Does the Bible require the death penalty for homosexuality?

Adultery too (a guilty infraction of the marriage bond) called for the death penalty for both the man and the woman involved in this. God does not require Gentile governments to enforce Israel's laws, but these evils are no less wicked wherever they are found. Meanwhile, God is delaying punishment, and today is commanding all people everywhere to repent (Acts 17:30). If so, they will be saved from the punishment they deserve: if not, their punishment will be not only death, but eternal torment in the lake of fire.

The penalty for incest was death for both parties (vv. 11-12). Those guilty of homosexual relations incurred the same penalty (v. 13). If a man married both a woman and her mother, all three of them were to be burned to death.

A human and an animal having sexual relations were both to be killed (vv. 15-16). Incest with a half sister was just the same as with a full sister: it demanded death. The same was true as regards aunts, whether on the father's or the mothers's side (vv. 19-20). It is evident that such evil between an uncle and niece would be the same.

Adultery too (a guilty infraction of the marriage bond) called for the death penalty for both the man and the woman involved in this. God does not require Gentile governments to enforce Israel's laws, but these evils are no less wicked wherever they are found. Meanwhile, God is delaying punishment, and today is commanding all people everywhere to repent (Acts 17:30). If so, they will be saved from the punishment they deserve: if not, their punishment will be not only death, but eternal torment in the lake of fire.

The penalty for incest was death for both parties (vv. 11-12). Those guilty of homosexual relations incurred the same penalty (v. 13). If a man married both a woman and her mother, all three of them were to be burned to death.

A human and an animal having sexual relations were both to be killed (vv. 15-16). Incest with a half sister was just the same as with a full sister: it demanded death. The same was true as regards aunts, whether on the father's or the mothers's side (vv. 19-20). It is evident that such evil between an uncle and niece would be the same.

This chapter reveals the justice of God in dealing with criminals. The death penalty is most prominent. It is pronounced upon the following crimes: Molech worship; dealing with familiar spirits (spiritualism); different forms of incest and sodomy. Men advocate now the abolishment of death penalty without considering the outraged justice of a holy God. The object of these severe penalties imposed by Jehovah were the satisfaction of justice and the vindication of a broken law. A closer examination of these warnings and the penalties attached will reveal the seriousness of the offences against the theocratic government set up in the midst of Israel, and the perfect justice of every penalty. It is a serious matter if critics find fault with these solemn statements, denying their authority and judging the holy and infallible judge.

The unnatural brutalities of verses 22, 23, are plain enough; but it may not be known how unblushingly they were perpetrated among the heathen, even by the Greeks and the Romans. What abomination! It is confusion, says Jehovah. Israel were not to render themselves unclean in any of these things, as in all these did the nations of Canaan which He cast out before them. How much guiltier, if so, would Israel be! The very land was made unclean. Therefore had He visited the iniquity on it. Earth vomited out its inhabitants; so that Israel must beware, not only for themselves, but for any stranger sojourning among them, lest the land should vomit them out, as it had the nations that dwelt there before Israel. For such evil was intolerable in His eyes, and yet more offensive in His own people than in any other; a truth forgotten soon among the Jews, as later in Christendom. "Therefore shall ye observe my charge that ye do not [any] of the abominable customs which were done before you, and that ye make not yourselves unclean therein: I [am] Jehovah your God." It is by receiving the good that is from God, His word and above all His Christ, that souls are kept from evil.

" 9 For everyone that curses (or, reviles) his father and his mother shall surely be put to death; he has cursed his father and his mother; his blood is upon him. 10 And a man that commits adultery with a man's wife, that commits adultery with his neighbour's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. 11 And a man that lies with his father's wife has uncovered his father's nakedness: both of them shall surely be put to death; their blood [is] upon them. 12 And if a man lie with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put to death; they have wrought confusion; their blood [is] upon them. 13 And if a man lie with a male, as he with a woman, both of them have committed abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood [is] upon them. 14 And if a man take a wife and her mother, it [is] enormity (or, incest) with fire shall they burn him and them, that there be no enormity among you. 15 And if a man lie with a beast for copulation, he shall surely be put to death; and ye shall kill the beast. 16 And if a woman approach to any beast to gender with it, thou shalt kill the woman and the beast: they shall surely be put to death; their blood [is] upon them. 17 And if a man take his sister, his father's daughter, or his mother's daughter, and see her nakedness and she see his nakedness, it [is] a disgrace: and they shall be cut off before the eyes of the sons of their people. He has uncovered his sister's nakedness; he shall bear his iniquity. 18 And if a man shall lie with a woman in her infirmity, and uncover her nakedness, he has laid naked her flux, and she has uncovered the fountain of her blood; and both of them shall be cut off from among their people. 19 And the nakedness of thy mother's sister and of thy father's sister thou shalt not uncover; for he has laid naked his own flesh (or, near of kin): they shall bear their iniquity. 20 And if a man lie with his aunt, he has uncovered his uncle's nakedness: they shall bear their sin; they shall die childless. 21 And if a man take his brother's wife, it is uncleanness; he has uncovered his brother's nakedness: they shall be childless" (vers. 9-21).

Here then we commence with open and base dishonour to one's parents, which was to be punished with death. And the same sentence is pronounced upon the nearest and deepest wound one man can inflict on another, a sin not foully wrong only, but in despite of Jehovah who instituted married union from the beginning. His law was as extreme against these sins, as against what denied Himself.

But greater impurity prevailed among the heathen, and especially those who occupied the promised land. The sons of Israel too were soon to be exposed to their shameless example. He who gave them Canaan knew their hearts far better than they themselves did. Hence these solemn and painful denunciations of incest, etc. Flesh is the same root of vileness in a Jew as in a Gentile. Restraint may hinder its outbreak; but evil lusts are there, ready to carry away the impulsive and headstrong beyond all bounds.

The Lord Jesus is in every way the Saviour, not from divine punishment only but from sins. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of offences according to the riches of God's grace. But in Him we have life also, life eternal, for He is the Son, and gives nothing less than this life to everyone that believes on Him. And life in Christ is the indispensable basis of the new nature, and of our new relationships and duties, affections and privileges, crowned since redemption with the indwelling Spirit for the Christian and for the church, that both might have an immediate link with God and power from Him.

In chapter 20 we have the avoidance of gross impurities insisted upon by all in the land, for it contemplates the people in the possession of Canaan. A great deal of what is here forbidden was forbidden in chapter 18, yet chapter 20 is no vain repetition of it, for it tells us what the other did not — the penalties attaching to the various acts of impurity against which they are here solemnly warned. That men could practice such vileness was bad enough, and shows the degradation into which they got, the consequences of sin. But the warnings vouchsafed to Israel show us into what uncleannesses they were in danger of falling, if left to themselves, and that without a revelation from God they had really no right standard by which to regulate their conduct in that which so intimately affected their happiness and the purity of family life.

Then in the twentieth chapter we have the penalties by which the law just given is sealed, or actualized as law, for a law without penalty is none at all. The three divisions of the chapter are plain enough, but I cannot go more deeply into them.

A solemn warning concludes this chapter. The inhabitants of Canaan were to be cast out on account of their vileness. Jehovah would not spare His people if they practised these things. They did commit all this wickedness. Israel cast out of the land, the homeless wanderer bears witness to the fulfillment of this solemn warning.

But in the maintenance of this, the claim of God was first, and thus the commandments as to idolatry follow this immediately. There was to be no toleration in such cases at all, but sharp excision by the sword of justice, the government being exercised by God openly among them, and the worship of other gods manifest rebellion. Church and state were here really one, and ecclesiastical penalties also civil ones. This is, of course, no justification of such a course in entirely different conditions under another dispensation. The kingdom of God is now "not of this world;" Christ's people reign not, but are patient sufferers; their weapons spiritual, and not carnal; and grace to be manifested by them while God in His grace forbears toward men.