Bloodguiltiness and Arsenokoites

Leviticus 20 and the Holiness Code

We continue in our studies in the book of Leviticus chapter 20. Leviticus chapter 20. Before we turn to the Word of God, let us pray together and ask His blessing upon our time. Indeed, our Heavenly Father, once again, as we seek to handle your Word aright, we seek to honor you by hearing what your Word would say.

We confess our need of your Spirit. We confess that we need your guidance, your enlightenment, your Spirit to be with us, protect us from disturbance, from distraction, and help this time to be a time where we are made to be better servants of Jesus Christ.

For it is in His name that we pray. Amen. Certainly over the past number of months, I'm not sure when we began this series, we have many times wrestled with difficult texts from God's law. We have sought to do so as a people who honor God's law, who recognize that that law continues to have a very important function of guiding and revealing to us what it is that God would have us to do to reveal His holiness to us.

And as we have done so, we certainly have encountered many difficult passages, and we're not done with that. But as we've come here to Leviticus chapter 20, those of you who have been with us throughout this study recognize that we are encountering material that in some form or another is somewhat repetitious.

There's some new material, as we pointed out, but is somewhat repetitious of what we had seen in Leviticus chapter 18. Last week, I had mentioned that pretty much, with one small exception, pretty much everything here is what we had seen in Leviticus chapter 18.

But in that context, it had been these were the sins that were committed by the people of the land, and for this reason, the land spewed them out. And here in chapter 20, now we have the very specific application of providing a law and penalties for those who would commit these sins amongst the people of Israel.

And so we looked, especially last week, it seemed rather providential, I would say, that with the releasing of the videos that placed such a spotlight upon the destruction, the wanton destruction of unborn children in our land, that it was appropriate to take some time to look at one of the longest sections that talked about the horrific worship of Mulloch, the causing to pass through the fire of the children and the offspring, and it did seem indeed appropriate to spend a little more time there than maybe we would have otherwise in light of events within our own culture.

But we also, in the Sunday evening service, continued on and we worked through verse 9 and the cursing of father or mother and the penalty attached there too. And so this morning, we want to look at verses 10 and following.

I'm not sure exactly how far we will get. Again, there is much here that we have seen before and so I don't want to, I recognize not everyone here was here for our studies of Leviticus chapter 18, so I do not want to in any way communicate to you that there is a lesser importance to be attached to this chapter than there was to the 18th chapter, but just to point out that we've been working through this material for a while now and therefore we're sort of in a position to be able to look at some broader issues based upon what we've already covered, though we will of necessity have to spend some time on verse 13 for obvious reasons in light of the situation we face in our land today.

But Leviticus chapter 20 beginning at verse 10. If there is a man who commits adultery with another man's wife, one who commits adultery with his friend's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.

If there is a man who lies with his father's wife and has uncovered his father's nakedness, both of them shall surely be put to death. Their blood guiltiness is upon them. If there is a man who lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put to death, they have committed incest, their blood guiltiness is upon them.

If there is a man who lies to the 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. If there is a man who marries a woman and her mother, it is immorality.

Both he and they shall be burned with fire, so there will be no immorality in your midst. If there is a man who lies with an animal, he shall surely be put to death. You shall also kill the animal. If there is a woman who approaches any animal to mate with it, you shall kill the woman and the animal.

They shall surely be put to death. Their blood guiltiness is upon them. If there is a man who takes his sister, his father's daughter, or his mother's daughter, so that he sees her nakedness and she sees his nakedness, it is a disgrace.

And they shall be cut off from the sight of the sons of their people. He has uncovered his sister's nakedness, he bears his guilt. If there is a man who lies with a menstruous woman and uncovers her nakedness, he has laid bare her flow, and she has exposed the flow of her blood.

Thus, both of them shall be cut off from among their people. You shall also not uncover the nakedness of your mother's sister or of your father's sister, for such a one has made naked his blood relative.

They will bear their guilt. If there is a man who lies with his uncle's wife, he has uncovered his uncle's nakedness. They will bear their sin. They will die childless. If there is a man who takes his brother's wife, it is abhorrent.

He has uncovered his brother's nakedness. They will be childless. You are therefore to keep all my statutes and all my ordinances and do them, so that the land to which I am bringing you to live will not spew you out.

Moreover, you shall not follow the customs of the nation, which I will drive out before you, for they did all these things. And therefore, I abhorred them. Hence, I have said to you, you are to possess their land, and I myself will give it to you to possess it, a land flowing with milk and honey.

I am the Lord your God, who has separated you from the peoples. You are therefore to make a distinction between the clean animal and the unclean. Between the unclean bird and the clean, you shall not make yourselves detestable by animal or by bird or by anything that creeps on the ground, which I have separated for you as unclean.

Thus, you are to be holy to me, for I, Yahweh, am holy, and I have set you apart from the peoples to be mine. I know there's another verse, but it goes along with other materials. So we will stop our reading there in chapter 20.

Why the Holiness Code Matters for Biblical Ethics

Now, there are a couple of things that we need to get to, obviously, if we want to. And again, my primary purpose in this particular study is to seek to make sure that the members of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church are prepared to give a meaningful, solid, consistent, knowledgeable answer for why we believe the things we believe in regards to sexual morality, the function of God's law, the righteousness of God's dealings with his people.

And obviously, in our day, we live amongst a lawless people. We live amongst a people who detest the rule of law in toto. I mean, we live in a day where what the law says and what it means can be overthrown by a single Supreme Court decision, for example.

The words don't mean anything anymore. And we live amongst a people that, in particular, are in full-scale, open, knowledgeable rebellion against God's law. The honor that was given to scripture and to the law of God in decades past and generations past itself has passed away.

And instead, there is not just in those in the land who would normally be considered at the fringes or to be rebellious themselves. But in the very highest offices, in the very leaders of our country from the top, whether it be the executive branch or the legislative branch or the judicial branch, it does not matter.

You have individuals in the highest offices in all of these branches who openly and with unabashed zeal proclaim ungodliness and seek to cause ungodliness to flourish in the land. That is the situation that we face today.

I do not know how anyone can argue against that, who at least believes that the Christian scriptures, the Old and New Testaments, that these are, in fact, the word of God. And of course, we know that very few people really do believe that any longer.

With that in mind, there will be many who will ask us why we would take the positions that we do. And so what we've been trying to do is to demonstrate that there is a consistent methodology that we can utilize to handle the word of God, that those who would say that you are just picking here and picking there and you're ignoring this and you're ignoring that, well, we're not ignoring anything.

We're working through these texts and we are seeking to understand and make application and at the same time to be wise, to be prepared, because there are particular arguments and there are particular subjects that will be brought up over and over and over again.

You can't say homosexuality is wrong if you eat shellfish. You can't say homosexuality is wrong if you wear polyester. All these kinds of arguments are there. They are being repeated over and over again.

I doubt there's almost anyone in this room that has not already heard that very kind of argument being used. And instead of frustration or instead of simply condemning the person's ignorance, what we need to be able to do is to explain this person in the prayerful hope that God will use the application of his word to bring repentance and faith, we need to explain what the word of God is actually saying.

And to be able to do that, each one of us knows that we cannot simply have studied one verse in a chapter, but we need to know how that verse functions in the chapter. We need to understand the flow of the text.

And I do not believe that that is too difficult for any believer in Jesus Christ who is indwelt by the Spirit of God. That is not just something that, well, preceding generations may have left that to the elders and the professors and so on and so forth.

That is no longer an option for any of us in our day. Each and every one of us must understand these things. And so we have been working through some difficult material. And it doesn't make for easy-flowing sermons or anything of the like.

And in fact, let me just mention before we begin looking at verse 10 that I came very, very close this morning to completely changing our subject. When I went to bed last evening, I thought I was going to.

And it was not until this morning that I really said, no, I've got to stay the course here. And I have decided to address a very important issue. But I just, I'll be honest with you, I'm sure Pastor Fry could do it, maybe some of the rest of you could even do it, but I'm just not smart enough to figure out how to address one particular subject in the form of sermons.

And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to address one of the particular subjects that we will encounter, especially as we move over to the book of Deuteronomy for the rest of our study.

Of the law.

I'm going to address it in the Sunday morning Sunday schools. And what we will do is we will, when they are posted on Sermon Audio, we'll simply make them a part of the Holiness Code series. So we'll link them that way so that if someone wants to listen to that, they'll still be able to find that material.

It's just that this material will be in Sunday school. That's what we do before the morning service for just a few who might not know what that is. And you'd be invited to come and to join us for that particular gathering.

And that subject, I'm not sure when I'm going to be able to get to it. Most of you know that at the end of this month, I will be gone most of September. I will be living overseas, basically. I have an 18-day trip to teach in Zurich, Switzerland, and in Kiev, Ukraine.

I'm home for exactly 14 days. And then I'm gone for about the equal amount of time to Johannesburg, Durban, South Africa to teach and debate there. So I'm not sure when I'll be able to get to this. But we are going to have to.

And I will encourage those of you who have found this series to be useful to come to the Sunday.

School.

It's one thing to listen online. It's another thing to actually be there.

It really is.

We will be addressing the issue of slavery in the Bible. Now, that is not an easy topic. That's why I said I could not possibly figure out how to make it sermonic. Because you have to draw together so many streams of material.

There are so many different texts to look at. And there's so much background material as to all the different kinds of slavery that have existed in human history, and what Hebrew slavery was, and the fact that the Hebrew slave was treated differently than a foreign slave.

And what was the year of Jubilee? And there's just so many things. We have to address it for two reasons. First of all, there's a tremendous amount of ignorance on the subject. There's a tremendous amount of ignorance on the subject.

And that is exacerbated by the fact that in our own land, we have a history with slavery. And people just assume that the American experience of slavery was identical to the ancient Hebrew experience, which of course it was not.

The Hebrew form of slavery, Roman form of slavery, the American form of slavery, all had fundamental differences between them. And those are all issues that will have to be addressed. The second reason is that everybody knows, or should know, that one of the primary arguments being used today is, well, the church has come to have a better understanding of certain issues, and therefore should continue to, and here's this wonderful term that's being used today, evolve in its understanding on sexual morality, the nature of marriage, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, as well.

And so I think it's vitally important. Almost did it this morning, said, no, I'm not prepared for that. It would have to be too brief, too short, and I don't want to leave you with a major hole in that presentation that might cause you issues as you seek to address these things in the future in your own, yes, your own ministry to those around you, whether it be your ministry to your family, as a father, answering your children's questions, neighbors, friends, relatives, whatever else it might be.

And so we will do that in the Sunday school hour, and I'll try to let you know when that will be. Now again, beginning at verse 10 of Leviticus chapter 20, we see pretty much the same list of sexual sins that we saw in Leviticus chapter 18.

And so I want to focus upon the seriousness of these sins. The land spewed the previous nations out, which is repeated here in Leviticus chapter 20. The land spewed these nations out for not just once in a while committing these sins, but for the fact that these sins became definitional and descriptive of their very lives and their very culture.

And therefore, when you have these sins appearing amongst those who are to be called by the name of Yahweh, they are the covenant people of God. There is no provision provided within this context for anything other than the death penalty for these individuals.

We know in a story that I would say it was not original, but very, very popular in the Gospel of John, as we've discussed before in other contexts, the story that ends up in all the Jesus movies in various forms, whether it belongs there or not.

But certainly that it was a popular story about the woman taken in adultery. And the background, anyways, of that story would be this text right here, that the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.

And of course, it's been mentioned many times that even in the story as it appears in later manuscripts, someone was missing. That is, the adulterer. Only the adulteress appears in that particular story.

But one of the concepts that I want to make sure we understand is, did you notice the repetition of a particular phrase? Now, you have different ways of saying it. They shall bear their guilt is one way.

But then there is a phrase that I'm afraid, especially in our modern day where a lot of us don't read a lot of older books, as we probably should, the phrase blood guiltiness appears. So for example, in verse 11, if there is a man who lies to his father's wife, he has uncovered his father's nakedness.

Both of them shall surely be put to death. Their blood guiltiness is upon them. Verse 12, where you have, when it says, they have committed incest, the actual Hebrew term there is the same term that was used back in Leviticus 18 in talking about bestiality.

It's the term tevil, which means confusion. It is a sort of a sub-term of the term toevah, abomination, but that has an emphasis upon the idea of the violation of proper and appropriate natural categories.

And so it says, they have committed an act of confusion, an act of violating boundaries, or in this case, it is then translated in some translations as incest. And what comes immediately thereafter? Their blood guiltiness is upon them.

And even in verse 13, which we're going to have to spend some time on for the obvious reason that it is, if we're not quoting it, it may be being quoted to us these days. In speaking of homosexuality, after saying, they shall surely be put to death, their blood guiltiness is upon them.

Now, that term is not exactly a term that we utilize in everyday conversation with one another. And so we need to be careful that, especially as we're addressing this subject, if we quote a verse, or if they even quote a verse to us, do they understand what the background of that term is?

We may be somewhat more comfortable using the terminology, but do we even understand what it means when it says, their blood guiltiness is upon them?

What is blood guilt?

Well, you may recall that last Lord's Day, in the Old Testament reading, there was a discussion of the sanctuary cities. And it comes up in a couple of different places in the Old Testament reading. And if you've read through, if you've been listening on Sunday evenings as we read through the Old Testament, you start getting the idea that there was this person called an avenger.

And he was to avenge the death of a member of the family, or of the clan, or of the tribe. And certainly in our day, the idea of the connectedness of family, clan, tribe, is completely gone. I mean, I suppose there are some sports analogies in certain cities.

If you live in Green Bay, Wisconsin, there is almost a tribe there. If you live in Auburn, there is a tribe there. It only exists during college football season, but it exists. Trust me. Dallas, Texas, whatever else it might be.

Here in Phoenix, this is the farthest thing from our understanding of things. Because most people in Phoenix, there's so much transition. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where there's a little more stability, but I certainly don't.

And people go in and out of houses so fast that you hardly even know who's who anymore. And so the idea of, and now today, our families are so spread out. People move away from home. There's so much more mobility.

You have to remember that for the vast majority of human experience, people did not move more than 7 to 15 miles during the medieval period. It was only about 7 miles, any one direction from where they were born, their entire life.

Their whole world was circumscribed by that relatively small circle. And so that meant you knew your family. You knew everybody in your family. And there would be very strong family ties. And especially in the ancient world, in the Semitic world amongst you,.

You would have these tribes.

And these tribes had fierce loyalty to one another. And these tremendously tight connections. So that if one of them was killed, there was a debt on the part of the members of their tribe, of their clan, to avenge the death.

It was considered part of the justice system when there were not strong centralized governmental systems that would have courts of law and things like that. It was considered absolutely necessary to act as a restraint upon the evil of man.

Now, we don't live in that context anymore. And it's real easy for us to just sort of stick our noses in the air and look at those folks as savages. But of course, they would look at us as savages. They really would.

They would wonder, where's your sense of honor? Where is your sense of duty? Where is the sense of human connectedness? Why do you not honor your father and your mother? Why do you not honor those who've come before you?

They truly would look at us as if we are the savages. And so when you keep that in mind, blood guiltiness was initially the idea that a sin has been committed that would be derived from. The initial sin was the shedding of blood, which would then bring this guiltiness upon someone, that they're bearing blood guiltiness.

And the avenger would have the right to bring vengeance upon that person. Now, it expands beyond that to a whole realm of sins that are so grievous that they require the penalty of death. And that the person, having committed it, knows this.

And therefore, they bear their own blood guiltiness. That is, when the penalty of the law is brought to bear against them, those that bring that penalty to bear, there's no vengeance against them. The blood guiltiness is borne by the person who committed the act that was so heinous that they, in essence, are bringing about their own death.

They bear their own blood guiltiness. It does not go upon those who would bring that penalty to bear upon them. So it became a phrase that, in essence, says their condemnation is just. And when the penalty for their heinous deeds is brought to bear against them, justice will be done because they are the ones who bear their own blood guiltiness.

And so there is, in essence, a statement being made that those who commit these things recognize the grave penalty that must be brought to bear for this kind of activity. And hence, the statement is being made, they know, and when judgment is brought to bear, this is a just thing.

And so that leads us to consideration of verse 13. It's not the first time we've read it. And in fact, on a Sunday evening, I remember discussing the importance of this text in our understanding of the New Testament and our understanding of what a certain term in the New Testament means.

And I'm not, obviously, on a Sunday morning going to ask you to tell me what that is. But I hope, if you've been taking good notes, as I'm certain that certain people in the second row always do, if you've been taking good notes, that you know I'm talking about the term arsenokoites and that that term is found in 1 Timothy and in 1 Corinthians, chapter 6, and that the background of Paul's use of that term, which people will tell you today, oh, it's a disputed term.

Scholars aren't really certain what it means. No, scholars are absolutely certain. What arsenokoites means in the New Testament, 1 Corinthians, chapter 6, verses 9 through 11, they're absolutely certain what it means when Paul uses it in writing to Timothy.

But there are politics, even amongst biblical scholars these days, believe it or not. And so there has been a full-scale attempt to insert confusion into an issue where there is no confusion at all. When you look at the Greek translation, called the Greek Septuagint of Leviticus, chapter 20, verse 13, you find the two key elements of that term, arsenos and koitain, you find them right next to each other, right there in the Greek Septuagint.

Paul, or a rabbi before him, has drawn directly from the biblical text that they were using and teaching in the diaspora outside of Israel itself, outside of those who would be able to read Hebrew or Aramaic or something like that, who are dependent upon that Greek translation.

They've drawn directly from the language of that text these terms to describe a male who goes to bed with another male as what would normally be done with a female, the act of sexual intercourse. It is clear what it's in reference to.

And you can stand on your head and say, but they didn't have all the terminology we have today, and they hadn't made up categories of gender confusion or gender dysphoria or sexual orientation. It's that you can fill the air with your verbiage all you want to any honest person who wants to ask the question, does the Bible address this issue?

The only possible answer to the honest person is yes and with clarity. Yes and with clarity, because that's what we have. And so that's the background of Paul's terminology in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, where he says, and such were some of you, but you were washed, you were cleansed, you were justified, so on and so forth.

And so it's interesting to me. And remember, let me just remind you of this, just so you can circle it in your notes or make remembrance of this. That section in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, where Paul lists these sins, sounds very much like he had Leviticus 18 and 20 open in his copy of the Greek Septuagint.

And it comes, it's a continuing discussion from 1 Corinthians chapter 5. And what's 1 Corinthians chapter 5 about? I bet you most of us don't know, simply because it's not a pleasant chapter. We know 2 Corinthians chapter 5 because there's all sorts of neat verses in there that we want to memorize.

How many people want to memorize the text in 1 Corinthians chapter 5, where Paul is talking about incest amongst the Corinthians? Not too many of us. It's not exactly our favorite subject. And yet, when you think about it, if you just step back for a moment, Paul is saying to the Corinthians, it's reported to me that there is sin amongst you that even the pagans would blush at.

And it's incest.

Well, hmm, where is that discussed in God's law? Because it's painfully obvious that Paul says to the Corinthians, you should have known this. You should put this evildoer out from you. Hmm, where would they have gotten that instruction?

Well, some might theorize that, well, Paul had had a special sermon on that particular subject sometime when he was with the Corinthians. No, the reason they should have known that is because they had Leviticus 18 and 20.

And it says, you shall be a holy people unto the Lord. And it defines what sin is. And they should know. And so it's interesting that having just derived from Leviticus 18 and 20 this clear condemnation of an incestuous relationship, that right after that, as he then puts this list of sins together, what does he mention?

He mentions homosexuality and so many other things, all of which take us back to the reality. That's when you have so many evangelicals running around who functionally only have 27 books left in their Bible.

Because if it appears before Matthew, we're not under law, we're under grace. Well, that's a wonderful phrase, as long as you keep it in its right context. As a result, many will go, I'm not too worried about what's over there in Leviticus.

Well, those folks are not really going to be in a strong position to be able to explain biblical ethics and morality, even as practiced by the Apostle Paul. And we're attempting to avoid all the excesses on both sides in regards to that particular issue.

So we've talked about verse 13. We've mentioned its relationship with Leviticus 18, 22.

But it's not identical. It's not identical.

Let's look at it briefly here in the few minutes we have left so we can make sure that we hear what's being said. If, well, literally, literally, a man which, and then it's the Hebrew term for bed, which was a metaphor for sexual intercourse.

So if a man who beds a man as those, plural, eshah, a woman, toevah, abomination, notice what it says, both of them to do. Now, why did I emphasize those things? Well, all of the excuses that have been offered, and there are a plethora of them.

Well, this is only talking about temple cultic prostitution. This is only talking about this thing, or that thing,.

Or the other.

Very rarely, when you find people immediately trying to find a way out of the text by means of transporting us to some other text, you'll never hear a meaningful discussion of the words themselves. Because it seems very clear that, first of all, this is, without a question, identifying a homosexual relationship.

It is a sexual relationship. It is specifically speaking of males. As I said, I think probably the only text that I would feel comfortable defending in debate as specifically and clearly referring to female homosexuality, or as it's frequently called in our day, lesbianism, is in Romans chapter 1.

This uses the term esh, for the man, and eshah, for woman, and specifically refers to sexual activity between two men as those, plural, if there is a man who lies to a male, as those who lie with a woman.

And so the direct parallel is being drawn. So it is the breaking of the natural sexual union and the substitution of that with a homosexual union. And I don't care when the term homosexual was created.

It doesn't matter when the English word was created. We're talking here about Hebrew words describing something we all can recognize from thousands of years before that. Both of them, so this is the esh and then the zakah, the second term for male that is used there.

Both of them have committed toevah, a detestable act,.

An abomination.

So there isn't anything here, because a lot of people say, well, there were a lot of people who would use this type of sexual activity as a means of shaming someone. It was a shame and honor society. And so the aggressor would be shaming.

The other.

The text refers to sex. And it specifically says they both have committed toevah. So there is a mutuality here. It's the same mutuality seen in Romans chapter 1. There is no way to get around it, honestly, anyways.

I mean, if you're just desperate, if you want to know what the text is actually saying, it's very, very straightforward. And it specifically refers to, I guess, what you would call the natural sexual orientation.

Because notice it says those. Not as one, but as those who lie with a woman. The natural sexual union that results in children and the propagation of life and so on and so forth, that is being put aside.

Instead, there is this circularity, this mirror imagedness. Both of them have committed toevah. And the law is that they shall surely be put to death.

Why?

Because the last two words in the Hebrew text, their blood guiltiness is upon them. It's not upon the one who brings the penalty to bear. It is upon them for engaging in this type of activity. Now, the rest of the chapter contains other sins that are called immorality.

There is one that results in being burned with fire, the very next verse. If there is a man who marries a woman and her mother, it is immorality. Both he and they shall be burned with fire. Obviously, they purposefully entered into this.

So there will be no immorality in your midst. Then, just as in Leviticus 18, starting verse 15, you have the discussion of bestiality, the violation of the natural boundaries created by God himself in regards to our own created being.

And of course, what is the statement? They shall surely be put to death. Their blood guiltiness is upon them. It's repeated over and over again. For the covenant people of God, this kind of behavior is not to be coddled.

It is not to be said to be just some other way of viewing things. If these people are to be holy in the sight of God, this kind of impurity. It's not said, well, or he can offer seven rams, a whole flock, if he can somehow come up with it.

There is nothing provided in that way. The ultimate penalty is brought to bear because of the context in which these sins are committed amongst the covenant people of God who have received clear and unquestionable revelation as to the nature of these things.

But even in the midst of all these things, isn't it interesting that verse 13 is described, that homosexual act is described as to eva. Oh, you have immorality. You have other terminology that is used.

Tevil is used, as I mentioned. Confusion in the incestuous relationship. But there is a specific utilization of a strong term of detestation on God's part, specifically in verse 13, in regards to homosexuality.

Now, what are we told? Well, we all know what we're told if we dare to cite a text like this. Well, they just didn't know back then what we know now. This is about people who are naturally heterosexual, engaging in homosexual behavior.

It has nothing to do with people who are naturally.

Homosexual.

Now, how do you answer something like that? Other than just simply going, no, uh-uh. That really doesn't lead to the most popular and most helpful.

Conversations.

You go, nah, uh-huh, yeah. Unfortunately, that is the level of some of the conversations that take place. The question would be, are you seeking to justify a behavior, or are you seeking to understand what God says about a behavior?