The Geography of Holiness Text: Leviticus 20:22-26
Introduction: A Land with a Gag Reflex
We live in a time when men believe they can redefine the world according to their own disordered desires. They believe that the dirt under their feet is neutral, that the water in their rivers is indifferent, and that the very fabric of creation has no opinion about what they do in the dark. Our modern rebellion is not simply a matter of breaking a few of God’s arbitrary rules; it is a fundamental revolt against the created order. It is an attempt to declare that reality itself is infinitely plastic, and that we are the ones who get to shape it.
But the Scriptures teach us something entirely different. The Bible teaches us that creation is not a silent stage upon which we strut and fret our hour. No, creation is a witness. Creation has a character, stamped upon it by its Creator. And because of this, the land itself has a gag reflex. This is a truth that our generation has forgotten to its everlasting peril. We think we can pour out every kind of sexual perversion, every kind of idolatry, every kind of bloodguilt onto the land, and that the land will just soak it up like a dirty sponge. God says otherwise. God says the land gets sick. God says the land can't keep it down. God says the land will vomit.
This passage in Leviticus is not some dusty, irrelevant purity code for a primitive tribe. It is a revelation of the grammar of the cosmos. It teaches us that holiness is not an abstract, ethereal concept for the mystics. Holiness has a geography. It has borders. It has consequences that are as real as dirt and rocks and rain. God is telling His people, on the cusp of entering their inheritance, that their relationship to Him will determine their relationship to the very ground they walk on. Obedience means the land will be a blessing, a land flowing with milk and honey. Disobedience means the land will become their enemy, and will expel them with a violent, digestive heave.
This principle has not been repealed. The covenant has changed, the administration is new, but the Creator is the same, and His creation still operates according to the laws He embedded within it. We are being brought into an inheritance far greater than Canaan, and the same warning applies. If we adopt the statutes of the Canaanites, we will suffer the fate of the Canaanites.
The Text
‘You shall therefore keep all My statutes and all My judgments and do them, so that the land to which I am bringing you to inhabit will not vomit you out. Moreover, you shall not walk in the statutes of the nation which I will cast out before you, for they did all these things, and therefore I have loathed them. Hence I have said to you, “You yourselves shall possess their land, and I Myself will give it to you to possess it, a land flowing with milk and honey.” I am Yahweh your God, who has separated you from the peoples. You are therefore to separate between the clean animal and the unclean, and between the unclean bird and the clean; and you shall not make yourselves detestable by animal or by bird or by anything that creeps on the ground, which I have separated for you as unclean. Thus you shall be holy to Me, for I Yahweh am holy; and I have separated you from the peoples to be Mine.
(Leviticus 20:22-26 LSB)
Covenant Real Estate (v. 22)
We begin with the central warning, the premise that governs the entire passage.
"‘You shall therefore keep all My statutes and all My judgments and do them, so that the land to which I am bringing you to inhabit will not vomit you out." (Leviticus 20:22)
Notice the logic. It is not, "Keep my statutes so that I will not be angry with you." It is, "Keep my statutes so that the land will not vomit you out." God has hardwired His moral law into the very structure of the world. This is not a metaphor for divine judgment; it is the mechanism of divine judgment. When a people descends into the kind of rank idolatry and sexual chaos that characterized the Canaanites, they are not just sinning against God in heaven; they are poisoning the earth beneath their feet.
The land is a covenantal inheritance. It is not a neutral commodity to be bought and sold on an open market. It is a gift, and the gift comes with terms. The deed to the land is covenant faithfulness. When Israel breaks the covenant, they forfeit the deed. The land, in a very real sense, belongs to God, and He has leased it to His people on the condition of their obedience. When they begin to act like the previous tenants, the Canaanites, they get served with the same eviction notice.
The imagery is intentionally visceral. To be vomited out is to be violently, disgustedly, and completely expelled. It is the reaction of a healthy body to something toxic and indigestible. God is teaching His people that a society built on wickedness is fundamentally incompatible with the world He made. Our modern world thinks it can build a lasting civilization on abortion, sexual anarchy, and rebellion against God. This verse tells us that such a project is like trying to build a skyscraper on a churning stomach. It is not a question of if it will come down, but when, and the collapse will be a nauseous spectacle.
The Abominations of the Evicted (v. 23)
God then gives the reason for the eviction of the previous tenants.
"Moreover, you shall not walk in the statutes of the nation which I will cast out before you, for they did all these things, and therefore I have loathed them." (Leviticus 20:23)
The Canaanites were not being dispossessed because the Israelites were ethnically superior or because God had an arbitrary preference. They were being dispossessed because their culture had become utterly loathsome. The word "statutes" here is crucial. This was not just about individual sins. This was about codified, structured, and celebrated rebellion. Their laws, their customs, their entire way of life was an abomination. The previous chapters in Leviticus detail what these statutes were: child sacrifice, incest, adultery, homosexuality, bestiality. This was their culture. This was their normal.
And God's reaction was not one of mild disapproval. He loathed them. This is a strong, emotional word. It is a word of utter revulsion. We have been catechized by a soft, sentimental age to believe that God loves everyone and everything in a bland, grandfatherly way. But the Bible is clear. God loves righteousness and He hates iniquity. He loathes the proud, the bloodthirsty, and the perverse. And when a culture institutionalizes what God loathes, that culture is signing its own death warrant.
The warning to Israel is therefore a warning against syncretism. Do not walk in their ways. Do not adopt their customs. Do not try to find a "third way" between My law and their lawlessness. This is a zero-sum game. You will either worship Me and keep My statutes, or you will worship their gods and adopt their statutes. And if you choose the latter, you will share their fate.
Separated for a Purpose (v. 24-25)
God now reminds them of His promise and the basis of their identity.
"Hence I have said to you, “You yourselves shall possess their land, and I Myself will give it to you to possess it, a land flowing with milk and honey.” I am Yahweh your God, who has separated you from the peoples. You are therefore to separate between the clean animal and the unclean, and between the unclean bird and the clean; and you shall not make yourselves detestable by animal or by bird or by anything that creeps on the ground, which I have separated for you as unclean." (Leviticus 20:24-25)
The promise of the land is a promise of immense blessing. A "land flowing with milk and honey" is a picture of abundance, prosperity, and goodness. It is the opposite of the bondage and scarcity of Egypt. But this blessing is tied directly to their identity as a people "separated" by God. God’s sovereign act of separation (election) is the basis for their required act of separation (obedience).
This is where the dietary laws come in. Many moderns, and even many squeamish Christians, see these laws about clean and unclean animals as bizarre and arbitrary. But they miss the point entirely. These laws were not primarily about hygiene; they were about holiness. They were a daily, tangible, object lesson in separation. Three times a day, at every meal, an Israelite had to make a choice that reminded him: "I am different. I belong to Yahweh. I am not like the nations."
God separated them from the peoples so that they would be a blessing to the peoples. The dietary laws, the clothing laws, the whole ceremonial code, created a cultural barrier. It was a fence that kept them from casually assimilating into the paganism all around them. By making these distinctions in their diet, they were training their minds to make distinctions in their morality and their worship. If you cannot mix a lobster with your dinner, you will be less likely to mix Baal with your worship. The external separation was designed to cultivate an internal holiness. To make yourself "detestable" by eating what is unclean was to blur the lines that God had drawn for your own protection and sanctification.
The Logic of Holiness (v. 26)
The passage concludes with the foundational logic that undergirds everything else.
"Thus you shall be holy to Me, for I Yahweh am holy; and I have separated you from the peoples to be Mine." (Leviticus 20:26)
Here is the bedrock. The reason they are to be holy is because God is holy. Our sanctification is grounded in the very character of God. Holiness is not a set of arbitrary hoops for us to jump through. It is the imitation of our Father. We are to be like Him. Because He is separate from all sin, all impurity, and all falsehood, we are to be separate as well.
And notice the beautiful conclusion. God has separated them from the peoples for a reason: "to be Mine." This is not a separation from for the sake of isolation. It is a separation to. It is a separation unto God. He has set them apart as His own treasured possession. All these laws, all these warnings, are not the actions of a cosmic killjoy. They are the loving protections of a Father who has chosen a people for Himself and desires to dwell with them in blessing.
He is saying, "I have made you Mine. Now, live like you are Mine. Don't go back to the mud puddle. Don't dress like the slaves you were. Don't eat the garbage the pagans eat. You are royalty. You belong to the King." This is the logic of all Christian obedience. We are not obeying in order to be saved. We are obeying because we have been saved. We have been separated, chosen, and made His own in Jesus Christ.
Vomited Out or Taking Dominion
Now, how does this apply to us? The ceremonial laws, like the dietary restrictions, have been fulfilled in Christ. In Him, all foods are declared clean. The wall of separation between Jew and Gentile has been torn down. But the underlying principles have not been abolished; they have been transfigured and applied to the entire world.
The principle that the land reacts to righteousness and wickedness is still in full effect. The entire creation is groaning under the weight of man's sin (Romans 8:22). When our culture celebrates sexual perversion, the land itself is defiled. When we shed innocent blood through abortion, the blood cries out from the ground (Genesis 4:10). The plagues we see in our society, the breakdown of our families, the confusion in our culture, the ugliness in our art, the corruption in our politics, this is the land beginning to heave. It is the beginning of the vomit.
But we are not Canaanites. We are the people of God, separated in Christ to be His. We have been brought into a better inheritance, the promise of a new heaven and a new earth. The cultural mandate given to Adam, to fill the earth and subdue it, has been renewed in the Great Commission. We are to disciple the nations, teaching them to obey everything Christ has commanded.
This means that our holiness is not a retreat from the world into a pietistic ghetto. Our separation is for the sake of conquest. We are to be holy, to be distinct from the world in our worship, our families, and our ethics, precisely so that we can be salt and light to the world. We are to build a culture that is digestible to the new creation. We are to build families, churches, schools, and businesses that are "clean" and not "unclean," that are ordered according to the Word of God, not the statutes of the Canaanites.
The choice before our culture is the same choice that was before Israel. It will either be consecrated or it will be vomited out. And the choice before the Church is whether we will be the agents of that consecration, or whether we will assimilate and be vomited out with the rest of them. God has called us to be holy, for He is holy. He has separated us to be His. Let us therefore live as His, and in the power of His Spirit, take dominion of His world, for His glory.