Leviticus 18 Expounded

Leviticus 18 and the Holiness Code

We continue this evening with our study in the book of Leviticus, chapter 18. Leviticus, chapter 18. Ask the Lord's blessing upon our time. Our gracious Heavenly Father, we once again come into your presence.

And as we have sung, as we have prayed, as we have read your word, now we desire that your Spirit would meet with us, give us understanding, make this time profitable. As your word is proclaimed, may you be honored, we pray in Christ's name.

Amen. This morning, we began looking specifically at the book of Leviticus. And we just began looking at the 18th chapter. We sort of outlined the book and we gave indication as to the focus of our study in the Holiness Code, which some scholarly sources will indicate begins in chapter 17, but really the focus begins in chapter 18.

And as I mentioned this morning, the reason for our doing this is not because we just normally preach out of the Old Testament in the evenings. I was preaching out of the Old Testament this morning. But due to the fact that it is this very Holiness Code, it is the revelation that is given to us in Leviticus in chapters 18 and 20.

In other texts in the Old Testament, we would certainly have to look at Genesis and the issue of Sodom and Gomorrah. There are some other references in the Old Testament that need to be looked at. But these certainly form the foundation of the discussion we find in the New Testament in regards to human sexuality and God's definition of what is right and wrong in His sight.

And if you weren't with us this morning or in the past studies in this section, I would simply refer you to the recordings so you can sort of get some of the background. Obviously, one of the primary issues that we have to face when we deal with this particular issue in our society is the fact that, well, I would say a conservative estimate would be that 99 of our population is ignorant, does not have a meaningful, truthful background to any type of handling of almost anything in the Bible, but especially when it comes to a book like Leviticus, don't have any access to the original languages or teachers who know the original languages, don't know almost anything about the backgrounds as far as the Canaanite gods, religious practices, all the things that we've been discussing now for quite some time, 99 of the human population around us has no knowledge of these things, and so if they're going to get any knowledge of these things, it's probably going to come from you.

It's going to come from you in the dialogues and discussions that you have with them and in giving an answer for the hope that lies within you. And so we dig once again into the text itself, looking specifically at chapter 18, and a lot of you are probably anticipating the reality that chapter 18 is one of the two chapters where there is a specific reference, one of what's called today in the internet a lot, two of the six clobber passages.

I am this close to writing a book on the clobber passages. It has become such a common thing. It's just any of the specific references to homosexuality in the Bible. I'm this close to doing this, but didn't you co-author a book on this subject?

Yeah, we covered all of them. But what I'd like to do is turn that entire paradigm upside down and write a book on the clobber passages, and those clobber passages would be Matthew chapter 19 and verses like that, which are the real, quote-unquote, clobber passages, because they actually present the positive biblical teaching in regards to human sexuality, marriage, and things like that.

But you may be anticipating the fact that chapter 18 contains the first of these, quote-unquote, clobber passages. Probably we're not going to be looking at that yet this evening, because I want to break the chapter down and talk about an overarching truth.

And the reason I do this is, again, when you have opportunity of engaging this subject, and I realize you might only have five minutes, but in that five minutes, the clearer you are in your understanding, the clearer you are in your thinking on the text, the more facility you're going to have to be able to explain it to somebody in five minutes.

If you struggle with it, if you're not really clear on it, then the less time you have, the less clarity is going to come forth from your words. And I think people can tell. My experience is, people can tell when you have actually invested serious thought in the text, or when you're just sort of, you know, that one blank piece of paper in the back of your Bible, you know, where you've got all the verses written down, they can sort of tell when you're looking at the cheat sheet.

And, okay, yeah, we had a guy who came to our church once, and he talked about this, and he says that, you know, people can tell that's probably not reflective of a real deep conviction on your part. And so, if we have a real understanding of what the context of the passage is, not only we'll be able to explain it more clearly, but when the inevitable objections are raised, we'll have a better foundation upon which to stand.

And so, I think that's something very much to keep in mind. So, let's look at what we started looking at this morning, expand it out this evening, because I think this is very important. Then Yahweh 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 are 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. Then, beginning in verse 6, you have a lengthy list of forbidden, most scholars agree on this, the phrase uncover nakedness, forbidden sexual relations, forbidden marriage situations.

And as we will notice, primarily these are focused upon people being too close to one another, too close in a family bond. We will look at them, but maybe not even this evening. But you'll notice that that continues down all the way to verse, well, 19 and 20.

At that point, it then moves away from just the context of relationships to sexual purity and relational purity within Israel. And then, you have the reference to Moloch, the offering of offspring to Moloch in verse 21.

Verse 22, of course, is the first of, well, it's actually the second of the Klobuchar passages. Genesis and the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is the first. There you have, you shall not lie with the males when lies with the female.

It is toevah, an abomination. And then, after verse 23, you then have something that connects back to what we had in the first few verses. 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 the 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 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. So we have, clearly, in the 18th chapter, what I would call bookends. Bookends. Now, a lot of you now are starting to buy books primarily in electronic format, and so you didn't get to deal with this.

But us older folks who still have a nice big paper library, if you have books on a shelf and there isn't anything on the end of the shelf, you've got to have all those bookends that holds them up. Sometimes they're decorative.

Sometimes they're the really plain ones you got at Office Max or something like that. But you have to have some way of holding them up. And, literarily, bookends are something that go at the beginning and the end of a section, and they give it coherence.

They give it an overall theme, even if there's a number of different things addressed in between. And that's what we have here. The first few verses of chapter 18, with the last few verses of chapter 18, are clearly meant to be connected together.

And that's what I want us to understand this evening, and that's something that I think you need, this is very important, you need to be able to explain this to someone else. Because the mindset in most people's thinking is, you Christians, you just grab a verse there, you grab a verse there, you just string them all together.

Unfortunately, there's a reason why some people think that way, probably because that's basically what a lot of Christians do. We don't want to be that way. When we deal with any one of these texts, we want to deal with it in its context, in a way that would have been, we want to handle the word in such a way as to honor the author, and honor the original audience of these words as well.

And so you will notice a couple of things. First of all, we have the warning. Just as we saw before when we were in Deuteronomy, you have the positive and the negative, you have positive and negative here.

I am Yahweh your God, you shall not do what is done in the land of Egypt where you lived, which they would have seen, which they would have experienced, they would have, certainly in all those years of living in Egypt, they would have observed Egyptian religion, because Egyptian religion was a civil religion.

It was not something that was just done, hidden away in secret ceremonies. You couldn't walk down a street in any city in Egypt and not see the gods all over the place. And so these are people that have been redeemed out of a situation where they were surrounded with idolatry.

The problem was, they're going into a situation where there is going to be a new form of idolatry. In fact, it's only slightly ironic that we just read in our regular reading what happened with Baal of Peor.

And the ease, the ease with which the people, as it said, were joined to Baal. They engaged in the very pagan sacrifices and pagan sexual engagements that were a part of the worship of Baal. And these are people, how many miracles have they seen?

I mean, they are eating miraculous food. And yet the ease with which they enter into idolatry is an amazing thing to observe. And so Yahweh says, You shall not do what is done in the land of Egypt, where you lived.

And remember, there was all those people that wanted to go back. Nor are you to do what is done in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you. You shall not walk in their statutes. Statutes, that's an interesting term.

In its root, it refers to that which is decreed, that which is literally carved out. And in this context, it takes on the meaning, given what's going to be enunciated afterwards, it takes on the meaning of the standard sexual mores of these individuals.

It has become a tradition among these individuals to engage in this kind of activity. You shall not walk in their statutes. Rather, verse 4, You are to perform my judgments and keep my statutes to live in accord with them.

I am Yahweh your God. So always, always it is a conflict between the positive actions of a person who wants to love God, a person who wants to live in accordance with His ways, and the conflicting desires of the world that wants us to go along with them, to go with the flow.

You are to perform my judgments, keep my statutes. There is a huge difference between that and the statutes of Egypt and Canaan. So you shall keep my statutes and my judgments. And then notice this last phrase, By which a man may live if he does them, I am Yahweh.

Does that sound familiar to anyone? That should sound familiar to you. That phrase, By which a man may live if he does them, appears in the New Testament, remember? Directly quoted in the middle of Paul's argument in Galatians chapter 3.

This is the text that Paul cites in Galatians chapter 3 by saying, There isn't any grace in the law if you want to live by that. If you're going to start going down the road of law-keeping as your means of being right with God, remember Paul's explanation is this law points us to our sin.

Man, how many times have we seen that already reading through numbers and everything else. But this law points to our sin. It's a schoolmaster to lead us unto Christ. Now we've got people coming along saying, Well, we're going to be synergists.

We're going to put these two things together. And you're going to walk some, it's going to be some of the way of law-keeping and some of the way of grace. And Paul's saying that the 180 degree difference, you can't walk down two roads very far at the same time.

And he quotes from this very text. This is his Old Testament text to say, If you want to have life, then you've got to keep all of the law. Not just a part of it, but all of the law. It is a harsh taskmaster.

And this is the text that he cites. And so, here is the warning. Here is the warning. You shall not do as these nations have done. Why? What has happened? Well, let's look at the bookend. Before we define what these behaviors are, let's look at what God says, beginning at verse 24.

This is the context. In fact, I would like to suggest to you. This is just a real practical thing. But I would suggest to you that when you have an opportunity to spend more than just a couple of moments with someone, when you may have an opportunity to actually sit down over a cup of coffee or something like that, for those of you who drink coffee, and talk about these things, lay this context out first.

You say, why? Because I think what we're about to see in verses 24 and following is one of the most important, at least in this chapter, one of the most important contextual things to establish in talking with someone and grounding the importance of previous verses.

What do I mean by that? Well, if you're taking notes, and some of you are, and I appreciate that, if you're taking notes, key interpretive truth, number, whatever it is we've gotten to, but it's certainly in this chapter, number one.

Very often the argument that you're going to hear is that what we have in a text like Leviticus 18, what we have in Leviticus 20, had as its background the perverse practices of the cultic religion of the Canaanites.

And as you know, we've already spent more time than you may have appreciated looking at some of the Canaanite practices and the gods that were theirs and all the background information there. And the argument is, look, you need to understand that there was a background here and all this is about is the fact that in their temples, in their places of worship, there was all sorts of sexual deviancy being practiced and all this is saying is avoid that.

It doesn't have anything to do with, and today the mantra is committed loving relationships. That's the mantra today. Now very often, folks, we get stuck in a circle. We get stuck in a situation where once we are in a dialogue with someone, once we are in a situation where there's exchanging of ideas, when the other side says something to us, our natural reaction is to become defensive against what it is they're saying rather than hearing what they're saying and evaluating.

It's just a natural human thing. And it happens a lot with Christians. It happens a lot with Christians. I have seen Christians backed into corners, defending things they should never ever have defended simply because they got into the mindset that, well, if I give ground at any point, then I'm compromising.

Well, what if they're actually telling the truth? What if they're saying, well, you know, the sky is blue. No, it's not. No, the sky is blue when the sun's out anyways and it's not really cloudy, I suppose, but the point is just because they say something true doesn't mean you have to dispute it.

And the reality is, yeah, there are certain Canaanite practices that are the background of what we're talking about. There's no question about that. But the error in thought that they have embraced is, that means it has no relevance to today.

How come all of a sudden you skip over the really logical conclusion and that is, well, if there was something wrong with these religious practices then, could there not be something wrong with the modern manifestations of similar things, even if the religions don't exist?

Could it be that what made it wrong was that there was a fundamental moral principle that was being violated by that religious practice? You see, the mindset is, well, once that ancient religion is gone, then this all becomes irrelevant.

That's ridiculous. I mean, just apply it to some of the other things we're going to see in the Holiness Code. One of the things the Holiness Code says, you shall stand in the presence of the aged. In other words, you're to respect the elderly.

Well, has that ever been abused in false religion? Yeah, obviously. So, if that false religion disappears, does the concept, the necessity, the rightness of honoring the elderly pass away just because the religion that had abused it now disappears?

Of course not. You are to honor your father and your mother. That's in there too. Well, have there been fathers and mothers that have used false religious systems to even, well, Moloch, offered their children to Moloch?

Even offered their children into prostitution and things like that within false religious systems? Yup, it's happened. So, once those religious systems are gone, do you just forget about the moral principles involved?

Of course not. Of course not. And yet, many of the people with whom we're going to be speaking, that's their mindset, and many Christians end up going, well, it didn't have anything to do with Canaanite.

No, it had a lot to do with the Canaanite practices that were going on, but our job is to see what the moral principle was and how that remains binding to this day. And so, when we look at verses 24 and following, something very important comes out.

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. Now, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Could you list for me the prophets that were sent to these nations?

What revelation were they given? Did they have their own Moses? Was a law sent down to them? And yet, they were defiled by doing these things. They didn't have Leviticus 18, and yet they were defiled by these things.

Now, obviously, with Christian eyes, we look at Romans chapter 2. We understand the law written upon the heart. We understand we're creating the image of God. But you see, when people say, ah, this stuff, it was just all for the nation of Israel.

Yeah, tell that to the Canaanites. Tell that to the Canaanites who are described here as being vomited out of the land because their behavior had defiled the land in which they lived. Don't tell me that was just for the Israelites.

In fact, here's one of the great inconsistencies of the arguments that people present, is that on the one hand, they're going to say, well, that was just for Israel. On the other hand, they're going to say, well, it's all passed away.

And it's like, well, what about these nations? If it was just for Israel, then why are these nations being cast out? Why, in fact, verse 25, for the land has become defiled, therefore I have what? Brought its punishment upon it, so the land has spewed out its inhabitants.

There is a just and righteous punishment that comes upon these people because they've engaged in these activities, and that includes verse 22, which is the very verse that people are focused upon trying to say has nothing to do with us today.

And yet, the context is, because the people did these things, the land has spewed them out, and their punishment has come upon them. Now, obviously, what that also tells us is that when it says you shall not do according to their statutes, their ordinances, this was not just a small minority group of people.

These were not primarily righteous or good or at least semi-moral cultures. These were cultures that had been given over from the bottom to the top to ungodliness, and in fact, according to Genesis chapter 15, it had been that way for hundreds of years.

Hundreds of years. And it seems to me the language suggests that God was letting their iniquity come to the full, to be filled up, so that when their punishment comes, there can be absolutely no question about the justice of God in that matter.

Now, let me just mention just in passing, because we could do an entire series just on this. But people start getting a little nervous when you start talking about God bringing judgment upon a people by using another people.

Isn't it interesting? Most Christians, I'm afraid these days the percentages are changing, but most Christians haven't had too much of a problem with God bringing judgment through nature, the flood, an earthquake.

They recognize God has the right to do those things, and when you press somebody, well, yeah, all have sinned, and I guess God would be righteous to bring his judgment to bear at any point in time. But what they really, really get uncomfortable with is when God uses Israel.

Evidently, hailstones from heaven, that's okay. Israelites, that's wrong. And I can understand what the difference is in most people's thinking. Because the hailstone is coming from God. That soldier's a fellow sinner, and that's what causes the problem.

Now, I don't have time to expand upon it this evening. Israel was used by God as an instrument of his punishment upon a number of people. Ai, Jericho, etc., etc. But Israel failed miserably as an instrument of punishment against many.

That's why many of the people were not cast out of the land. That's why they store it still in the land. That's why they ended up being a stumbling block. We see what happened during the period of the judges, and oh, it's a mess.

But in its highest form, I have had to wonder if the purposes of God in using the Israelites as the means of punishment of these people was not meant to be an incredibly purifying thing for the people of Israel.

What an incredible thing it would be to be tasked with such a horrific thing as to wipe out a city. What must be going through the minds? An unregenerate person is going to respond to that very, very differently than a regenerate person.

And how much of the law and its sacrifices and its serious discussion of sin would have been brought to the mind of a believing Israelite in that situation? They could never have forgotten the call that God placed upon them to do that.

Now, the unregenerate Israelite, that's a different situation. That's a different situation. But, returning to this context, the point is this. One thing you have to recognize. The moral evil of the violation of the preceding section in Leviticus chapter 18 is seen in the law itself as so heinous that it defiles the land and causes the inhabitants to be spewed out.

And that is specifically said of people who were not given the specifics of the Mosaic Law. It had been that way for hundreds of years before Moses. That means that this is sinful behavior for all people.

It is not limited to the geographic boundaries of the nation of Israel. And I suggest to you that it's also not limited to the ancient world. It remains a valid principle to this day. What that also means is any nation today that from bottom to top would become enamored with, promoting of, approving of these behaviors will be spewed out of its land.

The land will be defiled by these behaviors. Hear what I'm saying? It's broken my heart to see pictures on the internet where the American embassies around the world there is the American flag and right beneath it the rainbow flag promoting homosexuality put there by the current administration purposefully to promote homosexuality in other lands.

From bottom to top a number of ambassadors that have been chosen by this administration open homosexuals engaging in homosexual marriage. There is no such thing. 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.

Oh, it's just not Israel. Well, that was addressed to Israel, but the nations that engaged in these activities and defiled the land and defiled themselves and hence were cast out were not Israelite nations.

They are not the recipients of prophets. These behaviors point us to a form of deviancy and degradation that the very image of God within us testifies to us. That is why there is a consistency when we get to Romans 1 and Paul uses homosexuality as an example of a suppression of the knowledge of God, and a twisting of the Creator-Creation relationship resulting in an inward twisting of the very human soul itself.

There is a consistency. And so the people are warned, as for you, you are to keep my statutes and my judgments and shall not do any of these abominations, any of these toevoth. That's a term that we've discussed a number of times from this pulpit over the years.

I ran into sermon notes just recently from a sermon that I preached quite some time ago here on toevah, abomination. Here is that very term that is used. You shall not do any of these toevoth. Now, don't get tripped up.

Toevah can be used of specific violations of commandments that God gave to Israel that set Israel apart, but that do not in and of themselves contain moral concepts that continue on after the nation of Israel.

But just because that's true does not mean that toevah is not used of abominations that are not only abominable because they break the covenant, they're abominable because they defile the people and result in their being spewed out of the land.

The term transcends any type of attempt to limit its meaning. So keep a note if I were you. I would keep a note of where you encounter this term abominations. And here it is found here. You are to keep my statutes and my judgments, that's the positive, and shall not do any of these abominations.

For the men of the land who have been before you have done all these abominations and the land has become defiled. So there's the bookends. So whatever else we do with what's in between, it will have to take into consideration the fact that taken as a body, the law of Moses says these things defile a people.

They are abominations. And the text itself, the chapter itself, screams the universal reality of that. It screams it, despite the fact that the vast majority of people who will quote from this text in Hollywood have no idea what's at the end of chapter 18 because they've never actually read it.

That part is not included in the internet article that they read. But if they would, they would see that the chapter itself absolutely establishes that the principles spoken of here are applicable outside of the covenant people of Israel.

And if that was true then, I suggest to you it remains true today. What argument is going to be put forward to say, well, okay, that was true back then, but it's not now. It's not now. What argument is going to be derived from that?

Well, we'll look at some that some people use in Romans, but I've never heard anyone come up with an argument in regard to this text because I'll be perfectly honest with you, having unfortunately had to read a large number of pro-homosexual books, this is almost never touched.

It's almost never touched. When these texts are talked about, they're talked about very quickly, very much isolated, and you move on to other things. And I haven't seen much discussion of the fact that this chapter says this is why these nations were driven out.

This is why these nations were driven out. So, get that one down. Drive that nail down and be ready once we look at the rest of Leviticus 18 the next time that we have the opportunity of being together.

And remember, the book ends. Establish the reality that these actions defiled the nations and caused them to be spewed out of the land. Very, very important. If, if, and only if, we're honestly trying to understand what the book of Leviticus communicated to its original audience and hence means to communicate to us as well today.

Let's pray together. Our gracious Heavenly Father, once again we have sought to handle Your Word aright. As uncomfortable sometimes as that may be, we have listened and we have heard Your law speaking of abominations abominations and defilement of not keeping the statutes of the people and yet keeping Your statutes and Your judgments.

May we understand. May we hear. May we hear with the ears of those who understood it that day and followed after You. May we not hear with the ears of many of those who stood and heard the words but it never entered into their hearts.

Instead, Father, by Your Spirit, may we know Your truth and be prepared to explain it to others that we might indeed fulfill our calling to be salt and light in this dark and difficult day. We thank You for Your Word.

We thank You for this time. We pray in Christ's name. Amen.