The struggle is real.  The coffee-drinker must have his morning java.  But rarely is this leisurely enjoyed with a view and a nostalgic ceramic mug.  Usually it is a morning joe-on-the-go.  And therein is the crisis. For there is yet to be an adult sippy-cup that can prevent the ill-timed, ill-placed coffee spill.  Even your high-dollar status flask will always have a wonky gasket or a funky wave action.  And your disposable cup inevitably has an ill-fitted lid or compromised seam.

Perhaps you take comfort in stain-repellent or stain-resistant chemistry of modern textiles.  But the opportunity cost of repelling that permanent coffee stain on your favorite shirt may be a permanent bio-chemical “stain” in the water-supply, the food-chain, and the blood-stream.  Stains will always ruin something.  It may be merely our momentary confidence or joy.  But some stains leave a more enduring mark. 

Trauma leaves a mark on its immediate victims and on generations of families.  And sin leaves a mark so malignant and metastatic that it breaks everything that can be broken.  It creates a deep and resistant stain that nothing apart from the cleansing work of Christ can touch.  In Christ alone, God graciously cleanses us from the stain of sin and enables us to become more resistant to sin’s staining power. 

Though it often appears tedious and pedantic, Leviticus is a beautiful exposition of the grace in the gospel.  Grace which both cleanses and restrains the staining power sin.  Scottish pastor, Thomas Chalmers described the gospel as the “expulsive power of a new affection.”  And that is what Leviticus reveals.   God graciously delivers his people and calls them to walk with Him, abiding with Him.

But how can that be?  God revealed His holy character and his righteous demands at Sinai.  And the people responded with terror, the terror all men experience when rightly considering their unholiness next to a holy God.  But terror is not the last word.  God speaks again to explain what he is providing so they can be his people and live with him. 

He gives them grace.  First, through the forgiveness of sins by a Mediator.  Sacraments are instituted through a system of sacrifice to point them to the coming, sufficient work of Christ.  And good and wholesome instructions are given to help them understand what this grace looks like lived out in their daily personal, family, and community lives.  Instructions written down and inscribed on the hearts of those who love the Lord, who have been given the “expulsive power of a new affection.”

God’s people are to be different.  They are to reflect the holiness of their God, not the fashions or norms of the world.  They obey not to become holy, but because they are the Lord’s holy people.  Leviticus 17 warns them against idolatry and apathy in worship.  While Leviticus 18 instructs the people to guard the sanctity of their human relationships from lust, worldly thinking, and self-serving attitudes. 

The Lord is Lord over our relationships.  He establishes relational boundaries we are not to cross.  Contemporary culture shouts, “love is love,” and “follow your heart,” and “the heart wants what the heart wants.”   But our God says, “I am the Lord your God.  You shall therefore keep my statutes and rules; if a person does them, he shall live by them: I am the Lord.”

Few sins will stain our minds, our hearts, and our families as indelibly than crossing the boundary lines given in Leviticus 18.   These precepts are not mere ceremony, but a remarkable exposition of the Seventh Commandment.  We are warned in the New Testament.

Flee from sexual immorality.  Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

1 Corinthians 6:18-20

The larger context of this passage connects its understanding of ‘sexual immorality’ to Leviticus 18. And in Hebrews 13 we find another reference to Leviticus.

Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.

Hebrews 13:4

The word ‘undefiled’ is the same root word used in Leviticus 18 for ‘unclean.’  It is a word that means to become stained, polluted, contaminated, ruined sin.  James, the brother of Jesus, reminds us in his pointed letter.

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

James 1:27

How stain-resistant are you?  God has given us remarkable instruction in Leviticus 18 to warn us about the staining power of relational sin and of the importance of loving and honoring the boundaries the Lord has set for relationships and intimacy.  Far from prudish repression or a denial of ‘true love,’ God’s moral law is graciously given to a people under grace to restrain them from those things which might “seem right to a man, but its end is the way of death.” (Proverbs 14:12).

Join us as we examine Leviticus 18 and consider the gracious boundaries God has established for our most intimate and precious relationships.  We meet on the square in Pottsville, Arkansas right next to historic Potts’ Inn for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP or YouTube.