Leviticus 18:1 - Meaning and Application

After several ceremonial laws, God now turns back to moral commands. The ceremonial laws still mattered as pictures of greater truths, but the moral laws still bound the people as clear duties. Here we see, first, the holy authority behind these laws: “I am the Lord your God” (Leviticus 18:1, Leviticus 18:4, Leviticus 18:30), and “I am the Lord” (Leviticus 18:5, Leviticus 18:6, Leviticus 18:21). The Lord has the right to rule everyone, and he has a special right to rule his own people.

The name Jehovah shows that God is the source of all being and all power. Because we belong to him, we must serve him, and he is able to punish all disobedience. He is also “your God,” the One they had agreed to follow, the One in whom they found their happiness, and the One to whom they owed the greatest obedience and answerability.

Second, God gives a strict warning not to keep the leftover sins of Egypt, where they had lived, or take in the corrupt ways of Canaan, where they were going (Leviticus 18:3). As God taught them his statutes through Moses, there was something they had to unlearn, things they had absorbed in Egypt like milk from childhood. Egypt was known for idol worship, so God says, “You must not do as they do in Egypt.”

It would have been foolish to keep following the customs of the land of bondage as if those customs should shape their worship. It would also have shown great ingratitude to God, who had rescued them so wonderfully. And they were also in danger of doing the same thing with Canaan, taking on its wicked ways along with its land. So God warns them, “You must not walk in their rules.” Custom can become such a tyrant that sinful habits are treated like laws, and even God’s people can be tempted to take their direction from them.

Third, God gives a solemn charge to keep his judgments, statutes, and ordinances (Leviticus 18:4, Leviticus 18:5). David seems to have this kind of charge in mind in Psalm 119, where he so often prays about and speaks of God’s law. The main rule of obedience is simple: we must keep God’s statutes and judgments, and walk in them. We should keep them in our minds, in our hands, and in our lives, so that we actually do them.

We must remember God’s commandments in order to obey them (Psalm 103:18). We are to stay in them as our road, follow them as our guide, and value them as our treasure and as carefully as the apple of our eye. There is also a great promise linked to this obedience: “If a man does them, he shall live in them.” That means he will be happy here and forever.

We should thank God that this promise still stands, with a gracious understanding of what is required. If we sincerely keep God’s commandments, even though we do not reach sinless perfection, we will find that the path of duty is also the path of comfort and happiness. Godliness still has promise for this life and the life to come (1 Timothy 4:8). Wisdom still says, “Keep my commandments and live.” If, by the Spirit, we put to death the sins of the body, which were to Israel like the customs of Egypt, we shall live.

At the same time, this promise is no longer a covenant of works, which would shut out anyone for the least failure. The apostle uses this verse to describe the righteousness that comes by the law, “The man who does them shall live in them” (Romans 10:5), and to show that the law is not based on faith (Galatians 3:12). The gospel changes the last part of the promise. The one who does God’s will shall still live, but not live by his own perfect obedience.

The law could not give life, because we could not keep it perfectly. It was weak because of our sinful nature, not because the law itself was bad. Now the one who does God’s will lives by faith in the Son of God. He owes his life to Christ’s grace, not to the merit of his own works (Galatians 3:21, Galatians 3:22). The just shall live, but they live by faith, because they are united to Christ, who is their life.