Are homosexuals ‘eternally damned?’
info All commentaries are written by volunteers, readers, or supporters of our Bible translation project. These are not official views of our project; we are not a religious denomination and we do not establish doctrine. These commentaries reflect a variety of views and some disagree with each other.
According to the Christian books of the Bible, all sex outside of marriage would be classified as fornication, that is, porneia (in Greek) or zanayeh (in Aramaic). Anyone, homosexual or heterosexual, who commits porneia/zanayeh is counted among the ‘unrighteous’ whose names are not written in the Scroll of Life. It’s likely that this would include the vast majority of heterosexuals alive today.
What does that mean? And when the Bible says that the sexually immoral ‘won’t inherit the Kingdom,’ (1 Corinthians 6:9) does this mean that they are ‘eternally damned,’ as some religions teach?
No. Paul merely referred to them as ‘unrighteous,’ and that they won’t ‘inherit the Kingdom.’ He did not say that they won’t be resurrected. At Acts 24:15 Paul says that there’ll be a resurrection for both ‘the righteous and the unrighteous.’ Further, Revelation 21:7 says that all who are resurrected and eventually ‘conquer’ can still receive an inheritance in God’s Kingdom.
Further, scholars agree that the teaching of Hellfire is not found in the Bible.