Does God make people gay? Christian apologist answers
Does God make people gay?
Despite what some pastors might claim, God doesn't create people to be LGBT-identified, says Christian apologist Jason Jimenez, who explains that such identifiers are the result of a fallen world.
Jimenez said during a recent episode of his "Challenging Conversations" podcast that it's essential for Christians to respond to the "born that way" claim in truth and love. It's especially important, he added, because some church leaders have strayed from biblical doctrine to be affirming, thus "hijacking the Bible" by teaching that God has created people to be various sexual orientations through groups like "The Reformation Project" and the so-called "gay Gospel."
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Emphasizing the need for Christians to have empathy and understanding toward individuals who self-identify as diverse sexual orientations or gender identities, Jimenez cited Romans 1:27 and Ephesians 4:15 to share what the Bible says about sexual sin and speaking the truth in love.
At times, LGBT-identified people might wonder if God made them gay because “God might be that way,” Jimenez said, noting that it’s important to look to the Bible for answers about who God is instead of making false assumptions about Him.
“First and foremost, you have to ask the question, ‘Who is God?’ Now, according to Scripture, ‘God is Spirit.’ He is an eternal, supreme being who is not contingent on anything or anyone. God is an absolute perfect being. He's absolute perfection. He's pure, actuality. What that means is that God never evolves or changes into something even better. He is perfect, eternally perfect. He's infinitely boundless, and not only His being but the way He expresses Himself within His creation,” Jimenez said.
“Remember, there was nothing at one point until God caused things to exist. As a perfect being, there is no sin or even the temptation or the thought of sin. He is draped in a garment of light 1 John 1:5. Everything that exists proceeds from God. Though God is separate from the universe, He is intimately involved in it,” Jimenez continued.
“When we are looking at God, oftentimes what people do on the LGBT-affirming side is they look at God in light of their sexuality. When we suppress the truth about God, we will more readily suppress the truth about our own nature. God is not a cruel deity. [Some people think] God has given us desires that we want to get rid of and are hoping that God would change the way He made us. God doesn't make mistakes. God made them male and female. That's the complementarianism that we see within humanity.”
“God is not looking to punish people,” he stressed, adding that people shouldn't blame God for their sinful actions because there are characteristics that cannot exist in God’s nature, and not every feeling a person has defines who that person is.
“We may be sexual creatures, but that is not fully who we are. That's a part of who we are as a male and as a female. Anatomically, it matches up that way. We are made in the image of God. God made us perfect, and free will is a perfect gift. God who loved Adam and Eve, who made them in his image,” Jimenez said.
“He made them free. Because that is true love; that is freedom, my friends, to express yourself. … As we start talking about God and humanity, we can start seeing now that when I make choices as a free being, as a morally free agent, is God to blame? Is it God Who made me do that?”
Jimenez noted that God made people a free moral agent to have the right to choose right or wrong. But, he said, the first man and woman freely sinned in the Garden of Eden, leaving humanity in a fallen world.
“God, in His great mercy and love, had a quote, if you will, a backup plan to redeem mankind. … This is something we have to understand, because when we start discussing about God's order, God's design, or [what] God intended for us. God made us perfect. And the freewill that he gave us, we chose to break away from Him,” Jimenez explained.
“Just because we have certain desires doesn't make them right. The key here, my friends, as a Christian, is the genuineness of our faith that we placed in the resurrected Savior Jesus Christ. When we are being tested, it says [in 1 Peter 1:7] that ‘our faith is more precious than gold that perishes, though it be tested by fire may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
“At the heart of this issue of 'Who is God and who is humanity?' We realize our Maker, Who has revealed Himself through His Son, and through His great mercy, gave us an opportunity. Though we sin and broke away from Him, from fellowship with Him, broke His Commandments, He has given us the opportunity to be renewed, to be saved.”
Nicole VanDyke is a reporter for The Christian Post.
