Leviticus 18

It would not have been safe for the men of Israel to model their sexual practices after the people of Egypt or the people of Canaan. The Lord gave them specific rules that they were to follow. His statutes were a pathway for new life in this important aspect of human behavior.

Much of what God had to say in this area came in prohibitions spoken especially to males. This is important to consider. Men needed to be constrained in their desires. They needed to understand the word “no.” Societal taboos for Israel were supposed to come from the Lord's good statutes.

The people of God could not “uncover nakedness” of a close relative. This was a good precaution. Too much liberty in nakedness among sinners leads to bondage. The nakedness of a person was not for just anyone based on his own desire. Your father had your father's wife. Sisters were not for you in that way. Neither were daughters or granddaughters. A girl brought up in your home was not for you. Girls needed to be safe from the desires of relatives. An aunt was not for you. You could not have a woman and her daughter or granddaughter. Men would develop depraved attachments unless they were stopped. They needed to know that some connections were wrong in God's eyes and were therefore prohibited.

God's people needed to restrain themselves from certain sexual practices. When a woman was ceremonially unclean, her husband was not to lie with her sexually. This was mentioned in a previous chapter, together with the way of cleansing if this rule was violated.

To lie sexually with a neighbor's wife was never allowed. To sacrifice your children to pagan sexual practices was never allowed. To lie with a male as with a woman was never allowed. To lie with an animal in some sexual way was never allowed.

At the end of this long list, mention is made of something a woman should not do. She must not give herself to an animal. All of the other commandments were about what men must not do.

To be like the nations around them in any of these practices would be to “make yourselves unclean.” God was removing these nations from the land because of their unclean practices. Their behaviors were not worthy of imitation.

The Lord was unwilling to yield to the sexual preferences of men. Israel was to be different than the other nations. Not only would the sons of Jacob be subject to these statutes. Anyone who was a visitor had to restrict his behavior in the same way.

The facts about prohibited male sexual behaviors were clearly presented here for all to consider both in Israel and in any nation that would hear Israel's laws: 1. God was throwing the nations out of the land in part because of a lack of sexual restraint among their men. 2. Israelite men were prohibited from following this undisciplined example. 3. If the men of Israel ignored this warning, the Lord promised to remove them from the land as well. 4. Those who did these things would be cut off from the Lord's people.

This rule that put limits on sexual expression was not optional. The Lord considered the behavior of the Canaanites abominable. These prohibited ways of life had become customary to them. This was unclean before God.

The Lord identified Himself personally with these prohibitions. He told the people He had redeemed from the land of Egypt that they must never make themselves unclean in this way, and then He followed those words with a solemn announcement: “I am the Lord your God.” Lack of discipline here could be fatal to individuals and to the nation, but it was also a violation of relationship with God.

There are two visions of male sexual expression, and they are not compatible with each other. One looks at life as a man's playground. He wants to be at liberty to try everything he can think of toward the goal of his own enjoyment. The alternative is a vision with the courage to say that some pleasures are not allowed.

Saying no to unlimited sexual self-expression is not just about sex. It is about learning necessary habits of self-denial and passing those on to the next generation of boys. When the King of the Jews came to die for His bride, He did not present a vision of unbridled sexual fulfillment in this life or the next. If anything, He showed a fuller picture of restraint than we might have learned from this chapter in Leviticus. His celebration of marriage was based on the one man-one woman pattern of Genesis 2. Men needed to say no not only to undisciplined actions but even to undisciplined sexual contemplations. Christ's love for His bride was exclusive, pure, and good. His symbol of that love for the church was not the bed, but the cross.

It is never too late to take the chains of unbridled passion off of our necks and to accept the alternative of the self-denying love of Christ. Many have made that choice. Many who have made mistakes more than once have found the grace again to make a new start. In terms of all sexual sin it can certainly be said, “Such were some of you.” But we have been washed of all uncleanness by the blood of the Lamb.