No Neutral Ground in the Nursery Text: Leviticus 20:1-5
Introduction: The High Cost of Cowardice
We live in an age that prides itself on its tolerance, its open-mindedness, and its refusal to judge. Our high priests in the media, the academy, and the government preach a gospel of non-judgmentalism from every available pulpit. But this modern tolerance is a sham. It is a thin veneer of civility painted over a deep and abiding hatred for the holiness of God. And nowhere is this more apparent than in how our culture treats its children.
We are told that to insist on God's law is barbaric, and yet we live in a society that has sanctioned the industrial-scale slaughter of the unborn, sacrificing them on the twin altars of convenience and sexual autonomy. We are told that the laws of Leviticus are primitive, and yet our enlightened age catechizes our children into sexual confusion and spiritual nihilism through its schools and entertainment, sacrificing their innocence for the sake of a bankrupt ideology. This is nothing new. This is the ancient worship of Molech, dressed up in modern, therapeutic language. Molech always demands the children.
Into this sophisticated paganism, the book of Leviticus speaks with a terrifying and bracing clarity. Leviticus is the book of holiness. It is about the great chasm that separates the Creator from the creature, and the requirements for a sinful people to dwell in the presence of a holy God. The laws here are not arbitrary suggestions for personal improvement. They are the boundary markers of the covenant community, the fence that keeps the wolves out and the sheep safe. This passage in particular deals with an ultimate abomination, a sin so vile that it threatens the very foundation of the covenant nation. It establishes that when it comes to the life and death of children, and the honor of God's name, there is no neutral ground. A community will either be holy, or it will be judged.
What God requires here is not just personal piety, but corporate responsibility. He demands a community that refuses to look away, a people who will not tolerate the intolerable. This is a hard word for a soft generation like ours, but it is the word of the living God. And it shows us that the highest form of love is not a sentimental tolerance of evil, but a holy intolerance of that which defiles God's sanctuary and profanes His name.
The Text
Then Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, "You shall also say to the sons of Israel: 'Any man from the sons of Israel or from the sojourners sojourning in Israel who gives any of his seed to Molech shall surely be put to death; the people of the land shall stone him with stones. I will also set My face against that man and will cut him off from among his people because he has given some of those who are his seed to Molech, so as to defile My sanctuary and to profane My holy name. If the people of the land, however, should ever turn a blind eye to that man when he gives any of those who are his seed to Molech, so as not to put him to death, then I Myself will set My face against that man and against his family, and I will cut off from among their people both him and all those who play the harlot after him, in playing the harlot after Molech.'"
(Leviticus 20:1-5 LSB)
The Ultimate Inversion (v. 1-2)
The command begins with the ultimate authority:
"Then Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, 'You shall also say to the sons of Israel: Any man from the sons of Israel or from the sojourners sojourning in Israel who gives any of his seed to Molech shall surely be put to death; the people of the land shall stone him with stones.'" (Leviticus 20:1-2)
This is not a suggestion from Moses. This is the unvarnished word of Yahweh. The sin described is giving one's "seed," one's offspring, to Molech. Molech was an Ammonite deity whose worship involved the ritual sacrifice of children by fire. This is the absolute inversion of God's covenant. God gives children as a blessing, as an inheritance (Psalm 127:3). The first command in Scripture was to be fruitful and multiply. Molech worship takes God's greatest blessing and offers it to a demon in a desperate, selfish attempt to secure prosperity, power, or some other fleeting good. It is the creature sacrificing a life made in God's image to a false god for the sake of the self. This is the logic of hell.
Notice that the law applies equally to the "sons of Israel" and the "sojourners." When it comes to fundamental holiness and the sanctity of life, there is one law in God's land. This is not a multicultural paradise where every man gets to define his own morality. If you come to live among God's people, you live by God's rules. You don't get to bring your child-sacrificing demons with you. God's holiness is territorial.
The penalty is absolute: "shall surely be put to death." And the means of execution is significant: "the people of the land shall stone him with stones." This is a corporate act. The community that was threatened by this defilement is the very instrument of its cleansing. This is not mob violence; it is the solemn, judicial responsibility of the entire congregation. By casting the stones, the people were publicly declaring their allegiance to Yahweh and their utter repudiation of Molech. They were saying, "This filth has no place among us."
The Divine Antagonist (v. 3)
But the human court is not the only court. God Himself is the primary offended party.
"I will also set My face against that man and will cut him off from among his people because he has given some of those who are his seed to Molech, so as to defile My sanctuary and to profane My holy name." (Leviticus 20:3)
To have God "set His face against you" is one of the most terrifying phrases in all of Scripture. It means you have become God's personal enemy. He is no longer for you; He is actively, powerfully, and righteously against you. Even if the human court fails, the divine court will not. God will personally see to it that this man is "cut off."
And here we are given the two central reasons why this sin is so catastrophic. First, it "defiles My sanctuary." The sanctuary, the tabernacle, was the place where God's holy presence dwelt in the midst of the people. Such a heinous sin, committed by a member of the covenant community, was like dumping toxic waste into the Holy of Holies. It pollutes the land and makes it impossible for a holy God to dwell there. God will not live in a garbage dump.
Second, it "profanes My holy name." To profane something is to treat it as common or worthless. When a man who bears the name of Yahweh sacrifices his child to a demon, he is making a public theological statement. He is declaring to the watching pagan world that Yahweh is no better than Molech, that He is a god who can be appeased or manipulated by the same disgusting rituals. It slanders the character of God. It is cosmic treason and blasphemy of the highest order.
The Sin of Complicity (v. 4-5)
The passage then turns from the perpetrator to the community, and this is where it gets uncomfortable for us.
"If the people of the land, however, should ever turn a blind eye to that man when he gives any of those who are his seed to Molech, so as not to put him to death, then I Myself will set My face against that man and against his family, and I will cut off from among their people both him and all those who play the harlot after him, in playing the harlot after Molech." (Leviticus 20:4-5)
Here is the sin of the turned eye, the sin of cowardly complicity. The temptation for the people would be to avoid the mess. Executing a neighbor is hard. It's divisive. It's unpleasant. It's much easier to pretend you didn't see, to mind your own business, to say, "Who am I to judge?" This is the voice of the serpent, counseling a false peace at the cost of holiness. This is the sin of the modern evangelical church, which is so terrified of offending the world that it refuses to obey the clear commands of God regarding church discipline.
But God will not be put off by such cowardice. If the community fails to act, God acts. And notice how the circle of judgment expands. God sets His face not just against the man, but "against his family." Sin is a contagion; it is a spiritual gangrene. And the judgment extends to "all those who play the harlot after him." Idolatry is consistently described in Scripture as spiritual adultery, as harlotry. It is cheating on the God to whom you are bound in covenant. Those who tolerate the idolater, who enable him by their silence, become participants in his harlotry. They have joined the same spiritual brothel.
A community that tolerates the worship of Molech becomes a Molech-worshipping community. And God promises to cut off not just the initial sinner, but the entire network of idolatrous sympathizers. God is a jealous God. He will not share His glory, or His people, with another.
The Gospel Over the Fire
This is a hard and bloody passage. It deals with a hard and bloody sin. So where is the gospel here? It is found precisely in the severity of the judgment. The penalty for profaning God's name and defiling His sanctuary is to be cut off, to be put to death, to have the face of God set against you.
And we must confess that we are all idolaters. We may not have literally passed our children through the fire, but we have all, in our hearts, sacrificed the honor of God on the altar of our own desires. We have all played the harlot, chasing after the idols of comfort, security, reputation, and control. We have all profaned His holy name by our disobedient lives. And the just penalty for our sin is to be cut off forever.
But the good news is this. On a hill outside Jerusalem, God the Father took His only, beloved Seed, His Son Jesus Christ, and did not spare Him. On the cross, God set His face against His own Son. Jesus was "cut off from the land of the living" (Isaiah 53:8). He endured the full, concentrated, holy wrath of God that we deserved for our cosmic treason. He became a curse for us.
Why? So that He could cleanse a sanctuary. Not a sanctuary made with hands, but the sanctuary of our defiled hearts. He shed His blood so that we, the spiritual harlots and Molech-worshippers, could be cleansed, forgiven, and made holy. He took the stoning we deserved.
Therefore, our response is not to be embarrassed by a passage like this, but to be humbled by it. We must see the ugliness of our own sin in the fires of Molech. We must flee to the cross where the only acceptable sacrifice was made. And having been cleansed by that blood, we must then constitute ourselves as a holy people. As the church, we are God's sanctuary in the world today. We must not defile it with a cowardly tolerance of evil. We must, with loving and firm discipline, refuse to "turn a blind eye" to that which profanes the holy name of the one who bought us. We must set ourselves apart, not out of self-righteousness, but out of a profound gratitude for the God who did not cut us off, but rather, in Christ, welcomed us home.