Leviticus; The Law of Holiness and Grace

Abomination and Confusion

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Genre: Lessons with Q & A

Lesson: 35

Track: 35

Dictation Name: RR172T35

Date: Early 70s

Let us worship God. This is the confidence we have in Him that if we ask anything according to His Will, He heareth us. Having these promises, let us draw near to the Throne of Grace, with true hearts, in full assurance of faith. My voice shalt Thou hear in the morning, oh Lord, in the morning will I direct my prayer unto Thee and will look up.

Let us pray.

Oh Lord, our God, we give thanks unto Thee for the blessings of the week past. Thy hand is ever upon us for good, and Thou art gracious and good unto us who so often cannot be good unto ourselves. Our God, we thank Thee. We come into Thy presence mindful of Thy mercies, rejoicing in Thy love, and confident in Thy government. Guide us in the way that we should go, and make us more than conquerors through Christ our King. In His name we pray, amen.

Our scripture this morning is Leviticus 18:20-23. Leviticus 18:20-23. And our subject, “Abomination and Confusion.” Leviticus 18:20-23,

“20Moreover thou shalt not lie carnally with thy neighbour's wife, to defile thyself with her.

21 And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech; neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the Lord.

22 Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.

23 Neither shalt thou lie with any beast to defile thyself therewith: neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down thereto: it is confusion.”

These verses were titled by Dr. Wenham, an English scholar, “Other Canaanite Customs to be Avoided.” We would have to say, however, that the heart of the matter is verse 21, the prohibition against Molech worship. Molech (or ‘Molok,’ or ‘Melek,” or “Milcom”) worship could mean that the children were given to the state authorities to be trained as male and female prostitutes. And this law is set in the midst of laws concerning illicit sexuality. It could mean, as it did for example, in Carthage at a later date, child sacrifices, and it at times meant that in Canaan. But Molech did mean “king,” the king as god—it was state worship. And as a result, what it involved was that every family had to pass their children, their seed, through the fire to Molech. The child was taken to a state sanctuary and there over a little fire of coals, not enough to burn anything seriously, it was held and passed over, to be dedicated to the State, to become the property of the State, to be used by the State, to give its life for the State; in other words, to be the child of the State.

Why then is State worship set in the context of sexual sins? The connection is this: Molech worship shifts the center of the moral universe from God to the State. We see in it the centrality of Humanistic concerns, the enthronement of Man and of the State. Thus, wherever we find the State gaining priority in the minds of men over God, we have Molech worship. That’s why Molech worship is singled out again and again in the Law as a culminating abomination, as something that is the epitome of evil. It means that Man gives himself, his property, his life, his substance, continually sacrificing it for something short of God. Now, the State, under God, has a legitimate place. But not as God! As a result, it is singled out as a great moral perversity. And hence, it involves a particular offense against God.

We see it today in a variety of forms. Just recently, I read an article in the American Spectator, by a man named Finn, on Cultural Conservatism. In the context of this article, he said that it was ridiculous to assume that in a country with so many non-Christians, we could have any kind of sound cultural advance in terms of a Christian program. Therefore on pragmatic grounds we needed to make alliances with others and therefore be ready to move forward in terms of a pragmatic position. We have that kind of cultural conservatism, pragmatic cultural conservatism, in the state of California, and Mr. Honig, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction. He has come out with what many have charged is an ultra-Conservative platform of Values Education in the schools. It actually includes a few passages from the Bible, namely the Sermon on the Mount. However, it calls for a unity of all people, a consensus so that we work together without frowning on what is a particular practice of another, including sexual preferences. So with the AIDS epidemic increasing, this Cultural Conservatism that is going to be promoted in the State Schools of California includes acceptance of the homosexuals. The essence of any such position is compromise—the triumph of the lowest common denominator.

Now this is why Molech worship is singled out as so great an evil again and again in scripture: it gives priority to all political and pragmatic considerations and it is thus the analog of all the sexual sins cited in Leviticus 18. It’s the only non-sexual law in this chapter. But it is set in this chapter because all these practices involve Man’s rebellion against God and his will set against God’s moral law.

This too is what Paul talks about in Romans 1:16-32. Men who will not live by faith, he says, change the truth of God into a lie. They enthrone the will of the creature rather than the Word of the creator. And this, he says, is the greatest act of perversion. And it leads logically to the burning out of man, which he says, is homosexuality. And he says that all such receive that recompense of their error which was their meet, that in their bodies they received their punishment. There is no reason to suppose that AIDS may not have occurred often in the past. The Roman poet, Catallus belonged, as his admiring translator Horace Gregory has written, to a bi-sexual sect. Where, Gregory says, “Sex and madness, art, beauty, grief, guilt, slander, and even murder were accepted as the order of the day or night.” What Gregory does not add but is very obvious from the poems, is that disease was also the order of the day or night.

In Leviticus 18:21, Molech worship is condemned. And we are told in the concluding verses of this chapter, as we shall see next time, that this burning out of man leads to the defilement of the earth and the expulsion of man from the land.

Turning now to the first of these verses, verse 20; adultery in the Bible is sexual relations with a married or betrothed woman. For the unbetrothed, for fornication, the penalty was the payment to the girl of the dowry of virgins, as Exodus 22:16, 17 and Deuteronomy 22:28, 29 make clear. So that whether marriage followed or not, the girl was compensated. The penalty for adultery was death for both because in a biblical culture, the family is the basic institution and treason is treason against the family. This was not true in Canaanite society, because Canaanite society was not family-oriented, but State-oriented, and treason was against the State, not the family. Adultery was not only not treasonable; it could even be a religious duty. And that went also for homosexuality and bestiality.

In Proverbs 6:27-33, we have a passage which is a commentary on these verses concerning adultery which is presented as both self-defilement and stupidity. We read,

“27 Can a man take fire in his bosom and his clothes not be burned?

28 Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned?

29 So he that goeth in to his neighbour's wife; whosoever toucheth her shall not be innocent.

30 Men do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry;

31 But if he be found, he shall restore sevenfold; he shall give all the substance of his house.

32 But whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding: he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul.

33 A wound and dishonour shall he get; and his reproach shall not be wiped away.”

According to an Orthodox rabbi, Hertz, who comments on this passage, “This prohibition is so vital to human society that it is included in the Ten Commandments immediately after the protection of life, as being of equal importance with it.”

In Verses 22 and 23, we have the condemnation of homosexuality and bestiality. The two are properly one sentence. The two terms that are applied to them are ‘abomination’ and ‘confusion.’ Confusion means, “the disturbance and violation of the order of nature; something repulsive.” Abomination is a like word for ‘filth.’ Both are acts of chaos. In religions of chaos, man seeks revitalization culturally and personally through acts of chaos, through acts that violate the normal order, because only such is there a revitalization of society. And in such cultures in antiquity there were saturnalias, or festivals with lightning which survive still in some parts of Europe. During that time, all laws were discarded. In fact, there had to be the systematic violation of all moral law in order to revitalize society. Herodotus gives us examples of this from antiquity, witnessing public bestiality in the Mendisian District of Egypt as a religious act, Allianus and Plutarch reported like religious festivals. Here, the penalty is death, as in Leviticus 20:13 and Romans 1:32 and elsewhere, and the same applies for bestiality according to Leviticus 20:15 and 16 and Exodus 22:19.

The order of nature is God-created. These acts violate God’s Law and purpose. And yet, we actually have commentators who say these laws were given to fit the Israelites, the Hebrews at a particular stage of their development and are not valid moral laws for all time. In fact, just in the past fifteen years, we have had probably a bookcase at least full of books published by prominent scholars claiming that the Bible does not condemn homosexuality. Their works are masterpieces of evasion and confusion. The sodomites are twice called dogs in the Bible, in Deuteronomy 23:18 and Revelation 22:15. And according to some scholars, the same term is applied to lesbians.

And yet we live in a time when the rights of homosexuals are argued and rights are given to those with AIDS so that it is now a protected disease. All sinners want privileges, and now we believe in giving them. We have a new hagiography, that is, saint’s legends, concerning homosexuals. In different parts of the country, people have told me of stories on front pages which present the experiences of a dying homosexual as though he were a saint, and some kind of martyr. For example, in the Stockton Record of January 30, 1987, the death of a homosexual with AIDS is described—not the first story on his dying. The dying man spoke at times of the possibility that God was punishing him. But he dismissed all such thoughts saying, “But then I might be interpreting it wrong. I’ve always brought happiness and love to everyone I met. It’s what’s in your heart. Only you know how close you are to God and God knows it and that’s it.”

Notice that the idiocy of talking about’ you can’t just a man unless you know what’s in your heart and how can you know’ is now being parroted by these homosexuals. They claim in their heart to be right with God. But our Lord says, “By their fruits shall ye know them.” This same dying man, in speaking of his flamboyant lifestyle as a homosexual (in San Francisco), and the word ‘flamboyant’ was given by the newspaperman after his account of what he had done, but the dying man said, smiling, “I’ve had a wonderful life.” When he died, his mother said, “My baby boy has gone to God.” (He was in his forties.) So it is today, the moral order is turned upside-down. But when you begin with pragmatism, where else can you end? On pragmatic on grounds, you can justify anything under the sun.

We find, in verse 21, “..Neither shalt thou profane the name of Thy God; I am the Lord.” This occurs repeatedly, this statement, in Leviticus. To profane is to make unholy. The opposite of holiness is profanity. It is the unclean. Leviticus 10:10 as we saw earlier requires that we put a difference between the holy and the unholy, between the clean and the unclean. Holiness is the required condition of approach to God and it requires cleanness in all our lives. While uncleanness is tied to sin, there is a difference. Sin comes from within; uncleanness comes from without. Both pollute. It is a man’s moral duty to avoid both.

Cleanness is essential to holiness. In the Law, washing purifies one from many forms of uncleanness. And baptism thus symbolizes this cleansing. That is, as Titus 3:5 tells us, “ the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost,” as Titus 2:14 declares, “Christ gave himself for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.” Redeeming us from iniquity, from evil, from sin and purifying us from all uncleanness. These laws are given to make us holy and to keep us from defilement.

Profanity—living outside of God, living in terms of pragmatic considerations can mark a man who believes he’s a good and moral man. Profanity literally means, “Outside the temple; outside of God.” And so you can be in favor of all things that a godly man who is faithful to the Law of God is in favor of. But if you do so on pragmatic grounds, you are not holy. You are profane. Profanity leads to uncleanness, to blindness, to judgment, and to death. This is the witness of all of scripture.

Let us pray.

Thy Word is truth, oh Lord, and Thy Word speaks to our times and to all times. Give us grace to hear and to obey. Thy Word oh Lord declares that he earth shall be cleansed of iniquity, that Thy judgment will do what men will refuse to do. Give us grace therefore on the day of cleansing and of judgment to know that it is Thy Will that is being done, that Thy kingdom may come and be in power on earth as it is in Heaven. We thank Thee our Father, for Thy government. In Christ’s name, amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson?

Yes.

[Audience] Since these injunctions out of the Old Testament, how is it that the various branches of Judaism have not protested against their abandonment?

[Rushdoony] Why is it that the various…?

[Audience] …branches of Judaism, the {?} I see no signs of protest either from the bulk of the Christian church or Judaic groups.

[Rushdoony] Yes, ah, the mainline churches, as you say, and Conservative and Reformed Judaism are not protesting. And the Orthodox Jews, no one will even go to listen to what they have to say. Just as, ah, a few years ago when, ah, a group of Orthodox rabbis excommunicated Kissinger, it was never in the press. So, today, any, ah statement affirming these things is {?} down. I would say the intensity of hatred for anyone affirming these things has only increased in the past decade. Precisely as we are seeing the truth of God’s Word made more and more obvious, the hatred of a contrary voice is very vocal.

Yes.

[Audience] That just happened to Pastor Cole in Sacramento at the Capital Christian Center. He was preaching a sermon three, four weeks ago, and in the sermon he made a passing reference to homosexual practice being condemned by the scriptures and it was nothing more than a passing reference, he spent no more than about 20-30 seconds on it. Turned out that someone in the congregation reported it to the local media, and, ah, the media carried a news story in which they said that Pastor Cole was condemning homosexuals, that he was condemning, said they were not Christians, could not be Christians and a whole list of things, and then they said, ah, and Channel 3 approached Pastor Cole’s office for his commentary, ah Pastor Kroll refused to discuss the matter.

Well, two days later, Pastor Cole went on Channel 3 live and confronted the journalists with their lies, because in point of fact, he never said any of those things he was charged with, and it was a very, very embarrassing moment, one of the few times in my life I’ve ever seen a pastor go on the tube, ah, on the television tube and confront a journalist with lies. But he documented their lies, he said, ‘you said this, this, this and this. I never said any of those things.’ He says, but that doesn’t dismiss the fact that homosexuality is still wrong and the scripture condemns it. He said, ‘I didn’t preach on homosexuality, and I didn’t preach on homosexuals being condemned or any of that nature, but someone inferred that from what I said,’ he said, ‘I still say that homosexuality is wrong and scripture condemns it. But you people falsely reported everything I said.’ And it was a very very, one of the most embarrassing moments I’ve ever seen for a news journalist on television. So Pastor Cole, at least, is, ah, {?} to go after the opposition once in a while.

[Rushdoony] Well, that’s very good because Glen Coles is a very mild-mannered person. Ah, someone on one particular issue called the leading rabbi in New York City, Orthodox rabbi, about their opinion, and he simply referred them to scripture and said, “What other opinion can an Orthodox man have? When the Bible has said it, and we believe it, why do you need a separate statement?”

Any other questions or comments?

Well if not, let us bow our heads in prayer.

Our Lord and our God, we thank Thee that Thy Word is truth, and Thy Word never returns unto Thee void but it accomplished that which Thou hast ordained. We give thanks unto Thee that Thy Word has been spoken and Thy Word stands sure, and Thy Word again and again throughout the centuries has accomplished Thy purpose and is again at work so that the things that are might be shaken so that only those things that re unshakeable might remain. Great and marvelous are Thy works, oh Lord, and we praise Thee. And now go in peace. God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost bless you and keep you, guide and protect you this day and always. Amen.