The Law is Never Fulfilled Outside of Christ

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Almighty and Everlasting God, we come to you in humble awe. You are the one true God. There is none other like you. Come, we pray, bless our hearts and our minds as we study your word.

Send your Holy Spirit into our lives so that we may grow in love and grace and that we may go forth into the world, proclaiming your gospel so that others may learn of your saving grace. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen.

Amen.

All right, I'm afraid to ask the question, but were there any questions?

Please escort Bruce out of the building.

During this portion of the Bible study.

Oh, good.

Oh, wow. I get to get back into Leviticus, and so I get two Sundays in a row. Maybe we can make some tracks in Leviticus before the church council meeting, which could be very awkward now at this point because of how little Leviticus we've been doing.

Sacrificial Worship, Idolatry, and the Problem of Hidden Sin

All right, we're in Leviticus. We're going to be in chapter 17 and working our way through. We actually did part of this last time we touched on Leviticus. And the idea here, then, is in this portion, God is going to make it very clear that when it comes to sacrificing your animals, the sacrifices are to be done in a particular place.

And if you decide to kill them ahead of time, you still need to bring them to the tabernacle so that you do not have people surreptitiously sacrificing to goat demons. I don't know if you've noticed this about human beings, me included, you included.

We have a tendency that when we're heading off in the wrong direction, we like to engage in misdirection and put on pretenses all the while somehow disguising our sinful behavior to make it look like we're doing right when in fact we're doing wrong.

It's kind of a fun thing being a sinner that way. And I would put it to you this way. If the thing that you really want to do is causing you to engage in obfuscation in order to do it so that people who rightly understand God's word will not be alerted to what you're doing, then you're sinning.

It's kind of how that goes. So that's a good test. It seems a little obvious, but sinners being what we are, and we all have a sinful nature still,.

Which is for the birds.

I'm really looking forward to not having one anymore, and luckily mine keeps getting older and older. I keep telling people I can play Santa Claus now at the mall without a false beard, yay. All right, Leviticus 17.

This part will be reviewed,.

But let's keep it for our context. Yahweh spoke to Moses saying, speak to Aaron and his sons, and to all the people of Israel, say to them, this is the thing that Yahweh has commanded. If one of the house of Israel kills an ox, or a lamb, or a goat in the camp, or kills it outside the camp, and does not bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting to offer it as a gift to Yahweh in front of the tabernacle of Yahweh, blood guilt shall be imputed to that man.

And this isn't talking about butchering an animal for the purpose of steak, food. In fact, the book of Deuteronomy, a middle portion of the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 12, if I'm not mistaken, doing this from memory, does talk about you have the right to butcher animals for the purpose of eating as many as you want, as often as you want, to your heart's content.

That's not the issue here. The issue is the pretense of making sacrifices and sacrificing the animals for religious purposes. So you've killed this animal, but there's blood guilt now being imputed to you because the animal isn't dying for the purpose of either being eaten or truly a sacrifice to Yahweh.

This is something else. He shed blood that man shall be cut off from among his people. This is to the end that the people of Israel may bring their sacrifices, and here we can see the context, that they sacrifice in the open field that they may bring them to Yahweh, to the priest at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, and sacrifice them as sacrifices of peace offerings to the Lord.

Now, a little bit of a note. In the ancient world, deities and sacrifices kind of went hand in hand, and you'll note that sacrifices were a part of ancient Judaism, and it was all type and shadow pointing to Christ, but generally in the ancient world, their view of deities, they were pretty capricious, very hard to please beings, and so you had to figure out how to get on their good side, and so sacrifices of one kind or another was for the purpose of getting the attention of the deity, earning from the deity particular things, and oftentimes fertility cults were quite popular, and we're not talking about just mere fertility in the concept of human conception, we're talking about the fertility of the earth itself, and so the belief was that the deities, in order to earn their favor, and to show them that you were humble, and contrite, and that you desired their favor, you would traffic in sacrifices of one kind or another to placate, or to get the attention of, or to earn the favor of that deity, and so oftentimes along with this in a kind of a polytheistic world, where there's multiple different types of deities that you can worship, oftentimes people would have their particular favorites, so I'm gonna go and make a sacrifice to such and such a deity, and what I find fascinating is that that mindset is not all that different than what crept up in Roman Catholicism in the Middle Ages, this concept of praying to patron saints, and over and again I point to the kind of bizarre ideas that come along with this, and if you haven't heard, Saint Christopher was like a totally bogus saint, yeah, my family was Roman Catholic at the time of my birth, and at my baptism when I was an infant, I was given a Saint Christopher medallion by my grandparents, and I remember when I got old enough to actually pay attention that there was such a thing, they made a point of saying, have you seen this, you got this when you were christened, and there's a Saint Christopher medallion, and Saint Christopher was supposedly the fellow who at one time helped Jesus cross a river, or maybe the River Jordan, and because Jesus was too small to actually ford the river himself, so Saint Christopher decided to carry the load, and I guess as the story goes that when Jesus got on his back, the fellow nearly fell into the water and drowned because of how heavy Jesus was, and as the lore goes, he was so heavy, the reason why he was so heavy is because he was carrying the sins of the world.

It's not a dad joke, I'm just telling you what I was told.

Okay, so I kind of,.

But yet, how many Roman Catholics to this day are told to offer prayers to Saint Christopher for one thing or another, and the same with like the Saint Joseph, Saint Joseph, not the biological, but the earthly father, the legal father of Jesus Christ, if you're having difficulty selling your home, yep, you bury a Saint Joseph statue in your yard, and there's a particular prayer that you, and your house will just go like that.

How did that house sell?

The market's not even doing very well. Well, we put a Saint Joseph statue in our, this is nonsense, this is utter nonsense, but you gotta note, it operates kind of off that same principle. I give, I do, I perform, then God acts, and then, of course, the question is, it has to be called, where did you learn this?

Where did you learn these things? How did you figure this out? You know, I always think it's hilarious when you consider that down in certain states in the United States, there is a frog that excretes a particular enzyme, and it's illegal to actually engage in frog licking, you know, because it's a hallucinogenic.

In some of these states where this frog is prevalent, you can be arrested for frog licking. Of course, my question is, who's the first person that went,.

Hey, there's a frog right there. I think I'd like to lick it.

You gotta remember, this is the South.

Ha ha ha ha ha.

The same guy.

God.

Let's soak it in wine.

Yeah.

I see the connection.

I see the connection. So you'll note, then, you'll note, then, that when it comes to idolatry, there is a pseudo profound aspect to it where you are being given privy information that other people just don't have.

We've discovered through our religious experimentation that if you offer this many sacrifices of this particular animal to this particular deity, the results you'll get back are fantastic. It'll clear up the zits on your face, you won't have acne, and you'll be married within six months.

We've learned all this stuff. You say, where did, how did you figure this out? It just sounds like you made it up. Yeah, right, because probably you did. And so then you'll note, then, could you imagine if, you know, years from now, Barb and I put our house on the market, and it's not selling, and you just happen to be walking by my house at the time I was digging a hole to put a St. Joseph statue into my yard?

That would be one of those really awkward moments. In fact, I'm pretty sure if I ever decided to do something like that, I'd wait until the middle of the night,.

Two in the morning,.

Because I know that none of you are up, right? Because I don't want to be discovered. I don't want to be found out.

Yeah, just, that's it.

Honey, I'm gonna go get one of those ground radar things. We gotta find out if there's any St. Joseph statues in our yard. And don't be digging them into my yard just for fun. It's not funny.

No, no, no.

Yeah, that reminds me of when I was a kid. You know, attending the Nazarene church, all the sermons were about what you're not supposed to do, right?

Yeah, you don't want to do that.

You don't want to do that.

I'm sitting there going, dang, that sounds fun.

Yeah, I haven't tried that one yet. Just give that a whirl, see what happens. No, I know. So you can see then here, the idea is that there are people in the camp of Israel who are hanging on to some strange belief that there are these goat demons need to be placated by sacrifices.

And so they're not bringing their sacrifices to the tabernacle. They're sacrificing them outside of the camp. And of course, the question is, hey, Shlomo, why are you sacrificing that animal right here?

It's not, go mind your own business. Stop talking to me like this, all right? And so the idea here is that they're hiding their true intent, and God's cutting this loophole out and making it very clear this is not gonna stand.

So the priest then, talking about the real sacrifices, shall throw blood on the altar, blood on the altar of the Lord at the entrance of the tent of meeting, burn the fat for the pleasing aroma to Yahweh.

So they shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices to goat demons after whom they, and boy, this is just such a fun word. Yeah, whore. This shall be a statute forever them throughout their generations. I made the point, always worth at least mentioning it in passing when the text is calling for it, that idolatry and adultery seem to go hand in hand there.

It's, idolatry is the spiritual form of adultery. Adultery is idolatry in and of itself. Scripture makes that very clear that it is. And so God then, in talking about faithlessness of Israel, and when it comes to idolatry, will liken it to not just adultery, but an extremely reprehensible form of it.

The fellow who goes and visits the brothel or something to that effect.

Now, you shall say to them,.

Anyone of the house of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn among them who offers a burnt offering or sacrifice and does not bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting to offer it to Yahweh, that man shall be cut off from his people.

So this is an excommunicatable offense. And the reason being is that you're not really part of us. And so excommunication in this sense is simply ratifying what the person already believes and saying, you wanna worship other gods?

Go right ahead, you're not of us. And so you'll note then that idolatry is something that puts somebody outside of the religious community. And that continues to this day. Okay, so we're talking about how the Samaritans set up their own worship site.

All right, so in the book of Deuteronomy, let me do this, I'm gonna, let me get to it. I think it's Deuteronomy 12, but I'm doing this from memory, so give me a second because I could actually be wrong.

There is a fascinating piece to what's going on in Deuteronomy chapter 12. And that is that God uses Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal, uses the geography of the place where they're going to make a point, maybe it's in 11, hang on a second, I knew I was doing this from memory, but hold on.

Deuteronomy 11, and if not, I'm just gonna look up Gerizim. All right, let's see here. All right, we gotta find Gerizim. Hang on a second here, I'll do it this way. Gerizim, there you are. And it's Deuteronomy 11.

Okay, so Deuteronomy 11, I was in the right chapter second time around. Deuteronomy 11, and particularly 29. And let me show you how this works. All right, so I'll start in verse 26 for our context. The Lord's speaking through Moses.

See, I'm setting before you today a blessing and a curse. And this is covenant talk, so the Mosaic covenant, like any contract, there's responsibilities, and you get to enjoy particular benefits, and if you don't follow what you agreed to, then there's going to be consequences.

And in the Mosaic covenant, those boil down to blessings and curses. Blessings if you obey, cursings if you disobey. And then what God does is actually quite fascinating. So he says, see, I'm setting before you today a blessing and a curse.

A blessing if you obey the commandments of Yahweh, your God, which I command you today, and a curse if you do not obey the commandments of Yahweh, your God. But turn aside from the way that I am commanding you today to go after other gods that you have not known.

And when Yahweh, your God, brings into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, you shall set the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal. Blessing is on Mount Gerizim, the curse is on Mount Ebal.

And you know, this isn't a very direct command against idolatry. But how human beings operate is kind of fascinating, is that, well, now the Samaritans who are breaking away from the true worship of God, they can invoke something in the scripture and say, we're gonna set up our worship center on Mount Gerizim because that's the place where Yahweh set his blessing.

Does that make sense? Now, if we were to do just a little bit of work, let me find this real quick in, let me open up my browser and go to Google real quick here. All right, T, and we want maps .google .com.

So if we were to look for, funny enough, if I look for it in Hebrew, I won't find it, but if I look for it in Arabic, I'll find it. Ebal Gerizim, let's see, hang on a second here. I have a latency in my internet connection because we are in the middle of nowhere.

All right, I'll just do, hang on a second. Let me do, I do it in English, hang on a second here. Mount Gerizim, there it is. All right, so it'll take a second for it to load, but it's a fascinating place, and I'll see if I can kind of describe the geography here.

You'll note that this is in the West Bank of Israel today. The modern-day town of Nablus is the town of Note, and on either side of this valley, because Nablus is built in the valley, it's built in the valley between Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal.

So Mount Ebal to the north, Mount Gerizim to the south. Jacob's well, Sychar, is in this spot. This is the place where Jesus, in John 5, had the encounter with the woman at the well. And the tomb of Joseph, his bones are here in Nablus.

That's where they ended up taking them. But if I were to do just a little bit of work here, let me see if I can do this, and there we go. I'm gonna come down here. Let's see if that one will give me what I want.

I'm gonna try this one real quick. Now, if I lucked out, I got the right one. I do a lot of traveling the world with other people's vacation photos. It's just, it's a lot cheaper. So this is the top of Mount Gerizim, and these are the ruins of the Samaritan temple complex that was up there, and you can't really see it too well, but if we look just north, so I'm looking north here, you can see the top of Mount Ebal, all right?

So the way God set it up in Deuteronomy 11, the blessing is on Gerizim, the curse is on Ebal, and you'll notice there's no corresponding curse complex on Mount Ebal, but so the way this kind of worked out then is that the Samaritans, as they broke away, the leader who pulled them away from the nation state of Israel intentionally set up, and recruited Levites to help to do it, to set up their own religious system altogether, and that just became corrupted and headed off in weird directions, and one of the things that they engaged in, which is kind of fascinating, you remember the bronze serpent from the book of Numbers?

The bronze serpent, they ended up worshiping it, was it Nihashtan was the name that they gave to it? I'm doing that from memory too, and so there's a little subtext later in the book on the Old Testament where they went and destroyed the bronze serpent because they set it up now as an image and an idol that they were worshiping, and so you'll note then that idolatry oftentimes will not completely leave to form its own cult and its own mythology, instead what it'll do is it'll take elements of the truth that is historically accurate, that have connections back to the truth of God, but then completely twist and warp them, and that's precisely what the Samaritans ended up doing in setting up their competing temple complex, and although they have clear instructions in Leviticus, as well as Deuteronomy, forbidding them from doing the things that they did, they took the blessing of God that was placed on Mount Gerizim and used it as a pretense to support their false worship.

I don't know, that was a long answer to a short question I think, but did I overdo it? Yeah, if I can't nerd out on theology, I can't nerd out on anything. Yeah, Nihashtan, yeah, yeah. So, all right, coming back then to our text.

So the idea then is that that's how they do it. So you'll note then that the Samaritans then in setting up their idolatrous worship and standing in defiance of the clear instructions of the word of God, used pieces of the word of God as a pretense for what they were doing, while at the same time engaging in rank idolatry.

And beware, we are all tempted to do these things. We are all extremely attempted to do these things. Now, it's easy to point out, you know, you look at what's happening within kind of radical leftist Lutheranism, you know, how they are establishing female priests and ordaining those who are impenitent sexually.

And you sit there and go, how are you doing this? And oftentimes, well, the Lord's doing a new thing. He's doing a new thing. This is just one of their arguments.

They got a whole lot of other ones.

But you'll note that they keep the veneer of Christianity while at the same time evacuating of its biblical meaning while pouring in their own definitions. And that's a very cult-like behavior. You know, I always like to point out that when you take a look at something like the Mormon cult or the Jehovah's Witnesses, they use the exact same set of words we use.

They'll talk about God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. They will talk about Jesus Christ. They will use words like atonement and sacrifice and baptism. But it's not the use of the word that makes them Christian or not Christian.

It's the meaning of it. So if you were to sit down with a Mormon and ask the Mormon, okay, who is Jesus Christ? And it's a fair question because you use the word, you use the phrase, who is Jesus Christ?

And they say, well, he's the spirit brother of Lucifer. Well, that's different, okay, right? And you use the name Elohim for God the Father. Who is Elohim? Elohim is our God. And he was once a man like you are now who was obedient to his God.

And through the law of eternal progression, he then was able to earn the right to become a deity himself. And if we are obedient to him, then we can become gods and goddesses like he and his many spirit wives that he has.

Multi-level marketing. So you're saying that Mormonism is a spiritual form of Amway? I just wanna make sure the inference was correct.

Okay, yeah.

Right, exactly.

And so that's the thing. And so you'll note then, idolatry oftentimes will keep a Christian veneer while evacuating the words of any of their Christian biblical meaning. And so they can sit, and so the person who is catechized into these systems can sit there and go, we're biblical.

We believe the Bible, oh, and the Book of Mormon. Oh, and the modern day prophecies and stuff like that, right? So, but you're gonna have a hard time communicating with them in any kind of effective way as far as calling them to repent or demonstrating that their doctrines are false if you just take their use of the words and say they're using this and mean it the same way I understand it.

They don't. They don't at all.

It's quite the mess. All right, so.

All right.

Look at how far we've gotten through Leviticus today.

Aren't you happy?

Yes, I'm expecting to see like two stars on my star chart at the church council meeting.

That's right, it's the fourth.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Hang on a second here, I need to have a drink.

All right.

And then coming back to the point then that this makes. You'll note that excommunication was practiced in ancient Israel, and the person who is an idolater is excommunicated. Same today in Christianity.

If you are a true idolater, this is an excommunicatable offense. And you'll note then that when it comes to church discipline ultimately church discipline is giving somebody what they already want. That's kind of a strange way of putting it.

So when a person commits a sin, maybe they engage in the sin of idolatry. If you confront them and say, brother, sister, this is idolatry. This is a breaking of the first commandment. You need to repent and you need to be forgiven.

And they double down and say no. You have no right to tell me who or what I am going to believe in or pray to or anything like this. And you sit there and go, right, I may not have the authority to tell you whom because Christianity isn't believed in via waterboarding.

We're not going to waterboard you until you get rid of all of your idolatry. But the idea here is that if you are part of the church, then being a part of the church is that you are repentant. And if you are impenitent when it comes to your sins, then ultimately you want to have it your way, okay.

You can have it your way, but you can't have it your way and be part of the body of Christ. Because to be part of the body of Christ is to be a penitent sinner in humble submission to the authority of Christ.

Now that does not mean we don't sin. All of us sin daily, we sin much. And so the entire Christian life from beginning to end is one of daily repentance, returning to your baptism. Again, saying to God, I'm wrong, you're right.

And we have to do this, this is a daily exercise. But when you are so clearly shown that you are in sin and you double down and say, nope, I'm not repenting, I'm not doing anything wrong, and how dare you, you close-minded Nazi bigot tell me what I should believe or not believe or do or do not do, right?

You most unloving, unkind blankety blank.

Right? Right.

And you basically, at that point, it's like, okay, you wanna be an idolater, we are going to let you be an idolater. Just not with us. So when it comes to excommunication, you're giving the person really what they want.

And it's strange to me that somebody would wanna put up a pretense to their neighbors and to their fellow Israelites. I'm with Yahweh. Well, all the while, secretly back doing this thing, sacrificing the demons and stuff, making sure no one's seeing it, right?

You're not really with Yahweh. So excommunication really frees that person up. They don't have to put on a pretense anymore. They can just be what they wanna be. Now, they will probably end up in hell.

But see, the thing is is that hell is the place for everybody who wants to have it their way and do their own thing.

I know a new testament.

Yes.

Yep. Yeah.

Boy, that's a good question.

Off the top of my head, I can't recall one, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. It just means that I'm old.

Yeah.

Yeah, but there's like no formal process, though. So when you talk about the prophets, so they are like the covenant prosecuting attorneys. But over and again, listen to their appeal. They are not like any prosecuting attorney I've ever heard because a prosecuting attorney's all about just nailing a person and proving they're guilty.

But the prophets always assume that the person's guilty. That's not even up for question. So the thing is is that, so God, through the prophets, is saying, you're doing this. Why are you doing that? That's stupid.

Repent, I'll forgive you. And so at the end of the day, if you were to talk about a process, it requires them to recognize that they have committed idolatry, to repent of their sins and to turn. And the assumption is is that what they're being called back to is just to be restored to what's already in place.

And so I would, you think about the fellow, and I can't remember the king's name off the top of my head, but things had got so bad in Israel that within the temple itself, they had set up little grottos to the false deities.

I mean, the temple itself became the complex of syncretism. Right, and they didn't even know. And so they put a funding project together to renovate because I don't know if you've noticed this about buildings, but they need paint and things like that from time to time, you know, and you gotta clean things up.

And so they actually put a project together to raise funds to repristinate the temple. And while they were doing the construction work, they found the Torah. And I always like to say it's like, you know, the priests who found it, they were all, there's a book.

And the other guy goes, we had a book? Yeah, there's a book, it's right here.

Well, what's it say?

Oh, you don't wanna know what it says. Okay, so they read the book and oh boy. And so what they did is they ran that thing up the chain of command, they took it to the king.

The king read it.

The king read it and went, oh, good, good, googly moogly, we're in trouble.

Okay, right?

We have a book and oh my goodness, we have totally departed from all the ways. That guy repents on the spot. He repents on the spot and totally just gets rid of all the syncretistic stuff going on. And here's what ends up happening.

If I'm remembering the story correctly, because I'm doing this from memory, things have gotten to the point where I think it was a prophetess, not a prophet, who actually came to him and said, the Lord has seen your repentance in sackcloth and ashes.

And he's noted this and because of this, the destruction that he has promised in that book that you read will not happen during your lifetime, it'll come after you. Now, that's all from memory. There may be details that are a little sketchy.

That's because I'm sketchy. See, he's having, that's a funny way to say it.

This is correct.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, now you're getting into advanced theology, yeah. But you're correct, Christ is the halagas teotheo. He is the word of God, you know, in flesh.

That was it.

Yeah, all right, that was a good point, though.

Yep.

All right, let's keep working our way through Leviticus so I can earn more points with the president of the church council. All right, let's see. I know, I know. All right, so it's, okay, so we got that part.

The Blood of the Covenant and the Meaning of Atonement

Verse 10 now. So if anyone of the house of Israel or of the strangers of the sojourners among them eats any blood, and we've talked about this as well, good to review it, the life is in the blood, the life is in the blood, all of that is then pointing to the very radical thing that Christ says on the night that he was betrayed.

Take, drink, this is the blood of the new covenant, or this is the cup of the new covenant, I'm messing up the verba now, but you know what I'm saying, right? Again, getting old, creeping decrepitude is involved, right, this is the new covenant in my blood which is shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins.

So there's the blood of the, okay, so this is, again, this is reserved, and so no Jew, self-respecting Jew who is following Torah is gonna be eating any blood, and then we get to Christ, and Christ says take, drink, this is my blood.

The life of the flesh is in the blood, I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, it is the blood that makes atonement for the life. There we go, and see, now you get a statement that, and Hebrews makes it clear, not the blood of animals.

It's not the blood of animals that makes atonement by the life, because we are not saved by the blood of animals, we are saved by the blood of Jesus, the once for all sacrifice, but you get the theology then.

It is the blood that makes atonement by the life, and this is pointing then to Jesus. So therefore I have said to the people of Israel, no person among you shall eat blood, neither shall any stranger who sojourns among you eat blood.

So if anyone also of the people of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn among them who takes in hunting any beast or bird that may be eaten shall pour out its blood and cover it with the earth. So dry venison, just saying, you know, how that works.

The life of every creature is in the blood, its blood is in its life, therefore I have said to the people of Israel, you shall not eat the blood of any creature, for the life of every creature is its blood.

Whoever eats it shall be cut off. Every person who eats what dies of itself or what is torn by beast, whether he is a native or a sojourner, shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water and be unclean until the evening, and then he shall be clean.

So if you see a dead deer on the side of the road and you decide to butcher it and you're unclean until the evening, just so you know. But if he does not wash them or bathe his flesh, he shall bear his iniquity.

Holiness in Sexual Conduct and the Limits of the Law

Chapter 18.

So Yahweh spoke to Moses saying, speak to the people of Israel, say to them, I am Yahweh, your God. You shall not do as they did in the land of Egypt where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan to which I am bringing you.

You shall not walk, okay, yalach here, this is how you conduct your life. You shall not conduct your life in their statutes. You shall follow my rules, keep my statutes, walk in them. I am Yahweh, your God.

You shall therefore keep my statutes, my rules, if a person does them, he shall live by them. I am the Lord. Now a little bit of a note here. Paul uses that language to talk about how we are not saved by the law but saved by grace through faith.

Now remember, the law was not given for us to earn salvation because if a law had been given by which salvation could be achieved or which we could be justified, Paul says in Galatians, then Christ died for nothing.

So here's the principle then, and this text explicitly says it. You want to live by the law? You must do those statutes and keep on, keep on, keep on, keepin' on through the night, yeah. Little Brady Bunch reference, but no one got that one.

Good.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, so the idea here is that, so if you wanna, if you're gonna live by them, you gotta keep on doing them. You're never done, the law is never fulfilled. You can't check it off and say finish.

So you shall keep my statutes, if a person does them, he shall live by them. I am Yahweh. None of you shall approach any one of his close relatives. Now we're gonna get into the awkward, uncomfortable portion of the book of Leviticus.

We will just walk through this and not do the beavis and butthead thing. So the idea here is this is going to get a little bit awkward, graphic. And I point out this by way of preface. It is utterly sad that humanity has to be told in this explicit detail, what you can and cannot do sexually.