Imagine the story of two believers: Sudhandaram and Dharmaraj (also called Paramanam). Both are saved, but Sudhandaram holds a dispensational view of the law of God and believes we are under grace, not under the law. He feels we do not have to strictly follow it; whenever he hears about the law, he thinks it is legalism and prefers to always hear about grace, saying, “I do what the Spirit leads” (which is often subjective) rather than keeping the Ten Commandments.
Dharmaraj, on the other hand, holds a Reformed view of the law of God. He believes that while we are saved by grace through the work of Christ and are not under the law for justification, the law is given as a rule of life. He sees wonderful benefits in God’s law as a fruit of his salvation and believes he should obey it with all his heart as a binding rule of life and a reflection of God’s character.
While both are believers, running construction companies and married with happy family lives, let us look at three areas of their lives to see how their views of the law impact them: Job, Family, and Personal Health.
Job
Sudhandaram’s view of the law does not guard his heart. He is always coveting—wanting this and that—with no respect for God’s command against covetousness or learning to be grateful for what God has given. Sudhandaram gets a big flyover contract in Chennai, and Dharmaraj gets a flyover contract in Bangalore.
A major storm hits the South, causing cracks to start appearing in both flyovers. To fix the issue, each builder would have to spend 50 lakhs, which would delay the project by three months and cut into profits. Sudhandaram’s masons tell him, “This is nothing; we can just cover it with cement. Most flyovers have this kind of problem, and no one will notice.”
What does Sudhandaram do? His heart is full of covetousness and a desire to get rich quickly. His view of the law leads him to rationalize: “God knows my heart. I’m not perfect, but I’m forgiven. We are not under the law! Strict adherence to these codes is just Pharisaical ‘letter of the law’ stuff. God wants me to prosper and have freedom, not be bound by anxiety over details. I will pray that God protects this bridge.”
The Decision: He orders the workers to plaster cement over the crack and justifies it by saying he will tithe from the extra profits to make up for it. Within two years, the crack spreads, causing massive structural damage. He is sued for fraud for building a defective bridge, loses the trust of his business partners, and ends up in deep debt.
Dharmaraj faces the same situation with equal pressure to hide the damage to save money. However, his theology kicks in: “I am saved by Christ’s blood alone, not my works. But because I love God, I must love what He loves. God is Truth. The Law says, ‘You shall not steal’ and ‘You shall not bear false witness.’ To hide this crack is to steal value from the government.”
The Decision: Dharmaraj refuses to cover the crack, takes the 50 lakhs loss to fix it properly, and reports the situation to the officials to get permission for the delay. The officials see his honesty and realize he is trustworthy. That bridge stands strong as iron for the next 50 years, the brand of Dharmaraj earns immense trust, and his business grows significantly.
Family
When you break one law, it creates a hole in your boat, and you end up breaking others. Because of repeated financial losses and mounting pressure, Sudhandaram begins fighting with his short-tempered wife and becomes embittered toward her. During this difficult time, an attractive secretary at his office comforts him.
In his mind, the command “Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery” is merely Old Testament legalism. Believing he is under grace and that God will always forgive him, he treats forgiveness as a license to do what feels right in the moment. Not viewing his marriage vows as a binding covenant before God, he falls into temptation. Later, his wife finds out, leading to a divorce.
Dharmaraj’s view of the law shapes his home life. The law against adultery—and Christ’s command not to look at a woman lustfully—helps him guard his heart. He stays faithful to his wife not just because he “feels” like it or because he is free from temptation, but because he honors God’s commandment.
Health
With business mistakes, family problems, and growing debt, Sudhandaram works all seven days without taking a Sabbath rest, quickly ruining his health. He becomes stressed, bankrupt, and confused, wondering why God “allowed” this to happen to His child, failing to realize he is simply bearing the consequences of breaking God’s law.
Dharmaraj keeps the Sabbath, turning down lucrative Sunday work and trusting God’s command over his own greed. This results in blessings across his job, family, and health.
Do you see the sad state of many Christians today who act like Sudhandaram? They misunderstand grace, wonder why they face so many troubles, and yet continue to break God’s law. The law acts as a guardrail on a cliff edge; if you allow false teaching to remove it, terrible consequences follow. For Dharmaraj, the law serves as a guide for life, bringing blessings in his work, family, health, reputation, peaceful sleep, and true prosperity.
The Reformed view understands that Grace is the train engine, but the Law is the track. If you have an engine without a track, the train goes off the rails and causes a disaster. If you have a track without an engine (legalism), the train never moves.
When we realize in the fear of God that there are serious consequences to breaking His law, true wisdom begins. Even if a person is saved and goes to heaven, breaking God’s law brings painful consequences in this earthly life.
Overview of Leviticus 20
We will look at three key aspects: an overview of the chapter, the focus on punishments, the purpose of those punishments, and their practical applications.
A rapid survey of the passage reveals that most of these commandments were already introduced in chapters 18 and 19. They fall into three main categories, beginning with sins against God and His worship (verses 1 through 6).
In these laws, the supremacy of Jehovah is to remain unrivaled. Jehovah declared in the First Commandment that we are to have no other gods before Him, and in the Second Commandment that we must not fashion graven images. We must not only worship Him alone, but worship Him strictly as He has commanded, not as we please.
He explicitly forbids Moloch worship and child sacrifice. Part of this improper worship includes dabbling in the occult—consulting mediums, spiritists, seeking knowledge of the future through horoscopes, astrology, fortune-telling, or similar practices—all of which are forbidden.
Sadly, this has crept into churches today, where people close their eyes, shake, and declare, “I see God prospering you next year; you will have three children, your disease will be healed, you will get married,” and so on. Do you see how fortune-telling practices fill many modern charismatic gatherings?
Instead of obeying God’s Word and trusting His promises, people act like Sudhandaram by breaking His law and running like Saul to know the future. Crowds run after false prophets empowered by deception rather than seeking God’s revealed truth in His Word. God views this as spiritual harlotry. Saying biblical revelation is insufficient and seeking future knowledge elsewhere is spiritual adultery—worshipping a modern Moloch instead of the one true living God. Man-centered, unbiblical worship invites spiritual darkness and leads to terrible consequences.
The second category covers crimes against the family (verses 9 through 21). The family is a divine institution, and God takes crimes against it very seriously. In the Ten Commandments, God places a double wall around the family to protect it: the Fifth Commandment (honor your father and mother) forms the first wall, and the Seventh Commandment (you shall not commit adultery) forms the second.
The first crime listed against the family in verse 9 is cursing parents: “If there is anyone who curses his father or his mother, he shall surely be put to death. He has cursed his father or his mother; his blood guiltiness is upon him.”
We often deceive ourselves into thinking that while big commandments like murder, adultery, or theft are serious, smaller things like dishonoring parents are mere trifles. But the family is the smallest unit of governance in the world, where God’s authority is represented in parents. Through them, God gives life, food, health, protection, and provision. When a rebellious, ungrateful child attacks the family out of pride and says, “I don’t care what you say, Mom or Dad; go away from my life,” God treats it as a capital crime.
Exodus 21:15 states that if a child strikes a parent, they must be put to death. If a child angrily talks back, arguments escalate, and the child instinctively strikes back at a parent, God views that not as a minor loss of temper, but as heinous wickedness that must be purged from the community.
Deuteronomy 21:18–21 similarly instructs that if a son is stubborn, rebellious, lazy, insubordinate, and refuses to listen to his parents’ discipline, he is to be brought before the elders and stoned to death so that evil is removed and all Israel will hear and fear.
Verses 10 through 21 detail sexual abominations, repeating the prohibitions from Leviticus 18 against adultery, various forms of incest, homosexuality, and bestiality. These acts bring disorder, anarchy, and moral impurity into the sanctity of the family, and God attaches severe penalties to them.
The Striking Emphasis on Punishments
While Leviticus 18 and 19 feature apodictic laws (commandments that state what to do or not do without spelling out the specific earthly penalties), Leviticus 20 uses casuistic laws that explicitly legislate direct punishments for each violation.
There are four primary forms of punishment:
- Stoning with Stones (verses 2, 27): Prescribed for false worship, consulting mediums, or cursing parents. The offender was led outside the city, bound, and the witnesses laid the first blows. The community then threw large, heavy stones until the person was dead. This served as visible, community-administered justice.
- Burning with Fire (verse 14): Prescribed for severe forms of incest. When unchecked lust desecrated family relationships to such a degree, offenders were burned after execution, denying their bodies a proper burial as a foreshadowing of hell and eternal judgment.
- Cutting Off / Excommunication (verses 4–6, 17–18): If someone offered a child to Moloch, God declared He would set His face against that man and cut him off from his people. This meant excommunication from the nation, accompanied by direct divine judgment—such as severe illness—making the person’s life a living hell of conscious guilt and isolation from God’s covenant community.
- Childlessness (verse 21): For specific incestuous unions, the penalty was childlessness, preventing their line from being registered in the genealogies of Israel.
Some might view these punishments as primitive or overly severe, but that stems from an unbalanced view of God. When God revealed Himself to Moses in Exodus 34, He declared that He is compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness, and forgiving of iniquity—yet He by no means leaves the guilty unpunished.
His justice is a core part of His holy character, demonstrated throughout history in Noah’s flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, Israel’s captivity, and the coming final judgment.
These severe earthly judgments served as monuments of justice with three primary purposes:
- To show that breaking God’s law brings real consequences in this life. Man tends to wink at sin, but God never does.
- To provide a solemn, visible warning of the reality of hell.
- To restrain sin through holy fear, protecting the individual and the community from destruction.
Consequences of Breaking God’s Commandments
Breaking the Ten Commandments carries direct, practical, and devastating consequences:
- No other gods before Me: Making anything—whether family, spouse, job, money, or personal dreams—your ultimate priority leads to enslavement and addiction. God will ultimately allow that idol to become a source of bitter pain in your life.
- Taking God’s name in vain: Fosters a habitual lifestyle of irreverence, lack of fear, and an uncontrollable life and home.
- Breaking the Sabbath: Disregarding mandatory rest results in chronic stress, burnout, and physical health issues.
- Honor thy father and thy mother: Forfeits the natural blessings and foundational guidance provided through parents, often leading to the same disobedient patterns being repeated by one’s own children.
- Thou shalt not murder (Controlling anger): Uncontrolled anger and bitter words create a persistent pattern of conflict within the family.
- Thou shalt not commit adultery: Brings severe emotional trauma to spouses and children, financial ruin, and irreparable damage to one’s reputation.
- Thou shalt not steal: Causes the loss of a good name and trust in the workplace, often resulting in legal cases.
- Thou shalt not bear false witness: Earns a reputation as a liar, leading to an inability to be trusted in both business and personal affairs.
- Thou shalt not covet: Triggers psychological distress, chronic dissatisfaction, envy, mental anguish, bitterness, destructive risk-taking, and an inability to find peace or joy in one’s life.
The Purpose of Punishments: Shadows of Judgment
The severe punishments of the Old Testament—stoning, burning, cutting off, and childlessness—serve as vivid illustrations of sin’s ultimate consequences. We see horrific imagery in this passage: a man’s skull caved in by a jagged boulder, a body consumed by fire, and a soul alienated and cut off from the presence of God.
These historical judgments serve as a mirror, offering a faint picture of the horrors of hell and the absolute justice that will take place on Judgment Day. What is hell? It is eternal exposure to God’s inflexible justice, being cut off from His presence, and bearing His wrath forever.
Human beings tend to misinterpret God’s patience and long-suffering. When a person struggles with a besetting sin—whether pornography, covetousness, or another habit—and judgment does not strike immediately, they can wrongly assume there are no consequences. As Ecclesiastes 8:11 states, “Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed quickly, therefore the hearts of the sons of men among them are given fully to do evil.”
Leviticus 20 reminds us that God will not leave the guilty unpunished. His patience must not be mistaken for indifference; every sin receives its due penalty, both in this life and in eternity.
These severe consequences are designed to act as a deterrent. Explaining the natural harm of a sin—such as showing warnings on drug or tobacco use—is rarely enough on its own to restrain evil. Conscience alone is often insufficient. Society and communities require clear penalties, where hearing of judgment creates a healthy fear that restrains wrong behavior.
In Deuteronomy 21, when a rebellious and stubborn son was brought to the city gates and stoned by the community, the rest of the youth saw it, heard of it, and feared. That swift justice served as a firm bridle against rebellion. When evil goes unpunished day after day, people are emboldened in their foolishness. A healthy fear of righteous consequences is a merciful safeguard provided by God to keep us from destruction.
Practical Applications
1. In Church Life
While the church is not a civil government and does not inflict physical penalties, the principles of Leviticus 20 apply to church discipline. When public sin occurs within the congregation and goes unaddressed, people become emboldened to sin, and evil spreads like leaven through the whole body.
It is the solemn duty of pastors and elders to deal faithfully with unrepentant, public sin—not to display authority, but to protect the flock and care for the sinner’s soul. This involves a difficult ministry of admonishing, correcting, rebuking, suspending, and, if necessary, removing an unrepentant individual from membership (excommunication).
Church discipline acts as a wholesome deterrent. For example, if a man is involved in drunkenness, pornography, or neglect of his family, the accountability of the church gives a family recourse to address the harm. The warning of public censure, suspension, or excommunication hands an unrepentant person over to the world so that they might come to their senses and be saved. For believers facing temptation from the world, the flesh, and the devil, these guardrails serve as a godly incentive to remain on the narrow road.
2. In Family Life
Parents act as God’s representatives to their children. While parents must reflect God’s rich grace, compassion, and lovingkindness, they must also reflect His principled justice. Presenting a distorted view of God that ignores His justice imperils the souls of children.
Proverbs 19:18 says, “Discipline your son while there is hope, and do not desire his death.” Leniency in the face of rebellion is dangerous. If a child does not learn the fear of God and respect for authority in the home, they may never learn it. Ignoring disrespectful or rebellious behavior grooms a child for ultimate spiritual disaster. Discipline must be firm, principled, and administered in love—never in uncontrolled rage—so that children learn early that wrong choices carry real consequences.
3. In Personal Life
We must use these Old Testament penalties to examine our own hearts and recognize the serious nature of sin. What modern society dismisses as minor—such as pornography, subtle dishonesty, or defiance—God views as high-handed rebellion against His holiness.
Every sin demands justice. That justice will fall in one of three places: in the temporal consequences of this life, in the eternal judgment of hell, or upon Jesus Christ at the cross.
For the believer, these severe penalties point directly to the Gospel. On the cross, Jesus bore the full weight of God’s justice in our place. He experienced the ultimate equivalent of being caved in by judgment, consumed by divine wrath, and cut off from the Father, crying out, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” Seeing what our sin cost the Son of God drives us to mourn our sin and turn from it.
Finally, Leviticus 20:8 offers great encouragement for living a holy life: “And you shall keep My statutes, and perform them: I am the Lord who sanctifies you” (Jehovah M’Kaddesh).
Pursuing holiness is not a self-reliant project undertaken in our own strength. God does not demand holiness without providing the means; He engages His omnipotent power to help us overcome sin. As Philippians 2:12–13 echoes, we work out our salvation with fear and trembling because God is at work within us to will and to do of His good pleasure.
Just as God commanded Israel not to adopt the sinful practices of the surrounding nations, Paul exhorts believers in Romans 12:2 not to be conformed to this world. We are called to reject worldly mindsets and seek true transformation through God’s Word and Spirit.