Christian Gay confusion over God

Christ the Saviour (Pantokrator), a 6th-century encaustic icon from Saint Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai. NB - slightly cut down - for full size see here (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

God’s love and His holiness are broken out into different aspects in Scripture. 

• Within His love, for example, we can distinguish mercy, forbearance, kindness, and compassion. 
• Within His holiness, we can see righteousness, faithfulness, justice, judgment, and wrath. God’s holy-love is shorthand for His entire character.

SOME GROUPS WANT TO SEPARATE GOD

What this hyphenated language does is remind us that God’s character is whole. The God who “is love” (1 John 4:8) is always, everywhere, and at the same time, the God who is a “consuming fire” (Heb. 12:29) and the One who is “light” (1 John 1:5). 

When we meet God, we meet Him in the wholeness of His character. His judgment, for example, is always preceded by His patience. 

It is always shadowed by His mercy. His love, in its bond with what is true and right, always accompanies, is always a part of, His holiness.

THE GAY TEMPTATION

We are tempted to want one side of His character without the other. We want His love without His wrath, His compassion without His judgment, His mercy without His righteousness. 

Indeed, the homosexual community who claim to be Christians insist that Christ’s death was only about God’s love and never about His wrath. That meant that Christ’s death was only an example and never an atonement. The reality, of course, was entirely different. 

God’s love provided in Christ’s death what God’s holiness required. Thus, Christ’s love took Him to the place where He stood in our place of judgment. His death was an atonement, not just an example. We never know God’s love except in its union with His holiness.