Theological term
Levirate Law
10 sermons · All terms
The Misc. Laws and Laws of Sexual Immorality
Deuteronomy 22 presents a body of Mosaic legislation covering miscellaneous civil duties and laws governing sexual morality, each rooted in the moral law summarized in the Ten Commandments. The first half of the chapter (verses 1–12) addresses property rights, gender distinction, ecological stewardship, safety precautions, and ceremonial mixtures — all concrete applications of the love command and the Decalogue to life in covenant community. The second half (verses 13–30) addresses premarital unchastity, adultery, and the critical distinction between the rape of a betrothed woman and the seduction of a consenting single woman, a distinction obscured by some English translations but essential to a fair reading of the text. Throughout, the threefold division of the law — moral, ceremonial, and judicial — provides the lens for identifying what carries permanent moral weight, what was fulfilled in Christ, and what expired with the Israelite commonwealth while leaving principles of general equity for civil application.
The Seventh Commandment, Part 1
The seventh commandment — 'You shall not commit adultery' (Deuteronomy 5:18) — presupposes and protects the divinely ordained institution of marriage, which Scripture grounds in three purposes: the mutual help of husband and wife, the increase of mankind through procreation, and the prevention of uncleanness. This study examines the basis of the commandment in the creation ordinance of Genesis 2, the law of God in the Decalogue and apostolic teaching, and the sanctions attached to its violation in Leviticus and Proverbs. The prohibition extends beyond adultery to fornication, incest, rape, and related sexual sins, with particular attention given to the difficult case legislation of Deuteronomy 22 and the critical difference between seduction and rape in that text.
Laws concerning sexual relations
Leviticus 18 regulates sexual morality within the structure of a covenant document, moving from preamble to prohibition to sanction. The chapter forbids incest, adultery, child sacrifice, homosexuality, and bestiality — not as arbitrary decrees but as God's just response to the documented wickedness of Egypt and Canaan, with the land itself serving as the instrument of covenantal judgment. Paul's invocations of Leviticus 18:5 in Romans 10 and Galatians 3 reveal that the chapter's 'do this and live' principle exposes the impossibility of law-keeping as a ground of justification, driving the reader to salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone. The abominations condemned here are not confined to the Mosaic code but are binding legislation upon all people at all times, as their reappearance in the New Testament epistles confirms.
Genesis 38:1-30
Genesis 38 interrupts the Joseph narrative with the account of Judah and Tamar — a passage that is neither misplaced nor incidental, but essential to the theology of the whole. The chapter exposes Judah's failures as a covenant son, a father, and a father-in-law, while demonstrating that God's sovereign providence works through morally compromised instruments to preserve the messianic line. Perez, born of this unsavory union, stands in the genealogy of David and of the Lord Jesus Christ, anchoring Genesis 38 to Matthew 1 and to the whole of redemptive history. The text calls hearers to see that salvation comes not by racial privilege or personal virtue but by grace through faith in Christ, the promised seed who crushes the serpent's head.
Genesis 19:30-38
Genesis 19:30–38 records one of Scripture's most disturbing episodes — the incestuous union of Lot's daughters with their father — yet the passage cannot be rightly understood apart from its place in the unfolding line of the Messiah. The daughters' scheme was wicked and abominable, but the Moabites and Ammonites who resulted were not condemned by God on account of their conception; rather, their subsequent hostility toward Israel was what drew divine censure. Most remarkably, Ruth the Moabitess — a descendant of this very union — stands in the genealogy of the Lord Jesus Christ, alongside Tamar and Rahab, demonstrating that the sovereign God works redemptive purposes through the most unsterile human instruments. The passage calls believers to imitate Lot's pattern of genuine righteousness: to dwell in a lawless age without making peace with it, remaining tormented in conscience by what is wicked rather than becoming desensitized to it.
2LCF Chapter 25 - Of Marriage
The 1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 25 sets forth a comprehensive theology of marriage as a monogamous, creational institution between one man and one woman, ordained for companionship, procreation, and the prevention of sexual immorality. This study walks through each paragraph of the chapter, examining the biblical case against polygamy, homosexuality, bestiality, and unequal yoking, while grounding each prohibition in specific Old and New Testament texts. The two paragraphs on divorce and remarriage that the Westminster Confession adds but the 1689 omits receive extended treatment, with the conclusion that Scripture's exception clauses permit dissolution of the marriage bond in cases of adultery and desertion, without penalising the innocent party. Hearers are exhorted to treasure their spouses, pursue marriage only in the Lord, and rear their children in the fear of God.
The Sadducees and the Resurrection
Matthew 22:23–33 records the Sadducees' attempt to discredit the doctrine of the resurrection by posing an elaborate riddle drawn from the Mosaic Levirate law, only to be silenced by Christ's twofold demonstration that they were ignorant both of the Scriptures and of the power of God. Jesus first exposes the false premise of the riddle by revealing a genuine discontinuity between this age and the age to come — in the resurrection there is no marriage, no procreation, and believers will be like the angels in their service to God. He then validates the resurrection from the Sadducees' own canon, the Torah, showing from Exodus 3:6 that God's present-tense covenant relation with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob proves they were still living. Hearers are called not merely to marvel at Christ's wisdom but to forsake every rationalised objection to Christianity and believe on the Lord Jesus, in whom the covenant of life stands too strong to be terminated by death.
2LCF Chapter 25 - Of Marriage
What does Scripture teach about the nature, purposes, and lawful boundaries of marriage? Working through 2LCF Chapter 25, paragraphs 1–4, this study defends the confessional definition of marriage as a monogamous, heterosexual, lifelong covenant between one man and one woman, instituted by God at creation before the fall. The three divine purposes of marriage — companionship, procreation, and conjugal relations — are grounded in Genesis 1–2, and the lawful parties are examined with particular attention to the duty of Christians to marry only in the Lord. The session closes with practical counsel on the dignity of marriage, the responsibility it entails, and the discriminating wisdom required of those who would pursue it.
Ruth 4
Ruth 4 completes the legal, covenantal, and redemptive-historical movement of the book: Boaz fulfills the role of kinsman-redeemer at the city gate, takes Ruth as his wife, and fathers Obed, whose line runs through Jesse to David and ultimately to the Lord Jesus Christ. The chapter is expounded in three movements — the legal proceeding at the gate (vv. 1–12), the marriage and birth of Obed (vv. 13–17), and the genealogy of Perez to David (vv. 18–22) — each shown to be a thread in God's sovereign, providential execution of the redemptive plan. Love in the Old Testament is treated not as mere emotion but as covenant commitment, exemplified in Ruth's hesed toward Naomi. The sermon concludes that the principal design of the Book of Ruth is to establish the genealogy of David, and through David, to point forward to the Messiah who is the aim and scope of all Scripture.
Ruth 3
Ruth 3 presents Naomi's carefully calculated plan to secure a permanent husband for Ruth through the kinsman-redeemer institution of the Mosaic law. The chapter resists any sexual reading of Ruth's approach to Boaz at the threshing floor, understanding her uncovering of his feet and lying down as a culturally specific marriage proposal, confirmed by the idiom 'spread your wing over your maidservant' drawn from Ezekiel 16 and Malachi 2. Throughout, the ordinary providences of God — not miracles — quietly orchestrate every detail so that Boaz and Ruth's union will produce the Davidic line from which the Lord Jesus Christ comes. Boaz himself typifies Christ the kinsman-redeemer, who buys his people out of the slave market of sin not because of their merit but through his own obedient life, atoning death, and resurrection.