Holiness Rejects False Love
Leviticus 20:26
Introduction.
Holy love vs. unholy love.
Last week, we looked at Lev. 19 and dwelt on the beauty of holy love.
We are to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves.
There is a stark contrast with what we see in Lev. 19 and the surrounding chapters.
A litany of sexual sins are listed here in Lev. 18, and they are repeated in Lev. 20 along with their penalties.
We will note that they are all connected to acts of unholy love, a perversion of what the Lord intended.
This did institute a change in certain things that were permitted up to that point.
Most of these things are still wrong today and fall into the definition of fornication—only one is not directly applicable today.
The good news is many of these sins are considered culturally wrong today, but not all of it.
Introduction to Lev. 18 (vs. 1-5, 24-30).
These were sins that were done in Egypt and were being done in Canaan.
They were to separate themselves from the people and the sinful acts that follow—they were to be holy.
If they were obedient, then they were to live—it is no different today.
These peoples were guilty and were going to be cast out of their land, particularly Canaan.
This was a fulfillment of a curse brought on Canaan all the way back in Gen. 9:25-27.
It was because his father, Ham, and seeing the nakedness of his father—a great shame.
While Noah shouldn’t have been drunk, Ham should have acted more responsibly (Egyptians were also descendants of Ham).
It seems this sin continued on through Ham’s descendants and grew to be more terrible—not just seeing, but actively uncovering nakedness.
Such sins were more deliberate than what Ham did.
The Canaanites were to be cast out of the land, and if the Israelites fell for them, too, then they would also be vomited out—and they were eventually.
Introduction to Lev. 20 (vs. 7-8, 22-26).
In doing these commands, they would be consecrating themselves, being holy.
But it wasn’t really them being holy, it was the Lord making them holy.
This shows the cooperative nature of obedience and holiness to God.
We make ourselves holy while He truly makes us holy.
We cannot be holy without Him, and we cannot be holy without obedience to Him.
That holiness is defined as a separation from the world, from the peoples around them who are guilty of all these abominable things.
That separation is expedited through their peculiar diet, as we discussed in Lev. 11.
Their obedient actions would end up separating them from the sinful people around them, for God’s glory.
What actions are we talking about?
Idolatrous Infanticide.
Adultery.
Incest.
Other Sexual Sins.
Body.
Idolatrous Infanticide (18:21; 19:3a, 29; 20:2-6, 9, 27).
Idolatry is where it all begins in Lev. 20 (vs. 1-6).
With a breakdown in their faithfulness to God comes all manner of evil and wickedness.
One wonders why the first commandment was that they should have no other god before the Lord—it’s because other religions would lead them down a terrible path.
It often led them down the path of ritual infanticide (18:21).
Such temple prostitution would inevitably lead to many illegitimate children (19:29; 20:6).
So they would often “pass them through the fire,” a reference to child sacrifice.
Thankfully, this was recognized as a deplorable act through much of Israelite history.
It is why it is unthinkable to many that Jephthah, when he made his rash vow, actually sacrificed his daughter to the Lord, but it was rather a dedication to His service in Judges 11.
It is possible that Lev. 20:2 refers to such dedication as well, but child sacrifice was also mentioned in Lev. 18:21.
The Israelites left a battle in disgust when their defeated opponent, the king of Moab, sacrificed his eldest son as a burnt offering (2 Kings 3:27).
This is also accompanied by a lack of respect for the established authority.
This included the authority of God, of course.
But it also included the authority of one’s parents.
This is evident when one curses his parents, not honoring or revering them as they ought (19:3a; 20:9).
If you do not revere your parents whom you do see, how will you revere God whom you do not?
Modern day infanticide is abortion.
It’s what happens when we as a people forget who is in control.
Such pro-choice advocates ignore the commands of God, sacrificing their children, not on the altar of Molech, but on the altar of selfish ambition.
No one displayed that more aptly than Michelle Williams at the Golden Globes this year.
She won Best Actress in a Limited Series or Made-for-TV Movie, and in her speech, she revealed that she wouldn’t have been there without the “woman’s right to choose.”
Translation: “I have won this award because I killed my babies. Thank you for giving me this praise and honor that I paid for with their lives.”
And the people applauding and crying tears of joy tells you all you really need to know about Hollywood.
God judged nations harshly for such sacrifices, and it was the catalyst that ultimately made Judah fall after King Manasseh’s infanticide (2 Kings 21).
Adultery (18:20; 20:10).
Adultery defined.
It is when a married person has extramarital relations.
It is also when someone has relations with someone else who is married.
Adultery had always been sinful.
God instituted marriage at the very beginning (Gen. 2:23-24).
Three times in Genesis, before the Law was given, we see they knew adultery was sinful.
The king of Egypt recognized this in Gen. 12.
Abimelech king of Gerar knew this, too Gen. 20—both times in reference to Abraham’s wife Sarah.
Joseph knew this, and even calling it a sin against God in Gen. 39.
God then codifies it in the Ten Commandments (Exo. 20:14).
David committed this sin with Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba (2 Sam. 11-12).
Adultery ran rampant among the people as we can see among the prophets.
Jesus speaks about where adultery comes from.
Along with all other evil actions, it comes from the heart (Mark 7:20-23).
It begins with lust, an unlawful desire for someone.
Jesus calls this committing adultery in your heart (Matt. 5:28).
All such sexual sins, even the thought of it, should be avoided.
It is a violation or can lead to a violation of one’s marital vows, and of the trust that you ought to have in one another.
It can destroy lives, and is not worth it.
Even if both parties in the marriage are fine with it, it is still a sin against God.
Incest (18:6-18; 20:11-12, 14, 17, 19-21).
A good deal of time is spent on this in the passage.
It gives much detail in which family members were not acceptable.
All these can be summarized in 18:6 with “next of kin.”
This is one of those things where culturally, we have a standard that’s more strict than the OT biblical standard (and even the NT standard).
Though 100+ years ago, it wasn’t that strict.
There is no command here against marriages with cousins, though that leaves a bad taste in our mouths today.
In fact, it was quite common in our recent past, jokes aside.
I wanted to spend a little time on this because it shows how things changed.
While adultery was always sinful, some of these things were not.
Things became more restrictive from one law to the next.
Cain’s wife must have been his sister or niece, yet that is now forbidden.
Abraham’s wife was his half-sister, though now forbidden.
Isaac married his first cousin once removed (not forbidden).
Jacob married his first cousin (not forbidden) and her sister (now forbidden), though this is one of two that are not repeated in Lev. 20 with a penalty (cf. 18:29).
Moses’ father married his aunt and had Moses, Aaron, and Miriam—now forbidden.
Moses’ family was in Egypt, so perhaps they learned this from the Egyptians.
While that union may not have been what God wanted, it produced the great lawgiver Moses, the prophetess Miriam, and the first high priest Aaron.
We learn that children born under sinful circumstances can still be great men and women of God.
Regardless, we see that these laws changed with the Law of Moses.
Incest today.
Of course incest is sinful today as it falls under the sin of fornication.
There was a man who had his father’s wife in 1 Cor. 5 – his own mother or his stepmother.
Paul said this was something that even the Gentiles didn’t do!
We see the procedure that we ought to perform upon someone caught up in a sexual sin or other sins listed in that chapter.
This includes covetousness, idolatry, reviling, drunkenness, and extortion (1 Cor. 5:11).
They were to be delivered to Satan, which was defined as withdrawing fellowship from someone, not even to eat with them.
This was so that they might realize their error and repent.
Thankfully incest is typically thought of as something disgusting today.
I hope it stays that way.
Other Sexual Sins (18:19, 22-23; 20:13, 15-16, 18).
One of the sexual sins mentioned is not directly applicable today.
That is relations during one’s “customary impurity.”
For more information on that, go online for our lessons on Lev. 12; 15; and 17.
Suffice it to say, blood was a big deal back then since it was assigned to atonement.
Such blood made one ritually unclean, and a man was not to be intentionally exposed to it.
Since this does not apply today, people will use this as an excuse to say that other sexual acts mentioned here are also permitted today, but they are really grasping at straws.
For one, the reasons are presented in Lev. 17—the purpose of blood—is no longer in effect since Christ took care of that once and for all.
For two, the other sins are, indeed, mentioned in the NT.
Homosexuality.
The people of Sodom were guilty of this in a very violent manner (Gen. 19).
Temple prostitution was not limited to women, but men were involved, too.
Clearly this was rampant in Canaan at this time as well.
But male prostitution is not mentioned here—it is included, but it is not the only thing that was sinful.
Both homosexuality and bestiality defy God by perverting that which He has given us.
God designed us a certain way with a particular purpose in mind, and such acts are clearly not the intent of the Designer.
While the other sexual sins that are still in effect are considered culturally repugnant in the present world, this one is praised—about as much as abortion is.
We must be vigilant to keep that kind of thinking away from our children—and that’s not easy.
It’s being fed to them by all manner of media/entertainment and the public school system.
They want to try to normalize it—brethren we cannot/must not normalize sin!
And it still is sin (Rom. 1:26-27; 1 Cor. 6:9-10).
Bestiality.
There is no certain reference to this having occurred, but since it is mentioned here, it was definitely a practice of the Canaanites at this time.
It was likely involved in their fertility rituals as was temple prostitution.
Again, it defied the natural order of things.
One commentator suggested that this sin may have been committed in Nineveh, and it was why the animals were also clothed in sackcloth to show repentance (Jonah 3:7-8).
While it is not specifically mentioned in the NT, it is covered under the sin of fornication or sexual immorality as some translations have called it.
Thankfully this is still considered repugnant in our culture today, but there are some who are trying to make it legal—as you might imagine.
People are always trying to find ways to justify their sexual perversion.
Conclusion.
There is so much sexual perversion around today.
But it’s not nearly as bad as it was in Canaan back then.
We may think it’s bad, and it is—but we aren’t quite as bad as the whole of human cultures and history.
But that does not justify the wickedness we see in our world.
So many are obsessed with sexual matters, governed by their passions and lusts.
If we grow up, learn to control our passions, then maybe we can be more pleasing to God.
I’m not saying that’s easy, but self-control is something we should all work on.
If we do, there wouldn’t be quite the demand for abortion, adultery would fade away, as would the other sexual perversions that were discussed today.
It might actually be easier to find someone to marry when you’re more interested in who they are rather than in how they can gratify you.
Sexual sins can be very hard to break.
But such is a false and unholy love.
In order to be holy as God is holy, we must reject such sinful acts and repent.
We must turn to Him and live, He will sanctify us.
While they could have been vomited out of the land, we might have fellowship withdrawn.
Such holiness and separation must be maintained!
One must decide to do so as the act of repentance we must practice to be saved.
Remember what we must do to be saved and to get right with God.
These things have not changed—HBRCB.
And if you need to make things right with Him, repent… always repent!