June 2019
Israel Folau – Right or Wrong?
However great he may be as a rugby player – and he certainly is right up there as Australia’s highest-paid player, it is not his exploits on the field that Israel Folau will be remembered for. Instead he will go down in history for his now famous comment on his social media account about homosexuality, warning that those who practice this lifestyle, along with other sins such as drunks, adulterers, liars, fornicators, thieves, atheists and idolaters, will go to hell. He is essentially paraphrasing 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and Galatians 5:19-20. His full post is at the bottom of this comment.
The resulting outcry has alienated him from players, the media and the general public, rugby fans or not. A typical comment from the media is a recent one from the Sydney Morning Herald which states, “the world doesn’t need more judgmental Christians.”
The small minority who have come out supporting him have argued that he was only quoting Scripture and that he should be admired as a man who won’t compromise his beliefs and is not afraid to stand up for Christ. His father told reporters that, “Israel does not do any wrong at all. All the words he posted up has not come from him, it’s come from the Bible”.
So, what should we, as born again, Bible believing Christians make of such comments? We do not deny that the Bible does give such warnings and that they should be heeded. We believe there is a heaven and a hell and all those who deny Christ will not be offered access to heaven, leaving hell as the only alternative.
In evaluating his comments, I want to approach this by using a method we have taught for more than 30 years in our ministry of the Kingdom of God. It is framed up by the well-known verse in John 14:6 where Jesus said,
“I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”
This verse brings an important order to our actions in life, specifically in matters that we are considering in this discussion. The key principle to note here is that the way comes before the truth.
What this means is that any truth that is used, without applying it in the way of the Lord, will not produce life. God’s way comes before truth. We must learn God’s way before we can appropriately handle His truth in a way that will bring life.
Truth is very powerful and there are many different ways we can access it, but in the Kingdom of God it is not truth that brings life, only the way of the Lord does that. If we come at truth without bringing it in the way the Lord uses it, which means it is expressed in a way that is consistent with His nature, character and heart for humanity, life will not result.
So, let’s pick this up in the way Israel Folau has brought Biblical truth to the public. The Bible teaches that Jesus did not come to condemn the world, He came to save it (John 3:17, 12:47). Jesus constantly reached out to the unsaved with a message that Good News has come – that all people may now become part of the Kingdom of God and that even the most despised life can be redeemed and made whole. In order to propagate this, He went out amongst the sinners with this message and urged them to find their life in Him.
We do not find any examples in the Gospels, where He went screaming to people that they were going to hell. He actually reserved His most severe rebukes for the religious people who were claiming to represent God but were presenting the way of the Lord as harsh, uncompromising and only for the elite.
Before I was a Christian, I was an active promoter of atheism. I constantly attended Christian rallies, that were commonplace back then, and debated with Christian leaders about the existence of God. They regularly told me I was going to hell. This never bothered me or even made me stop and think. To me back then, hell was just another tool Christians used (one of fear) to try and get people to join them. It took some time after I was a Christian that I understood what hell was, who went there and why.
The fact that we have sinned is not what takes us to hell (thank goodness because we all have sinned), just the same as living a so-called righteous life does not earn us the right to go to heaven. It is all based on who Christ is and how we respond to that.
The choice in this journey we are all on is not about right and wrong. I submit to you that Israel Folau was actually both. According to the Scriptures, the choices we make are about life and death. Let’s read this.
“I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants – Deut. 30:19 (my bold emphasis).
I want to claim that Israel did not bring life in his proclamation of Scripture. He accessed and presented truth in a way that did not reflect the way of the Lord and in doing so brought death (obviously not physical) – both to himself, his career and to those he sought to influence.
Let us all learn from this. The way of the Lord must come before truth if we want to produce life.
God bless you,
Bruce Billington