Sex and the Law of God

Leviticus 18 and the Holiness Code on Sexual Conduct

Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, I am Yahweh your God. You shall not do what is done in the land of Egypt, where you lived, nor you to do what is done in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you.

You shall not walk in their statutes. You are to perform my judgments and keep my statutes to live in accord with them. I am Yahweh your God. So you shall keep my statutes and my judgments by which a man may live if he does them.

I am Yahweh. None of you shall approach any blood relative of his to uncover nakedness. I am Yahweh. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father. That is the nakedness of your mother. She is your mother.

You are not to uncover her nakedness. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's wife. It is your father's nakedness. The nakedness of your sister, either your father's daughter or your mother's daughter, whether born at home or born outside, their nakedness you shall not uncover.

The nakedness of your son's daughter or your daughter's daughter, their nakedness you shall not uncover, for their nakedness is yours. The nakedness of your father's wife's daughter, born to your father, she is your sister.

You shall not uncover her nakedness. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's sister. She is your father's blood relative. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother's sister, for she is your mother's blood relative.

You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's brother. You shall not approach his wife. She is your aunt. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your daughter-in-law. She is your son's wife. You shall not uncover her nakedness.

You shall not uncover the nakedness of your brother's wife. It is your brother's nakedness. You shall not uncover the nakedness of a woman and of her daughter, nor shall you take her son's daughter or her daughter's daughter to uncover her nakedness.

They are blood relatives. It is lewdness. You shall not marry a woman in addition to her sister as a rival while she is alive to uncover her nakedness. Also, you shall not approach a woman to uncover her nakedness during her menstrual impurity.

You shall not have intercourse with your neighbor's wife to be defiled with her. You shall not give any of your offspring to offer them to Moloch, nor shall you profane the name of your God, I am Yahweh.

You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female. It is an abomination. Also, you shall not have intercourse with any animal to be defiled with it, nor shall any woman stand before an animal to mate with it.

It is a perversion. Do not defile yourselves by any of these things, for by all these the nations which I am casting out before you have become defiled. For the land has become defiled, therefore I have brought its punishment upon it, so the land has spewed out its inhabitants.

But as for you, you are to keep my statutes and my judgments, and shall not do any of these abominations, neither the native nor the alien who sojourns among you. For the men of the land who have been before you have done all these abominations, and the land has become defiled.

So that land will not spew you out, should you defile it, as it has spewed out the nation which has been before you. For whoever does any of these abominations, those persons who do so shall be cut off from among their people.

Thus, you are to keep my charge, that you do not practice any of the abominable customs which have been practiced before you, so as not to defile yourselves with them. I am Yahweh, your God. Amen. Now, you will recall in our previous study that we looked at the beginning and end of this particular chapter, and we noted something very important.

We noted that the laws that were given by God in this section were specifically said to have been violated by the inhabitants of the land before the Israelites, and that as a result, the land had become defiled, and it spewed out its inhabitants.

And we saw at that time that that means that these are moral laws that are not limited to ceremonial laws, they are not limited to things that are just to mark the Israelites off from other nations in the sense of, for example, not cutting the edge of the beard, or certain laws in regards to what we would identify as boundary markers of who the people of Israel were versus the people around them.

And we'll get more into those when we look at chapters 19 and following of Leviticus. Instead, what we have here are laws that speak directly to the behavior of mankind, specifically in sexual activity.

And we are told that the inhabitants of the land had violated all of these laws, and that the land had spewed them out, and this becomes a foundation for the destruction of these peoples by the Israelite armies and by the judgment of God.

And so we saw that was a very important aspect to keep in mind, that generally what is being done today by the revisionists is that they try to say that especially verse 23 is not relevant because of the fact that, well, the discussion of homosexuality is not relevant because, well, this just had to do with Israel at that particular point in time in history.

And the reality is that it didn't just have to do with Israel, that it had to do with the lands, the nations that had been before them and were driven out because of their sin. But we did not look at the specific laws themselves in that study, and that's what we need to begin to do this evening.

And so it's rather obvious that beginning at verse 6, you have a summary statement. None of you shall approach any blood relative of his to uncover nakedness. I am Yahweh. Now, that really summarizes the major portion of these laws because you then have specific examples given beginning at verse 7 and following.

And you will notice that there then is a break at verse, well, right around 18 or 19 is where the break is, whether we will include 18 in the preceding or it probably should go with the following verses at that particular point.

But for the next section of verses, you have this idea of uncovering nakedness, which obviously has to do with approaching someone in a sexual fashion for sexual relationship. And they all have to do with blood relatives' close relationships.

And beginning at verse 7, you then have the definition of these close relationships laid out for you in pretty painstaking fashion to make sure that there would be clarity. Now, for most of us, this seems like a little bit of overkill, but you need to remember that even to this day, in Middle Eastern cultures, it is extremely common for there to be intermarriage within family units.

For example, within Islam, marriage of your first cousin is very common in Islamic lands. And you also need to remember that these laws are given, remember this morning, if you continue reading in Matthew chapter 19, Jesus addresses why Moses gave the law concerning a writ of divorce.

And it was due to hardness of heart. Well, this law is given in a context where there is polygamy being practiced. And so there are a couple of these laws that would have direct relevance to, for example, not taking a wife and her sister, setting them up as rivals with one another, that kind of a situation.

Some of these, you might go, well, who would ever think of doing that anyways? But we are thinking in a monogamous context, and that's not necessarily the context to which these laws were originally addressed.

And of course, we noted this morning, what was God's perfect intention from the beginning was one man with one woman. Everything that has been a departure from that has been a step down and has always brought pain and misery into the experience of everyone who experienced it.

But that was the situation, especially in the earlier days. And so what you have in this first section is the prohibition of sexual intercourse with anyone who is like you, close to you. There is a discussion of your nakedness versus your father's nakedness, and so on and so forth.

We don't need to necessarily get into all the details of those specifics, but what is very clear is that if there is a likeness, if there is family relationship, then there is to be no sexual relationship whatsoever.

Now, immediately, we have to stop and address an issue. And that is, we cannot avoid asking certain questions in our minds as we consider, especially the Old Testament laws, and asking the question, well, what was the reason for this law?

And there have been some that have been offered, for example, down through the ages, and there may be merit for these things, but I think we have to be careful in trying to say that, well, God's law is binding upon us as long as we can figure out why God gave us that law in the first place.

For example, the children of Israel were not to eat pork. Well, why is that? Well, because pork can give you trichinosis. Did you know that? There can be these bad worms in pork, see, and that's why you're not supposed to eat pork.

Well, it's actually not any worse than any other kinds of meats that were available in that day, so it really doesn't make any sense to say that, that any badly cooked meat at that time could give you disease.

And so the idea that many people have had is, well, we need to be able to figure out the exact whys of every single law, and I don't believe that anyone has ever been able to do that or probably ever could do that.

Why no shellfish and why the cloven hoof and chewing the cud and these things? People want to come up with maybe a genetic reason, and of course we look at this situation and it's real easy to go, oh, well, see, God knew about genetics long before we did.

Well, of course he did. He designed them, for crying out loud. All these laws are reflecting the reality that close relationships, close sexual relationships within families would result in deformed children and so on and so forth.

Well, we may discover things like that. We may come to understand the mechanisms whereby that might take place. But I am concerned when we make the grounding of the law our understanding of the mechanics of what moved God to give that law in the first place.

Now, I'm not saying God's just capricious and goes, well, let's draw a circle here, and within the circle, bad, outside that, good, and he does so capriciously. I'm simply saying that I don't think we're as wise as God and that there is a tendency, especially amongst modern men, to think that we can basically put God in the dock and say, well, I'll consider your law as long as I can figure out exactly why you gave it.

There's so much that we do not know. There's so much we do not know about the ancient context. There's so much we do not know continuously about man today that we may think we've come up with the exact reason, and then some discovery tomorrow will end up blowing that away, and now we don't have any reason to believe what God said?

No, that wouldn't make any sense. Instead, while we think about those things, while we can say, well, I can see, you know, now we understand what a benefit of this would have been. I don't think there's anything wrong in noting that, but I think we need to keep clear in our mind that God's law is binding whether we know the reason for it or not, and I'm afraid that sometimes people get those things mixed up as we look at these particular situations.

And so the first section then is very clearly a discussion of what is clearly people who are too close to you in the human family for there to be a proper sexual attraction in the first place, let alone any kind of sexual union or sexual relationship.

And so obviously, as we see happening in our society today, as the moral fabric breaks down, you begin seeing this very parameter, these guides, these guardrails being torn down. Just two weeks ago, three weeks ago now, I think it was, article was published about a daughter who found her father, they had been separated when she was like, I think five months old or something like that.

They found each other like 20 years later, and they are going to marry. And there are these situations in the United Kingdom between a grandmother and a grandson, and this type of thing is unfortunately becoming more and more, you know, right now, it's still, oh, that's weird, that's strange.

But remember, it was only a matter of decades ago that what has now become mainstream and must be celebrated was weird and strange too. But we have here in this first section a set of guidelines that at least for now, many of the people with whom we speak would understand why those things are there and would agree with them.

The interesting thing is to track over the next couple of years how those people will change their opinions, let Hollywood produce a movie, let a TV series with some popular actors come out and you'll see how quickly public opinion can change even upon things like this.

And so you have these close relationships, you shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's sister, your aunt, these people who are close to you. Verse 17 is the one that I had in mind, you shall not uncover the nakedness of a woman and of her daughter, nor shall you take her son's daughter or her daughter's daughter to uncover nakedness, they are blood relatives, it is lewdness.

So in other words, the only way that could really happen in any normal circumstance would be in a polygamous situation, I suppose in a death situation might be possible as well. But notice there you have another description at the end of verse 17 and that is, it is lewdness.

And so there is a description here that describes these relationships as transgressing a boundary, as involving an unnatural and inordinate desire, seems to be the idea that is expressed by this particular law.

Then you have verse 18, you shall not marry a woman in addition to her sister as a rival while she is alive to uncover her nakedness and very clearly that could only be relevant within a context where polygamy was being practiced at that particular point in time.

And so through verse 17 then you have the idea of blood relatives. Verse 18 is somewhat transitionary and then beginning of verse 19 and following, you have other prohibited relationships that are not directly related to the immediate family.

And the first in verse 19, also you shall not approach a woman to uncover her nakedness during her menstrual impurity. Now there would not seem to be anything here in regards to sameness, in regards to close family relationships, in regards to anything other than seemingly God's establishment of the reality that there should be a restriction upon the sexual desire even within the marriage relationship.

In other words, it should not be something that is just given absolute free reign but that in fact there are appropriate times when even within that marriage relationship that sexual activity is to be reigned in and in verse 19 a period of time is given for that.

Now again, we could sit there and start talking about all sorts of modern scientific inquiries and all the rest of that kind of stuff, but none of that was a part of the context of the giving of the law originally.

And so when I look at a law like this, I ask the question, well, what can we learn from this? And it would seem that the reality is that there needs to be a curb, there needs to be a control of the sexual relationship and a control even within what is proper sexual relationship between husband and wife and that this time period is inappropriate for that kind of intimacy.

Likewise, verse 20 says, you shall not have intercourse with your neighbor's wife to be defiled with her. Well, you would think immediately that now we're talking simple adultery and of course we are talking about simple adultery, but interestingly enough, we think of neighbors, we live in a land where neighbors come and go, where there is such movement and transition of families and peoples that neighbor does not mean to us what neighbor meant in this context.

In this day, a neighbor was someone who was probably going to be there a long time or probably had been there a long time and you would have a real relationship with your neighbors. You would very frequently have to rely upon them and they upon you.

And so very close relationships could develop within that context and it is obvious that when very close relationships develop that there can be a great temptation toward this kind of situation. And of course, history is filled with situations where those close relationships that began innocently enough and appropriately enough ended up in tremendous strife and difficulty and of course even bloodshed when there was this type of situation that takes place.

So you shall not have intercourse with your neighbor's wife to be defiled with her. It is a defiling thing. It is not only to be defiled by adultery, but it also really in light of the closeness of the society at that time would be a defiling of your honor and your...

In other words, you should be able to trust your neighbor. There should be a trust and a relationship and an honor. You should be able to trust that man, that fellow Israelite, that fellow worshiper of God even with your wife in the sense of you're away on business or you become ill or any of these types of situations.

Amongst the people of God there should not have to be a second concern about that, but you have the law to definitely make the statement you shall not have intercourse with your neighbor's wife to be defiled with her.

It will defile her. It will defile you. It will defile the land as well. And then it seems so out of place. But verse 21 says, You shall not give any of your offspring to offer them to Moloch, nor shall you profane the name of your God.

I am Yahweh. Now, if what we're looking for is the kind of consistent contextual flow that you would have in 1 Corinthians or something, that's not what you would expect in a giving of law. This is not a letter written to someone.

This is not meant to be a book of prose or something like that. These are commandments being given and they are being grouped together. I think it is appropriate to look at them in groupings, but we have to be somewhat careful as to exactly what connections we make between some of these texts.

Some of them stand alone. Some of them stand alone and yet take some of their context from the major grouping that they're placed within. And some are directly related to what comes before and after. And sometimes it's very difficult to see.

And this is just the first of many examples of this that we will see. You shall not give any of your offspring to offer them to Moloch, nor shall you profane the name of your God. I am Yahweh. Okay, well, hopefully we all know a little bit about Moloch from a sermon about, I don't know, four months ago?

Where we talked a little bit about the gods of the Canaanites, the gods of the Babylonians. We unfortunately know a lot about Moloch. You've probably seen statues of this hideous deity and you know that there were offerings of children made upon his altar by fire.

And that by giving your offspring to Moloch, he was supposed to offer to you a fertility for yourself, your family, your crops, your animals, etc., etc. A number of times the giving of offspring to Moloch is utilized as an example of the true degradation of the religious, I hate to even call it worship, but that's what they would have referred to it as, of the peoples who were being driven out before the armies of Israel.

And the commandment, you would think, would not even have to be given, but sadly, as we see in the history of the children of Israel, it did have to be given. And the syncretism that came into the worship of the people of Israel, a horrible thing to see, and yet the Baals and the Ashtoreth, very often during many, many years of the history of Israel, dotted the countryside.

The same countryside where people were going to worship God, you likewise would find this taking place. So you shall not give any of your offspring to offer them to Moloch, nor shall you profane the name of your God, I am Yahweh.

I am tempted to think that the idea of profaning the name of your God, Yahweh, was to in some way engage in syncretism. That is to, on the one hand, engage in the worship of God, while at the same time then going and worshiping at the foreign altars, whether it be Moloch or any others.

This would be a profaning of the name of your God. How can he be your God if he is only one God amongst many that you worship? But clearly, we also can take from verse 21, in light of, I think, the general exhortations of Scripture, the value and the life of our little ones, the offspring that we so love.

There are many who down through the history of the world, and even who live today, would assign value to children only based upon how old they are and whether they can provide to us certain services. They can provide work, etc., etc., so that a child is considered to be of less worth than an older person.

Certainly, that is not something that is appropriate for the people of God. Instead, we are to recognize that our offspring are gifts from God, and that we are to nurture them in every way possible. Finally, we then come to verses 22, 20, and 23.

Now, I doubt that we will be able to complete these, but I want to at least provide one part of the discussion. Given the previous verse and the reference to Moloch, the general argument that is given in revisionist material today is that what we have in verses 22 and 23 are behaviors that were found in the Canaanite religions of the day, and that this is the only relevant application of the text.

Now, one thing we all must learn to do is to recognize not to deny truthful statements made by people who are suppressing the truth. Very often, Christians who are seeking to defend God's truth and present God's truth get into a mindset where when the other side says something that is true, well, they must not really mean it, or I need to fight against that, and we end up fighting against things that are true.

For example, was there homosexuality in Canaanite religion? Well, I don't think there's any question that there was. There is every form of sexual perversion. The text itself tells us they were doing these things.

It's going to say, do not defile yourself by any of these things. That's exactly what the people in the land before them. Yes, there was homosexuality, and yes, verse 23 is referring to bestiality, to sexual intercourse with animals.

And did that happen in Canaanite religion? It did. Had that been happening for centuries? It had. That's why we read in Genesis 15 that there was this building up, this filling up of the iniquity of the people of the land of Canaan.

Well, then do they have a point that this was about the Canaanite religion? Yes. So does that mean that these texts are irrelevant to us? No, because there's nothing in the text that says, and all we're concerned about are the Canaanite religions around Israel at that particular point in time, and it has no meaning for anything beyond that time period.

You see, that's the mistake that is made in the mind of the person that says, well, you see, the author is just simply saying that the Israelites are not to be like the religions around them, and now those religions are gone.

Well, think that one through. Now those religions are gone. Now you can be like what they were in the past? Of course not. What was it that was wrong about lying with a male as one lies with a female?

What was wrong about having intercourse with any animal? To be defiled by that act. Was it wrong because it was a part of a religious activity? Or did the religious activity incorporate it because it was morally wrong in the first place?

So people will rightly say, oh, there was great concern about the religions around Israel. That's true. But that doesn't mean that the prohibition then does not have continuing validity when the same behaviors are then incorporated into non-religious secular activity or just simply into the culture as a whole.

We have to think those things through. And so there's no sense in denying, oh, no, there wasn't any of that going on in Canaanite religion. Well, of course there was. And it has continued on in pagan religion since that time.

It has continued on in man's experience since that time. But that doesn't change the fact that it is an abomination. Now, verse 22. And I'm aware of where the clock is. And so I want to make some opening comments.

And then the next time we have the opportunity of continuing this study, we will delve more closely into the text and maybe even bring in the parallel text in Leviticus 20 so we can really nail down the subject.

But you shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female. It is an abomination. Let's try to at least cover one element of this this evening. One of the first sermons that I ever preached here, amazingly enough, was on the word abomination.

I actually got invited back to preach again, so it must have not been too bad. Abomination. Now, please be careful in how you utilize this term. The term is toevah. Toevah is obviously not something that you want to be in God's sight.

Many of those with whom we are going to be having dialogue and discussion will be well prepared to demonstrate to you that toevah can be used of ritual impurities that do not necessarily carry a specific moral repugnance.

They will be very quick to point you to references where toevah does not necessarily mean something that even we would not say that what is considered toevah is necessarily something that is related to some creation ordinance and some important ethical and moral principle.

But at the same time, it is used of some of the most serious sins in God's sight. And so let's take a look. I hope you still have your Bibles ready. Let's take a look at toevah. And that will be what we conclude with this evening.

Genesis chapter 43. Genesis chapter 43, verse 32. If I can get there myself. Genesis chapter 43. Technology is helping me out here. They served him by himself and them by themselves, and the Egyptians who ate with him by themselves, because the Egyptians could not eat bread with Hebrews, for that is loathsome, toevah, to the Egyptians.

Loathsome. So there is something about the Israelites that was loathsome to the Egyptians. It was repulsive to them. So toevah can refer to something that is repulsive, something that just automatically makes you go, no, no, no, no, I can't do that.

The very next use of toevah in the Old Testament is where we are. Leviticus 18 .22. Now notice, none of the other sexual sins are described as toevah. And guess where the next reference is. Leviticus 20 .13.

If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act, they shall surely be put to death, their blood guiltiness is upon them. They have committed something that is toevah.

So outside of the description of the Israelites being loathsome to the Egyptians, the first two references to toevah in the Bible have to do with homosexuality. The very first two references. But those aren't the only ones.

But they are the only ones in Leviticus. They are the only ones in Leviticus. It occurs a number of times in Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy 7 .26. Deuteronomy 7 .26. You shall not bring an abomination into your house, and like it come unto the ban, you shall utterly detest it, and you shall utterly abhor it, for it is something banned.

Now we see toevah being used of idols and false gods. Idols and false gods. And they are called abominations. You shall not, for example, images their gods is the preceding verse. And so the idols of the peoples are toevah.

They are to be disgusting to the people of God. You shall not bring them into your house. Deuteronomy 13 .14. Then you shall investigate and search out and inquire thoroughly. If it is true in the matter established that this abomination has been done among you, you shall surely strike the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword.

But what is this abomination? Again, it's let us go and serve other gods. It is idolatry. It is idolatry. Now, this is the most serious religious sin. The worship of a god other than God. And this is what is toevah.

This is what is toevah. Deuteronomy 17 .4. And if it is told you and you have heard of it, then you shall inquire thoroughly. Behold, if it is true in the certain thing, and the thing certain that this detestable thing has been done in Israel, then you should bring out the man or this woman who has done this evil deed in your gates, and you shall stone them to death.

What is it again? Idolatry. Deuteronomy 24 .4. Then her former husband who sent her away is not allowed to take her again to be his wife, since she has been defiled, for that is an abomination before Yahweh, and you shall not bring sin on the land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance.

So, now this is hearkening back to the laws in Leviticus 18, and who you're supposed to marry, and here an improper sexual relationship is identified as toevah. It is an abomination before the Lord. So those are all the uses of toevah in the law.

But it is used a few more times, and I think it is significant how it is used, specifically in the book of Isaiah. Isaiah 1 .13. Bring your worthless offerings no longer. Incense is toevah to me. New moon and Sabbath, the calling of assemblies, I cannot endure iniquity and the solemn assembly.

So here, the false worship of the Jewish people. God says that even that incense which he had commanded, but now was being offered with insincerity, and combined with idolatry, is an abomination to me.

It is reprehensible to me. Isaiah 1 .13. And then in Isaiah 41 .24,. Behold, you are of no account, and your work amounts to nothing. He who chooses you is toevah. This is speaking of the idols. It doesn't say that the idol is toevah.

If you choose the idol, you are toevah before God. You are an abomination before God when you choose to engage in idolatry. In Isaiah 44 .19,. No one recalls, nor is there knowledge or understanding to say, I have burned half of it in the fire, and have also baked bread over its coals.

I roast meat and eat it. Then I make the rest of it into an abomination. I fall down before a block of wood. This is in the midst of one of the most incredible sections of sarcasm in all of scripture.

It truly, truly is an incredible section. But there, it is the making of an idol, which is toevah. Now, there are only a few others. There are four more places in Jeremiah, four times in Ezekiel, once in Malachi, and twice in Proverbs.

For example, Proverbs 21 .27,. The sacrifice of the wicked is toevah. How much more when he brings it with evil intent is how it is used there. And in Proverbs 28 .9, He who turns away his ear from listening to the law, even his prayer is toevah, is an abomination before God.