When politicians change their position on some policy matter, it’s called a “flip-flop.” A new book on sexual ethics describes God this way, as a kind of “flip-flopping” politician who said one thing for thousands of years but has, in recent years, altered His moral demands. Oddly enough, His new perspective makes Him more progressive, tolerant, and enlightened. You know, like us. 

Thirty-years ago, Richard Hays, professor of New Testament at Duke Divinity, produced the classic work of biblical ethics, The Moral Vision of the New Testament. In that book, he offered a definitive biblical argument against same-sex relationships. “The New Testament,” Hays wrote, “offers no loopholes or exception clauses that might allow for the acceptance of homosexual practices under some circumstances.”  

In a new book co-authored with his son, Fuller Seminary Old Testament professor Christopher Hays, he has now reversed this position on same-sex relationships. In The Widening of God’s Mercy, the authors assert: 

The biblical narratives throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament trace a trajectory of mercy that leads us to welcome sexual minorities no longer as “strangers and aliens” but as fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. 

This idea of a moral “trajectory” in the Bible that eventually points beyond itself is nothing new. In other words, same-sex relationships used to be wrong, but now they’re ok. As Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president Al Mohler explained, the authors are suggesting that God has changed His mind on homosexuality and that the Church should “move beyond the Bible” on this issue. 

Reversals like this, even when scholars and pastors claim otherwise, are rarely motivated by arguments or theology. The elder Hays acknowledges that his “experience being in a congregation with openly gay and lesbian members” helped change his mind. And, it’s likely the younger Hays played a role as well. As author Christopher Yuan remarked, “I have seen young adult children turn their previously biblical parents toward heresy…including a president of a Bible college.” 

Still, the arguments offered in this book are neither good nor new. For example, Hays repeats the claim that Jesus never said anything about homosexuality. It’s a silly claim. As Rebecca McLaughlin countered in an article at The Gospel Coalition, Jesus condemned “sexual immorality,” (the Greek word “porneia”) alongside murder, adultery, theft, false witness, and slander.  

Porneia (from which we get the word “pornography”) is, as Hays himself admits, “a nonspecific umbrella term for any kind of sexual immorality—presumably including all forms of illicit sexual relations elaborated in Leviticus 18.” That would, of course, include homosexual activity. So, by Hays’ own reasoning, Jesus did speak about same-sex relationships in the Gospels. 

Moreover, when asked about divorce, Jesus responded by reasserting God’s original design for marriage described in Genesis. “Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh…” Also, his “trajectory” was not to relax rules on sexual immorality. Jesus said that anyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery in his heart. That doesn’t sound like God changing His mind about morality.  

The ultimate problem with the argument the Hayses make is that it all amounts to God “learning on the job,” as they unbelievably phrase it. As theology writer Derek Rishmawy responded, a “God” who changed his design for human sexuality would not be a God worth worshiping. Such a change would imply that there is a moral standard higher than God to which He failed to conform in the past. The moral purposes of such a “God” could not be trusted, nor could his supposedly “widening” mercy, since what he calls sin today may tomorrow be something he welcomes and encourages.   

Thankfully, the “God” of this book is not the God of Christianity. James 1:17 says that “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” Human sexuality, designed for union and procreation within man-woman marriage, is such a gift. Though it has been distorted by our fall into sin, God’s purposes for sexuality, and the prohibitions that flow out of those purposes, have not changed.  

This is far better news for sinners, including those who’ve sinned sexually, than a “God” who has changed His mind. His mercy doesn’t need “widening.” It is already vast enough to rescue sinners from futile behaviors and false identities.  

Those hoping to widen God’s mercy make His mercy unnecessary and His character untrustworthy. They should know better. In fact, considering the Bible’s warnings to those who call evil good and good evil, and who cause others to sin, they should repent. 

This Breakpoint was co-authored by Shane Morris. If you’re a fan of Breakpoint, leave a review on your favorite podcast app. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.