Leviticus 18-19
Your browser doesn't support HTML5 audio
Leviticus 18-19
Leviticus 18
Now, turning to Leviticus chapter 18, we turn to a chapter of Scripture, again for the people of Israel, where we have laws restricting sexual activity, laws restricting sexual activity. I should remind you here at this point in Leviticus that a proper interpretation of the Old Testament law is that Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament law. Sometimes when we think about the law of the Old Testament, and I'll even say this from time to time, it's you want to chop up the Old Testament laws in different categories. So you'll have this ceremonial law of God in one category, you'll have the moral law of God in another category, or perhaps you'll even have like civil law for the people of Israel in another category.
And it's tempting to make those divisions and they can be helpful for understanding the different categories of laws in the Old Testament for the people of Israel. But it's tempting to say that when Jesus came, he fulfilled the law and the ceremonial or the civil law, they were fulfilled and they passed away, but the moral law remains. That might help somebody, for instance, looking at a chapter like this and say, "Well, hey, this seems really to still be pertinent today because well, it's moral and these morals are timeless." But it probably is better to say Jesus fulfilled the entirety of the law and he established a new law.
Laws Restricting Sexual Activity
For instance, all of the 10 Commandments, except for the commandment to keep the Sabbath day holy, all of those commandments are reiterated in the New Testament. So Jesus fulfilled them, but also he and his apostles, from him, reestablished most if not all, some will even argue for the Sabbath in the New Testament, as far as keeping the Lord's day or our own personal Sabbath rest before God. So what we'll discover here in this passage, and I'm sure I'll talk about it again, is that many of the sexual guidelines and regulations on the people of Israel, they're actually made stiffer and stricter in our New Testament economy, not looser, but actually more stringent.
For example, though the Old Testament doesn't endorse polygamy, there are going to be some laws in this chapter that deal with, if polygamy happens, here are some restrictive forces upon it. It's not necessarily saying a polygamy is a great thing, but it's acknowledging it's going to happen inside the nation of Israel. But in the New Testament economy, Jesus comes along, fulfills the law, and he makes it stricter. When he talks about marriage, it's a man and a woman who have committed to each other forever. And if they divorce from one another, without some one of the few rare exceptions that he offers to us, then they should never remarry. That's much more stringent than in the Old Testament era or economy.
So the idea here is that it's not necessarily for us to pick and choose which ones we like, but to say Jesus fulfilled these. However, many of these things are reiterated in the New Testament economy. I'll talk about that a little bit more as we go through this, because sometimes you'll hear, I think even Barack Obama at one point said something like, "Well, if you believe that homosexuality is a sin in the sight of God, then also you should probably is a sin in the sight of God, then also you should probably stop eating shellfish or something like that. The idea being that Leviticus prohibited shellfish for the people of Israel and also prohibited homosexuality for the people of Israel so you can't really pick and choose. But the idea is that the shellfish command is not reiterated in the New Testament for God's new people, but the homosexuality guidelines is most certainly reiterated in some specific ways throughout the New Testament. So you have to be honest about the new community that Christ has established in the New Testament era. Nonetheless, these are really helpful passages for us today.
1 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, I am the Lord your God. 3 You shall not do as they do 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 in their statutes. 4 You shall follow my rules and keep my statutes and walk in them. I am the Lord your God. 5 You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules; if a person does them, he shall live by them: I am the Lord.
So let's start out reading in verse one through five. It says, "And the Lord spoke to Moses saying, 'Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, I am the Lord your God. You shall not do as they do 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 in their statutes. You shall follow my rules and keep my statutes and walk in them. I am the Lord your God. You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules. If a person does them, he shall live by them. I am the Lord.'" Now these first five verses are just kind of a main statement from the Lord launching into this chapter where he restricts various forms of sexual activity. And he points to two communities, one that they had come from in Egypt and one that they were going to in Canaan. And he tells them, "You can't look to either of those communities for guidance on your sexual activity. You're to be different from both of those."
This is beautiful in part, because lots of critics of the Old Testament and critics of the nation of Israel say that Israel borrowed their religion from a conglomeration of the nations and the people groups around them. But the sexual ethic that's going to be mentioned here is unlike what was happening in Egypt and it was unlike what was happening in the land of Canaan. But there's also something that's devotional, beautiful and practical to us in this as well. I think if I could say it this way, at least in general, we can say we really cannot look to our culture to be the ones who define for us what our sexual health and life and ethic is going to look like. We have to look to God and just like the people of Israel, we're going to look different sexually from Egypt and Canaan. So we will, as God's people, Christians today look different sexually so often from the world around us.
I think also, we could also maybe even say that Egypt was what was behind. Canaan was what was coming in the future. And I think in a sense, at least in the West, we can't really, as a people, look to definitely not what is coming, the sexual ethic that people are adopting or have already adopted. We can't look to that for our guidance. But I think also, we probably can't only and exclusively look backwards either. I think when I look backwards, what I often see in Western, or perhaps even just American society is something that is, as far as the sexual ethic goes, is just, it lacks joy. It lacks a mutuality. It's often for the pleasure of the husband. The wife is not really excited about it, but it's just something she is a dutiful Christian needs to fulfill for her husband, but the New Testament paints a totally different picture.
And so in the New Testament, Paul describes in 1 Corinthians chapter seven, he describes this mutuality between a husband and a wife that they enjoy each other, they're serving each other, that they are an emblem of the relationship and closeness that Christ longs for with his church, and there's something that is beautiful and holy and sacred about the marriage bed. Hebrews 13 says that it is pure and it is undefiled. But I think often, if we are honest as we look back, we can kind of come away with this message like, "You've got to be perfect. Don't make a mistake," and a little too stiff. Again, I'm not trying to talk about sin, but stiff in the sense of lacking some of the enjoyment and flavor that God himself has deposited into a sexual relationship between a husband and wife as they commit to one another.
And perhaps even as we look back, we might even see a false gospel that has been preached at times saying, "If you make all the right moves, if you are sexually pure, if you make the right decisions, if you wait, if you do all of these things," which, again, are best practices and totally wise, but sometimes the promise was, "If you do all these things, then you're bound to have everything that you ever wanted." And that's not always the case either. God can overcome our shameful acts of our past and bring us into a new and glorious and redeemed future. So what God seems to be saying is, "Don't look backwards. Don't look forwards. Don't look around to the cultures. Instead, look to me and my word and here's where you need to find the ethic that I have for you when it comes to your sexual life before God."
Now these whole first five verses where he says, "Hey. Don't be defined by the people that you're living among," really reminds me of 1 Peter chapter four, verse one through four, where Peter said that, "Since Christ suffered in the flesh, we have to arm ourselves with the same way of thinking. Whoever suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin." And then he says, "So as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh, no longer for human passions, but for the will of God, for the time that has passed suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do." So this is Peter's way of saying, "As a Christian, you're now set free. You don't have to live like the world." So for the people of Israel, it was, "You don't have to live like the Egyptians or the Canaanites.”
6 “None of you shall approach any one of his close relatives to uncover nakedness. I am the Lord. 7 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father, which is the nakedness of your mother; she is your mother, you shall not uncover her nakedness. 8 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s wife; it is your father’s nakedness. 9 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your sister, your father’s daughter or your mother’s daughter, whether brought up in the family or in another home. 10 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your son’s daughter or of your daughter’s daughter, for their nakedness is your own nakedness. 11 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s wife’s daughter (half-sister, Sarai), brought up in your father’s family, since she is your sister. 12 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s sister; she is your father’s relative. 13 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother’s sister, for she is your mother’s relative. 14 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s brother, that is, you shall not approach his wife; she is your aunt. 15 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your daughter-in-law; she is your son’s wife, you shall not uncover her nakedness. 16 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your brother’s wife; it is your brother’s nakedness (while your brother is alive, see levirate marriage). 17 You shall not uncover the nakedness of a woman and of her daughter, and you shall not take her son’s daughter or her daughter’s daughter to uncover her nakedness; they are relatives; it is depravity. 18 And you shall not take a woman as a rival wife to her sister, uncovering her nakedness while her sister is still alive (curbing excesses of polygamy, polygamy not approved, hints at the unhappy nature of polygamy).
For us, it's we don't have to live like everybody else. We can live according to the dictates of God's word. There's something fresh and beautiful here in this place. So now in verse six, we get into some of the specifics. He says, verse six, "None of you shall approach any one of his close relatives to uncover nakedness. I am the Lord." And that phrase, "uncover nakedness" is a euphemism for sexual intercourse throughout this whole passage. He says in verse seven, "You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father, which is the nakedness of your mother. She is your mother. You shall not uncover her nakedness. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's wife. It is your father's nakedness. You should not uncover the nakedness of your sister, your father's daughter or your mother's daughter, whether brought up in the family or in another home." So here, you have him dealing with the family.
So your mother, your stepmother, your step sister, your sister, these are all sexual relationships that were off limits for the people of Israel. And of course, this carries forward into our New Testament economy as well because the sexual ethic held out to us in the New Testament is basically, sexual immorality is everything but sex between a husband and wife, who are male and female that are covenanted together. Everything outside of that is in the sexual immorality category in the New Testament.
He says in verse 10, "You shall not uncover the nakedness of your son's daughter or of your daughter's daughter, for their nakedness is your own nakedness. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's wife's daughter brought up in your father's family since she is your sister. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's sister. She is your father's relative. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother's sister for she is your mother's relative. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's brother, that is you shall not approach his wife. She is your aunt. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your daughter-in-law. She is your son's wife. You shall not uncover her nakedness. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your brother's wife. It is your brother's nakedness."
Of the idea that being, well, your brother is alive. Sometimes, a brother would die, a man would die and leave behind a wife who'd had no children, and they had a practice of Levirate marriage, where the next surviving brother would take the widow and joined together with her as his new bride and the first child they would have would be a child raised up for the deceased brother. But here, the idea is while the brother is alive.
"You shall not," verse 17, "uncover the nakedness of a woman and of her daughter and you shall not take her son's daughter or her daughter's daughter to uncover her nakedness. They are relatives. It is depravity. And you shall not take a woman as a rival wife to her sister, uncovering her nakedness while her sister is still alive." This last verse, verse 18 hints, as I said earlier, polygamy is not necessarily approved, but it did exist in the nation of Israel and in the cultures at that time, and it kind of hints at how unhappy polygamy is that the wives are rivals to each other is what is mentioned here. And so this is a curbing of the excesses that could be attached to polygamy. So you're not to take sisters to be your wives was the idea there way back in that era. All right.
So these are warnings about sexual practices that the Canaanites and the Egyptians often engaged in. They were engaged in all sorts of things that are mentioned right here in these handful of verses. C.S. Lewis said it this way concerning Christianity, he said, "Chastity is the most unpopular of the Christian virtues. There is no getting away from it. The old Christian rule is either marriage with complete faithfulness to your partner, or else, total abstinence. Sex outside of marriage detracts from what God intended sex to be. Thus, sexual infidelity inevitably disrupts the one flesh relationship." So here, a lot of different violations are mentioned, kind of a whole grab bag of them. And these are things that happen in our world today. And I think if humanity were honest, we would recognize these things are damaging to families and societies, psychologically, emotionally, financially, are damaging in so many ways. And so this was good and healthy for God to give this restriction to the people of Israel.
(Concerned with unnatural relations and acts) 19 “You shall not approach a woman to uncover her nakedness while she is in her menstrual uncleanness (15:24, an inconsiderate husband). 20 And you shall not lie sexually with your neighbor’s wife and so make yourself unclean with her (defines adultery as specifically forbidden in the seventh commandment, Ex 20:14; Dt 22:22, destroying a home). 21 You shall not give any of your children to offer them to Molech (Ammonite God, child sacrifice -- to pass through Molech, perhaps with added sexual perversion), and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord. 22 You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. 23 And you shall not lie with any animal and so make yourself unclean with it, neither shall any woman give herself to an animal to lie with it: it is perversion.
Now in verse 19, there seems to be a shift where he begins dealing with a few specific cases. Some have labeled these unnatural relations and acts. He says in verse 19, "You shall not approach a woman to uncover her nakedness while she is in her menstrual uncleanness." Now we saw in chapter 15 that when a woman goes through her period, she would be unclean in Israel for seven days. And one of the things that we pointed out was that this might have been done at least in part to rebuff an inconsiderate man or husband, who was not sensitive to what his wife was going through at that time. So this might have been actually a favor to a woman. "Hey. You have a moment where you can take a break. And as you're going through the pains that are associated with menstrual cramping and all of that, your husband is asked to leave you alone and kind of give you that time and space."
In verse 20 it says, "And you shall not lie sexually with your neighbor's wife and so make yourself unclean with her." Okay. This specifically targets adultery, the seventh commandment and how it destroys a home. You're bringing an uncleanness into this home. Verse 21, "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." Molech was an Ammonite God and it doesn't say exactly what was happening when they offered their child to Molech. Some interpreters translate the phrase, "Pass through Molech," which might have indicated an actual sacrifice of their children to Molech, perhaps with some added sexual perversion, because that's, after all, the kind of section of scripture that we're in at this moment. And so he says, "You can't do that. Don't behave like the Canaanites around you."
Verse 22, "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination and you shall not lie with any animal and so make yourself unclean with it. Neither shall any woman give herself to an animal to lie with it. It is a perversion." Now here, we have this unique way of calling out a particular sin by saying it is an abomination. Verse 22, "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination." This is not mentioned about many of the other sins. It's not that the other sins were not an abomination before God, but this one gets this special designation. Of course, all of our sin separates us from God. So in the theological sense, the smallest sin or the biggest sin, they cause us to fall short of the glory of God. But from a practical standpoint, its effect upon a society or a group of people, this one gets the abomination label from the Lord.
One scholar said it this way, "Our task here is to understand what the Bible says, not to rewrite it." Whether we like it or not, the Bible is simply not bound by modern Western constraints of political correctness and this is definitely not a politically correct passage of scripture. Now, when it comes to homosexuality, which, of course, is a major and hot topic in our modern society. And by the time I'm giving this teaching, most people in the West think of homosexuality as something that is acceptable and beautiful and good, but the Bible just does not ever frame it in that way. It always refers to it as something that is out of bounds, is a sin, especially for God's people. God's people should not engage with this even if it's a temptation that they experienced as is the case with all of our temptations. We might be tempted in a certain direction, but that doesn't mean that we should follow our hearts and give into that temptation.
And after the law, which I'm saying Jesus fulfilled, this specific sin is continually rebuked under the new covenant as well. Paul said in Romans one verse 26 and 27, that one of the evidences of a society being judged by God under God's wrath is that God gives people up to dishonorable passions, "For their women," he says, "exchanged natural relations for those who are contrary to nature and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another. Men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty of their error." I don't think I can say it any clearer, but passages like these are found throughout the New Testament. So it is denounced in the law that we're reading today. But as I said, Jesus fulfilled the law, but it is then redenounced in a special way in the new covenant. But not only is it denounced after the law, but also before the law.
Sodom and Gomorrah, Gibeah, these are places in the Old Testament that were guilty of aversion of homosexual behavior. It wasn't gentle in any way. It was militant homosexuality in both of those communities, but also in Genesis chapter two and in other places where God affirms what marriage is about. It's a man. He takes from man and creates a woman and the two become one flesh. And this is a constant throughout the Old and New Testament paradigm. And there is evidence that the New Testament, as I said earlier, is stricter than the Old Testament when it comes to our sexual ethic. For example, in the Old Testament, adultery, though it had a death penalty attached to it, there were different ways that divorce and adultery could be dealt with in much lighter ways than in the New Testament era. But when Jesus came along, he actually enforced something that was a stronger ethic regarding marriage.
Jesus came along and said, "Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery." So in the Old Testament, as we'll see in a moment, there were even times where something that we would think of as adultery was labeled as not adultery, but something lesser than that. But Jesus made adultery something more than we would often think. Just divorce would lead a person to commit adultery. He said, "And he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery." So the Old Testament law was on one level. Jesus took it to a higher or stricter level. So for those who say, "Well, in the New Testament, things get lighter and less strict and all of that." Well, I'd say, look around, we don't see a whole lot of polygamy. In the Old Testament that was happening, but in the New Testament economy, we're getting tighter and closer to what God desires and what God envisions.
And so I think a stricter sexual ethic is actually what the New Testament teaches. Now, when he says that in verse 22 that it's an abomination, and then in verse 23, concerning bestiality, it's a perversion. The idea, it seems to extend to the morality of the action itself. There's something different about these particular sins. They just have a destroying, decaying effect upon a society. Now, when I say all of these things, it brings me no joy to spend a deeper amount of time or a longer amount of time talking about these specific subjects. And honestly, I am not inclined to, except for the fact that I'm living in a time and environment and in a culture where this is being talked about quite often, and Christians are being held out in a certain kind of light and many believers are doubting the word of God and the design that is given to us from creation itself.
We have to remember, we're not just reading this in the Bible. We're reading this in nature. There are things that we can learn about God by looking at the created order. And one of the things that I think we should observe from the design of male and female is that God has a specific plan for our sexuality and the people of Israel were required to submit to God. And I think we're required to submit to God as well. And some of my favorite people in the body of Christ are people who, because they've been like all of us have been born into a depraved and broken world, they've experienced desires that aren't in line with scripture, but even as they felt those desires and then looked into God's word, they've said, "Well, I see what God's word requires. I see what it will take for me to be a disciple of Jesus and to be fully allegiant to him. I'm not going to live out my desires. I'm going to live out my allegiance to Jesus."
I just so admire people who have made that sacrifice for the Lord. It reminds me of that passage there in the New Testament, when Jesus talked to his disciples about divorce, they said, "If that's really how strict it is, it's better for a man never to marry." And Jesus said, "Some people will be able to receive that comment from you, and some will make themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of God." And there are many brothers and sisters in Christ throughout the world today who, whether it's because of a sin committed against them, or just the fact that we're all born in sin or perhaps sins that they committed, that one led to another, led to another and desires began to blossom or bloom in them that were not according to God's word, were unnatural in nature.
There are many believers like that throughout the world today who have made a decision to say, "You know what? I can't live out those desires for sex with someone of the same gender or sex. And so I'm going to, as a Christian, deny that appetite and make myself, so to speak, set apart for the kingdom of God." And I just so admire brothers and sisters who have made that determination and decision. But again, there's a lot of sensitive stuff there and all of us are born into brokenness sexually and so we need to do the hard work of graciously moving through the word of God with others, restoring each other in a spirit of gentleness and helping us all pursue Christ together without buckling one iota on the sexual ethic that Christ prescribes for his people.
24 “Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean, 25 and the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. 26 But you shall keep my statutes and my rules and do none of these abominations, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you 27 (for the people of the land, who were before you, did all of these abominations, so that the land became unclean), 28 lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you. 29 For everyone who does any of these abominations, the persons who do them shall be cut off from among their people. 30 So keep my charge never to practice any of these abominable customs that were practiced before you, and never to make yourselves unclean by them: I am the Lord your God.”
Now verse 24 to close out this chapter, chapter 18, he says, "Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things. For by all these, the nations I am driving out before you, you have become unclean and the land became unclean so that I punished its iniquity and the land vomited out its inhabitants, but you shall keep my statutes and my rules and do none of these abominations, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you, for the people of the land who were before you did all these abominations, so that the land became unclean. Lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you. For everyone who does any of these abominations, the persons who do them shall be cut off from among their people. So keep my charge never to practice any of these abominable customs that were practiced before you and never to make yourselves unclean by them. I am the Lord your God."
So I said earlier that even though some of these sins get a tag, it's an abomination. Here at the end, he says, "All of them are an abomination. All of them cause you to fall short of the glory of God. All of them cause you to need the gospel." And thank God the gospel exists and is there.
Leviticus 19
Laws Encouraging Holiness Before God and Man
Now in chapter 19, we have laws encouraging a holiness before God and man, and they can kind of appear random. It's just like a list of all these different laws that govern the people of Israel but in actuality, it seems like there's some that deal with religion, then some that deal with our relationship or their relationship to their neighbors, followed within a big grab bag of miscellaneous verse followed with then a big grab bag of miscellaneous requirements that they needed to uphold.
1 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy. 3 Every one of you shall revere his mother and his father, and you shall keep my Sabbaths: I am the Lord your God. 4 Do not turn to idols or make for yourselves any gods of cast metal: I am the Lord your God.
It says in verse one, "And the Lord spoke to Moses saying, 'Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, you shall be holy for I, the Lord your God, am holy. Everyone of you shall revere his mother and his father and you shall keep my Sabbaths. I'm the Lord your God. Do not turn to idols or make for yourselves any gods of cast metal. I am the Lord, your God.'" Over and over again in this passage, he says, "I am the Lord, your God. I, the Lord, your God, am holy. You shall be holy, for I am the Lord, your God." Remember that the center idea of the people of Israel is that yes, they had a priesthood, but in God's mind, they were a kingdom of priests, representing him to the nations. So he's appealing to that again, in this opening paragraph of chapter 19. He's saying, "Look, these laws are an extension of me. I'm the Lord your God, I'm holy. You are my people. You should also be holy because you are representing me to the world around you. Therefore, here are my laws that will help you live out the holiness that is yours."
So bound up in the nature of these laws is God himself. We have to remember that in our New Testament economy, the things that God's word has for us are an extension of God himself. Emanating from his nature is his word. And so the people of Israel needed to embrace that with each one of these laws. They were reflective of who God is. They were to live righteous lives. They weren't just a people that were going through ceremonies and celebrating the day of atonement and offering sacrifices. No, they were living a certain kind of life as an extension of God's nature and character and the covenant that they were involved in before the Lord.
In verse three, he tells them that they need to revere their parents, so honor their parents, which was an extension of the commandments. And then they were also to keep his Sabbath. So the paramount pictures of obedience to God and loving God, but then loving humanity is wrapped up in these two ideas. Keep the Sabbaths and honor your parents. And from that would flow many other things that would happen as well in taking care of people, loving people, loving your neighbor. But if you're not going to honor your parents, then you're probably not going to do well in those other areas. And if you love God, but you don't keep the Sabbath, then you're probably not really going to love God. So he holds out these two commandments at the very beginning. Look, you've got to cultivate your relationship with me, your allegiance to me, but also you need to treat others correctly and according to my word.
And then he says in verse four, do not turn to idols, do not turn to idols. Now of course, for them, they were tempted to actually turn to graven images. I suppose, in our modern time, some might be tempted to turn to graven images, and I'm sure, as well, that you've heard the concept in our modern time of not turning to our idols of the heart. So the image of what I want to be or possessions or success and making an idol of these things, even good things like a marriage or children or career that we can make an idol out of. And that is true and good. And you might want to apply that.
But when John closed his letter, I John, he said, "Little children keep yourselves from idols." And there have been of those who have pointed out that this is probably not just a random statement from John to conclude his letter, but all through the letter of I John, he says, "Look, you got to have the right theological understanding of who Jesus is." And one temptation in our modern era is to make an image of Jesus that is inaccurate, that is an idol. And I think many people do this with Jesus. You know, oh Jesus, he just affirmed everything. Or Jesus was just maybe on the other end of the spectrum, vengeful all the time. But we have to go to the word and see who is Jesus accurately. In order to understand him, we cannot turn to an idol, an image that we have made ourselves and say, "That's what I will worship.”
5 “When you offer a sacrifice of peace offerings to the Lord, you shall offer it so that you may be accepted. 6 It shall be eaten the same day you offer it or on the day after, and anything left over until the third day shall be burned up with fire. 7 If it is eaten at all on the third day, it is tainted; it will not be accepted, 8 and everyone who eats it shall bear his iniquity, because he has profaned what is holy to the Lord, and that person shall be cut off from his people.
He says in verse five, "When you offer a sacrifice of peace offerings to the Lord, you shall offer it so that you may be accepted. It shall be eaten the same day you offer it or on the day after and anything left over until the third day shall be burned up with fire. If it is eaten at all on the third day, it is tainted. It will not be accepted. And everyone who eats it shall bear his iniquity because he has profaned what is holy to the Lord, and that person shall be cut off from his people." Here God gives a strict rule concerning how quickly they needed to eat the meat of the sacrifices that they were allowed to eat. If it was there on the third day, it was tainted. And if they ate that, then they bore the iniquity and they were to be cut off from the people. So severe consequences for this.
And I'm sure someone has a great theory as to why it was one day, two day, that's okay, but day three is not okay. Maybe it was a health code violation, something like that. You can't eat that burrito on the third day that you left it out on the counter. I don't know what it was, but what this would communicate to the people of Israel was, what God says, how were to worship him, that's what we need to be allegiant to. Even if we don't understand, we need to submit.
9 “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. 10 And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God.
He says in verse nine, "When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge. And neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest and you shall not strip your vineyard bear. Neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner. I am the Lord, your God."
Now there's some really cool laws throughout the Old Testament that were aimed at helping the less advantaged people in Israelite society. There were just some people that were never going to inherit land. So if they were a foreigner who had moved to Israel and converted to Judaism, they would be outside of being able to receive land. Perhaps a widow or an orphan would not be able to have land rights. And so one of the things that they would do, according to Leviticus chapter 19, is that when they reaped their harvest, they wouldn't go and reap all the way to the edge. They would leave some that was untouched, so that those who were poor could come and take it for themselves whenever the harvest took place. And this would be a way for them to store up a little food for themselves, for the season to come. And they were to do that with their vineyards and all of that, fallen grapes, they were to leave them alone. Let the poor come into the land, the sojourner come into the land and find this for food. The Book of Ruth actually has this as a real centerpiece of the Book of Ruth. She goes in and gleans in this way in the field of Boaz, who ends up being the kinsman redeemer that marries her and brings her into the actual family tree of Jesus.
Good Neighbors
11 “You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; you shall not lie to one another. 12 You shall not swear by my name falsely, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord.
Now the next little section deals with their relationship with their neighbors. He says in verse 11, "You shall not steal. You shall not deal falsely. You shall not lie to one another. You shall not swear by my name falsely and so profane the name of your God. I am the Lord." So here he's delving into the eighth commandment, not to steal, but then paraphrases the ninth and the fourth amendment, that they were not to swear falsely by God's name and they were not to profane the name of God. Do not take his name in vain.
13 “You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him. The wages of a hired worker shall not remain with you all night until the morning. 14 You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall fear your God: I am the Lord.
In verse 13, he says, "You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him. The wages of a hired worker shall not remain with you all night until the morning. You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind. You shall fear your God. I am the Lord." The idea of this cluster of sentences is that day laborers could expect to be paid each night. You know you're doing pretty good in the society when you can get paid every couple of weeks, because you'll be able to make it to the next paycheck. But in many societies, including theirs, that laborer needed their food, their money for their work that day. And so he says, you can't store up their wages. You need to pay them each day that they work. You need to pay them for that work. You can't delay it. It would not be helpful to the poor man or to his family.
And then he mentions the deaf and the blind as well. They could be taken advantage of, especially in a society like that. And so they needed to be respected in their disability and the people of Israel needed to take care of them. Make sure you don't put a stumbling block before them. You got to take care of them. You need to fear the Lord.
15 “You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor. 16 You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand up against the life of your neighbor: I am the Lord.
"You shall do," verse 15, "no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor. You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people and you shall not stand up against the life of your neighbor. I am the Lord." And I'm sure as I'm reading many of these laws, you in your own heart are saying, this sounds so good. This sounds just, this sounds moral, this sound pure. And so many of these things are reiterated in the New Testament economy, that's part of the reason why you're resonating with them in that kind of the way. The spirit of God is just reminding you. This is good. This is the way to treat someone else.
The idea of doing injustice in court, though, for us, we probably think about a courtroom environment, you got the person over there typing on their little typewriter, keeping track of everything that's said, the judge, all rise, all that kind of stuff. But for them, it pretty much just meant the gates of the city, the elders of the city sat there in the gate. And when you had a case, you yourself would go and you operated as your own lawyer. And you had to make sure that you did not misrepresent yourself or someone else before the city court.
17 “You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. 18 You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.“
Verse 17, he says, "You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, unless you incur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord." So here we get the incredible statement of Jesus. When they asked him what the greatest commandment is, you shall love the Lord, your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. And the second is like it. And he quotes from Leviticus. He reaches back into Leviticus, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I think a lot of believers don't know that Jesus pulled that from the Book of Leviticus. We sometimes say, "I don't like the book of Leviticus." Well in it, we get the second great command, to love your neighbor as yourself. And really many of the laws here for Israel were an extension or an expression of how to love your neighbor as yourself. And as you go through this chapter, you could be thinking about different ways that, well, maybe I don't do it exactly in the way that they needed to do it in Israelite times in the Old Testament era, but what are some ways I can love my neighbor today?
Now part of it here was not taking vengeance, not bearing a grudge against the sons of your own people, holding short accounts. I think God's people need to be, and classically been, and continue to need to be a forgiving people, a people who release others from debt. And I know it's so hard, at times you want to harbor that resentment or bitterness against someone else. It could be really hard to release someone, but we need to do it because we have been released by Jesus.
Miscellaneous Regulations
19 “You shall keep my statutes. You shall not let your cattle breed with a different kind. You shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed, nor shall you wear a garment of cloth made of two kinds of material.
Now in verse 19, as I said, you get into some miscellaneous regulations through the end of the chapter, so let's go through them together. He said, "You shall keep my statutes. You shall not let your cattle breed with a different kind. You shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed, nor shall you wear a garment of cloth made of two kinds of material."
Now this verse almost universally confuses the expositor. Why is this rule? Why could two different colors of cattle, why were they not allowed to breed together? Why not two different kinds of seed? Why not a garment made of two different kinds of material? Is he alluding to the purity of nature? Leave things the way God made them. Is it the Egyptian cattle that they brought with them were just so good, such great livestock that they shouldn't dilute what they'd gotten from Egypt? Was it that in the tabernacle, there was woven fabric of different kinds and so the people, Israel shouldn't wear anything that resembled what was going on inside the tabernacle? Their clothing should be plain, but God's house should be decorative. Was it that there were different times for harvest, so that's why you didn't want to have different kinds of seeds. You couldn't have one fruit growing while another was just halfway there?
Was it mismating of animals that he's forbidding here? That's just kind of weird. Certain kind of animals don't want to try to mate together, so why would you have to prohibit that kind of thing? And maybe is he saying that a horse and a donkey should not mate together, therefore producing a mule? Well, that can't be the case because all throughout the Old Testament, mules are spoken of fondly quite often in scripture and were allowed for the people of Israel. Is he's just simply saying that different kinds of animals shouldn't be yolked together, so that the stronger one is carrying the bigger load and the weaker one is struggling? Or does this have some random thing to do with God's holiness? That animals that are physically deformed should not be put together. What is going on here?
I'm not quite certain, but I do know that all of these laws are an extension of who God is. God's holy. Part of being holy means he's different. And so he is just telling the people of Israel, perhaps, "Hey, you have to be different. There might be some things that the nations around you do that aren't even necessarily sinful, but I want you to be different. I want there to be something about what you do that is just different." And so perhaps that's a little bit of what verse 19 has to do with.
20 “If a man lies sexually with a woman who is a slave, assigned to another man and not yet ransomed or given her freedom, a distinction shall be made. They shall not be put to death, because she was not free; 21 but he shall bring his compensation to the Lord, to the entrance of the tent of meeting, a ram for a guilt offering. 22 And the priest shall make atonement for him with the ram of the guilt offering before the Lord for his sin that he has committed, and he shall be forgiven for the sin that he has committed.
In verse 20, we go back to a sexual commandment. He says, "If a man lies sexually with a woman who is a slave assigned to another man, and not yet ransomed or given freedom, a distinction shall be made. They shall not be put to death because she was not free, but he shall bring his compensation to the Lord at the entrance of the tent of meeting, a Ram for a guilt offering. And the priest shall make atonement for him with the ram of the guilt offering before the Lord and for his sin that he has committed. And he shall be forgiven for the sin that he has committed." Again, this is another example of the New Testament advancing morality, not making it looser, but making it stricter. Things get better in the New Testament economy, and in the realm of sexual experiences, it gets stricter in the New Testament economy. The new covenant person abides by more restraint and this is another one of the passages that hints at that reality.
The situation, you probably say it like this. You've got a slave woman that's betrothed to a man. She's not yet at free. She's not yet married to this man. This is a free man, but then a different man while she's betrothed during that engagement period, a different man has sex with her. And in normal cases where a woman is betrothed and she voluntarily sexually embraces another man that she's not betrothed to, the penalty was death in Israel, but here, since she's not free, but she's a slave, the idea is that she was not free to resist or not guarded by a father, and so she's kind of on her own. So the penalty here is not death, but is payment to the either master or original man that she was engaged to. It was hard to decipher, but in all respects, it was sacrifice and payment that had to be made in this particular instance. And in a sense, what you're seeing is protection upon a slave girl. So the idea is, of course, this isn't a great thing that was happening in Israel at that time. And we've talked about slavery in Israel in previous studies. So it's not that God is saying, "Oh, this is a really good thing you got going on," but he's offering a protection to slow down the abuses that could happen.
23 “When you come into the land and plant any kind of tree for food, then you shall regard its fruit as forbidden. Three years it shall be forbidden to you; it must not be eaten. 24 And in the fourth year all its fruit shall be holy, an offering of praise to the Lord. 25 But in the fifth year you may eat of its fruit, to increase its yield for you: I am the Lord your God.
"When you come into the land, verse 23, "and plant any kind of tree for food, then you shall regard its fruit as forbidden. Three years, it shall be forbidden to you. It must not be eaten. And in the fourth year, all its fruit shall be holy and offering a praise to the Lord. But in the fifth year, you may eat of its fruit to increase its yield for you. I am the Lord your God." Usually it takes about five years for fruit to be edible anyways. When a fruit tree is planted, the first three crops were to be resisted. The fourth year was to be given to the Lord. And the fifth year, the people of Israel could begin to eat. It just speaks of giving God the first fruits of your life and time and energy and finances, but also that God wants to bless you as well. He gave them the good fruit the fifth year.
26 “You shall not eat any flesh with the blood in it. You shall not interpret omens or tell fortunes. 27 You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard. 28 You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead or tattoo yourselves: I am the Lord.
"You shall not," verse 26, "eat any flesh with the blood in it. You shall not interpret omens or tell fortunes. You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard. You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead or tattoo yourselves on. I am the Lord." So here again is the prohibition against drinking or eating blood. And here it's connected to all of these pagan rituals and ceremonies that were a part of pagan worship that was happening in the Canaanite culture around them or the Egyptian culture that they had left and departed from. And so perhaps the drinking of the blood has to do with some kind of religion or mystery religion or something like that.
It is interesting. It says here in verse 28 that the people of Israel were not to make any cuts on their body to scar themselves for the dead or tattoo themselves. The context is in a religious kind of way. If I had a dollar for every time I heard somebody who is clean-shaven say that you can't get a tattoo as a Christian because it's in the book of Leviticus, well, the verses right before that say you shouldn't be clean-shaven either. So you have to again, take it in context. He's talking about some kind of religious ceremony. So shaving your hair in a certain way, or getting a tattoo, that means a certain thing religiously for false religion or false worship purposes. And again, this is in the Old Testament.
So Jesus came and fulfilled it. So you have to look into the New Testament and see, are these prohibitions, do they exist in the New Testament. And in the New Testament, we're to worship God and God alone through Jesus. And so we're not to partake of any ceremony or ritual that is connected to pagan religions and in a knowing kind of way. So I'm not going to go to a tarot card reader. I'm not going to go to and engage in worship services for another religion. I'm not going to do these things. That would be an extension of a passage like this. But if somebody wants to get a flower tattooed on their foot or something like that, and it's got nothing to do with worshiping a pagan deity, then hey, it's your foot and it's your funeral. So choose wisely.
29 “Do not profane your daughter by making her a prostitute, lest the land fall into prostitution and the land become full of depravity. 30 You shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord.”
31 “Do not turn to mediums or necromancers; do not seek them out, and so make yourselves unclean by them: I am the Lord your God.
Verse 29, "Do not profane your daughter by making her a prostitute, lest the land fall into prostitution and the land become full of depravity. You shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary. I am the Lord. Do not turn to mediums or necromancers. Do not seek them out and so make yourselves unclean by them. I am the Lord, your God." Again, this last cluster has to do with pagan religions and seeing that. You're prostituting a daughter, meaning in a religious sense for a false God. Mediums, necromancers.
32 “You shall stand up before the gray head and honor the face of an old man, and you shall fear your God: I am the Lord. 33 “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. 34 You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.
Verse 32, "You shall stand up before the gray head and honor the face of an old man. And you shall fear your God. I am the Lord. When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do them wrong. You shall treat the who sojourns with you as the native among you and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God." And I think a couple of marks of a mature believer are a respect for those who are older than them. The New Testament refers to people like this as elders. Not that they are pastors, pastors are also are referred to as elders, but they are older than you. They are your elders. So respecting them, but also caring for those who are foreigners, those who life is harder for them because they're in a foreign place. And I think that a care for people like this is a mark of maturity amongst God's people.
35 “You shall do no wrong in judgment, in measures of length or weight or quantity. 36 You shall have just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. 37 And you shall observe all my statutes and all my rules, and do them: I am the Lord.”
And then he says in verse 35, "You shall do no wrong in judgment, in measures of length or weight or quantity. You shall have just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt. And you shall observe all my statutes and all my rules and do them. I am the Lord." And when I read those last few verses about having just balances and just weights, I think about going to the grocery store to buy a bag of chips, picking it up and shaking it. It's all puffed up and filled with air. And the bag is huge. you, you realize that it's only the bottom little section that's even filled with potato chips. They're making it look bigger. I know they got to put how much is in there on the label, but they're trying to make it look one way, when the reality is another. And it just bugs me. And I think it bugs God, as well. All right, church. God bless you. I'll see you next time.