The Lord's Holiness and Ours

            Today’s reading covers 3 chapters in Leviticus, but I want to comment on just one—Leviticus 20.  Very often we struggle to find the logic in these passages, that is, we don’t always see how one topic leads to another.  However, I think we can discern the connections in this chapter.

            First, in the regulation forbidding child sacrifice (Leviticus 20:1-9), there’s a significant term, namely, that worshipping Molech, one of the gods of the Ammonites, is the same as prostitution.  ESV points it a little more pointedly, “whoring after Molech.”  The phrase is used again of those who pursue mediums and necromancers.  One of the aspects of idolatry is that it involves a betrayal of the Lord’s trust on the same level as the breach of trust that adultery causes in a marriage.  That is, it desecrates the holy bond between the Lord and his people.

            This sexual/marital image of idolatry, then, leads to the next section—Leviticus 20:10-21.  In that section, we find detailed regulations regarding the sorts of sexual relations that are disallowed among the Israelites.  There are issues of kinship—both consanguinity (being a close blood relative) and otherwise.  There are issues of homosexuality.  There are issues of bestiality.  Just as idolatry involves an adulterous breach of trust with the Lord, so also the sexual ethics among His people are to be marked by faithfulness and self-control.  Unlike the popular message of our cultural revolution, Leviticus does not accept, “If it feels good, do it.” Instead, Leviticus wants to say, “You are a human, not an animal.  You are made in the image of a holy God.  Therefore, control your appetites.”

            Finally, we come to the third section:  Leviticus 20:22-26, especially verse 26, “You are to be holy to me because I, the LORD, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be my own” (NIV).  Just as idolatry has a sexual/marital overtone, and just as sexual ethics have a connection to God’s holiness, so the holiness of the Lord undergirds the regulations for holiness among God’s people.  (Not incidentally, one should note that Jesus says almost the same thing in the Sermon on the Mount.  “Be perfect, therefore, as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).

            So, it is important that we see our lives under the category of God’s holiness.  He created us in His holy image, created us to reflect His goodness to the world.  In Jesus, He recreated that holy image and renewed His call that we should reflect His grace into the world.  From the holiness of God, we see that we are called to holy dedication to the Lord (Matthew 22:37), and from that holy dedication we are called to holy live (Romans 12:1).

Updated from 2/2011