Leviticus 18:22 - You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination.
It should be noted before discussing Leviticus 18:22
(and 20:13) that there is a mixing of different types of laws in the
Pentateuch of Moses. In other words, there are some chapters within the Bible that intermingle different
types of laws (Enns 59). We need to understand that there were three different
types of laws: Moral, Civil/Judicial and Ceremonial law. Moral law has to do with
God’s very character. God is holy, unchanging and moral. It is founded
primarily in the Ten Commandments but is not restricted to them. God’s holy
attributes then become the measuring stick by which we are to live or lives.
Civil or judicial law reveals social concerns in that they showed the
Israelites how to live in relation to their neighbors and within the kingdom.
These deal more with things like property rights and how to deal with orphans
and widows. Ceremonial law dealt with the tabernacle, duties of priests,
sacrifices, etc. (Enns 59).
The Leviticus passages noted here fall under the Holiness Code and are emphatic about what constitutes purity and therefore fall under
theological grounds (Seow 18-19). When we say holiness we mean a separation or
distinctness from the other nations that surrounded Israel (therefore their
behaviors too). It is holiness or the idea of being set apart for God’s use
through His covenant with them which they agreed to at Mt. Sinai (Bellinger 125,
Wenham 280). One must be careful how they categorize these laws as the
penalties for each vary greatly. The Holiness relates to purity, which
inter-species breeding or sexual abomination destroys …i.e.: Gen 1:24-25, "of
the same kind." If sacrificial animals (or even people) are in view here
these laws could have been put in place in order to stop inter-breeding between
acceptable sacrificial animals and those that were not so that the offspring
which would’ve been unacceptable for sacrifice wouldn't be inadvertently used
for sacrifices. This would've been an unacceptable or polluted sacrifice and
would've been considered cheating God (Malachi 1). In the case of interbreeding of people we
would see things like birth defects.
Plants/seeds were not to be mixed either. Mixture of seeds and the
resulting mixture would be hard to separate at harvest, so it was better to
keep them separate from the beginning (Baker 147).
Then we come to our homosexual passages we see a
breakdown of the ordained biblical family unit and further degradation of
society at-large (Bellinger 111, Wenham 278). At a more spiritual or
allegorized level, banned mixtures symbolize the holiness of God's covenant
people, who are to keep themselves separate from their pagan neighbor’s
behaviors (Canaanites, Egyptians), maintaining the demarcation between clean
and unclean as regards people. What we see here are people that are supposed to
be set apart from the other nations for use by God. If we follow the line of
reasoning elsewhere in Scripture, the Israelites (like Christians) are to be a
nation of priests among the people of the world. To be engaging in sexual
immorality we become polluted sacrifices instead of living sacrifices (Romans
12) for God.
In these situations under the Law (before Christ) God
has stipulated a capital punishment to prevent this type of behavior and act as
a deterrent (Deut. 19:19-20) (Grudem 509, Wenham 283). Any illicit sexual
relationship outside marriage was unacceptable (Leviticus 20:10) because
the participants were breaking a covenant or covenantal relationship and the
death penalty was required by God for both parties (Baker 154).
In the cases of mixing fabrics or seeds in Leviticus
19, there is no death penalty as these are examples of intermingling of laws in
the same passage. In the case of Leviticus 19:19 these laws fall under the
ceremonial law as they are directed towards priestly boundaries (Bellinger
119). Mixtures of cloth like those mentioned in Leviticus 19:19 were banned
except, apparently, for a priest of God or the intercessor or intermediary with
God, whose ephod in Exodus 28:6; 39:2 and breastplate in Exodus 28:15 and 39:8
were of mixed material. We even see that the curtains of the Tabernacle were of
mixed material Exodus 26:1. Therefore the ban was restricted to what? It was
restricted to laity, with the fabric mixture only being permissible for the
divine realm or holiness realm (Wenham 148). As such they did not warrant
capital punishment.
When looking at Leviticus 18:1-30 what is seen is a
list of improper sexual relations (Wenham 255). In a metaphorical sense, these
relations also should be understood as illicit relations (idolatry) between
Israel and foreign gods (Baker 135, Jenni 1429). People that God had brought
out of Egypt are not to do like the Egyptians and nor are they to be like the
Canaanites whose land God is leading them to.
Moses then starts listing out the prohibitions clearly
related to sexuality. These prohibitions are directed to אִ֥ישׁ אִישׁ֙ / ‘iysh
‘iysh or “every man.” The prohibitions that follow are directed to males as
this would’ve been the practice of giving the Law to the head of the family
that would’ve been a man (Baker 128-129). The males addressed were to “not
approach” לֹ֥א תקרבו (Hebrew euphemism for sexual relationships), the בְּשָׂר֔וֹ
“kin or blood relative” or the “שְׁאֵ֣ר “flesh of him.” Understood properly it
translates to: The men being addressed were not to have sex with close
relatives in incest and the Scripture then lists them (v.7-18). There is a
comment about Molech (v.21) and then the passage climaxes in prohibition
against homosexuality and bestiality (v.22, 23) as below (again for reference):
Leviticus 18:22 ~ You shall not lie with a male as one
lies with a female; it is an abomination.
The prohibition is directed at men (v.6) and they
are told to not lie with a male as one does with a female. This implies that
lying with a female is proper (within the confines of marriage which is
biblical) as the prohibition is against a same-sex lying down with. The word
lie (down) here תִשְׁכַּ֖ב/ shakab is of course a less subtle euphemism for
sexual relations. What is also interesting is the use of words here if we use
the Greek Septuagint that would’ve been familiar to Paul the Apostle. In the
Septuagint we see the use of the words ἄρσενος
/ arsenos / male and κοίτην / koiten / bed
which we will later see used as a compound Greek word by Paul in 1 Corinthians
6:9 in the form of ἀρσενοκοῖται or homosexual (Brenton 153).
The next statement from the Scripture is distinct and
unambiguous. For a male to have sex (lie) with another male as if he is a woman
is תּוֹעֵבָ֖ה /an abomination (to abhor, to hate) or a disgusting thing to God.
God literally hates this sin (as He does all sin). Therefore to commit the sin is to deliberately incur Gods wrath. It logically follows that
they will fall under God’s judgment (Harris 977). The connotations of this word
are the same as they would be when used in the context of idolatry also. We get
the idea here that God views homosexuality and idolatry as being the same
(Jenni 1429). A sin whether is it in a ritualistic/religious sense or sexual sense…is
the same. It is abhorrent and an abomination to God.
As with all passages in the Bible, we cannot take
them in isolation or ripped from their proper context. Leviticus 18:22 makes
more sense when viewed in the context of the whole chapter and the Law in
general. As noted earlier, in terms of the Law, we are viewing the holiness
code for daily living. What we see specifically in Chapter 18 of Leviticus is a
predominate theme that there is to be tight regulations and guidelines on what
is considered moral sexual conduct for Israel (believers). We see what amounts
to distinct familial boundaries within the larger confines of covenant with God
Himself. It is evident that these sexual prohibitions were/are to strengthen
what God considers the proper family structure both in the human relationship and
the one with the divine (Bellinger 111).
The prohibitions to make sure people
were set apart and to avoid mixing. Any violations of these statutes in
Leviticus 18 would potentially lead to inbreeding. In the case of rampant
homosexuality, the decay of the family unit and eventual destruction of the
proper God ordained model of marriage/family which was the heterosexual
relationship (Genesis 2, Ephesians 5). A heterosexual relationship that was
capable of producing offspring. In the large scheme of things a society that
was properly being made up of the smaller building blocks of families would
similarly suffer and dissolve in the face of the dissolution of a biblically
defined family unit (Bellinger 113). When we combined the Leviticus 18 passages
with other Scripture such as Genesis 2:23-24, Proverbs 5:15-20 and Ephesians
5:21-33 we see that heterosexual marriage ends up being the only biblically
permissible locus for sexual relations. Leviticus 18 then ends with an exhortation
to maintain holiness.
"For whoever does any of these abominations, those
persons who do so shall be cut off from among their people. Thus you are to
keep My charge, that you do not practice any of the abominable customs which
have been practiced before you, so as not to defile yourselves with them; I am
the Lord your God.’”
This chapter is a call to holiness in proper non-incestuous,
non-adulterous, non-homosexual relationships and in proper non-idolatrous
relationship with God (a concept that will be revisited in detail in Hosea's prophecy). To
violate these statutes is to be cut-off from the benefits of covenant
relationship both with God’s people and inexorably God Himself as we will see
in the Minor Prophets (Bellinger 114). We will also see the idea of being
cut-off in the New Testament with the incestuous relations in Corinth in 1
Corinthians 5.
John Boswell in his pro-homosexual book Christianity, Social
Tolerance, and Homosexuality agrees that the passages of Leviticus 18 and 20
are intended to differentiate God’s chosen people from the pagans among whom they
had been living such as the Canaanites (Boswell-Kindle Location 2793-2794). He then
goes on to downplay the severity of the word תּוֹעֵבָ֖ה / abomination to mean
something less than intrinsically evil such as rape or theft. Instead Boswell
portrays homosexuality as being something that is ritually unclean or ethnic
contamination for Jews, like eating pork or engaging in intercourse during
menstruation (Boswell-Kindle Location 2786-2788, White et al-Kindle Location
586). What is interesting to note is what Boswell does not say or what he
remains silent about. He does not say there is no prohibition against
homosexuality. As a matter of fact he concurs that homosexuality is mentioned
in the context of prohibition (Boswell-Kindle Location 2796). Some advocates of
homosexuality go as far as to claim these prohibitions do not apply to us today
as they only applied to the Jews under their civil laws (White et al-Kindle
Location 588-590). This misses the point of what Jesus said about Himself and
the Law in Matthew 5:17.
Matthew 5:17 "Do not think that I came to
abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.
What these viewpoints fail to recognize is by
reducing homosexuality to irrelevancy and viewing them as an exclusively Jewish
matter like Jewish dietary laws, is that they are decontextualizing from Scripture. To state that eating
pork is similar to homosexuality is a complete mis-framing of the context. Eating pork is a ceremonial dietary
restriction that God did away with in the new dispensation inaugurated by
Jesus’ advent. God has repealed these laws in lieu of Jesus. Prohibitions on
homosexuality has never been abolished or done away with. Nowhere in Scripture
has the intrinsic immorality of homosexuality been repealed or abrogated (DeYoung
55, White et al-Kindle location 718). This is because God still detests homosexuality
because it is something offensive in the moral sense. It is not just an infraction
against a purity rule (DeYoung 55).
This is where framing the law and types of
punishments becomes critical since eating pork and sex during menstruation did not warrant a capital punishment in the Mosaic law and is therefore deemed a lesser offense to
God in terms of punishment.
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