Leviticus 18:22-30: What Strange Flesh Means
Short answer: Leviticus 18:22-30 declares that lying with a man as with a woman is detestable, that it defiles the land, and that the nations were driven out for such practices. The phrase strange flesh in Jude 1:7 points to the same rebellion: creatures pursuing a union outside God's created order. The passage establishes God's moral standard, not a license for contempt of sinners. It ends with the same call that runs through Leviticus: do not defile yourselves, and keep God's statutes, because he is the Lord your God. The answer is neither hatred nor approval but repentance, holiness, and mercy in Christ.
What Leviticus 18 Actually Says
The chapter is a list of forbidden sexual unions, addressed to Israel as they prepare to enter Canaan. Leviticus 18:22 says, "You shall not lie with a man as with a woman. That is detestable." The Hebrew word translated detestable is to'evah, a strong term for something abhorrent to God. It is the same category used elsewhere for idolatry and unjust weights. The verse is not a passing remark; it sits inside a carefully structured catalogue of sexual prohibitions that begins with close relatives and widens outward.
Notice who is addressed. The commands are given to Israel, but the reason given is not merely that Israel is different. Verses 24 and 25 say the nations defiled themselves by these things and the land vomited them out. So the passage claims a standard that predates Israel and applies to Canaanites who never received the law. This is not a ceremonial rule for one people; it is presented as a moral order woven into creation and known, at least in part, by the surrounding nations.
The grammar matters too. The command is addressed to the man who lies with a man, and it names the act, not an inclination or a temptation. That distinction is crucial for pastoral care. A person who experiences same-sex attraction has not broken this command by having the attraction. The verse speaks to the act. Temptation is not sin; consenting to it and acting on it is where Scripture locates the transgression, and that is true of every command in this chapter.
Leviticus 18:22 must also be read with verse 5, which says that whoever keeps the statutes shall live. The law holds out life, but it also exposes failure. Paul later uses this principle in Romans 10:5 and Galatians 3:12 to show that law-keeping cannot justify anyone. The passage, then, does not exist to create a subclass of especially vile sinners. It exists to show that God's standard is holy, and that all of us fall short of it and need mercy.
Detestable to Whom? The Holiness Behind the Command
The word detestable is not a measurement of how much God dislikes one group of people. It describes what is incompatible with his character. Leviticus 18 begins with God saying, I am the Lord your God, and ends with the command not to defile yourselves. The whole chapter is anchored in God's identity. The prohibitions are not arbitrary; they reflect who he is. A holy God cannot simply bless whatever humans choose, because his holiness is not a mood but a moral perfection.
This is why the passage ties the command to the land. Verses 25 and 28 warn that the land will vomit out those who practice such things, and it will do the same to Israel if they imitate the nations. The image is graphic and deliberate. Sin is not private; it pollutes a community and eventually a place. That is a sober claim, and it cuts against the modern instinct that sexual behavior is purely personal and consequence-free. Scripture treats it as covenantally serious.
Yet the same holiness that forbids sin is the holiness that provides atonement. Leviticus is the book of the sacrificial system. The same book that says the land must be cleansed is the book that says a goat can bear the people's guilt away. The law that condemns is surrounded by mercy that covers. Any reading of Leviticus 18 that leaves sinners with no door of hope has not read Leviticus as a whole. The chapter diagnoses; the book also provides.
So the phrase detestable should produce humility, not pride. Every reader of this chapter has committed something in the surrounding catalogue. Adultery, incest, idolatry, injustice, and sexual immorality of every kind are all named in the same chapters. The person who uses Leviticus 18 to feel superior to a neighbor has already violated the law of love that stands alongside it. The command is a mirror before it is a weapon, and it reflects on everyone who reads it honestly.
Strange Flesh in Jude and the Pattern of Sodom
Jude 1:7 says, "Even as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, having in the same way as these given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are shown as an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire." The phrase strange flesh translates Greek words meaning flesh of a different kind. It describes a pursuit of union outside the boundaries God set. Jude uses it as a warning, not as a curiosity, and he places it alongside the rebellion of angels and the sin of Cain.
Genesis 19 provides the narrative behind Jude's warning. The men of Sodom surround Lot's house and demand that the visitors be brought out so they may know them. The verb know is used elsewhere in Genesis for sexual relations. The crowd is aggressive, public, and violent. Jude's point is not merely that Sodom sinned sexually but that they went after flesh that was not theirs to pursue, and that their judgment became a standing example for every generation that follows.
Some readers argue that Sodom's sin was only inhospitality and not sexual at all. The text does not allow that reduction. Ezekiel 16:49 names pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but it also says they did detestable things before God. Jude explicitly names sexual immorality and strange flesh. The most faithful reading holds both: Sodom was guilty of cruelty and arrogance, and also of sexual sin, and Jude treats the sexual dimension as morally significant for the church.
The practical force of Jude's warning is humility and vigilance. Jude writes to believers who are in danger of being pulled into the same pattern. He does not tell them to hate the people of Sodom; he tells them to remember the judgment and to keep themselves in the love of God. The strange flesh theme, then, is not a slogan for contempt. It is a call to watchfulness, and it ends in Jude's doxology, where God is able to keep you from stumbling.
Romans 1 and the Exchange at the Root
Romans 1:26-28 says, "For this reason, God gave them up to vile passions. For their women changed the natural function into that which is against nature." Paul is describing the consequence of a deeper exchange: humanity exchanged the glory of God for idols, and God gave them over to the desires they chose. The same pattern continues in verse 28, where God gives them up to a debased mind. The passage is not a random attack on one sin; it is a diagnosis of what happens when worship is redirected.
The phrase gave them up is important. It describes God's judicial handing over of people to the very desires they preferred. This is not God becoming cruel; it is God honoring a choice and letting its consequences run. Paul lists several sins in the same passage, including envy, murder, strife, deceit, and disobedience to parents. Sexual sin appears first in the sequence, but it is not alone. Anyone who reads Romans 1 to condemn one category of people while ignoring the rest of the list has misread the chapter.
Paul's purpose in Romans 1 is to establish that all are under sin, both Gentile and Jew. He says this explicitly in Romans 3:9-10, and he concludes in Romans 3:23 that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. So Romans 1 is not the end of the argument; it is the foundation for the gospel that follows. The same letter that names sexual sin also names justification by faith and peace with God through Jesus Christ. The chapter is a doorway into grace, not a wall against it.
For the reader who struggles with same-sex attraction, Romans 1 does not say that the attraction itself condemns them. It describes a downward spiral of desire and behavior that Paul holds out as evidence of the world's need for a Savior. The proper response is the same as for the adulterer or the idolater: repentance and faith. Paul's own testimony in 1 Timothy 1:15 is that Christ came to save sinners, of whom he was chief. The passage that names sin is surrounded by the promise that saves from it.
1 Corinthians 6 and the Washing That Changes Everything
1 Corinthians 6:9-11 says, "Or don't you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God's Kingdom? Don't be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor male prostitutes, nor homosexuals," and the list continues with thieves, the greedy, drunkards, slanderers, and swindlers. Paul then adds, and such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. The passage names sin and then announces transformation.
The word translated homosexuals in some versions renders a Greek term that many scholars understand to refer to the passive partner in a same-sex act, paired with another term for the active partner. The exact nuance is debated among faithful interpreters, but the direction of the passage is not: Paul places these behaviors among the works of the old life that cannot inherit God's kingdom. He does not single them out as uniquely unforgivable. They sit in a list that also includes greed and gossip, sins that respectable churchgoers often tolerate.
The most striking words in the passage are the three verbs: washed, sanctified, justified. Paul says this is what happened to the Corinthians. Some of them had practiced these very things, and they were cleansed, set apart, and declared righteous. The gospel does not ask sinners to clean themselves up before coming; it announces that Christ cleanses those who come. That means the person who has committed sexual sin of any kind is not beyond the reach of grace. The same power that raised Christ from the dead is at work in them.
This is why the church must be a place of both truth and mercy. If we deny the truth of 1 Corinthians 6:9, we abandon people to a false peace. If we deny the mercy of verse 11, we abandon people to despair. Paul holds both together. The call is to repent and believe, and the promise is that no one who comes to Christ is turned away. The body of Christ should be the safest place on earth for a person to bring their sin into the light.
How to Read Leviticus 18 with Humility and Hope
Leviticus 18:22-30 is part of a legal code given to a covenant people. It is not a collection of curses to be shouted at outsiders. The chapter addresses Israel, warns them not to imitate the nations, and calls them to holiness. When Christians read it today, they should remember that they too are a covenant people, called to live differently from the surrounding culture, and that this call applies to every area of life, not only sexual behavior. The same chapter condemns greed, injustice, and idolatry.
The passage also reminds us that God's commands are for our good. The laws in Leviticus are often described as life-giving, and Deuteronomy 30:19 sets life and death before the people and urges them to choose life. God does not forbid things because he wants to withhold pleasure; he forbids them because they damage the people he loves. This is the posture from which the church should speak. Not gleeful condemnation, but a sober grief that sin harms those who practice it and the communities around them.
At the same time, faithful Christians differ on how to apply these texts in a pluralistic society. Some emphasize the church's role in proclaiming God's moral order to the world; others emphasize the church's role in embodying that order within its own community and commending it by love. Both instincts have biblical warrant, and the New Testament does not give a detailed political program. What it does give is a clear call to holiness, a clear command to love neighbors, and a clear promise of forgiveness for all who repent.
Whatever the reader's view on disputed questions, the pastoral path is the same. Speak the truth of the passage without contempt. Welcome the person who struggles without affirming what God forbids. Point to Christ, who kept the law we broke, bore the curse we deserved, and rose to give new life. The strange flesh theme ends, as all Scripture does, at the feet of Jesus, where the sinful are washed and the proud are humbled, and where mercy triumphs over judgment.
Biblical fidelity check
The passage establishes that God's moral order matters, that sexual sin is serious, and that the land and community bear consequences for it. It does not establish that same-sex attraction is itself the sin named, nor that those who experience it are beyond grace. It does not establish a hierarchy of sins in which sexual sin is uniquely unforgivable; Paul's lists place it alongside greed, slander, and idolatry. It also does not establish that Christians should treat people with contempt. The text names an act and calls for holiness; it does not authorize cruelty.
A common misreading treats Leviticus 18 as a weapon for cultural superiority. That reading ignores the chapter's context, ignores the rest of the list, and ignores the gospel. Another misreading treats the passage as irrelevant because it is in the Old Testament law. That reading ignores the way the New Testament reaffirms the same moral order in Romans 1, 1 Corinthians 6, and Jude. The faithful reading holds both: the command is real, and the mercy offered in Christ is real. Neither truth cancels the other.
Other passages that speak to Leviticus 18:22-30
The Bible's teaching on holiness and grace runs through many passages. What Does 1 Corinthians 1:10 Mean? Context, Theology, and Application shows how a divided church is called to unity in Christ. What Does 1 Corinthians 1:9 Mean? Context, Theology, and Application grounds that unity in God's faithful call. 1 Corinthians 1: Called, United, and Boasting in the Lord traces the themes of calling and humility. 1 Corinthians 10: Warnings and Freedom applies Israel's wilderness failures to the church's life. Together these studies show how Scripture calls a holy people to live in grace and truth.
Frequently asked questions
Does Leviticus 18:22 condemn same-sex attraction or only the act?
The verse names an act: lying with a man as with a woman. It does not say that a person who experiences same-sex attraction has sinned by having the attraction. Scripture consistently locates sin in the consent of the will and the deed, not in the presence of temptation. Jesus himself was tempted yet without sin, according to Hebrews 4:15. So the pastoral response is to distinguish temptation from sin, to call for holiness in action, and to offer compassion to those who struggle without approving what God forbids.
Why does Jude use the phrase strange flesh?
Jude 1:7 describes Sodom and Gomorrah as having gone after strange flesh, meaning flesh of a different kind, a pursuit of sexual union outside God's created order. Jude uses their judgment as a warning to the church. The phrase does not give license for mockery or violence toward any group. It is a call to vigilance, and it sits in a letter that ends with the promise that God is able to keep believers from stumbling and present them blameless before his glory.
Can a person who has committed these sins be forgiven?
Yes. 1 Corinthians 6:11 says that some of the Corinthians had practiced these very things and were washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel offers full forgiveness to everyone who repents and believes, regardless of the sin. No sin is beyond the blood of Christ. The church should be the first place a person can bring this struggle into the light and find truth, mercy, and a community that walks with them toward holiness without pretending sin is not sin.
