Leviticus 20:3-5 - I myself will set my face against them

20:3

Any person guilty of child sacrifice was to be put to death by stoning. The community was to be involved in this. Sacrificing children was abhorrent to the Lord, and He is strongly against anyone or any individual involved in such a practice. To sacrifice children is to profane the name of the Lord, for they are His children. 

20:4,5

If the community did not take the crime seriously and did not execute the required punishment, then God would still be against the individual, and against the community. For the community had closed their eyes to the matter and were not taking it seriously. Often people talk about being merciful to criminals of various sorts, but not to take a crime seriously enough is a serious evil, and is regarded as such by the Lord. We need to treat evil as evil.

Romans 8:12,13 - If you live according to the flesh you will die

8:12

“So then brothers we are debtors ...” We have an obligation (as the NIV and others put it), but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. We can take this in two ways. One is that we do not have an obligation to any sinful lusts. This is true, but I don’t think it is Paul’s emphasis here. The other way of taking it, is that we do not have an obligation to serve God purely out of our own strength. For Paul has been arguing that living according to the flesh leads only to slavery and death. Yet there is still a strong urge within us that it is the way that we must serve God that way. We can refuse to give in to that urge.

8:13

“For if you live by the flesh you will die”. The flesh will try to exert itself, and it does so by lying. Saying we should use all our effort to serve God sounds so right, and when the Spirit is at work within us we will indeed put all our effort into serving God, but it is working together with God. If we try to please God with all our effort, but without God, then it leads nowhere good. The flesh will also try and deceive by urging us to seek the safe way, to seek security. Instead of following this way, we should “put to death the misdeeds of the body” by the Spirit. We work in cooperation with Him. The Spirit can do what we are powerless to do.

Leviticus 20:1,2 - The Lord said to Moses

20:1

This chapter repeats a lot of the various laws or decrees that we have already encountered, but includes the punishments and perhaps gives more of the reasoning behind the laws. The various offences are listed roughly in order of the severity of punishment.

20:2

We see here that we are definitely intended to take away the general principles of the laws, not just woodenly apply them in a strictly literal way. They are forbidden to sacrifice children to Molek. Now not a lot of people worship Molek these days, but the principle of not sacrificing children was applicable in all circumstances. We see that pagan worship was often not just a quaint custom, but could be utterly evil and barbaric. Sadly we do still sacrifice children on the altar of abortion. 

Romans 8:10,11 - The Spirit is life

8:10

“But if Christ is in you ..” Paul now addresses a dichotomy. We still have this body. We still have sinful desires. This body is dead, it is dead spiritually and will one day die physically. This is true because of sin. But the Spirit is life because of righteousness. So we are in a sort of inbetween stage. This can be immensely frustrating, and we can experience some of the Chapter 7 stuff. At one level we just have to accept this. If we think we can be perfect now we are deceived (1 John 1:10), and will end up with the errors of sinless perfectionism.

8:11

So if we think we are perfect, or can be perfect now we are deceived. But we are equally deceived if we think there can be no change, no difference. Indeed, if there is no change there is something seriously wrong. The Spirit who dwells in us is the same Spirit who raised Christ from the dead.  So He will give life to our mortal bodies, it is what He does! This occurs in two ways. One will be at the resurrection when we who die mortal will be raised immortal (1 Cor 15:50-54). The other is that He starts to give life to our spiritual self. So far from being consigned to defeat, far from being resigned, we should expect to see victory. There is indeed no sinless-perfectionism this side of eternity, but nor is there no change, no victory at all. We are being changed from one degree of glory to the next (2 Cor 3:18).

Leviticus 19:35-37 - I am the Lord

19:35,36

We now turn to general relationships in society, specifically relating to business dealings. Traders were to use honest, not dishonest, weights and measures. This is still highly relevant to us today. Essentially there is a demand for honesty in all aspects of trading and commerce. If we cannot trust a trader then it makes life intolerable. Conversely, when we know we can trust people, life is so much easier. This command is also followed by “I am the Lord your God”. We may think we can deceive a person, and may even be right, but we cannot deceive God. We need to know that everything we do is done in the sight of the Lord.

19:37

The chapter finishes with the instruction to keep all of God’s decrees and laws, and a final reminder that He is the Lord. We cannot pick and choose which commands we obey and which we will ignore. We are to keep all of God’s commands. God is the one who created us, who created the whole universe, and who sustains everything. It is wise to obey the Lord.

Romans 8:9 - You are in the Spirit

8:9

Paul has been recounting the state of what life is like if we live by the flesh. Now he turns to the positive. We are not of the flesh, but in the Spirit. We are different, life is different. He then says “if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you”. There is some debate about whether this should be taken as “since the Spirit of God dwells in you”, or as a test, saying they are only genuine Christians if the Spirit of God dwells within them. In one sense it doesn't matter, and both are true. Being a Christian is not a matter of mere intellectual assent to a set of propositions, it is also a matter of the Spirit of God dwelling within us. This is quite an amazing thing if you think about it for even a moment. The Spirit of God, who created all things, who sustains all things, comes to dwell within us. “Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him”. This verse is deeply trinitarian (as is the whole of the New Testament), Paul has just moved from “Spirit of God” to “Spirit of Christ”. It also states very clearly that the Spirit is not an optional extra. However, the key point that Paul wants to make is that we are different, life is different, and we are to live in a new way, the way of the Spirit. 

Leviticus 19:32-34 - Show respect for the elderly

19:32

This verse tells us to revere the elderly, and it is linked with revering the Lord. It is also another commandment which ends with “I am the Lord”. The root of rebellion is thinking we can manage without God, that we can be independent. When we do this we start to despise those whom we see as weak or inferior. One such group we might consider ourselves superior to are the elderly. To do so is to dishonour God.

19:33,34

Foreigners are to be treated as equals, i.e. to be treated as “native-born”. They must not be ill-treated. The motivation for this is that the Israelites were once foreigners in Egypt, where they were mistreated. Again, this ends with “I am the Lord your God”. And again it appears after a verse concerning those who are weak or vulnerable in some way. This, of course, presents us with a real problem today, for we have a very serious issue with illegal immigrants. With legal migration there is no problem in terms of what we should do, we should treat them well, as we are commanded to do so here. The case with illegal immigration is much more difficult, and I don’t have any easy answers.