After we are justified by God, we can never return to Adam. What does this mean for someone like me who lived as a lesbian for a decade and believed I was gay? It means that homosexuality is part of my biography, not my nature. My nature is securely chained in Christ (Colossians 3:10-20). What does it mean if a Christian falls back into an old sin pattern? It means that he is acting against his true nature. How do we stop acting against our true nature in Christ when our flesh craves our old sin patterns? By going to war with our sin through the power of Christ’s blood.

What Is Truth?
The Bible is Truth, both in word and in substance. When one passage of scripture may seem unclear to us, we interpret it in light of the clarity of God’s unified Biblical witness.[1] There are no problem passages in scripture.
In His image, God created human beings ontologically as men or women. Our sexual difference is part of our origin and eternity. We bear the image of God in purposeful pattern.
“Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness…So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them’. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it.’” Genesis 1:26-28 
This magisterial passage, known as the Creation Ordinance, reveals that God established men and women for the normative and godly calling of biblical marriage. God planted the seed of the gospel in the Garden of Eden. Scripturally speaking, heterosexuality is natural, and homosexuality is unnatural.[2] When the Apostle Paul revisits the Creation Ordinance in 1 Timothy and Romans 1, he states that homosexuality is “contrary to sound doctrine” (1 Tim. 1:10) and denies the being of God (Romans 1:25-27).
When Eve obeyed the serpent over God, all of humanity was plunged into sin, a sin recorded as Adam’s (Genesis 3). Adam’s sin, imputed to all of mankind, created a cosmological crisis. Puritan Thomas Goodwin depicts this crisis in the form of two giants: one is Adam, and the other is Christ.
Goodwin’s word picture looks like this: chained to Adam’s belt are all men and women born after him. God in mercy removes the chains of his chosen ones from Adam and locks them onto Christ. God’s mercy has a name: justification (Romans 3: 24-25). Justification is “an act of God’s free grace, wherein he pardons all our sins, and accepts us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone.”[3] In justification, God secures every saved person’s chain to Christ, guaranteeing a new nature and future. From our posture of justified men and women, chained firmly to Christ, we begin the lifelong journey of sanctification (Ephesians 4:23-24): “a work of God’s free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God and are enabled more and more to die unto sin and live unto righteousness.”[4]
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[1]  “The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is Scripture itself: and therefore, when there is a question about the full and true sense of any Scripture (which is not manifold but one) it must be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly,” Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 1.9. The Reformation Heritage KJV Study Bible, ed. Joel Beeke. Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2014: 2029.
[2] See Rosaria Butterfield, Openness Unhindered, chapter 4, “Sexual Orientation: Freud’s 19th Century Category Mistake,” (Pittsburgh: Crown and Covenant Publications, 2015); 93-112. While sexual orientation as a category of personhood is a Freudian addition, heterosexuality and homosexuality are not equally problematic examples. Heterosexuality is always the biblical pattern, although its application may be sinful, as in the case of adultery. Homosexuality is always the unbiblical pattern and cannot be “sanctified” without being obliterated. Calling people to celibacy and rejecting the idea of sanctified change that allows either for heterosexual marriage or content singleness is unchristian. In addition to being sinful, homosexuality is pagan. For more on this, see Peter Jones, The Other Worldview. Bellingham, WA: Kirkdale Press, 2015. When current self-described “gay Christians” feel “othered” by biblical Christians, there is wisdom in this recognition. Gay Christianity is another—a separate and a different—religion.
[3] Question 33 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, “What is Justification?” The Reformation Heritage KJV Study Bible, ed. By Dr. Joel Beeke. Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Press, 2014: 2055.
[4] Question 35 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, “What is Sanctification?” The Reformation Heritage KJV Study Bible, 2056.
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 Can I trust the Bible? Is the Bible true? If the answer to those questions is ‘yes’, then we merely need to appeal to what it says for something to be true. And, if we’re honest, the reason most of us believe the things we do about God and the gospel is because the Bible says they are so. Our belief is founded on the fact that what the Bible tells us is true, with all its implications regarding what it says about God, the human condition and the person of Jesus.

I have spoken a lot about evangelism. In my view, we often over-complicate it. For the most part, if you know the gospel and you’ve got lips and a tongue, you’re pretty much good to go. Share your story, point people to the saviour you know, tell people why you love Jesus and why you find the gospel compelling. Most of that is just your opinion about what you have come to believe. And most of us don’t need much training in spouting our opinions off about almost anything.
But there is one apologetic question I think it pays to have in your arsenal. The reason being, almost every other apologetic question comes back to it in the end. It doesn’t really matter whether somebody is asking you about the Trinity, justification by faith alone, how God can allow evil and suffering, or almost any other thorny question you might get asked; all of them ultimately end up at this one in the end. Whatever you are asked, it boils down to this: why believe the Bible?
What do we know about God? Ultimately, what he has revealed about himself in scripture and nature. What do we know about the human condition? Fundamentally, what the Bible tells us. What do we know about the end of all things? What God has given us to know in the Bible. On and on we could go. But underlying every question about the Christian faith is this, what does the Bible say and why believe it?
The ultimate apologetic question is, why believe the bible? If you can trust the Bible, and there are good reasons to believe what it says is true, just about every other apologetic question becomes moot.
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The sheer number of witnesses to the risen Christ is overwhelming. Peter had himself seen the risen Christ. The other apostles had seen Jesus alive after His crucifixion. The apostle Paul gives us a witness list: “[Jesus] was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time” (1 Corinthians 15:5–8). Having presented irrefutable and insurmountable evidence, Peter pulls it all together with a closing argument.
 The third day He rose again from the dead – The Apostles’ Creed
I enjoy mystery novels. One of my favorite genres is the legal thriller that combines mystery with courtroom drama. In legal thrillers the verdict is based on evidence brought forth. That evidence needs to be unearthed and presented in such a way that the narrative makes sense and adequately accounts for all the facts.
We can take this approach to verifying Jesus’ resurrection from the grave. In fact, that is the approach Peter takes in his sermon to the crowd gathered in Jerusalem for the feast of Pentecost following Christ’s resurrection. People had traveled from all over for the occasion. They were abuzz with recent events, events that made that Pentecost like no other. In his sermon in Acts 2 Peter brings to bear four strands of evidence that lead to an inescapable conclusion.
The Man
Peter begins by pointing to Jesus, particularly as one distinguished by God. “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know” (Acts 2:22). Peter highlights two things in particular. He identifies Him as Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus is His given name. Nazareth refers to His hometown, where He was raised. This is a common manner of identification in the Bible, narrowing it down from all those who bear a common name. For example, Saul is called Saul of Tarsus. Sometimes people are identified by their lineage, such as Simon bar Jonah, Simon son of Jonah. But for reasons we’ve already touched on, identifying Jesus as the Son of Joseph would be inappropriate. Associating Jesus with Nazareth makes Him a known quantity and gives Him roots just like anyone else would have, roots that have significance for prophetic anticipation and validation (see Matt. 2:23).
The second thing Peter highlights about Jesus distinguishes Him from everyone else, providing definitive identification. Peter could have referenced the proclamation from God that he had heard with James and John at the Mount of Transfiguration (Matt. 17:1-6), but that was private knowledge not public. What was public were all the miracles, signs and wonders Jesus did. Many in the multitude had seen personally or heard through the grapevine the stupendous acts of Jesus in healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, and even raising the dead. Peter explained these mighty acts as pointing not to the deity of Christ but to the “Man attested by God,” the Man Jesus, with a known hometown, credentialed by God. It was as if Peter brought God Himself to the witness stand to authenticate Jesus as the Son of Man sent by God.
The Plan
In presenting a case, attorneys will construct a narrative that fits the facts of the case. A prosecuting attorney will frame an account that shows the defendant to be guilty. The defense attorney will take the same facts and paint a much different picture, one that exonerates his or her client. Peter constructs a narrative that aligns with the plan and purpose of God, putting the events surrounding the Man Jesus in biblical context. “Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death; whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it” (Acts 2:23–24).
Peter puts the events in the context of the plan of God, which we might think of as a metanarrative or redemptive narrative. This bigger picture governs the events of the day and the actions of men, including the sinful actions of betraying an innocent man. The people were responsible and culpable for their actions, yet God’s plan superintended and enfolded those actions.
We see a similar scene in the book of Genesis when Joseph addressed his brothers who had sold him into slavery. “Do not be afraid, for am I in the place of God?