Daily Devotion | Leviticus 18 | 2026 February 25

Title: Daily Devotion | Leviticus 18:1–30 | 2026 February 25

Scripture: Leviticus 18:1–30 (ESV, reference only)

Date: 2026 February 25

Speaker: Rev. John Chen

Transcribed, translated & edited by: Joseph Wang (Yufan)

Alright, dear brothers and sisters, peace to you. We thank God for his grace as we come to a new day and study our Daily Devotion.

Today’s passage is Leviticus chapter 18. Let us pray. Our God, we thank you. We thank you for leading us into a holy life. Truly, we must follow you, because this world is full of impurity. Please lead us to live a life set apart, so that we may glorify you and bear witness to your holy name. In Christ’s name, amen.

Alright, today we look at Leviticus chapter 18. After speaking about the holiness of blood, the LORD then spoke to Moses these words. From here all the way into chapter 22, the LORD is teaching his people how to live a holy life.

And what today focuses on is this: how to maintain holiness in the area of sexual relations. So let us look at the opening. The LORD says, “I am the LORD your God.” You shall not do as they do in Egypt, and you shall not do as they do in Canaan. You shall walk in my rules. You shall keep my statutes, for I am the LORD your God. So you shall keep my statutes and my rules.

Then, in verse 5, the latter half says, “If a person does them, he shall live by them: I am the LORD.” Now, some people take that second half of verse 5 as a basis to treat the Mosaic covenant as a covenant of works. They say, “Look, isn’t it right there? If a person does them, he will live by them; if he breaks them, he will die. So this is a covenant of works.”

But in fact, if you place it in its context—its immediate context, and even a larger context—if you place it within the entire Pentateuch, it is very clear that this is not what it is saying. It is not saying, “If you keep these statutes, then you will live by them” in the sense that you can be justified by doing them.

Because what is included here is not only the moral law, but also ceremonial law. And the ceremonial law very clearly shows that there is an atonement system that is operating. There is a priesthood system. There is a sacrificial and atonement system that can operate when people sin.

So here, what is being taught is actually the function of the statutes and rules. The statutes and rules themselves cannot justify us. A person cannot have “righteousness by law-keeping,” because if you want righteousness by law-keeping, it requires 100% obedience—without violating even one command.

In reality, the law calls us to obey as an expression of our trust in the LORD. And we cannot keep the law perfectly, but we still must obey, and our obedience marks us as distinct from the nations. We are not justified by this; rather, this is an expression after we have been justified.

And here there are indeed some key factors that you need to slowly sort out. It is not that easy to think through. For example: if obeying the law cannot save me, why should I still obey the law? That is a question that ordinary people will ask.

And our answer is: obedience to the law indeed cannot justify us, but obedience to the law is the expression of our justification. That is to say, obedience is what a person of faith ought to have. If there is no such expression, it shows that we have not been justified by faith.

Because justification has only one way: trusting in the redemption of the Lord Jesus Christ. And in this regard, the Old Testament and the New Testament are the same.

In the Mosaic covenant, it is simply that there are so many types and shadows pointing to Christ. So the reason anyone is saved is only one reason: faith. For Old Testament believers, it was faith in the Messiah who was to come. For us, it is faith in the Messiah who has come, and we also hope for his second coming. This is the only way we are justified.

Then what does “live by them” mean? How does one “live by them”? Of course, it means living before God—living in the presence of God. We truly must obey God’s law, and we truly must show before God our obedience, as evidence that we do in fact trust in Christ.

Alright, this is a simple explanation, and we will not say more here.

So here, God requires Israel to live a life completely different from the nations. Dear brothers and sisters, we have been called—God has led us—and we must live a holy life. Our conduct must not imitate the Egyptians, and must not imitate the Canaanites. We must live a life set apart from those around us. We cannot do what everyone else does. It cannot be: “Whatever people do, we do.”

This is what Leviticus is expressing to us. Earlier, those ceremonial cleansings were symbolic. Now it begins to tell you how to hold fast in moral holiness. That is roughly the progression here.

And chapter 18 mainly speaks about holiness in the realm of sexual relations.

Why does the holiness of sexual relations come first in these reminders? First, because of the historical background. In the ancient Near Eastern world, sexual relations were extremely chaotic. You can tell from the very things it forbids. Why would God forbid these things? Because these things must have been very common among the Egyptians and the Canaanites.

So in the ancient Near East, these relations were chaotic, and it increasingly resembles modern society. In modern society, people were bad before as well, but sexual confusion has become even more obvious, even more widespread, especially in the last half-century. It has become more common through films and television. People’s concepts and thoughts have become more and more corrupt.

So that was the background then, and it is also the background now. Therefore God tells Moses: you must maintain absolute purity in sexual relations.

Here, on the surface, it does not explicitly emphasize strict monogamy, but in fact the shadow is already there. And on the matters of marriage and divorce, by the time of the Lord Jesus Christ, it is explained even more clearly.

The Lord Jesus said that Moses permitted certain things because of your hardness of heart. In the time of Moses, strict monogamy would have been unimaginable—completely unimaginable. It would have been very difficult to imagine or implement in that era. So with so much corruption, God first begins to correct them step by step: first, forbid these abominations; set boundaries; move them toward holiness.

By the time of Jesus, it is clear: there is monogamy, and there must not be casual divorce; there must not be the situation of divorcing at will.

So historically, the situation was corrupt, and what God is first setting in the direction of holiness is the stability of marriage. You can understand it this way: marriage must be stable.

And the stability of marriage is, in fact, a very important factor in the stability of the family. And family stability provides the next generation with a beautiful example. So why, in the section about living a holy life, does God begin by regulating sexual behavior and marriage? It is for this reason.

Because a child who comes out of a broken family will have a very low level of trust in marriage. Basically, they will not trust marriage. This is what we see.

Now look at China today—it is exactly like this. Marriage relationships among Chinese people are completely chaotic. Too many people are divorced. There is no longer this stable family relationship, so relationships between people become confused. You can imagine, then, sexual relations also become very chaotic. This is the condition in China now.

And it was similar back then, though it had its historical background: women’s rights were not respected, and so people acted recklessly. That is the chaos.

So God tells Moses: first you must stabilize family relations. You must not casually engage in these behaviors.

As for the specific statutes, we will not go through each one now. You can slowly read them yourselves. But you should notice: the chapter specifies very clearly whom you may not have sexual relations with, and it forbids many kinds of sexual immorality.

It also forbids homosexuality. It forbids sexual relations with animals—bestiality—which was also present in Canaanite customs.

And it also speaks about giving children to the fire for Molech. This is an idolatrous custom: offering the firstborn infant to Molech, seeking blessing from Molech—saying, “I give you my best, and you protect me: national peace, victory in war,” and so on. This is a kind of transaction with Satan, and God absolutely forbids it.

These are the statutes. Now we need to think further. These prohibitions were necessary because of the historical background, and now it is also similar. So how should we respond? We must consider: why are people so careless about marriage relationships today? I think this is something we must pay special attention to.

In our time, the seventh commandment is almost impossible for people to keep, almost impossible to implement socially. Why is it like this? Because people today have no awareness at all of maintaining holiness within marriage. They have no walls—no boundaries.

In ancient times, adultery was a very serious matter. Even in ancient China, it was treated as a serious matter. We know the motivation might not have been right, but it was serious. So why have modern people become more and more relaxed about it?

This is connected to this: of course it is China’s own corruption, but Western society has indeed brought in many very bad things. In Britain and America, in the previous two centuries, they were very devout. But later, as faith declined, there arose waves that encouraged “sexual liberation” and “sexual freedom.” Of course people love such waves, so when it came to China, people immediately accepted it and thought there was no problem.

They think, “These are just constraints people impose on themselves. These are just shackles people put on themselves. There is no issue. People should not feel moral pressure in this area.” The origin of such thinking is the weakness of faith.

People treat marriage as bondage: “I want freedom.” And where does that freedom begin? It begins with the breaking of marriage relationships: “My body, my choice. I should not repress myself. This idea of ‘repression’ is immoral.” In the West, it has already reached this point.

In the West, there were several very evil leaders who pushed such things. Freud, for example, and this so-called psychology. And there were also many novels—there is an American novel called The Scarlet Letter (the letter “A”)—which encourages this kind of thinking, making it seem as though they were treated unfairly, and so there is “nothing wrong,” right?

“My body, my choice. I can do this.” But this culture only arises after the complete abandonment of Christian civilization. It is an evil culture. People no longer feel they must answer to God. But the human body is not one’s own; the human body must answer to God.

So from this angle, we must not do these things. And therefore, in chapter 18, God first begins to restrain marriage relationships, so that people learn to maintain holiness in marriage. This is God’s intention.

When you look at everything God forbids here, you find it is related to the order of creation. You must not disrupt the created order—parents, siblings, and so on. You must not confuse or overturn the order of creation.

But also, at the level of marriage, it is a covenantal relationship. A man and a woman enter a marriage covenant. It is a relationship of mutual trust. And the most crucial thing in this covenant is fidelity—male fidelity to the female, and female fidelity to the male.

And this fidelity is an expression of trust in the covenant and commitment to the covenant. This is what God wants to preserve.

And covenant-breaking is a very weighty and very evil thing—whether physical or spiritual. God especially hates it. Why? Because it shows the destruction of covenant. If human covenants can be shattered at will, it is because people have no covenant with God. People no longer set a barrier within their hearts: “I cannot commit adultery. I cannot.” Why? Because my body belongs to God; I must answer to God.

But in this age, you can clearly see that the moral fence has been completely dismantled. Human relationships become purely transactional. Corruption in this era is even celebrated. People—so many films and television works—encourage it, even “praise” it, in quotation marks, praise and glorify it.

Now there are even films promoting homosexuality. And there are stories of so-called affairs, and people have an evil imagination, thinking that is “beautiful,” thinking marriage is a tomb, marriage is bondage, and we should escape the bondage of marriage and enter into “freedom.”

But this freedom is the freedom Satan gives. This freedom is Satan’s lie. People, in such disorder of sexual relations, are clearly under God’s curse.

Alright, yesterday I saw a news item. It seemed like Musk posted a message saying money cannot buy happiness. Of course, we can say money does not necessarily make a sinner like Musk happy. He keeps marrying and divorcing, and now he does not even marry—he has many so-called girlfriends and many children. Of course we are not just talking about him. We are the same in our corruption—we simply do not have his money. If we had more money than him, we might be even more corrupt. This kind of thing cannot truly bring what people call happiness.

True happiness—if a person is truly happy—must be in Christ, because we were created to meet God’s requirements. Alright, we will not go that far. Let us return to the text.

God restrains marriage and calls us to keep purity in sexual relations for this purpose: to teach us to keep the covenant. We must not violate covenant commitments at will. Later, God repeatedly uses bodily relations as language for spiritual reality—because it is a matter of fidelity.

You need to find a way out in this chaotic world of male-female relations, and that way out is monogamy. Although this passage does not explicitly state it, the meaning is the same: you must keep covenant. In your heart you must set a moral boundary, and that boundary must not be crossed.

Why must it not be crossed? Because we are God’s people. Our bodies belong to God. We do not belong to Satan. Our bodies are not instruments for indulging lust. Yet the flooding of lust and the chaos of sexual relations are the easiest things for people, especially in this age.

People say, “Why should I keep this? This is a moral shackle. What kind of moral ‘guardian’ is this? We want freedom.” So they begin to break the boundary.

But these things are what God hates. When God calls us to keep covenant, he gives us a first protection, a first boundary: the boundary of marriage. Within the boundary of marriage, we learn to submit to God.

We build godly families—one husband and one wife—and we follow God to live a holy life. With a stable marriage comes a stable family, and then the raising of a godly offspring. In this way, faith is passed on and established. But the opposite—a relationship without stability, without a stable family—will certainly lead to chaos. This is what we need to know.

Further, we can see God’s hatred of these things in verses 24 to 30. God says, if you do these things, I will vomit you out. The nations before you did these things, and that is why I give you this land—because they did not keep my statutes and rules, and I vomited them out. Now, if you do the same, I will also vomit you out.

Verses 24 to 30 tell us: “Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things.” The nations I am driving out before you became unclean by these things. The land became unclean. God says he punished the iniquity of the people, and the land “vomited out” its inhabitants.

So God says: I drove them out because they did these things, and if you do them too, I will also vomit you out. This is God’s word. So you must keep what I command, and you must not be defiled by these abominations.

So I think Leviticus chapter 18 reminds us: we must keep the holiness of marriage. We must not have sexual relations outside of marriage, because this is what God hates.

And God especially desires to bless us within marriage. People’s illusion is: “If I go outside of marriage, then I will truly be happy and satisfied.” But this is completely a lie. There is only curse there, only God’s wrath.

Then let us also give an example. In the law, you can see that God is not pleased with some behaviors. For example, verse 18 speaks of taking two sisters as wives. God does not approve of that.

Then you say, “But didn’t Jacob marry two sisters?” Yes—how do we understand that? In fact, in Jacob’s case, God never said it was right for him to marry two sisters. God never said that.

Leviticus 18:18 tells us that Jacob was wrong. And Jacob also bore great pain. In such a household, Jacob was not happy. Jacob with four wives was not happy. This is something we must know.

In that complex family relationship, Jacob himself endured great struggle and agony. So from this angle, when Islam uses Genesis to promote polygamy—saying one may take four wives, because Jacob did so—that has no biblical basis at all.

I mention this briefly so you notice: verse 18 already tells you that God did not approve of Jacob’s behavior. We must remember this.

May God have mercy on us, so that within holy relationships we learn to resist Satan’s temptations, and live a holy life.

Alright, today’s sharing is simple and we will stop here. Thank you, everyone.