by
Elisabeth Anne Kellogg
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Two passages from the Bible are used, not against the transgendered in general, but against the transsexual in particular: Leviticus 21:17-21 and Deuteronomy 23:1. These two scripture passages talk about damaged genitals. Transsexuals are those transgendered people who desire to be women so much that they alter the appearance of their bodies through hormones and surgery. The opponents of transsexuality often summarize it this way: "If there is nothing wrong with your male body, isn't it a sin to mutilate it by going through HRT (hormone readjustment therapy) and SRS (sexual reassignment surgery)?" In this article I will give the New Testament Biblical answer to this question. And that answer is very explicit.
In the Old Testament, God told the Israelites that worship of Him had to be perfect. This included the requirement that the priests also be physically perfect:
Say to Aaron: For the generations to come none of your descendants who has a defect may come near to offer the food of his God. No man who has any defect may come near; no man who is blind or lame, disfigured or deformed; no man with a crippled foot or hand, or who is hunchbacked or dwarfed, or who has any eye defect, or who has festering or running sores or damaged testicles. No descendant of Aaron the priest who has any defect is to come near to present the offerings made to the Lord by fire. He has a defect; he must not come near to offer the food of his God.
(Leviticus 21:17-21)
The requirement for perfect sex organs extended also to the animals sacrificed:
You must not offer to the Lord an animal whose testicles are bruised, crushed, torn or cut.
(Leviticus 22:24)
In Deuteronomy this is extended, not just to the priests, but to all worshippers:
No one who has been emasculated by crushing or cutting may enter the assembly of the Lord.
(Deuteronomy 23:1)
Now, this is exactly what we are talking about with SRS, isn't it? In the most common type of SRS, penile inversion, the penis is cut off and turned inside out to form the neo-vagina. The scrotum is slit down the middle, the testicles and prostate are removed and the scrotum is formed into the new labia. Emasculated by cutting, indeed! The term used for emasculated men in the Bible is "eunuch."
By Old Testament law, eunuchs were excluded from any possibility of becoming Jewish. As such the post-operative transsexual would be forever excluded from the worship of God. But these are ceremonial laws and it is important to remember that we as Christians are not bound by the Old Testament ceremonial law. And in fact the New Testament addresses this very issue.
Hear how Jesus speaks of eunuchs in non condemning language in the gospel of Matthew:
"I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery."
The disciples said to him, "If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry."
Jesus replied, "Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage [NIV footnote (a): "Or have made themselves eunuchs"] because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it."
(Matthew 19:12)
More important than this passage is the incident of the Ethiopian eunuch and the apostle Philip:
Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, "Go south to the road -- the desert road -- that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza." So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the book of Isaiah the prophet. The Spirit told Philip, "Go to that chariot and stay near it."
Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. "Do you understand what you are reading?" Philip asked.
"How can I," he said, "unless someone explains it to me?" So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.
The eunuch was reading this passage of Scripture:
He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before the shearer is silent, so he did not open his mouth. In his humiliation he was deprived of justice. Who can speak of his descendants? For his life was taken from the earth.The eunuch asked Philip, "Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?" Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.
As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, "Look, here is some water. Why shouldn't I be baptized?" And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing.
(Acts 8:26-39)
The question of the Ethiopian Eunuch, "Why shouldn't I be baptized?" has more significance than appears on the surface. The commandments of the "righteous proselyte" (ger tzedek) specified three steps to the process of becoming a Jew: first, the study of Judaism culminating in the acceptance of "the yoke of the commandments;" second, circumcision if the convert is male; and third, the emersion in a kosher mikvah (baptism). The absence of any of these things renders the conversion invalid. In the case of a eunuch, not only is circumcision not possible but rabinic authorities declared that the prospective convert is also barred from "the emersion of proselytes."
The Ethiopian Eunuch had just heard from the apostle Philip that God in Jesus Christ had forgiven his sins and made him acceptable to God. If this was so, then the eunuch was justified in asking "Doesn't this open to me the door into God's Kingdom that has so far been closed to me? Why shouldn't I be given the emersion of proselytes?" Philip's response is to perform the ceremony.
So it can be seen that under the New Testament the eunuch has as much a place in the kingdom of God as the one whose sex organs are perfect. Jesus has provided a new way of salvation. "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith -- and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God -- not by works, so that no one can boast." (Eph 2:8-9)
Yet even in the Old Testament we hear echoes of these things. The prophet Isaiah speaks words of encouragement to eunuchs:
Let no foreigner who has bound himself to the Lord say,
"The Lord will surely exclude me from his people."
And let not any eunuch complain,
"I am only a dry tree."
For this is what the Lord says:
"To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths,
who choose what pleases me
and hold fast to my covenant -
to them I will give within my temple and its walls
a memorial and a name
better than sons and daughters;
I will give them an everlasting name
that will not be cut off."
(Isaiah 56:3-5)
Also Daniel the prophet was a eunuch for he was taken to Babylon to be an officer in the court of king Nebuchadnezzar. And such officials were made eunuchs. See Is 39:5-7 and Dan 1:3-6.
It is easy to see how these passages about eunuchs are directly applicable to SRS and the transsexual. The transsexual ought to have no doubts that she is loved and accepted by God, to have a place within His temple, to have a memorial and an everlasting name. Even more, this is good news for anyone who believes that he/she is somehow unacceptable to God. But God is bigger than your puny sin. His grace is bigger than anything you have done, than anything that you are. His grace truely is sufficient for you.
The warm and accepting tone of these passages has caused the homosexual community to try and appropriate them by saying that homosexuals are eunochs because they do not have children. In doing so, however, hermaneutical principals are stretched to the breaking point. Rather than this, they should be satisfied with the good news that this passage has for all people: that God accepts the unacceptable by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
Is there any more that can be said in this area? Yes, for the post-operative transsexual is not just a male eunuch. She has passed over to the female side, but with one important exception. She will never be able to give birth to any children, a burden for any woman whether genetic or neo. Even after SRS when you have ceased to be a man and have become a barren woman, the Lord still has words of encouragement for you.
The prophet Isaiah said:
"Sing, O barren woman, you who never bore a child; burst into song, shout for joy, you who were never in labor; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband," says the LORD. "Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes. For you will spread out to the right and to the left; your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities."
(Isaiah 54:1-3)
Will God truly give children to the neo-woman? Perhaps not children of her body. Paul explains in Galatians 4:24-31 that this verse is speaking about spiritual children. This spiritual multiplying is far more rewarding in the long term (eternally) than physical birth (not to deny the tremendous value of having physical children), and is the truest sense of the "go forth and multiply" of Genesis 1:28.
At one of the Christmas services at our church this last year, our pastor mentioned something that struck a chord with me. Maybe it will with you, too. He was talking about the verse in "O Little Town of Bethlehem" that goes, "O Holy child of Bethlehem, descend to us we pray. Cast out our sin and enter in. Be born in us today." He said that when Christ is in our heart, it doesn't matter whether we are barren or not, we have already gone through labor and given birth. In Romans 8:18-25 Paul talks about our previous sinful lives as labor pains that came before Christ was born into our lives. And as we take God's love to others, they become born again and, in a sense, they are our children.
Hear what the psalmist wrote:
Who is like the LORD our God, the One who sits enthroned on high, who stoops down to look on the heavens and the earth? He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap; he seats them with princes, with the princes of their people. He settles the barren woman in her home as a happy mother of children. Praise the LORD. (Psalms 113:9)
Our God is the God who makes the first to be last and the last to be first. And He uses foolishness to show His wisdom and the weak things of the world to show his strength. Perhaps it is because you are despised by the world that you can have many children in His name.
So if you are transsexual, the one thing to think about as you go forward with HRT and SRS is that God has loved you so much that He sent His son Jesus to die for your sins and that nothing, NOTHING can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
May the blessing of the Lord Jesus go with you.
Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION,
Copyright (c) 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society.
Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers.
(c) Copyright 1999 Elisabeth Anne Kellogg, all rights reserved.
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