Yes, it’s been a while since I blogged here. I’ve been working on a message for next Sunday. And I’ve been meditating a lot on Leviticus 18-19 and the laws there.
I won’t get into it here, but I think it’s instructive as you go through those passages to underline in different colors words like “unclean,” “perversion”, “abomination,” and “depravity.” (That’s the ESV version. The words may be slightly different in your translation).
Look at what are listed under those categories, and how the punishments are different for those categories.
There are a lot of arguments nowadays on how we as Christians should view these things and how consistent we are on those views.
The main thing that I will point out here is that there does seem to be a fundamental difference between what is listed as merely “unclean,” and what is listed as “perversion,” “abomination,” and “depravity.”
There is of course, overlap. What is perversion, abomination, and depravity all make you unclean. But it seems to me that not all that were unclean for the Jews, are “perversion,” “abomination,” and “depravity” in God’s sight.
Other words to look at are “iniquity,” “whoring,” “profane,” and “disgrace.”
But what strikes me is that time and again in chapters 20-22, God says, “I am Yahweh who sets you apart.”
Often times, he couples that with another thought: “Consecrate yourselves and be holy.”
Sometimes that is explicitly said, other times, it’s said in slightly different ways.
“Don’t profane…”
“Keep my instruction…”
“Keep my commands.”
In short, there are two things to note:
- We have already been set apart by God and for God. He has saved us and made us his own.
- As people that have been set apart, we are to live that way. We are not to go back to our old way of life, doing things our way, but doing things his.
But it’s that first point that drives the second, not the reverse.
We don’t live differently from the world so that God accepts us. Rather, we live differently because God has already chosen us.
We have tasted his love for us. We know that we he has adopted us as his children. And in response, out of our love for him, we live like his children.
Reversing that order leads to legalism and frustration.
Keeping that order leads to a life lived by grace.
Moment to Moment (Bible blog) 