The Much-Needed New Word from God.

Someone sent me this text for comment: 

"In our present day generation, I believe God is telling us that one does not need to change his/her orientation to worship God. One could even be in committed relationships with people of the same  and worship God...

And, if I may be so bold, Paul might even say today:  "Earlier generations didn't know this hidden plan that God has now revealed to this present generation through the Spirit. This plan is that the LGBT Community would be coheirs and parts of the same body, and that they would share with heterosexual Christians in the promises of God in Christ Jesus through the gospel."

The temptation is to comment on the specific issue of sexual morality. But that isn't the key to this problem. The central issue is the notion that God is saying ANYTHING specifically different in "this generation" than he did in any other. Once you have opened the door to that, you have opened the door to anything and everything. 

The position of the Salvation Army, as of other Christian churches, is that Scripture is complete and sufficient. It is so because the work of Christ is complete and sufficient. That work has shaped history around itself. God spoke previously in various ways... but in THESE LAST DAYS he has spoken by his Son. We have been in the generation of the last days ever since Pentecost - a generation defined not by time or birth but by the work of Jesus.  

I am not sure how to explain a statement like the one I was sent. How can anyone write like that? The issue is so fundamental that it is hard to avoid the conclusion that anyone who can speak so lightly of fresh words from God has never really "got" the bigness and uniqueness of the person and work of Christ at all. Certainly there is a touch of the brave new world about it, of the snobbery of the modern. 

But then, perhaps it is a giveaway, really. If we need to be so bold, if we need to speculate on what new thing God is saying to us today, then that is an admission that, after all, the Bible in and of itself actually DOESN'T support the whole LGBTQI agenda. No one has ever had to change their orientation to worship God - but to find blessing on the physical relationships that express that orientation - that needs a New Word.