Guarding the Gates of Life: Blood, Nakedness, and Barrenness Text: Leviticus 20:17-21
Introduction: The Grammar of a Holy People
We live in an age that despises definitions, detests distinctions, and declares war on all boundaries. Our culture is in a frantic, suicidal rush to erase every line God has drawn in His creation. They want a world without categories, a humanity without natures, and a sexuality without a blueprint. The result is not liberation, as promised, but a descent into the primordial chaos, the tohu wa-bohu that God first ordered with His Word. They are trying to unspeak God's world.
Into this deliberate confusion, the book of Leviticus speaks with a bracing and unwelcome clarity. For the modern reader, particularly a squeamish modern evangelical, the holiness code is often a source of embarrassment. We treat it like a crazy old aunt in the attic of Scripture whom we'd rather not talk about. But this is the Word of God, and it is given to us for our good. These laws are not arbitrary. They are a divine pedagogy, a massive, immersive audio-visual aid designed to teach a redeemed slave people what it means to be holy, as their God is holy. God was teaching His people to think His thoughts after Him, and this meant learning to make distinctions. This, not that. Holy, not profane. Clean, not unclean. Life, not death.
The laws concerning sexual purity in Leviticus 18 and 20 are the very heart of this instruction. Why? Because sex is at the heart of our identity as image-bearers, male and female. And the family is the central building block of the covenant community. To corrupt the family is to poison the nation at its source. These laws are not a random collection of taboos; they are a defensive perimeter around the sacred institution of kinship. They are the divinely established grammar for a holy people. To violate this grammar is to speak destructive nonsense into the life of the community. Our passage today deals with a handful of these crucial prohibitions, and in them we see God's concern for covenantal integrity, the sanctity of the bloodline, and the consequences of rebellion.
The Text
‘If there is a man who takes his sister, his father’s daughter, or his mother’s daughter, so that he sees her nakedness and she sees his nakedness, it is a disgrace; and they shall be cut off in the sight of the sons of their people. He has uncovered his sister’s nakedness; he bears his guilt. If there is a man who lies with a menstruous woman and uncovers her nakedness, he has laid bare her flow, and she has uncovered the flow of her blood; thus both of them shall be cut off from among their people. You shall also not uncover the nakedness of your mother’s sister or of your father’s sister, for such a one has made naked his blood relative; they will bear their guilt. If there is a man who lies with his aunt, he has uncovered his uncle’s nakedness; they will bear their sin. They will die childless. If there is a man who takes his brother’s wife, it is an impure act; he has uncovered his brother’s nakedness. They will be childless.’
(Leviticus 20:17-21 LSB)
Poisoning the Well (v. 17)
The first prohibition strikes at the heart of the nuclear family.
"‘If there is a man who takes his sister, his father’s daughter, or his mother’s daughter, so that he sees her nakedness and she sees his nakedness, it is a disgrace; and they shall be cut off in the sight of the sons of their people. He has uncovered his sister’s nakedness; he bears his guilt.’" (Leviticus 20:17)
The language of "uncovering nakedness" is a Hebrew idiom for sexual intercourse. But it is more profound than that. It speaks of laying bare something that God intended to be covered and protected. A sister's nakedness is to be covered by the honor and protection of her father and brothers, not uncovered by the lust of one of them. To do so is a "disgrace," the Hebrew word is hesed, but used here in its negative sense, a shameful, loyal-disloyalty. It is a grotesque violation of the covenant of kinship. It turns a relationship of protection into one of predation.
This sin is not a private matter. The penalty is to be "cut off in the sight of the sons of their people." This is excommunication. This is spiritual amputation. The offender is to be publicly excised from the covenant community because their sin is a cancer that threatens the entire body. They have introduced chaos into the most basic unit of society, and the community must act to quarantine the infection. The final phrase, "he bears his guilt," means he is responsible before God and must live with the consequences of his sin, both temporal and eternal, unless that guilt is taken by another.
The Fountain of Life (v. 18)
Next, the law addresses a matter of ceremonial purity that is deeply connected to the symbolism of life and death.
"‘If there is a man who lies with a menstruous woman and uncovers her nakedness, he has laid bare her flow, and she has uncovered the flow of her blood; thus both of them shall be cut off from among their people.’" (Leviticus 20:18)
For the modern mind, this seems like a strange, perhaps unhygienic, taboo. But God is not giving a lesson in public health. He is teaching theology through biology. In Scripture, blood is the symbol of life. "The life of the flesh is in the blood" (Lev. 17:11). Therefore, the loss of blood is a picture of death. A woman's menstrual cycle, the "flow of her blood," rendered her ceremonially unclean because it was a tangible, monthly reminder of the curse of death that entered the world through the fall. It was a physical picture of life flowing away.
To have sexual relations in this state was to treat a sign of the curse with contempt. It was to trample on the divinely appointed symbols that distinguished life from death, clean from unclean. This was a "redemption law," a part of the ceremonial code that taught Israel profound truths through physical rituals. It pointed to the fact that we cannot approach God or engage in the life-giving act of marriage while in a state of uncleanness. Both parties are held responsible, and both are to be "cut off," excommunicated for their contempt of God's holiness.
Confounding the Kin (v. 19-21)
The final three prohibitions extend the principle of incest to the wider family, and introduce a chilling divine judgment.
"‘You shall also not uncover the nakedness of your mother’s sister or of your father’s sister, for such a one has made naked his blood relative; they will bear their guilt. If there is a man who lies with his aunt, he has uncovered his uncle’s nakedness; they will bear their sin. They will die childless. If there is a man who takes his brother’s wife, it is an impure act; he has uncovered his brother’s nakedness. They will be childless.’" (Leviticus 20:19-21)
These laws build a protective wall around the extended family. Notice the logic: to lie with your aunt is to uncover your uncle's nakedness. Sexual sin is never an isolated act between two individuals. It is a corporate offense. It dishonors the "one flesh" union of the uncle and aunt. It tangles the branches of the family tree into an unnatural and confusing mess. It is an "impure act," a confusion of categories that God hates.
And here the penalty is stated differently. They will "bear their guilt," and they will "die childless." This is not a civil penalty to be carried out by a magistrate. This is a direct curse from God. The Lord Himself will intervene and render the union barren. This is a profound form of divine justice. The act of procreation is a gift from God, intended to build up families and fill the earth. These sins are so contrary to the created order, so anti-family, that God declares them to be anti-life. He will not bless such a union with the fruit of the womb. The sin that confuses the family line will result in the termination of that line. It is a dead end street, by divine decree.
From Curse to Cleansing
Reading these laws should do two things. First, it should give us a profound respect for the beautiful and intricate order of God's design for human sexuality and family. These are not arbitrary rules for ancient nomads; they are the foundational grammar for a flourishing society. When a culture abandons this grammar, as ours has, the result is the babble and chaos we see all around us.
But second, and more importantly, this holy law should drive us to our knees. This is God's standard. This is what holiness requires. And we have all fallen short. Our sins may not be as lurid as these, but our hearts are just as unclean. We have all "borne our guilt." We all stand under the curse of the law. We all deserve to be "cut off" from the presence of the holy God. Our lives, apart from grace, are spiritually "childless," bearing no fruit for God.
This is why the gospel is such glorious news. The entire ceremonial system of clean and unclean, of blood and separation, was a giant arrow pointing to Jesus Christ. In the New Covenant, cleanness has become contagious. When the unclean woman with the issue of blood touched Jesus, she was not cut off; she was made whole. He did not become unclean; He made her clean.
On the cross, Jesus Christ took the full penalty for lawbreakers like us. He was "cut off" from His people, cast out of the city, and forsaken by His Father so that we might be brought in. He "bore our guilt" in His own body on the tree. He took the curse of barrenness upon Himself, dying without physical offspring, so that He might become the firstborn of a new creation, bringing many spiritual sons and daughters to glory. The law shows us the depth of our sin and the holiness of God. The gospel shows us the depth of God's love and the power of Christ's blood.
Therefore, we do not discard this law as irrelevant. We uphold it as holy, just, and good. We uphold it because it shows us the beauty of God's created order, an order we should strive to reflect in our families and churches. And we uphold it because it magnifies the glorious grace of our Savior, who did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it, absorbing its righteous curse on our behalf, and clothing us in His perfect, unblemished righteousness.