“And the LORD said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous” (Genesis 18:20).

These are strange times when men “call evil good, and good evil” (Isaiah 5:20). This has never been more obvious than in the sudden respectability of the ancient sin of the Sodomites, whose very name has been identified for thousands of years with the vice of homosexuality. Although human attitudes may change, God does not change, and His evaluation of sin remains the same. “With whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17).

We do well, therefore, to remind people today of what God has said about the sin of Sodom. Not only was it “great” and “grievous,” as God said to Abraham, but also “wicked” and “exceeding” (Genesis 13:13), as well as “iniquitous” (Genesis 19:15). It was later called “bitter” (Deuteronomy 32:32), “flagrant” (Isaiah 3:9), and “horrible” (Jeremiah 23:14). In the New Testament period it was still called by Peter “ungodly,” “filthy,” and “unlawful” (II Peter 2:6–8).

Paul called the same sin “unclean,” “vile,” and “unseemly” (Romans 1:24,26,27), and those who practice it are called “dogs” in both Old and New Testaments (Deuteronomy 23:17,18; Revelation 22:15).

Nevertheless we, like God, must love the sinner while hating the sin. Like any other sin, this can be forgiven and cleansed, and conquered by the grace of God. To the Corinthians, Paul wrote: “Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, . . . shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God” (I Corinthians 6:9–11). HMM