The Foundation of a Sane Society Text: Leviticus 18:1-5
Introduction: A Tale of Two Cultures
We live in a time of profound cultural confusion. The moral guardrails have not just been removed; they have been gleefully dynamited. What was considered shameful a generation ago is now celebrated with parades, and what was considered honorable is now derided as bigotry. Our society is adrift, and the reason it is adrift is that it has rejected its anchor. It has forgotten its God. When a nation forgets its God, it does not become neutral; it becomes insane. It begins to worship gargoyles.
The book of Leviticus, and this chapter in particular, is God's blueprint for cultural sanity. It is often dismissed by modern Christians as an irrelevant and dusty legal code, full of strange prohibitions. But this is a catastrophic mistake. This is not a rulebook for a defunct historical society. This is the Creator's instruction manual for how human beings are to flourish. And this chapter, which deals with the bedrock issue of sexual morality, begins not with a list of prohibitions, but with a declaration of ultimate authority. Before God tells us how to live, He tells us who He is. He is establishing the ground of all being, the premise upon which all law and all life must be built.
This passage is a declaration of war against two rival cultures: Egypt and Canaan. Egypt represents the world system you came out of, the bondage of your past. Canaan represents the world system you are entering, the constant temptation of your future. God is telling His people that they are to be a third culture, a holy nation, utterly distinct from the paganism on every side. There is no syncretism, no blending, no middle ground. You will either walk in the statutes of Yahweh or you will walk in the statutes of Canaan. You will have God's law or you will have chaos. You will have life or you will have death. This is the choice set before Israel then, and it is the choice set before the Church now.
The Text
Then Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, "Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, 'I am Yahweh your God. You shall not do according to what is done in the land of Egypt where you lived, nor are you to do according to what is done in the land of Canaan where I am bringing you; you shall not walk in their statutes. You are to do My judgments and keep My statutes, to walk in them; I am Yahweh your God. So you shall keep My statutes and My judgments, which if a man does them, he shall live by them; I am Yahweh.'"
(Leviticus 18:1-5 LSB)
The Unargued Premise (v. 1-2)
The entire structure of a sane world rests on these opening words.
"Then Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, 'Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, "I am Yahweh your God."'" (Leviticus 18:1-2)
Notice what God does not do. He does not offer a series of philosophical arguments for His existence. He does not present empirical evidence. He does not invite a debate. He simply declares who He is. "I am Yahweh your God." This is the ultimate presupposition. This is the axiom upon which all reality is built. All morality, all law, all meaning begins here. To deny this is not to become a neutral observer; it is to become a fool who says in his heart there is no God. You cannot build a coherent worldview on any other foundation.
This is not just a generic declaration of a distant deity. It is a covenantal declaration. He is Yahweh, the covenant-keeping God who rescued them from Egypt. And He is your God. This is not the god of the Canaanites or the Egyptians. This is the God who has bound Himself to you in a covenant of grace. Therefore, His commands are not the arbitrary whims of a tyrant; they are the loving stipulations of a Father and the wise decrees of a King who has redeemed His people for Himself. His authority is absolute because His identity is absolute, and His claim on them is personal because His redemption of them was personal.
The Great Antithesis (v. 3)
Having established His authority, God immediately draws a sharp, non-negotiable line in the sand.
"You shall not do according to what is done in the land of Egypt where you lived, nor are you to do according to what is done in the land of Canaan where I am bringing you; you shall not walk in their statutes." (Leviticus 18:3 LSB)
This is the principle of antithesis. God's people are to be defined by what they are not, just as much as by what they are. They are not Egyptians. They are not Canaanites. The word for "statutes" here refers to engraved customs, the deeply ingrained cultural habits and laws of a people. God is commanding a radical counter-culture. He is not telling them to simply avoid a few bad behaviors. He is telling them to reject an entire way of life, an entire worldview.
Egypt was the house of bondage they had left. Its ways were the ways of slavery and idolatry. Canaan was the promised land they were entering, but it was filled with the allure of sexual deviancy and pagan worship. This is a perfect picture of the Christian life. We have been saved out of the Egypt of our sin, but we now live in the Canaan of a fallen world, a world that constantly pressures us to conform to its statutes. The command is clear: do not assimilate. Do not imitate. Do not blend in. You are a holy nation, a peculiar people. Your customs, your laws, your family life, your sexual ethics must be utterly different, because your God is utterly different.
The Positive Commission (v. 4)
It is never enough to simply be against something. A vacuum will always be filled. God replaces the statutes of Canaan with His own.
"You are to do My judgments and keep My statutes, to walk in them; I am Yahweh your God." (Leviticus 18:4 LSB)
The Christian life is not a life of negation but of positive, active obedience. We are not just to refrain from walking in the ways of the world; we are to actively "walk in" the ways of God. This is a path, a way of life. His "judgments" and "statutes" are not burdensome restrictions designed to crush our joy. They are the pathways to true freedom and flourishing. They are the manufacturer's instructions for the human machine.
And notice how God brackets this command. He began by saying, "I am Yahweh your God," and He ends the positive command the same way. This is the foundation and the motivation. Why should we obey? Because of who He is. He is the sovereign Lord of the universe, and He is our redeeming God. Our obedience is the necessary and grateful response to His identity and His grace.
The Promise of Life (v. 5)
Finally, God attaches a promise to His command. This is not a threat, but a glorious invitation.
"So you shall keep My statutes and My judgments, which if a man does them, he shall live by them; I am Yahweh." (Leviticus 18:5 LSB)
Here is the great divide. The statutes of Egypt and Canaan are a culture of death. The sexual chaos that this chapter goes on to forbid, incest, adultery, homosexuality, bestiality, leads to personal degradation, familial collapse, and societal ruin. It is the path of death. In stark contrast, God's law is the path of life. To "live by them" means to flourish, to thrive, to experience blessing in every area of life, from the individual heart to the family to the nation as a whole. A society that honors God's design for sexuality is a society that will be blessed with stability, health, and prosperity. A society that follows Canaan's statutes will rot from the inside out.
Now, the apostle Paul quotes this very verse to make a profound gospel point (Rom. 10:5; Gal. 3:12). He shows that if life is to be earned by the law, the law must be kept perfectly. But no fallen man can do this. The law, therefore, shows us our sin and our inability, acting as a schoolmaster to drive us to Christ. Jesus Christ is the only man who has ever kept these statutes perfectly. He is the true Israelite who lived by them completely. And by faith in His perfect obedience and atoning death, we are given His life. The life the law promised but could not give because of our sin, Christ provides by grace.
So we do not now obey these laws in order to get life. We obey them because, in Christ, we have already been given life. Our obedience is not the root of our salvation, but the fruit of it. We joyfully walk in His statutes because they are the shape of the very life He has purchased for us. They are the pattern of sanity in a world gone mad. We obey because we are alive, and we want to show the dying world what true life, found only in submission to Yahweh our God, actually looks like.