Question:
Does not the moral law referred to by Mark (Leviticus 18:16; 20:21) apply today to all Christians just as it applied then to all the Jews?
Answer:
The texts referred to in your query are as follows:
“Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy brother’s wife: it is thy brother’s nakedness.” (Leviticus 18:16)
“And if a man shall take his brother’s wife, it is an unclean thing: he hath uncovered his brother’s nakedness; they shall be childless.” (Leviticus 20:21)
We do not know where Mark refers to the above passages in Leviticus. Mark, Matthew, and Luke refer to Deuteronomy 25:5 but not to these passages in Leviticus. The prohibitions in Leviticus are against the gross and unlawful indulgence of lust or illegal marriages while the husband is yet living. If it were forbidden to marry a deceased brother’s wife, why was such an injunction given as in Deuteronomy 25:5? While the illustration Paul uses in Romans 7:2, 3 is designed to teach a spiritual lesson, it must also have been a recognized fact in the marriage laws of the Jews. That being the case, a brother’s widow is free from her deceased husband, so she is free to “be married to another man.” Compare the terms used in Leviticus 18:16 with verse 7 of the same chapter. The other text, Leviticus 20:21, clearly refers to adultery, the brother, the woman’s husband, being yet alive. (See 1 Corinthians 7:39). We do not believe marriage to a deceased brother’s wife is contrary to Scripture. The indulgence of unlawful lusts, forbidden in the texts our querist refers to, is always wrong. Some have had an idea that John the Baptist reproved Herod for marrying his deceased brother’s wife, but Herod took his brother’s wife while his brother was yet living quite a different thing. Deuteronomy 25:5, before referred to, made it a duty to take a deceased brother’s wife, providing he died childless. If his brother did not die childless, it would naturally be the privilege of the widow and her former husband’s brother to marry if they felt so disposed.
