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As we continue to read through the books of the Law, we are going to continue to read things that strike us as extremely odd and that have traditionally been confusing to Christians. Do we follow these laws, how did Christ fulfil these laws, and overall, just Why? Why were these laws for Israel in the first place?
Leviticus 18 provides a list of sexual ethics that for the vast majority of them, we would today think were pretty obvious, Leviticus 19 covers a bunch of various laws that range from the seemingly reasonable, “do not deceive one another” in verse 11 to the puzzling, “do not plant your field with two kinds of seed” in verse 19, or, “do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on them. I am the Lord.” of verse 28 and many others. To up the ante, Leviticus 20 talks about prescribed penalties for certain sins, which strike us today as extremely harsh. What is going on? Luckily, we don’t have to search very far. The Scriptures themselves give us the justification for most of these laws, but unfortunately the reasoning seems to go unnoticed by a lot of people.
Several passages give reasons, like Leviticus 18:24-28
“Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled. Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. But you must keep my decrees and my laws. The native-born and the foreigners residing among you must not do any of these detestable things, for all these things were done by the people who lived in the land before you, and the land became defiled. And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you.”
Or take Leviticus 20:22-24
“Keep all my decrees and laws and follow them, so that the land where I am brining you to live. May not vomit you out. You must not live according to the customs of the nations I am going to drive out before you. Because they did all these things, I abhorred them. But I said to you, “You will possess their land; I will give it to you as an inheritance, a land flowing with milk and honey. I am the LORD your God, who has set you apart from the nations.”
So, these laws of God were not thought of in a vacuum, God was not establishing Israel based off of an ideal society, instead he was creating rules for them based off of known practices of the cultures surrounding Israel. God did not want Israel to mimic the morality of other nations. He wanted Israel to be different. He routinely calls it being set-apart and being holy because He is a holy God. Altogether different from the other gods and people.
“Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled.”
Leviticus 18:24
While a lot of these laws seem really odd to us, ancient Israel knew where they were coming from, and we can be sure that they made a lot of sense in their time and context. So no, these laws are not laws for Christians because we are not ancient Israel, we are not in that kind of covenant relationship with God. We are in a different covenant relationship with God that is arbitrated by Christ Jesus. His righteousness is applied to us. Now that we are saved, we want to make ourselves more like Christ, following Him instead of sinful humanity. This new nation of God that we are a part of, this Kingdom, is multi-cultural. One set of rules would not work for Christians, anyway! The record of the Jerusalem council in Acts 15 recognized this, as well.
God had been saving Gentile people of different cultures and filling them with His spirit outside of Judaism (or the Old Covenant). I think this is why the only constraints the Church gave to the new Gentile coverts seems to have been quite general and against pagan culture of that day – not to engage in idol worship in any way, to honor God as the source of life, and to not engage in any sort of sexual immorality. Like Israel, Christians are called to be holy like God is holy, however, because of our diverse cultures, that may look a little different from culture to culture.
So, back to the Law recorded in the Hebrew Bible, many of these seem strange to us because they are from a very ancient time. Their purpose was to distinguish Israel from the other nations that existed at the time. And even though this law was absolutely a critical part of the covenant between God and Israel, I find it interesting that the Bible itself does not advocate for just following the law without heart, enthusiasm, or thought. Instead, we see Moses talking about how the Law needs to have an inward expression in their lives rather than be outward action only (Deut. 30:6), and in Psalm 1, we see a righteous man being described as someone who does not just follow the law but who also meditates on it, drawing joy from contemplating it.
Corie Bobechko is a daily co-host, speaker, and writer of Bible Discovery. She also hosts a YouTube channel that shows how history and archaeology prove the Bible. Her heart for seekers and skeptics has led her to seek truth and share it with others. Corie also has a Bachelor of Theology from Canada Christian College.
