chastised with afflictions in this world , although they are spared eternal punishment; and they rightly feel this life to be bitter when they are associated with the wicked in the afflictions sent by God. But it was through love of this world’s sweetness that they refused to be bitter to those sinners (City of God, 1.9).

A second benefit of the gay marriage ruling is that affords the people of God the glorious opportunity to stand as witnesses to the Law of God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul enjoined the Christians in his day, “Do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life” (Philippians 2:14-16). The darker the darkness, the brighter in comparison is the light. Let us use this occasion to let he light of God’s word shine forth and bring glory to his holy name.

Third, we may be blessed to suffer for Christ’s sake. This probably sounds a bit strange as something to list as a potential benefit of the gay marriage ruling, but nevertheless it is so. Jesus himself clearly taught this idea. In the Sermon on the Mount, we find him speaking these words, “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matthew 5:11, 12). God rewards those who are faithful. Not that he is required to do so, but in his goodness, he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.

Peter and John before the Sanhedrin.

The Book of Acts provides a real life example of this in the lives of the apostles Peter and John. After being arrested for preaching the Gospel, grilled by the Sanhedrin, and beaten by them, Scripture tells us the two apostles, “departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name” (Acts 5:41). This is not to say Christians should go out of their way to look for trouble. But it may well be in the providence of God that some of us will be called to suffer for our opposition to the homosexual agenda. Some already have (see here, here, and here). And if we are called to suffer, let us be found faithful in our witness, as were the Hebrew Christians, who joyfully accepted the plundering of their goods, knowing that they had a better and an enduring possession for themselves in heaven (Hebrews 10:34).

No matter how bad things get, God is in control. No matter how terrible the circumstances, it will redound to the good of those called to salvation in Christ Jesus. Knowing these things, let us as God’s people take comfort in them and have the confidence to act with boldness.

Conclusion

The ruling of the Supreme Court is a stench in God’s nostrils. This we know. Further, we know that their decision, evil as it is, ultimately will work for the good of God’s people. But whither the United States? What will befall this great nation? I would like to be optimistic, but it is hard to see anything but downside as a result of this ruling. God has shown us in his Word that he is serious about his Law. Destruction swift and sure comes upon those nations that do not heed him. Why should Americans think that they are exempt from this principle? It is said that, “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people” (Proverbs 14:34). The reproach of God is now upon United States in a way and to a degree that has never been the case until now. The Supreme Court and its enablers in the universities, in the halls of government and in the media have invited the judgment of God upon the United States of America. May God have mercy on us.