My Response to the Passing of the Respect for Marriage Act

I am sure many of you have already heard that yesterday a bill was passed in the United States Senate that they titled the “Respect for Marriage Act”. The bill is making it a law that every state needs to recognize what other states have defined marriage to be, whether they desire to recognize those marriages in their states or not. In other words, if your state recognizes marriage to be between only one man and one woman, but someone moves into your state and the state they came from recognized them to be married to someone of the same sex, your state would now have to recognize that as a marriage.

I think a better title for this bill would have been either the “Disrespect for Marriage Act”, or maybe better, the “Disrespect for God’s Definitions Act”, because the truth of the matter is that by God’s eternal decree, marriage has been, is and always will be defined as between only one man and one woman. To call anything else marriage is to use the term marriage improperly.

I have been hearing about evangelical leaders going crazy over this new bill. Mostly they seem concerned that the government is redefining marriage, that we are losing our culture, and that this law will be used to persecute the church who holds to God’s view of marriage. Let me address each of those.

To call anything else marriage is to use the term marriage improperly.

First, let’s talk about the definition of marriage. I find it interesting that the gay lobby pushed hard, not for recognition of something like “civil unions”, which probably would have been easily attainable, but rather “gay marriage”. Two reasons for this exist. The first one being that God’s definition of marriage is an eternal decree, and the hope of these wicked men and women is that they can undermine God through the force of the law in the United States. No law on earth, however, can supersede God’s eternal, righteous, just law. In other words, no matter what the United States government says, there is still no such thing as gay marriage anywhere, only wicked people doing wickedness in the eyes of God. The second reason reminds us that we are not losing the culture.

The Bible says, “We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19, Legacy Standard Bible). They want gay marriage rather than civil unions because they are opposed to God, being in the power of the evil one. This is also why we are not losing the culture, because Christians never had the culture to lose. The culture has always existed only in the power of the evil one, and it never was in the power of the church. We cannot lose what we never had. Anything that caused you to think we were winning a culture war was simply an allusion, perhaps a very clever one to trick Christians into fighting an earthly, fleshly battle, when the true battle is a spiritual one.

No law on earth, however, can supersede God’s eternal, righteous, just law.

Which leads me to addressing the final thought, that the church may be persecuted out of this bill. I agree that this is a possibility, but that does not bother me so much. “Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:12). I am always saddened when Christians talk about persecution as though it is something we should never have to face. They hated our Lord, nailed Him to a cross, and yet we somehow think that since our lives have kept us fat and happy that we should never have to face what has been promised to us. Perhaps it is time for the church to man up and be more like Jesus.

And speaking of manning up, let me close with this. The Word of God says this about our God in reference to the kings of the earth, including the United States government, “He who sits in the heavens laughs, The Lord mocks them” (Psalm 2:4). While our God sits in the heavens and laughs, does it seem right that we run around like our hair is on fire in panic? How can the church of Jesus Christ demonstrate that they have a great God in heaven to those around us if we cower in fear every time the world acts like the Bible told us they would?

Church, it is time to man up and act like we serve the Creator of all things, the God of the universe, the Maker of heaven and earth, the sovereign Lord, the King of kings and the Lord of lords. Think, speak, and act like it matters who our God is, and let all the world know that those who fear Him and serve Him have nothing to fear from men.