The following is Pastor Nate’s teaching transcription from Calvary Monterey’s 10/26/21 Tuesday Night Service. We apologize for any transcription inaccuracies.
Leviticus 20:1, “The Lord spoke to Moses saying, "Say to the People of Israel, any one of the people of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn in Israel, who gives any of his children to Molech, shall surely be put to death, the people of the land shall stone him with stones. I myself will set my face against that man and will cut him off from among his people, because he has given one of his children to Molech, to make my sanctuary unclean and to profane My Holy Name. And if the people of the land do at all close their eyes to that man when he gives one of his children to Molech and do not put him to death, then I will set my face against that man and against his clan and will cut them off from among their people, him and all who follow him in whoring after Molech. And if a person turns to mediums and necromancers whoring after them, I will set my face against that person and will cut him off from among his people."
Capital Punishment
Severe warnings here to open up Leviticus 20, where we're continuing on in the book of Leviticus in a section where we're seeing the law codes in ancient Israel, laws for God's Old Testament era people. And as we saw in chapter 18, many restrictions, in this chapter, we're going to see, not just the restrictions, many of them repeated from chapter 18 here in chapter 20, but we're going to see the punishment that needed to be meted out for the crimes that were mentioned in chapter 18. In a sense, this chapter is going to reinforce that earlier chapter, chapter 18.
Now, except for verse 19, 20, and 21, in this chapter, which, of course, we'll get to as we read through this chapter, every crime that's mentioned in this chapter was worthy of the death penalty. Some wonder if that meant that they were meant to penalize people up to the death penalty, that they could qualify for the death penalty, but sometimes meted out judgments that were less than or were allowed to mete out judgments less than the death penalty, and others believe that, no, this was God's intention that they would execute this death penalty, that they would use this death penalty, and that the times that they didn't was actually disobedience to the Lord. But the sins that are mentioned here, carrying out this penalty of death, of course, cause us to realize the sobered nature of each one of these crimes.
Religious Sins
And as you go through the law and the commands or the rules that if Israel committed them or broke them, they'd be guilty and be under the death penalty, they are very severe. Premeditated murder, kidnapping, murder itself, adultery, homosexuality, blasphemy, idolatry, disobedience against authority, all of these things would qualify for death penalty. And if you really think about them, what they were, were sins that would destroy the community. And we'll see that as we go through this chapter together.
1 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Say to the people of Israel, Any one of the people of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech shall surely be put to death. The people of the land shall stone him with stones. 3 I myself will set my face against that man and will cut him off from among his people, because he has given one of his children to Molech, to make my sanctuary unclean and to profane my holy name. 4 And if the people of the land do at all close their eyes to that man when he gives one of his children to Molech, and do not put him to death, 5 then I will set my face against that man and against his clan and will cut them off from among their people, him and all who follow him in whoring after Molech. 6 “If a person turns to mediums and necromancers, whoring after them, I will set my face against that person and will cut him off from among his people.
But we started out in the first six verses by seeing the importance amongst God's Old Testament covenant people of operating with a fear of the Lord, a reverence for God. The first thing that's mentioned is the offering of children to this false god named Molech, a god of the Ammonites who lived in that area on the other side of the Jordan River. Now, we've already visited the concept of offering children to Molech, in chapter 18 verse 21, where God said, "You shall not give any of your children to offer them to Molech and so profane the name of your God. I am the Lord."
Now, most often, what scholars think is happening with the idea of offering children to Molech is the idea of child sacrifice, actually killing their children in the name of the worship of this deity. And there are grotesque ways in which this would occur. There are some scholars who think that there's an additional component of perhaps not only offering children sacrificially, but it pains me to even say this, to offer them sexually to Molech as well. And this, of course, grieves the heart of not just human beings, but it grieves the heart of God. God would see these sins being committed amongst the Ammonite people, and he warned gravely, before the people of Israel ever set foot in the Promised Land, these are sins that must not be numbered among you.
Now, what is such a big deal about this sin? I mean, it's hard to even ask that question with a straight face, because it's innate to us. We understand the gravity of this sin. This is terrible, that a parent would so overturn the natural order of God's design and neglect their natural responsibility that God has imparted into their bodies and minds and souls and spirits, and that they would so allow their conscience to be seared that they would reject the order that God Himself has established, step out of the alignment that God has given, God, humanity, creation, and step out of that alignment, parents saying, "I am not only going to neglect my responsibility but I'm going to harm this person that is my responsibility, even to the point of death," it's a grave and terrible sin, not just because a child is unable to defend themselves, but because a child is looking to a parent to be the one who provides for them, leads them, guides them, teaches them and shows them the truth.
They're looking to a father to protect them, defend them, define them, speak into their lives, encourage them, teach them and instruct them, and they're looking to a mother to nurture them, to care for them, to bring them along to full strength. And this is an exact violation and upheaval of the very thing that God Himself has designed. And so God is greatly grieved by this particular crime.
Now, of course, there are implications for us today by seeing the heart of God in this commandment. It's not going to be a common temptation in our modern era for someone to want to worship a god named Molech in this way, but what can we learn about the heart of God through all of this? Well, first of all, we learned that God is a defender of helpless children.
So, in the New Testament, when you read that pure and undefiled religion is caring for widows and orphans in their trouble, what you're seeing is an extension of the very heart of God that exists right here, a God looking into the brokenness of humanity, seeing the neglect of fathers, and the neglect of mothers, and he declares, "I want my people to step into the pain and the chaos that sin has created and to be part of that solution." So, this helps us understand the heart of God, that God is a defender of helpless children. But it also helps us understand that when God sees elements of our world and society where the natural order of his design is overturned, it grieves his heart greatly, partly because of the pain caused to the person, but also for the pain caused to the entire society that He is observing.
And so as God's people, we need to take our roles seriously. The exact opposite of this sin here in this opening salvo in Leviticus chapter 20 would be to say, "All right, if this is a crime or was a crime in that era, then I want to be the exact opposite of this, I want by God's Spirit, to be a great father or mother, or/and a great spiritual father and mother, I want to be one who cares for others. If I need to be a step-in parent, I will be a step-in parent, I'll pick up the slack that others have created." So, I think this is a beautiful thing.
Obviously, there'd also be some implications for this, or perhaps it's not obvious to you, but there should be some implications to the seeing the heart of God, His care for this defenseless child, in the way that we might process something like abortion in our modern time. These are babies that are unable to defend themselves, and they're not being offered in sacrifice to a literal god named Molech, but there are false gods that abound that people ascribe to. My personal freedom, my needs and concerns, my future, all these different things that we can bow down to in place of taking care of these children that God so loves. And so God is a defender of the helpless here. He even mentions in verse four, this is interesting, that if there's someone who sees this child sacrifice taking place but closes their eyes to that man, that person who closes their eyes is also guilty before God. This is a monstrous sin that God wants community interjection into. So, we as God's people, we should also become defenders of helpless children.
But also here in this little section that we just read, we also saw in verse six, not just God rebuking and highlighting the punishment for this sin before Molech, but also the presence of mediums and necromancers in the land, people who are trying to commune with, communicate with the dead, so to speak. And this would happen from time to time in the nation of Israel. You might even remember in the life of King Saul, when he was going mad near the end of his reign, he tried to figure out where David was and he consulted with a witch in a town called Endor, in an attempt to communicate with Samuel, or Samuel came from the dead and spoke to him and rebuked him from the grave for his sin. So, this actually happened in the nation of Israel. And what God warned here in verse six is that people who engage with such activity, they would be cut off.
So, here, what you have is curious, like, of all the sins mentioned in chapter 18, in the punishments or the disciplines, why is the worship of Molech and the presence of necromancers and mediums, why is that first on the list of disciplines? Well, I think part of the reason for that is because a reverence for God, a fear of God... I've been even correcting myself lately when I think of the fear of The Lord. Sometimes we want to try to give a definition of that. It's the awe of God, it's the reverence of God, it's a respect for God.
The fear of God is all of those things, but it's a little bit more than just that. There is an actual, not paranoia about him, but a fear for who he is that really keeps the word fear is the only total appropriate word to describe our feeling or our sense about him. He's unlike anyone else. And once a person loses the fear of the Lord and replaces God with something lesser, an idol, another worship system, like is mentioned here, a necromancer, a medium, the sins that flowed downstream from that worship problem are catastrophic. And so God is trying to fix the upstream issue of worship and fear, reverence for Him. And so he's going right after it because it's all about the heart.
I was just talking to a brother recently and we were just talking about dating and relationships, and he's just telling me, "It's hard to know who to trust, because even when you see all the right things, she reads her Bible, she loves the Lord, she's doing the right stuff, you just don't know what's going to happen down the line." And we just concluded, it's about the fear of the Lord. If that person has the fear of the Lord in their hearts, then you know that the offshoots from their life are going to be beautiful. So, what is going on within the heart, and God goes right after it in this section.
7 Consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy, for I am the Lord your God. 8 Keep my statutes and do them; I am the Lord who sanctifies you. 9 For anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death; he has cursed his father or his mother; his blood is upon him.
Now, verse seven, he continues this list of sins with punishments. And he says in verse seven, "Consecrate yourselves therefore and be holy, for I am the Lord your God. Keep my statutes and do them. I am the Lord who sanctifies you. For anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death. He has cursed his father or his mother, his blood is upon him." Now, of course, the fifth commandment is to honor your father and your mother, and this would be an offshoot of that fifth commandment. And the idea here is that the cursing of parents is punishable by death.
Now, to curse is so much more than just a harsh word, an angry word, an outburst of wrath. So, it wasn't like in ancient Israel, you had these teenage boys going through puberty, and lashing out at mom or dad and then, okay, straight to the rock pile, you're going to die kind of thing, this is something much more grave or serious than that. In fact, you could almost imagine a parent, begrudgingly, this isn't something that they would ever want to do, something they would ever want to see happen or see occur, it was something very serious. It meant, potentially even, the actual pronouncement of some kind of ungodly curse upon a mother or father, maybe even bringing in the demonic realm upon them, invoking the gods of the nations that they were meant to displace as a way to bring a curse upon their parents.
This was hardly ever enforced in Israel, which as I said earlier, has led some to believe that this punishment, it was a way for God to say it could go up to this punishment, but it's also possible they were just disobedient and didn't do what God had told them to do. But God's design here is to preserve and protect the family structure. A capital crime for someone to lash out against their parents, to strike their parents, to be a stubborn or rebellious child, a drunkard, according to Deuteronomy 21:18-21. So, the idea here is the family must be respected. So again, God is just trying to keep the order in its proper place.
In verse eight, which we already read, he calls himself the Lord who sanctifies you. He says, "I am the Lord who sanctifies you." And this is the first instance in Leviticus where God describes himself that way, and what a beautiful picture of God. He's the one who takes His people and He sets his people apart. And I hope that you can see God in that way, that God is trying to take you, we are now a kingdom of priests, we are God's covenant people, we're His chosen people, He is trying to take you as the church and He's trying to set you apart from the world. The pull of this world is so strong.
The messages of this world, the philosophies of this world, they're just so strong, and they're constantly preaching at us, pulling us, trying to get us into compromise, and we've got to realize, but there's God, He's the Lord, and He is sanctifying us, He is trying to pull us out of all of that and separate us unto Himself, for Himself, and for his work here on Earth. And so we've got to be with the Lord in this process of sanctification. That's why he says in verse seven to the people of Israel, "Consecrate yourselves, consecrate yourselves.”
Community Sins
Now, as the texts goes on, we get into all these different other community sins. And again, many of them might seem to be private in nature, and so you might even, as we read through them, think to yourself, "Gosh, these are private, personal sins." To borrow our modern terminology, there's often consent involved in these sins, which are mostly sexual throughout the rest of the chapter, but they, in ancient Israel, required the death penalty. And so you might say to yourself, "Gosh, there's consent, they're private. What's wrong?"
Well, I think as we go through these, what you'll be able to see rather easily is that though there's consent, and though it would happen in a private manner, not publicly before everyone else, these sins affected society in some very serious ways. And I think if we're honest, we would have to confess that these things still affect society in some serious ways, and especially the society of the church is greatly harmed when some of these things occur, many of which are reiterated in the New Testament, which of course, as a reminder, is what we're looking for as we go through the book of Leviticus, because Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament law, so what parts of this are reiterated in the New Testament, and many of these sins that are mentioned here are mentioned again in the New Testament era.
10 “If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.
So, let's read together. In verse 10, It says, "If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death." So, again, you've got a man, there's another woman, the wife of his neighbor, it doesn't have to be his literal next door neighbor, but just it's another man's wife is the idea. And both of them, they engage each other sexually. He says, "The adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death."
Now, interestingly enough, in the hands of men who abused the law, this requirement was forgotten in many ways. For instance, in the life of Jesus, though it's a disputed text in John 8, there was a moment where the religious leaders brought a woman who was caught in adultery and threw her at the feet of Jesus and said, "The law said that she needs to die. What do you say?" And of course, Jesus wrote on the ground for a while and he said, "He who has no sin, let him cast the first stone." And one by one, all of them departed until it was just Jesus and the woman with an onlooking crowd. And he said, "Woman, neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more." But I tell that story just to point out that they weren't thinking about the adulterer in that situation, just the adulteress, but here, both are involved.
11 If a man lies with his father’s wife, he has uncovered his father’s nakedness; both of them shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. 12 If a man lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put to death; they have committed perversion; their blood is upon them. 13 If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.
Verse 11, he says, "If a man lies with his father's wife, he has uncovered his father's nakedness. Both of them shall surely be put to death. Their blood is upon them. If a man lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put to death. They have committed perversion. Their blood is upon them. If a man lies with a male, as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood is upon them." So again, we have a continuation of this theme of sexual sins. And of course, in our modern moment, I have to point out, just as I did when we are in chapter 18, the sin of homosexuality in God's sight, and obviously, many have ridiculed the Book of Leviticus and ridiculed believers for thinking about the Book of Leviticus when building their arguments for a modern sexual ethic, saying things like, "Well, hey, if you think homosexuality is a sin, then you also shouldn't be eating shellfish because you're only getting that from the Book of Leviticus." But this is not true.
As I pointed out in our last study, the book of Romans especially, but many other places throughout the New Testament, and all of the Bible from even before the law, the book of Genesis, for instance, the Garden of Eden record, they affirm and communicate in a rock solid way that God's ideal is marriage between a man and a woman for life and that that is the exclusive space that we're to live out our sexual desires, the exclusive space that we're to engage another human sexually. And so this is a continuation of this, and here you have a man who he says is lying with another man as if he was a woman, so that, again, is the idea of homosexuality, which of course, many have come to accept in our modern time with statements like love is love, or follow your heart, or whatever you want to do, whatever makes you happy. But again, the framework that I'm trying to present with this chapter is that God saw each one of these sins amongst his people as something that would destroy the community, it just breaks the order that God has designed.
Just as a child being offered to Molech by a parent breaks the order of what God has designed for that parent to be, so a man engaging another man sexually breaks the order of what God has designed for that society and culture. And it doesn't just affect those two men, it would affect and have ramifications upon their network of relationships, people's vision of what sexuality means, the children that are below them, younger than them, those that were older than them, their parents and the grief they would experience in their own hearts, there were all kinds of reverberations, the fact that these two men would not be having children, that would be a blessing to that community, so a less numerous and prosperous society. There are all kinds of impacts of our sin, including this one. So, I'm not trying to pick on this one in particular, though God does give it the designation and abomination. My point is merely I need to talk about it because it's such a highlighted subject in our modern time.
I have a friend in our fellowship, who has said in the past he's a same sex attracted Christian. So, he loves Jesus, for whatever reason, he has an attraction to men. And he's prayed through that and doesn't want to be that way, but that's just the way that it is. But he knows he's not going to live that out because, in his words, "You just can't honestly look at the Bible and conclude that homosexuality is something that God has allowed." An honest look at scripture helps us understand that everything outside of marriage between a man and a woman is something that's forbidden.
But I think an important attitude for all Christians to have is the attitude that we are all in some way, shape, or form, because of the presence of sin in this world, we are broken people, and that will include brokenness in our sexuality. We're going to have desires, and wants, and cravings that are just out of line with God and his desires. And I think we need to be honest about that. Even a person who's faithfully being obedient to the Lord with their sexuality, there's going to be temptations that come into their lives that are out of line with God and His Word. If the Bible is true, and we have a flesh, and there's a devil, and we live in a broken and fallen world, then we are all going to experience temptations great against us because of the brokenness that's within the brokenness in our society, and so we've got to be honest about that, that any one of us could do any of these things that are mentioned in this chapter.
14 If a man takes a woman and her mother also, it is depravity; he and they shall be burned with fire, that there may be no depravity among you.
He goes on and says in verse 14. "If a man takes a woman and her mother also, it is depravity. He and they shall be burned with fire, that there may be no depravity among you." Now, this is interesting, because again, it is the death penalty, but it's designated peculiarly as they need to be burned with fire. So, how that looked is hard to understand, but this was a grave sin.
15 If a man lies with an animal, he shall surely be put to death, and you shall kill the animal. 16 If a woman approaches any animal and lies with it, you shall kill the woman and the animal; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. 17 “If a man takes his sister, a daughter of his father or a daughter of his mother, and sees her nakedness, and she sees his nakedness, it is a disgrace, and they shall be cut off in the sight of the children of their people. He has uncovered his sister’s nakedness, and he shall bear his iniquity. 18 If a man lies with a woman during her menstrual period and uncovers her nakedness, he has made naked her fountain, and she has uncovered the fountain of her blood. Both of them shall be cut off from among their people.
"If a man lies with an animal, he shall surely be put to death and you shall also kill the animal. If a woman approaches any animal and lies with it, you should kill the woman and the animal and they shall surely be put to death. Their blood is upon them. If a man takes his sister, a daughter of his father or a daughter of his mother and sees her nakedness and she sees his nakedness, it is a disgrace and they shall be cut off in the sight of the children of their people. He has uncovered his sister's nakedness and he shall bear his iniquity. If a man lies with a woman during her menstrual period and uncovers her nakedness, he has made naked her fountain and she has uncovered the fountain of her blood. Both of them shall be cut off from among their people." Again, the blood being very important in the eyes of God, especially in that Old Testament era.
So, again, just a portion of a list of sins, sexual sins that someone would need to be put to death for there in ancient Israel.
Now, under normal conditions, these laws would deter this kind of behavior, but I do want to point out that with substance abuse, a lot of these things would become more predominant. In other words, people become emboldened to do things that they know have grave consequences attached to them, they become emboldened to do them through the use of substance, through the abuse of substance. So, it's like part of me wants to say, "Man, this would have been a great deterrent, a lot of these things would not have happened because the death penalty is attached to them," but you get alcohol in the mix, abuse of alcohol in the mix, and you can start to see how some of these things could have begun to occur. And that's why so many of the religions around Israel or among the Canaanite people involve these parties and festivals where you could become inebriated. It kind of loosened someone up to do things that they normally wouldn't do.
19 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother’s sister or of your father’s sister, for that is to make naked one’s relative; they shall bear their iniquity. 20 If a man lies with his uncle’s wife, he has uncovered his uncle’s nakedness; they shall bear their sin; they shall die childless. 21 If a man takes his brother’s wife, it is impurity. He has uncovered his brother’s nakedness; they shall be childless.
Verse 19. "You shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother's sister or of your father's sister for that is to make naked ones relative. They shall bear their iniquity. If a man lies with his uncle's wife, he has uncovered his uncle's nakedness. They shall bear their sin, they shall die childless. If a man takes his brother's wife, it is impurity. He has uncovered his brother's nakedness. They shall be childless." Now, this to me, it's hard to know exactly what the judgment of being childless necessarily looks like. Obviously, the capital punishment is something that humans would administrate, but this childlessness seems, at face value reading, to be divine intervention. And so perhaps that's the way things occurred. But somehow, this was a punishment, of course, lesser than losing your life, but still grave.
22 “You shall therefore keep all my statutes and all my rules and do them, that the land where I am bringing you to live may not vomit you out. 23 And you shall not walk in the customs of the nation that I am driving out before you, for they did all these things, and therefore I detested them.
Verse 22. "You shall therefore keep all my statutes and all my rules and do them, that the land where I'm bringing you to live may not vomit you out. And you shall not walk in the customs of the nation that I'm driving out before you for they did all these things, and therefore I detested them." Now, for the people of Israel, here's this description that He has of them going into the land of Canaan, displacing the people in Canaan and creating this nation that was meant to be a kingdom of priests representative of God to the nations around them.
And for us, in our time, of course, we have a different reality. We don't have a specific piece of land physically that is ours to become our nation, so to speak. As much as, for instance, a nation like the United States of America, I think we have a really unique place in human history, an incredible Christian heritage in many ways, even though we have plenty of our own sins and crimes that we've committed and all of that even to help build our nation, but an incredible Christian heritage, but we're never like Israel was in the Old Testament era, a land that was just this is God's specific place. You want to know God, that's where you go.
For us, what we have is the culture, the Canaanite, so to speak, cultures of the world all around us, we're living in the world, we're meant to be not of the world. So, when Israel went into the promised land, they were to displace the Canaanite culture from the land. We're to displace the Canaanite culture, so to speak, from our hearts. We're to allow the Lord to change us from the inside out. We are God's dwelling place now today.
And so when He says this here, "You've got to make sure that you don't compromise with the surrounding nations lest the land vomit you out." And of course, this did occur for the people of Israel. They would eventually be destroyed in the north of Israel by the Assyrians and brought into captivity in the south of Israel by the Babylonians because of their sin, because of compromise. So, we've got to watch out for compromise in our lives.
24 But I have said to you, ‘You shall inherit their land, and I will give it to you to possess, a land flowing with milk and honey.’ I am the Lord your God, who has separated you from the peoples. 25 You shall therefore separate the clean beast from the unclean, and the unclean bird from the clean. You shall not make yourselves detestable by beast or by bird or by anything with which the ground crawls, which I have set apart for you to hold unclean. 26 You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine. 27 “A man or a woman who is a medium or a necromancer shall surely be put to death. They shall be stoned with stones; their blood shall be upon them.”
He says in verse 24, "But I've said to you, you shall inherit the land and I will give it to you to possess, a land flowing with milk and honey. And the Lord your God who has separated you from the peoples, you shall therefore separate the clean beast from the unclean, and the unclean bird from the clean. You shall not make yourself detestable by beast, or by bird, or by anything with which the ground crawls, which I have set apart for you to hold unclean. You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy, and have separated you from the peoples that you should be mine. A man or a woman who is a medium or a necromancer shall surely be put to death, they shall be stoned with stones, their blood shall be upon them."
So, again, in the closing verses of chapter 20, God here clarifies to them, "Look, I'm bringing you into this land, that's a beautiful land, a land flowing with milk and honey." The idea of flowing milk and honey is really simple. It's just a prosperous place. I mean, imagine it. If it's flowing with milk, then what does that mean? Well, you have lots of livestock, milk-producing livestock. And what do you need for a lot of milk producing livestock to be around? Well, you need lush, fertile lands for them to graze, so it means it's a fertile land.
And then what do you need to have lots of honey? Well, you need to have a lot of bees. And so you got a lot of bees cruising around pollinating things, so lots of fruit, and vegetables, and produce would have been in that region with God's blessing upon it. So, God's bringing them to this fruitful, prosperous place, and he tells them, "Look, I'm separating you... I took you out of Egypt... I separated you from Egypt, I took you and cleaned you, cleansed you, and took you out of the unclean Egypt and I want you to do the same thing. I want you to separate the clean and unclean animals, I want you to separate yourself from mediums and necromancers that are unclean, I want you to separate yourself, be concentrated." And so again, of course, the exhortation for us to be a consecrated, separated people.
Leviticus 21
Now, in Leviticus chapter 21, we get into restrictions for the priestly service. So, we've now thought about a lot of different sins that God would judge in very severe ways or wanted judged in very severe ways, and now we come to the priesthood. And really, what this chapter will help us remember is that the priests were called to be holy men. They, like the people of Israel, were meant to be set apart. There were standards upon the lives of these spiritual leaders that were higher even than for the normal men and women throughout Israel.
1 And the Lord said to Moses, “Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them, No one shall make himself unclean for the dead among his people, 2 except for his closest relatives, his mother, his father, his son, his daughter, his brother, 3 or his virgin sister (who is near to him because she has had no husband; for her he may make himself unclean). 4 He shall not make himself unclean as a husband among his people and so profane himself.
So, the earlier chapters, we thought about the average Israelite but now we get into what God expects of the priests. So, in verse one, it says, "And the Lord said to Moses, 'Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron and say to them, 'No one shall make himself unclean for the dead among his people except for his closest relatives, his mother, his father, his son, his daughter, his brother, or his virgin sister who is near to him because she has no husband. For her, he may make himself unclean. He shall not make himself unclean as a husband among his people and so profane himself.'"
All right. So, what this is talking about is, if a priest is on duty, he's working, serving the Lord in the temple or the tabernacle, and someone dies, he's not supposed to leave the tabernacle and then be involved with, touch that dead body unless he's allowed to do this, if they are one of these close relatives that is listed in these first four verses.
Interesting thing is that the priest's wife is omitted from this list, which a lot of people just assume she must have been counted. Maybe the two being one flesh just meant that, of course, he was going to go and care for her, but still an interesting omission That's there. The idea is that a relative, that's what He says, so perhaps it's just flesh and blood so she's more obvious one that didn't even need to be named.
5 They shall not make bald patches on their heads, nor shave off the edges of their beards, nor make any cuts on their body. 6 They shall be holy to their God and not profane the name of their God. For they offer the Lord’s food offerings, the bread of their God; therefore they shall be holy.
He says in verse five, "They shall not make bald patches on their heads, nor shave off the edges of their beard, nor make any cuts on their body. They shall be holy to their God and not profane the name of their God for they offer the Lord's food offerings, the bread of their God, therefore, they shall be holy. Some of these things that are mentioned, the shaving of the head, the cutting off the edges of their beard, making cuts on their bodies, as I've mentioned earlier, this isn't God's way of saying to us in the modern era, "Don't shave your head, don't trim up your facial hair, and don't get a tattoo." That's not the timeless principle that we would find here.
For them, what they were doing, if they had done these things, it would be mimicking the surrounding nations and their priesthoods and some of the things that they would do to worship their false gods. And so God is saying to His priests, "That's not the way you're going to roll. You're not going to shave your head, trim your beard in a certain way, or cut your body, make certain markings on your body to indicate your devotion to me, you're not going to do any of that stuff. You're separate on to me." And so, for us, it helps us understand, again, in the fresh that we will be different. We don't take our cues from society in the world, we're a different people.
7 They shall not marry a prostitute or a woman who has been defiled, neither shall they marry a woman divorced from her husband, for the priest is holy to his God. 8 You shall sanctify him, for he offers the bread of your God. He shall be holy to you, for I, the Lord, who sanctify you, am holy. 9 And the daughter of any priest, if she profanes herself by whoring, profanes her father; she shall be burned with fire.
He says in verse seven, "They shall not marry a prostitute or a woman who's been defiled, neither shall they marry a woman divorced from her husband, for the priest is holy to his God. You shall sanctify him for he offers the bread of your God. He shall be holy to you, for I, the Lord who sanctified you, I'm holy. And the daughter of any priest, if she profanes herself by whoring, profanes her father, she shall be burned with fire." This is a real sobering little paragraph that we just read. The priests... and again, this is not about the high priests, although they will be included and talked about in the coming verses, but the general priesthood, they were not to marry a certain kind of woman. He says, prostitutes, a woman who's been defiled, or a woman divorced from her husband.
Probably, the reason for this is to preserve the purity of the priesthood. Racially, they were meant to come from the Levites, to come from Aaron as the high priest, and so they're preserving that lineage in one sense. But also, there's likely something here about the family of the spiritual leaders, that they needed to be set apart themselves. God, in the midst of all of this, says, "I'm holy. This is part of the reason why you need to be this way. The motivation is that I am a holy God, so I need holy representatives. Their lives need to be set apart to me."
And I think there are some principles of this that carry forward into the New Testament era. Paul, when describing elders or pastors in the New Testament, he describes them as men who are able to, know how to and are leading or managing their own household well, having their children in submission. And there's debate and discussion about the age that a child is just on their own. Obviously, I think most of us would agree, once a child is grown up and they leave their father's home, if they were to begin to walk away from God at that stage of life that shouldn't disqualify a pastor whose adult child has walked away from the Lord. Each person has to make their own decision as well as to whether they're going to receive Jesus and walk with him. No family is immune from the temptations that pull against children as they grow up in our modern world and society, but there's something about the level of discipline and leadership that a pastor meets out within his home. He can't guarantee the justification, sanctification, and glorification of his children, but he can have a leadership voice within his home.
And the idea there for pastors seems to be, look, if he can't do it there, then he's not going to be able to do it well within the house of God. And this is meant to be the ideal Christian man. That's the description of elders there in 1 Timothy 3 and in Titus 1. But here, the priest, his family needs to operate in a certain way, and of course, a different era, the law code for Israel, but still the requirements for the religious or the spiritual leaders.
10 “The priest who is chief among his brothers, on whose head the anointing oil is poured and who has been consecrated to wear the garments, shall not let the hair of his head hang loose nor tear his clothes. 11 He shall not go in to any dead bodies nor make himself unclean, even for his father or for his mother. 12 He shall not go out of the sanctuary, lest he profane the sanctuary of his God, for the consecration of the anointing oil of his God is on him: I am the Lord.
Now, the priest, verse 10, is mentioned, who is the high priest. He says, "The priest who is chief among his brothers, on whose head the anointing oil is poured and who has been consecrated to wear the garments, shall not let the hair of his head hang loose nor tear his clothes. He shall not go in to any dead bodies nor make himself unclean, even for his father or his mother. He shall not go out of the sanctuary lest he profane the sanctuary of his God for the consecration of the anointing oil of his God is on him." And then God says, "I am the Lord."
So, the rules were stricter, more stringent for the high priest. He wasn't allowed to even leave duty to go mourn for his father or his mother, if they died while he was serving the Lord. Some wonder if this was God's way, when he says, "He shall not go out of the sanctuary," of saying, they're never to leave. They're to live there in the sanctuary, build an apartment attached to the sanctuary for them, but it's also possible that what he really means here is, when they're in the sanctuary on duty, if someone dies, they're not to leave at that time.
13 And he shall take a wife in her virginity. 14 A widow, or a divorced woman, or a woman who has been defiled, or a prostitute, these he shall not marry. But he shall take as his wife a virgin of his own people, 15 that he may not profane his offspring among his people, for I am the Lord who sanctifies him.”
And for the high priests, it says in verse 13, "He shall take a wife in her virginity. A widow or a divorced woman, or a woman who has been defiled, or a prostitute, these he shall not marry. But he shall take as his wife, a virgin of his own people that he may not profane his offspring among his people for I am the Lord who sanctifies him." Now, the ordinary priests, they were allowed to marry a widow, they were not allowed to marry some of the women that are mentioned in this passage. So, that means that the high priest had a, again, more stringent requirement placed upon him. The only woman that he could marry was a woman who was still a virgin.
And likely, as I said, this was a safeguard to preserve the lineage of this family. Her first child would be the potential next high priest, and so it was important that there was no doubt that God's Word had been obeyed, and that the direct line of Aaron, the original High Priest, had been preserved, and that this child was qualified to do the things that he would need to do. Otherwise, when going into the Holy of Holies, he risked his own life because he's disobedient to God, he's not qualified to do that act, but he also risks everything for the nation because he's representing the whole nation before God, each Passover, asking God to cover, to forgive their sins, and so he needed to be qualified in order to do that. Praise be to Jesus, that He is the one that is qualified. He was born of a virgin, he fulfilled the law, and he is qualified like no one else to bring us before the Father.
16 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 17 “Speak to Aaron, saying, None of your offspring throughout their generations who has a blemish may approach to offer the bread of his God. 18 For no one who has a blemish shall draw near, a man blind or lame, or one who has a mutilated face or a limb too long, 19 or a man who has an injured foot or an injured hand, 20 or a hunchback or a dwarf or a man with a defect in his sight or an itching disease or scabs or crushed testicles. 21 No man of the offspring of Aaron the priest who has a blemish shall come near to offer the Lord’s food offerings; since he has a blemish, he shall not come near to offer the bread of his God. 22 He may eat the bread of his God, both of the most holy and of the holy things, 23 but he shall not go through the veil or approach the altar, because he has a blemish, that he may not profane my sanctuaries, for I am the Lord who sanctifies them.” 24 So Moses spoke to Aaron and to his sons and to all the people of Israel.
And the Lord spoke to Moses in verse 16, saying, "Speak to Aaron's saying, 'None of your offspring throughout their generations who has a blemish may approach to offer the bread of his God, for no one who has a blemish shall draw near. A man blind, or lame, or one who has a mutilated face, or a limb too long, or a man who has an injured foot, or an injured hand, or a hunchback, or a dwarf, or a man with a defect in his sight, or an itching disease, or scabs, or crushed testicles, no man of the offspring of Aaron, the priest, who has a blemish shall come near to offer the Lord's food offering since he has a blemish. He shall not come near to offer the bread of his God.
He may eat the bread of his God, both of the most holy and the holy things, but he shall not go through the veil or approach the altar because he has a blemish, that he may not profane my sanctuaries for I am the Lord who sanctifies them.' So, Moses spoke to Aaron and to his sons and to all the people of Israel."
So, here, the priests who were qualified by lineage were disqualified if they were disabled in any way. Now, from what we know of the Bible, we understand that this cannot be God revealing his negative attitude towards those who are weak or who are disabled in any kind of way. No, God loves us in our weakness, He loves us in our flaws or our imperfections. And when Jesus came, He revealed the heart of God perfectly, and Jesus was drawn to those who were sick, to those who were infirmed, for those who were disabled, those who were going through even demonic oppression and challenges, those who were lepers, Jesus was drawn to, not people who had it all together and who were perfect physically. So, Jesus helps us know what the heart of God is.
But remember that this priesthood was meant to represent the nation before God. And of course, Jesus, when He came, he carried this out perfectly. He was perfect in all ways. So, this would be a precursor to the Gospel. It takes perfection, in other words, in order to approach God, but praise God, through Jesus, we can have His perfection deposited to us so that we can approach God.
Leviticus 22
1 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Speak to Aaron and his sons so that they abstain from the holy things of the people of Israel, which they dedicate to me, so that they do not profane my holy name: I am the Lord.
3 Say to them, ‘If any one of all your offspring throughout your generations approaches the holy things that the people of Israel dedicate to the Lord, while he has an uncleanness, that person shall be cut off from my presence: I am the Lord.
Now, let's read through Chapter 22 as well where we get some regulations for the offerings. "And the Lord spoke to Moses saying, 'Speak to Aaron and his son so that they may abstain from the holy things the people of Israel which they dedicate to me so that they do not profane My Holy Name. I am the Lord. Say to them, if any one of all your offspring throughout your generations approaches the holy things that the people of Israel dedicate to the Lord while he has an uncleanness, that person shall be cut off from my presence. I am the Lord.'" So, here, we have some regulations for the different offerings they would give. So, we've looked a little bit at the life of the priests and the priesthood, what they needed to be like personally in their families, when they could mourn and things like that, but here we have the way in which they would offer their sacrifices. And the whole tone is found in those first two verses, they needed to maintain a representation of the holy name of God.
I'll just ask you to think about your life, your walk with the Lord. We don't, I think, talk enough about the holiness of God and representing God well in His holy nature. Is your life a representation of that holy nature of God? This is not just fuddy-duddy old school thinking, this is what God wants for us. We are a different people, and these priests would communicate that through their lives.
4 None of the offspring of Aaron who has a leprous disease or a discharge may eat of the holy things until he is clean. Whoever touches anything that is unclean through contact with the dead or a man who has had an emission of semen, 5 and whoever touches a swarming thing by which he may be made unclean or a person from whom he may take uncleanness, whatever his uncleanness may be— 6 the person who touches such a thing shall be unclean until the evening and shall not eat of the holy things unless he has bathed his body in water. 7 When the sun goes down he shall be clean, and afterward he may eat of the holy things, because they are his food. 8 He shall not eat what dies of itself or is torn by beasts, and so make himself unclean by it: I am the Lord.’ 9 They shall therefore keep my charge, lest they bear sin for it and die thereby when they profane it: I am the Lord who sanctifies them.
In verse four, it says, "None of the offspring of Aaron who has a leprous disease or a discharge may eat of the holy things until he's clean. Whoever touches anything that is unclean through contact with the dead or a man who has an emission of semen, or whoever touches the swarming thing by which he may be made unclean or a person from whom he may take uncleanness, whatever his uncleanness may be, the person who touches such a thing shall be unclean until the evening and shall not eat the holy things unless he has bathed his body in water. When the sun goes down, he shall be clean, and afterward he may eat of the holy things because they are his food. He shall not eat what dies of itself or is torn by beasts and so make himself unclean by it. I am the Lord. They shall therefore keep my charge, lest they bear sin for it, and die thereby when they profane it. I am the Lord who sanctifies them."
Now, earlier in Leviticus, we saw a description of all these different ways a person could become unclean. Here, he's talking about it with the priesthood. They, also, if they did these things, would become unclean. They'd have to go through the process of becoming clean before they could go into the presence of God.
10 “A lay person shall not eat of a holy thing; no foreign guest of the priest or hired worker shall eat of a holy thing, 11 but if a priest buys a slave as his property for money, the slave may eat of it, and anyone born in his house may eat of his food. 12 If a priest’s daughter marries a layman, she shall not eat of the contribution of the holy things. 13 But if a priest’s daughter is widowed or divorced and has no child and returns to her father’s house, as in her youth, she may eat of her father’s food; yet no lay person shall eat of it.
"A lay person," verse 10, "shall not eat of a holy thing, no foreign guest of the priest or hired worker shall eat of a holy thing. But if a priest buys a slave as his property for money, the slave may eat of it, and anyone born in his house may eat of his food. If a priest's daughter marries a layman, she shall not eat of the contribution of the holy things. But if a priest's daughter is widowed or divorced and has no child and returns to her father's house in her youth, she may eat her father's food yet no lay person shall eat of it." So, there were questions about the family they could partake, the priest's family could, of the holy food at certain times, but then you had marriage and all of that that would then keep them from that benefit if they married someone who is not in the priesthood, but then divorce or death could bring the woman back into the home to be able to partake of that food again.
14 And if anyone eats of a holy thing unintentionally, he shall add the fifth of its value to it and give the holy thing to the priest. 15 They shall not profane the holy things of the people of Israel, which they contribute to the Lord, 16 and so cause them to bear iniquity and guilt, by eating their holy things: for I am the Lord who sanctifies them.”
"And if anyone eats of a holy thing," verse 14, "unintentionally, he shall add the fifth of its value to it and give the holy thing to the priest. They shall not profane the holy things of the people of Israel, which they contribute to the Lord, and so cause them to bear iniquity and guilt by eating their holy things, for I am the Lord who sanctifies them."
And again, as you're reading this, the question that you want to ask yourself is, if God is giving the dictates to this priesthood on what and when and where they were allowed to eat, the question we would ask in our modern era is, if I am part of His holy priesthood today and I meant to represent him to the nations today, do I let God be the one who defines my diet, so to speak? Not necessarily what we physically eat, though, that is part of our allegiance to God, that we would be a people who operate in self control and not in gluttony, but in what we're thinking about, consuming, partaking of, reading, listening to, these are things that God has the right to dictate for us because we are a kingdom of priests today.
17 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 18 “Speak to Aaron and his sons and all the people of Israel and say to them, When any one of the house of Israel or of the sojourners in Israel presents a burnt offering as his offering, for any of their vows or freewill offerings that they offer to the Lord, 19 if it is to be accepted for you it shall be a male without blemish, of the bulls or the sheep or the goats. 20 You shall not offer anything that has a blemish, for it will not be acceptable for you. 21 And when anyone offers a sacrifice of peace offerings to the Lord to fulfill a vow or as a freewill offering from the herd or from the flock, to be accepted it must be perfect; there shall be no blemish in it.
"And the Lord," verse 17, "spoke to Moses saying, 'Speak to Aaron and his sons and all the people of Israel and say to them, when any one of the house of Israel or of the sojourners in Israel presents a burnt offering as his offering for any of their vows or freewill offerings that they offer to the Lord, if it is to be accepted for you, it shall be a male without blemish of the bulls or the sheep or the goats. You shall not offer anything that has a blemish for it will not be acceptable to you. And when anyone offers the sacrifice of peace offerings to the Lord to fulfill a vow or a freewill offering from the herd or from the flock, to be accepted, it must be perfect. There should be no blemish in it." So, in the same way that the priests would be disqualified for having blemishes, so would the sacrifices be disqualified if they had a blemish as well, and we've already thought about this earlier in the Book of Leviticus.
One thing I do want to point out to you, though, is the presence of these different types of offerings. I know it's been a while since we've thought about them earlier in the Book of Leviticus, but vows and free will offerings. To me that's just beautiful. Making a special commitment to God or out of a heart response to God, rejoicing and celebrating him.
22 Animals blind or disabled or mutilated or having a discharge or an itch or scabs you shall not offer to the Lord or give them to the Lord as a food offering on the altar. 23 You may present a bull or a lamb that has a part too long or too short for a freewill offering, but for a vow offering it cannot be accepted. 24 Any animal that has its testicles bruised or crushed or torn or cut you shall not offer to the Lord; you shall not do it within your land, 25 neither shall you offer as the bread of your God any such animals gotten from a foreigner. Since there is a blemish in them, because of their mutilation, they will not be accepted for you.”
"Animals, verse 22, "blind or disabled or mutilated or having a discharge or an itch or scabs, you shall not offer to the Lord or give them to the Lord as a food offering on the altar. You may present a bull or a lamb that has a part too long or too short for a free will offering, but for a vow offering, it cannot be accepted. Any animal that has its testicles bruised or crushed or torn or cut, you shall not offer to the Lord. You shall not do it within your land, neither shall you offer as the bread of your God any such animals gotten from a foreigner. Since there is a blemish in them because of their mutilation, they will not be accepted for you." So, they could be used for other things but they could be used to worship the Lord, to sacrifice to him. This helps us, again, with the concept that the very best is what God deserves. That's what we want to give to God, our very best.
26 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 27 “When an ox or sheep or goat is born, it shall remain seven days with its mother, and from the eighth day on it shall be acceptable as a food offering to the Lord. 28 But you shall not kill an ox or a sheep and her young in one day. 29 And when you sacrifice a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the Lord, you shall sacrifice it so that you may be accepted. 30 It shall be eaten on the same day; you shall leave none of it until morning: I am the Lord.
"And the Lord, verse 26, "spoke to Moses saying, 'When an ox, or a sheep, or goat is born, it shall remain seven days with its mother, and from the eighth day on, it shall be acceptable as a food offering to the Lord. But you shall not kill an ox or a sheep and her young in one day. And when you sacrifice a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the Lord, you shall sacrifice it so that you may be accepted. It shall be eaten on the same day. You shall leave none of it until morning. I am the Lord.'" So, again, we've talked about this earlier in Leviticus, some principles regulating the young sacrificial animals. And there was a time limit to how long they could wait before they ate that Thanksgiving offering. It had to be eaten on the same day.
31 “So you shall keep my commandments and do them: I am the Lord. 32 And you shall not profane my holy name, that I may be sanctified among the people of Israel. I am the Lord who sanctifies you, 33 who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God: I am the Lord.”
So, verse 31, "You shall keep my commandments and do them. I am the Lord. And you shall not profane My Holy Name, that I may be sanctified among the people of Israel. I am the Lord who sanctifies you, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God. I am the Lord."
And as we close this today, I'd encourage you to put your name in this passage. Having God speak to your heart, if you're a believer in Jesus Christ, saying to you, "So, you shall keep God's commandments and do them." God says to you, "I am your Lord. You shall not profane My Holy Name, that I may be sanctified, set apart among my church. I am the Lord who sanctifies you and who brought you out of the old life to be your God. I am the Lord." God bless you, church. Have an incredible week.