If Marriage is a Civil Union, Can Pastors Marry Same-Sex Couples?

This new episode of CORE Christianity was pre-recorded. My pastor marries gay couples.

What does the Bible say about that? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of CORE Christianity. Well, hi, I'm Bill Meyer, along with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and this is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day. You can call us with your question at 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. If you get our voicemail, feel free to leave a message. You can also post your question on our Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter accounts, and you can always email us your question at questionsatcorechristianity.com. First up today, let's go to Glenn calling in from Missouri. Glenn, what's your question for Pastor Adriel?

Okay, this is going to be an odd question for you, I'm sure. It came to me a while back about the demons that were cast out, or the fallen angels that became demons, you know, with Lucifer's rebellion. Were they ever offered any kind of grace or forgiveness if they repented for what they did, or is that just something that us humans were allowed?

Mm-hmm. Hey, Glenn, thanks for that question. I don't think there's any indication in the Bible that they were, you know, given a chance to be saved, that atonement was provided for the angels, that kind of a thing, so that the fallen angels could get back into God's good graces, if you will. In fact, just the contrary, the passages in the Bible seem to indicate that the fallen angels are being reserved for judgment. So I think of Jude, verse six, the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept it in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day.

This idea of being reserved for God's judgment because of their rebellion. Also, another passage I think that makes it clear that redemption does not extend to the angels in the same way that it extends to us is found in Hebrews chapter two, a passage that people don't typically go to when having this discussion, but the author of the Hebrew says in chapter two, verse 16, for surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. Now, the he there is Jesus. Therefore, he had to be made like his brothers in every respect so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. And so right there, I mean the author of the Hebrews makes it very clear that Jesus is the mediator, the high priest, not for the angelic hosts in the same way that he is for us, for human beings so that we might have communion with God having fallen away in sin and be welcomed back into his presence.

So those are two passages of scripture I think that speak to your question, and I think they speak pretty clearly. So God bless you, Glenn. Thank you for giving us a call. Thanks, Glenn. Thanks for listening to Core Christianity. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and here's an email that came in from one of our listeners named Roxanna. She says, my pastor marries gay couples because he says that we all sin and that he does civil marriages for the law of the land.

What do you think about this line of reasoning? I think one of the things that we're going to increasingly get a lot of pushback for as Christians, and I mean it's something that's already happened. We see it all over the place, but it's just the sexual ethic that we believe in according to scripture. It's so different from what broader society culture has embraced. And so to believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman, to believe that sex should be reserved for marriage, those kinds of things, that's not very popular at all. And there are going to be people who don't agree with us.

I mean, the majority of the society doesn't agree with us. And we're going to have to hold fast, I think, to the teachings of scripture, to being faithful to God's word, to being distinct in our Christian communities as holy communities, communities that are set apart that don't look like or reflect the rest of society, the rest of culture. I think it's one of the ways we're reserved as witnesses in society, if you will. But it sounds to me like this pastor is trying to occupy this sort of gray area, saying, well, they're not Christians, and yes, they're doing this, and I'm just going to do this as a civil marriage.

Part of me thinks that there's a real issue here in terms of what it is that we're supporting or getting behind as Christian ministers and what we're communicating when we do those things. Sin brings God's judgment. Sin is destructive, is terrible. And I think, I mean, this is something that we see throughout the teaching of the scriptures very clearly. I mean, I was just quoting from Jude there, speaking of the judgment on fallen angels. He's going to get in immediately after that passage, he talks about the judgment that came upon Sodom and Gomorrah. But I think that there's a real issue when we say, well, I don't do that, but I don't have any problem giving a hearty approval to that. In fact, in Romans chapter one, where Paul talks about same-sex relationships, homosexual relationships, he gives this stern rebuke, this warning related to God's judgment.

He's speaking here in that context. And then in verse 28, he says, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanders, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless, though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die. They not only do them, but give approval to those who practice them. We have to be very careful that we're not giving approval to things, behaviors, practices, relationships, sort of signing off on those things when in reality it's driving people further and further away from the Lord. And so we want to think about ways to communicate the grace of the gospel, the love of Jesus Christ for sinners, all kinds of sinners, right? The gospel is big enough for all of them. We want to communicate that clearly, but in a way that doesn't undermine or compromise the truth or the Bible's sexual ethic and the teaching of scripture on marriage, on sex, on relationships. And so that's what I would say.

And if this is something... The other thing I would say is your past... I mean, if he's able to marry a bunch of people outside of the church, that just seems like it would also create issues. Now, just speaking personally as a minister of the gospel, I stick to doing weddings for people within the church that I pastor because I want to know the people that I'm marrying and I want to be able to encourage them and come alongside of them. And marriage is such a big thing, such a beautiful thing, that I think it's important that we take it seriously as ministers of the gospel and that we're encouraging and walking with individuals who want to get married.

And so just sort of marrying whoever I think is something that I would also have questions about. So thank you for your question and God bless. We actually have a free resource that's related to this topic and we'd like to offer that to you today. It's called 10 Things You Need to Know About the Bible and Homosexuality.

Yeah. I mean, again, when we start talking about this subject, there's so much more that can be said and frankly that needs to be said. And that's why we've created this resource. We do hope you'll get a hold of it. Again, it's over at corechristianity.com forward slash offers and it's called 10 Things You Need to Know About the Bible and Homosexuality. We know that there are a lot of questions about this.

We get them on the broadcast as you've heard. And so get a hold of this resource. It's yours and we want to keep encouraging you to grow in your understanding of what the scriptures teach. Again, it's a free resource.

You can find it by going to corechristianity.com forward slash offers. Let's go back to the phones. Ensel is on the phone from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Ensel, what's your question for Pastor Adrian?

Yeah, hello. Good afternoon, Pastor Adrian. So my question is, I am a person that most of my life I used to be dependent on other people. I used to be Roman Catholic, so I didn't know the gospel the way that I know it now as a Christian. My question is, I'm currently married to my wife and my wife wants to live the role of a submissive wife within the gospel and the bible and I want to become a head of household but I have been used to being a person depending on other people and it has been hard for me. What resources do you suggest that I could use for me to be able to become at that head in the house and follow a Christian marriage? Hey brother, God bless you in marriage and just in the Christian life as you continue to grow in your understanding of the gospel. I mean, my mind immediately goes to Paul's exhortation in Ephesians chapter 5, husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her that he might sanctify her having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without a spot or a wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish.

In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself for no one ever hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ also does the church and we are members of his body. Now I love those two words there, Jesus nourishes and cherishes his church and those are two things that God calls you to do brother for your wife. In terms of leading and I think taking the role as a spiritual leader in your home, I would encourage you and I'd encourage every husband, I've talked to many couples where you know the wife feels like man I wish my husband was more encouraging in terms of let's get into church, let's pray together, let's read the word together, let's grow in Christ together. Oftentimes in marriages husbands sort of sit back and just feel like I don't know about the whole spiritual thing and you know my wife is the real spiritual one, I kind of am off over here.

I would just encourage you to one make sure that you have a healthy pursuit of Christ in your own life and that you're leading your family in that in prayer, in the study of scripture, in being in church on Sunday, on the Lord's day and growing together in that and so I think that's one way that you can helpfully lead your family and ultimately if the Lord blesses you with children that those will be rhythms that you'll have in your life, in your marriage with your children as well as you grow together in the word of God and in the grace of God. Remember also again when you think about leading as husbands in marriage it's the picture is Jesus, right? Ephesians chapter five and how did he lead?

It wasn't this sort of top down authoritarian you know like you know from the top control type thing. It was service. It was humble service, humble love. You think of what Paul tells the Philippians you know consider the needs of others is more important than your own and I think this is part of the way that you honor the Lord in your marriage as a husband is considering your wife's needs, caring for her, loving her, serving her also and growing together in the things of the Lord and leading in scripture, reading, in prayer, in being in church, in service to your neighbors, to the people around you, to the people in your church community.

Those are all things that I would encourage and recommend and what I want to do is just take a brief moment to pray for you right now because I know that this is a real struggle that we all have in marriage for husbands and for wives and God I think you know is revealed in his word that he wants our marriages to be good and honoring to him and healthy and so I want to pray for that for you brother. Father, I thank you for this question for men so Lord and for the ways that you've been at work in his life and Lord knowing that he doesn't he doesn't want to depend so much on others but he wants to be someone who is a nourisher and a cherisher as your son Jesus is with his church. We thank you for that beautiful picture Lord that Jesus nourishes and cherishes his church and that we have the privilege of being a part of that church and I pray that that my brother would understand more and more in his life that great work of your son Jesus that that great nourishing that great cherishing that great service sacrificial service and that that would shape him as a husband loving his wife and caring for her and and considering her needs Lord even above his own and as his family grows Lord if that should be in your will Lord that he would be able to do that to cultivate that kind of relationship and leading in prayer in the study of scripture in church would you be with him would you bless him would you grant him wisdom and fill him with your Holy Spirit to that end I pray in Jesus name amen. Amen and so thanks so much for your call and for listening to Core Christianity and man just I appreciate his earnestness and thoughtfulness in asking that question and thanks for that great advice there, Adriel. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Let's go to Ryan from Florence, South Dakota. Ryan, thanks for hanging on.

What's your question for Adriel? Yes, I was just having a little discussion with my son-in-law this weekend and my question is the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost. I guess what I have kind of known as the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost were three persons in one, which to me is they're all three the same person and I guess my son-in-law didn't see it that way so I just I'm not sure who's right and just trying and just trying to figure it out and then is there a verse in the Bible that explains it?

Well, Ryan, thank you for that question. I love getting questions on the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. This program is called Core Christianity because we want to talk about those core truths of the Christian faith. Truth that I think so often times in the church we forget about or we miss or we just don't don't fully understand and certainly the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is the very bullseye of the faith. This is who God is and also how God has revealed himself to us for our redemption, for our salvation, and so the proper way of talking about the Trinity and this comes out of years and years and years of the church wrestling through the revelation that we have in scripture, the Old and the New Testaments, and thinking, okay, how can we best articulate this in a way that is faithful to scripture, faithful to God and how he's revealed himself and doesn't undermine what's been revealed. The proper way is to talk about God as one. Deuteronomy 6, 4, hero Israel, the Lord is God, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And throughout scripture this is made absolutely clear. We're monotheists. We believe in one God. But you also have in scripture the language of three distinct persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

And they're not the same person. You think about Jesus at his baptism. You know, you have the voice of the Father from heaven, this is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased. You have the presence of the Holy Spirit, we're told there. You have these three distinct persons and yet we believe that they're God, one in essence, undivided. That word essence, we're talking about substance there. Equal in power and in glory so that the Father is not, in terms of essence, over the Son so that the Son is subordinate and has a lesser essence, if you will, than the Father.

No, they're equal there. And yet they're revealed to us as three distinct persons. Jesus, when he commanded his disciples to go into all the world to make disciples, he says, baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. You have this language, this Trinitarian language throughout the New Testament, the language of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit over and over again. At the end of 2 Corinthians, in 2 Corinthians chapter 13, Paul gives a benediction, if you will, to the church.

He says, the blessing of God, the Father, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, and the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. And so that Trinitarian language, the language of three persons, is there throughout the pages of the Bible. And so we're trying to make sense of the fact that God is one, and yet the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God.

Not three different gods, same essence, but three distinct persons, different persons, revealed to us by their relations to each other. And that's what we see in scripture. And so we wouldn't say, Ryan, that God is one person and three persons. That would be a contradiction.

And that's why we reject that. It's not that there's a contradiction in the doctrine of the Trinity. We're saying there are three distinct persons, and yet they're one in essence. And in that sense, one, one substance, the Holy Trinity, the Godhead. And so there's no contradiction there. There's a distinction, but not a contradiction. Thank you for your question, and love that you're having these conversations with your son-in-law about God and theology.

You got to be proud to be able to talk with him about these things. And may the Lord bless you guys as you continue to dig into the word and grow together. By the way, just in terms of getting a deeper understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity, maybe you can stay on the line and we can send you this resource.

The book Core Christianity by Dr. Michael Horton has a whole section on the doctrine of the Trinity. And I would love to get that out to you as you keep studying these things. And I know it'll be a blessing to you. So God bless. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. We do receive emails here and you can email us anytime with your question about the faith, the Bible, doctrine, theology. Here's the email address. It's questionsatcorechristianity.com.

That's questionsatcorechristianity.com. Here's a question from one of our listeners named Matt. He says, Thank you so much for your ministry.

It's been a huge blessing to me. When I came back to Christ in 2018 after wandering for a long time, Core was really pivotal in being a huge encouragement and a strong foundation to lean on. I'm married, but I'm unequally yoked and my wife does not share my faith. She knows that I'm a Christian, but only vaguely so.

And I haven't said too much about my faith or elaborated much on it. We spent the last nine months physically apart because of her work in a different country. And while she was away, I also began to attend a really wonderful church at home here in the US. But I'm not sure how to move forward and share this change in my life with my wife.

What should I do? Well, let me first again, we're praying a lot on this episode, let me pray for you too, because the situation that you're in would love to see your wife experience and know the grace of Jesus as well. And so Father, I want to pray for Matt in his marriage and ask Lord God that you would be with him. Would you please give him wisdom? Would you please help him, Lord, to clearly communicate in a way that's helpful and true to your word, the promise, the hope that we have in your son, Jesus. And I pray for his wife, Lord, that she would experience the conviction of your Holy Spirit and that her eyes would be opened and that she would know Jesus and the forgiveness of sins. And so would you be with him?

Would you help him to continue to grow? And I pray that they would be able to grow together in the faith and in a relationship with you, even as they grow as a couple. And so please hear our prayers. We pray, O God, in Jesus' name.

Amen. This question was essentially asked by the Corinthian church to the apostle Paul. We're in marriages that are mixed marriages, meaning the unequally yoked, I'm married to someone who doesn't share my faith, who isn't a believer. And Paul says to them in verse 10 of 1 Corinthians 7, to the married I give this charge, not I, but the Lord. The wife should not separate from her husband, but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband, and the husband should not divorce his wife. To the rest I say, I, not the Lord, that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. Now there's a lot there, and I'm not going to get into everything in that passage.

Maybe we can another time. But specifically his comment there that the unbelieving wife, in this case, you know, where you're married, the unbelieving wife is made holy by her believing husband. Now that doesn't mean, I think, that, you know, you're married to a non-Christian and they have a ticket into heaven too, just because they're married to you, that kind of a thing.

No, that's not what Paul is saying. It's a verb that's used there, to sanctify, to make holy, and I think that the image is of, you know, through your relationship, through the influence that you can have, she's willing to be with you when you guys are married, you get to share the light and the love of Christ with her. And so I think it's really important that you do that, and you just clearly communicate about what God is doing in your life. I mean, as you guys are having conversations, as you go out on date night or whatever it is that you're doing, being able to talk about what Christ has done in your life, and not just what Christ has done in your life for you, you know, this is really good for me, kind of a thing. That's often how we talk about Jesus, but who Jesus is and how that relates even to her, and not just to her, but to everybody.

That's the reality. I mean, Christ is the savior of the world in that he reveals his gospel, the message goes out to everyone, he calls all people everywhere to repent, to believe. And so you, I mean, have this great opportunity to love your wife as Jesus loved the church. We talked about it a little bit earlier on the broadcast, you think of Ephesians, what Paul says there. I mean, what she should be seeing in you is the grace of Christ growing in your own life as the Lord draws you closer to him.

And I think that should actually make us, obviously, right, as husbands, better husbands. So she should benefit from Jesus in your life. And that should be something she experiences and sees as you love her sacrificially, kindly, and as you're speaking to her, the truth of the gospel as you're communicating that according to scripture.

And that's just what I would encourage you to do is to remain with her, to be with her, and pray that the Lord would use your relationship to open her eyes to his grace in her life too. God bless. Thanks for listening to Core Christianity. To request your copy of today's special offer, visit us at corechristianity.com and click on offers in the menu bar or call us at 1-833-843-2673. That's 833, the core. When you contact us, please let us know how you've been encouraged by this program. And be sure to join us next time as we explore the truth of God's word together.