Leviticus; The Law of Holiness and Grace

Good and Evil Relations

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Genre: Lessons with Q & A

Lesson: 48

Track: 48

Dictation Name: RR172Z48

Date: Early 70s

Let us worship God. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before his presence with singing. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise. Be thankful unto Him and bless His name, for the Lord is good. His mercy is everlasting and His truth endureth to all generations.

Oh Lord our God we come unto Thee again, rejoicing in Thy protecting care. We thank Thee that Thy Word is truth and Thy Word has given us such great assurances that our times are in Thy hands, that Thou art He who doest all things well, and that the ends of the earth shall serve Thee and praise Thee. Bless us now as we give ourselves to the study of Thy Word, that by Thy Word, we may be guided day by day and enlightened in what Thou wouldst have us to do. In Christ’s name, amen.

Our scripture is from Leviticus 20:10-21, our subject, “Good and Evil Relationships,” “Good and Evil Relationships.” We’ll read the first two verses only.

“10And the man that committeth adultery with another man's wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.

11 And the man that lieth with his father's wife hath uncovered his father's nakedness: both of them shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.”

The remaining verses in this section deal with capital offenses in the sphere of sexuality. They are, to enumerate them:

         Adultery

         Incest (verses 11-14)

         Homosexuality (verse 13)

         Bestiality (verses 15-16)

Now, as we have seen, biblical culture is family-based. There are no laws in the Bible for treason against the State, because treason is seen as action against the peace and the unity of the family. In a biblically-grounded culture, the family is the basic and the central institution. However, in our culture, it is the State, and therefore treason is associated with the State.

Modern culture, however, sees things in terms of evolution, not in terms of morality. And because we have abandoned the moral criteria, we refuse to judge anything in terms of such a criteria, except the State. And morality, after Aristotle, is defined in terms of the State. Aristotle first wrote his politics and then defined ethics in terms of the political order. For this reason, for example, we are assured in the newspapers almost daily that to take a moral stance with regard to Aids and homosexuality is wrong. However, if we take a stand against the prevailing liberal Statism, we are immoral. It’s the only criterion in terms of which morality can be applied.

In modern culture, the State is all-important, and therefore it has pre-empted every sphere including ethics. Many of the offenses against the family (in fact, virtually all) are now denied the status of an offense at law. More than that, Biblical Law and the family are seen as primitive. Evolution began with the family, and then the clan, or tribe, and then step-by-step developed to the nation-state and now it must develop to the world state. This is the kind of thinking that prevails, and of course, a great many film stories are based on the premise that it must extend out into the cosmos to all the possible creatures that exist there. The family to the State therefore, is seen as progress, and thus for the Bible to make treason an offense against the family is seen as wrong, as primitive. But to make treason an offense against the State, from the perspective of scripture, is Totalitarianism. It is socially destructive, because it says there is no escaping from that rule, that authority.

There are several terms that are used in this passage, this text, verses 10-21, which are very important:

First, one that we are familiar with, “to see one’s nakedness” is a term for consummation of a sexual union.

Bestiality, of course, we are familiar with. We need to recognize that in antiquity, it was required as a religious act, because paganism assumed (what again, science assumes) evolution. And therefore, the only source of social revitalization was to go to the source of power, which was not above to God, but downward to chaos. And so you had the ritual cults of chaos, the Saturnalia, periodically once a year from two or three days to two weeks to re-vitalize society. Then, too, as a part of worship one performed various acts of perversion, including bestiality in order to change one’s luck. That was the expression. It was the source of revitalization. And that has persisted in the modern world and is sometimes applied to bestiality, sometimes to sexuality downward. Then we need to recognize that the modern temper has opened the door to such activities. Given the fact of evolution, the old order paganism is returning. It is notable that in the 1970s, San Francisco periodicals advertised animals trained for such acts.

Then the word ‘abomination’ means “offensive to God and also to man.” It means “filthy, repugnant, detestable.” Where it applies to things human, it has almost the connotation of feces.

‘Wickedness’ means “unchastity, adultery, incest and also idolatry.”

In verse 20 and 21, we have a reference to the fact, “They shall die childless,” having reference in this place and elsewhere to certain types of illicit union. It does not mean in our sense of the word that they cannot have children. It means that no child can be legitimate, born of such a union, that such a child can never inherit, that if they have any estate, it must be the relatives that inherit, so that they die childless legally; there is no legitimate heir. This is a very important fact. The very word ‘childless’ here comes from a root meaning “stripped” in the Hebrew, stripped of posterity, stripped of legal status, having no standing before the Law. To understand the implications of this we must realize that in the Bible, inheritance is to the godly seed. One must not give any inheritance, nor was it legally permissible to an ungodly heir or to one born of a union such as incest.

Now in verse 17 we have another very, very important usage. “If a man shall take his sister, his father’s daughter, or his mother’s daughter and see her nakedness” (consummate union) “it is a wicked thing and they shall be cut off in the sight of the people.” The word ‘wicked’ here is a very unusual one. In Hebrew it is ‘hesed.’ In almost every instance in the Bible, it means “righteousness, loyal kindness.” Over and over again, hundreds of times, the Bible speaks of God’s hesed in His covenant relationship to His people. It is a result of His covenant promise and of His oath. It represents His loyalty to His people. Articles have been written, and to my knowledge, there is at least one book just on this word. How God’s hesed is manifested to His people and what it means. It means loyalty, mutual aid, reciprocal love, and much more. In case involving people, as here, the hesed relationship exists where God’s Law governs, relatives by blood or marriage, related clans and related tribes, host and guests, allies and their relatives, friends, rulers and subject, and those who have gained merit by rendering aid and the parties thereby put under obligation. Thus, wherever loyalty and love exist in a godly relationship, one which is governed by God’s Law, hesed has a good meaning. It means loyalty and love of a godly sort. But where the love or the loyalty is evil (as in the case of incest cited in verse 17), there this love or loyalty or hesed automatically takes the sense of evil, of wicked, and it’s so translated. So that the word ‘loyalty and love’ (hesed) has a meaning that is determined by the context. So that as Christians if we love one another, or as members of a family, a godly family, we love one another, it has in the sight of God a meaning of a righteous relationship, a righteous feeling. But if we manifest love and loyalty towards the ungodly, or in an ungodly sexual relationship, then the meaning automatically is that it is wicked; a very, very important point. Thus, love can be good or evil, depending on its relationship to God’s Law. All loyalty and all love outside of God’s Law are evil.

Sexual acts without the sanction of God’s Law, in such cases and an uncle’s wife, are called “uncovering the nakedness” of an uncle, or a brother, because the sexual act makes the man and the woman one flesh, a person’s nakedness is that of their spouse also. On all this there’s an important fact, because in many, many cultures, permission to use a wife or a husband is regularly granted, as though marriage were no more than a personal contract between two parties. But this is not so in scripture, obviously. Because marriage is not a human contract but it is of God’s ordination and for His creatures as for His purposes. Therefore, no human agreement outside His Law has any validity. No human love or loyalty outside His Law has any validity, it becomes evil. It becomes wickedness. And the same word is used for both relationships and it depends on whether it is God-oriented and under God’s Law or outside of God’s Law.

This is why all such unions that are forbidden by God have no standing, nor do the children born of them. As Langey a century ago or more commented, “Obedience to God’s Law is required simply because it is His will.” Obedience to God’s Law is required, simply because it is His will, and so God says we cannot idealize or exalt love or loyalty to cover anything, as though love were always good. And this is very important, given the modern mythology of love, which says that love is always good, and it’s the cure, the panacea for all human relations. Of course, this is what the hippy revolution celebrated, this kind of thinking, with their love-ins.

Now all this points to a very important distinction. In the Modern Era, particularly since John Locke, the primary purpose of Secular Humanistic law has been to protect life and property. This, Locke said, was the function of the State. But in this task, the State has not been too successful and has very often been a threat to life and property, because the State, in Locke’s thinking, and as a result of his thinking, is separated step-by-step from God. In God’s Law, although life and property are protected, the primary of purpose of His commandments is the kingdom of God and our dominion under Him. As a result, God’s Law and man’s law have very sharply differing purposes. Just as man’s love under God and man’s love outside of God have sharply differing purposes.

Now it is noteworthy that the antinomians are usually ready to admit that the offenses of Leviticus 20:10-21 as well as other offenses in these chapters are sins which are radically destructive of a society. In fact, there are many Humanists who would agree that these are offenses which are socially destructive. What they object to in these laws, as in almost everything in the Mosaic Law, is the penalty. Just as they want, as one writer in the 30s declared, “God without thunder” (and wrote a book with that title), so they want sin without penalties, a morally indefensible position.

One of the things I think is very interesting in these days as we see what’s happening in the economic sphere, in the political sphere, in the sphere of health, AIDS for example, herpes, that somehow their god without thunder never materialized. He was going to be the god for the 20th century, and their god is dead. “God without thunder”—a god of pure love, is dead. It is the living God that we have to do with, and He says sin has its penalties.

In verse 14, there is a reference to being burned with fire and this has reference to cremation after executions, a common feature of Old Testament life, because the thesis was that the land was to be rid of them totally; not even their bodies to be given space.

In verse 12 we are told of the act of incest, that they have “wrought confusion,” which has been paraphrased by some contemporary so-called translators as “they have committed an unnatural act.” Now, this rendering like so many in modern translations is absurd, because it stresses a departure from nature, whereas the text stresses the transgression of God’s order. And there is a difference between a transgression of nature and a transgression of God. Nature, after all is fallen. Men are sinners, and they’re doing what comes to them naturally when they sin. And this is the key: the Law protects God’s life-giving order, whereas the sins which are cited lead only to death for any society. These laws do not call for our personal evaluation and judgment, but for our submission. God sets forth for us the ways of life and death and leaves us without excuse.

Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God, Thy Word is truth, and Thou hast summoned us in all things to live under Thee and in terms of Thy Word. We thank Thee oh Lord that Thou art a ‘God with thunder.’ And we thank Thee that the impotence of the faith of the ungodly is now being shattered, that the false gods are disappearing, and Thou shalt stand forth, Thy Word vindicated, and Thy people blessed and prospered. Guide us, oh Lord in the way of faithfulness and bless us all the days of our life. In Christ’s name, amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson?

Yes.

[Audience] Well when the educational system teaches that perversion is a variety of normality, it’s really an attack against Christianity. And in the meantime, I’m very struck by your comment that sin has been transferred to the political sphere. I think that’s very pertinent because time and again we read it’s a sin for the United States or the American people to criticize any group anywhere in the world excepting the Christian.

[Rushdoony] Yes. We will not tolerate a religious dimension—a Christian dimension to sin any more. It cannot be defined biblically. It is politicized. The Soviet Union of course is the epitome of all of this, because in the Soviet Union you are a very evil man if in any way, or to any degree, you differ from the State and its policies. And you are put into the hell of the slave labor camps.

[Audience] It’s the transference of religious attitudes into political attitudes.

[Rushdoony] Yes. In his early writings, Karl Marx spoke of the necessity of doing this. He said ah, men inescapably require a heaven or a hell, and therefore, we must create a new doctrine looking forward to a heaven and putting people in hell who disagree with us. And then we will provide them with the moral order they want. This is in his early writings which were published, oh, about thirty years ago by, I think Bottomly—edited, translated, edited.

[Audience] So this is the total theft of religion…

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience] …and a deliberate attempt to bring the transcendent to earth in terms of political goals.

[Rushdoony] Yes. And he was quite open about doing it. He, he ah used the analogy of heaven and hell.

Are there any other comments or questions?

[Audience] Well, Liberalism promised this.

[Rushdoony] Yes, yes. This is what the press is doing all the time. We are the people of hell, and what they’d like to do is put us in some kind of hell.

[Audience] Well, they’re doing that.

[Rushdoony] Yes. [Laughs] They’re doing it to themselves, most of all! [Laughs]

Well, let us bow our heads now in prayer.

Our Lord and our God, we rejoice in Thy Government. We thank Thee that there is not an atom in creation apart from Thy government, that the nations and their secret enclaves are not outside Thy government and Thine over-ruling Providence shall make even the wrath of man praise Thee and all things work together for good for Thy kingdom and Thy people. Make us joyful, that Thou art on the throne and that Thy work is being accomplished through men and nations. 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.