The Land is Good

Leviticus 18, 20, Deuteronomy 22
 
Leviticus 18:27-30 “All these detestable activities are practiced by the people of the land where I am taking you, and this is how the land has become defiled. 28 So do not defile the land and give it a reason to vomit you out, as it will vomit out the people who live there now. 29 Whoever commits any of these detestable sins will be cut off from the community of Israel. 30 So obey my instructions, and do not defile yourselves by committing any of these detestable practices that were committed by the people who lived in the land before you. I am the Lord your God.”
 
AS we continue to go forward into God’s story, it will be good to occasionally return to Genesis. Knowing the Bible’s beginning helps us more specifically understand the language and events of God’s entire story. Let’s then return to Genesis to understand God’s language about the land being defiled and vomiting its people as written in Leviticus 18:27-30.
   This scripture concludes a list of evil done by the current residents of Canaan. After a number of “defiling, detestable and perverse” sins in prior verses, God says, “This is how the land has become defiled.” And “Do not defile the land and give it a reason to vomit you out as it will vomit out the people who live there now.” How can the land be as a person to be defiled by sin? To vomit the sinner? Genesis tells us that sin not only infects the soul, it corrupts the land. The good land God created (Genesis 1:10) was to be bountiful with vegetation—every sort of seed-bearing plant, and trees that grow seed-bearing fruit. (Genesis 1:11) But sin cursed the land into a place of toil: “It will grow thorns and thistles for you, though you will eat of its grains.” (Genesis 3:18) And what happened to the first couple? Genesis 3:23 So the Lord God banished them from the Garden of Eden, and he sent Adam out to cultivate the ground from which he had been made. You could say that the defiled land vomited the sinners. God’s goodness rejected sin as a body rejects bad food.
   In Genesis God connects mankind with the earth. Adam came from the ground. God blessed the man from the good earth to be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth. Then God judged the couple and expelled them from the Garden into hard toil for their food.
   The Promised Land was to be a preparation for the restored Eden. Israel needed to completely commit to I AM’s laws that would lead to a blessed life in the Promised Land. The image of the land vomiting the rebellious people personifies sin’s terrible consequences. Sin is more than bad. It is detestable. It is defiling. It is death. God’s Word has not changed since Genesis. I AM provides a home now for his church through Jesus’ salvation. The church is to illustrate God’s good land until we enter into the New Heaven and earth.
   As God’s story continues, let us keep Genesis in mind to more wholly understand sin’s cost, God’s love and our role in God’s good land.