The Boundaries of Sexual Activities Leviticus 18
The Boundaries of Sexual Activities
Lev 18
To round out the last 2 Blogs, I want to look at Lev 18, where God gives us the boundaries of sexual activity.
Several questions:
Is this list exhaustive? No.
Since these are in the Old Testament, and therefore given to the Jews, are they still binding on us today? Yes, and I will address that.
We can outline Lev 18 as follows:
verses 1-5, a general opening statement that we are to obey God, because he is God
verse 6, a general statement regrading incest, having sex with someone who is “near of kin”
verses 7-18, a list of the people who are “near of kin”
verse 19, regards sex with a woman while she is menstruating
verse 20, regards adultery
verse 21, regards sex as part of heathen worship
verse 22, regards same-sex sex
verse 23, regards sex with animals
verses 24-30, closing statement and warnings
Note, same-sex sex is the only sexual sin called an abomination; that is because it goes against God's design. Same-sex sexual activity was a huge problem in the Roman Catholic monasteries and convents during Luther's time; it still is today, as shown by the countless cases of Pedophilia that have and are continually coming to light in the Roman Catholic church. Luther's position was that while hetero-sexual sins are obviously sins, they were not as bad as same-sex sins, because same-sex sexual activity was contrary to the design of God; that is still a valid argument.
Now to answer the question at the beginning, that since Lev 18 is written to Old Testament Jews, “Does this pertain to us?”
Yes, and here is the rationale: The Jews were told to not do what the other nations were doing. This shows us that God expected the non-Jewish nations to not do those things. Even though they were not “God's people”, because they were created by him, and living in his world, he required then to obey him. These specific prohibitions were given orally to Moses and written down in the book of Leviticus, but they originate in the original creation, and were therefore known. If God was OK with same-sex sex, he would have created Adam and Steve, not Adam and Eve; and if he was OK with bestiality, he would have told Adam to chose an animal as his companion, he would not have created Eve from Adam's rib, to be bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh.
By looking at how God created Mankind, 1 human male and 1 human female, all Mankind knows what God wants.
We call these Creation Ordinances.
The following definition is from Wikipedia:
“In Reformed Christian ethics, the creation mandates or creation ordinances are the commandments given to Adam and Eve in Genesis 1 and 2. These predate the Mosaic Law and are often thought to apply to all people rather than just Christians. They include the cultural mandate ("Be fruitful and multiply!"), including both marriage and procreation (Gen 1:28), the labor mandate (Gen 2:15), and complying with Sabbath (Gen 2:3).”
Even though pre-Flood people knew these sexual activities were sins, they were still doing them, and this would have been part of the “wickedness” that caused God to wipe the earth clean by means of the Flood. We see how from the very beginning, man's fallen nature came to light in illicit sexual behavior.
Lamech had 2 wives and was a murderer!
“And Lamech said unto his wives, Adah and Zillah, Hear my voice; ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech: for I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt.” Gen 4:23
We are not sure who each of these groups are: men versus sons of God, and daughters of men, and giants, but it is clear that God disapproved of the sexual behavior going on, and that was a major reason for him cleansing the earth by means of the Flood.
“And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Gen 6:1-5
The Flood washed the earth clean, but it could not clean the heart, and so those practices were carried forward after the Flood by Ham and his descendants.
Gen 9:22 says “Ham saw the nakedness of his father,” The word “saw” is the Hebrew word “rawaw”, Strong's H7200, and carries with it the idea of gaze upon with pleasure.
This then continued til the time of Sodom and Gomorrah, and again God destroyed them because of their sin.
In the Western World today, all kinds of God-defined illicit sexual activities are being actively, militantly promoted. We are not being liberated from Puritanical shackles, we are being lead back into the pagan practices of the ancient world.
All of the “great” civilizations of the ancient world: Egypt, Persia, Babylon, Chine, India, Greek, Rome were steeped with a combination of pagan religion, meaning the worship of multiple gods (demons), and sexual sins, which I am defining as sexual relations outside of 1 man with 1 woman life time marriage. Think of temple prostitution. It was part of ancient Greek worship, it is part of Hindu worship today (called devadasi).
And notice I said “we are being lead back into” this.
The devil is the active agent. He is using sexual behavior contrary to God's design and plan, joined with either pagan idol worship (worship at a location where the demon interacts with people), or self worship (the obsession with fashion, looks, Botox), or materialism, or worship of the creation and not the Creator (environmentalism taken to the extreme of protecting whales while killing babies; see Rom 1:18-32), or any false religion (including humanistic evolution), to destroy the souls of men.
In Number 22-24 you can read how a man named Balaam used divination (calling upon the demons for guidance), to try to trip up the Israelites into sacrificing to idols and engage in sexual sins.
Here is the New Testament commentary on Balaam:
“The doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication.” Rev 2:14
Getting back to Lev 18, here are the warnings God gives:
“After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do: and after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not do: neither shall ye walk in their ordinances.”
Lev 18:3
Do not do what the pagans around you are doing!
“Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you: And the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants. Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations; neither any of your own nation, nor any stranger that sojourneth among you: (For all these abominations have the men of the land done, which were before you, and the land is defiled;) That the land spue not you out also, when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you. For whosoever shall commit any of these abominations, even the souls that commit them shall be cut off from among their people. Therefore shall ye keep mine ordinance, that ye commit not any one of these abominable customs, which were committed before you, and that ye defile not yourselves therein: I am the LORD your God.” Lev 24-30
We in America today, the entire Western World, should give serious consideration to this.
24 July 2024