29 For whosoever shall commit any of these abominations, even the souls that commit them shall be cut off from among their people. 

30 Therefore shall ye keep mine ordinance, that ye commit not any one of these abominable customs, which were committed before you, and that ye defile not yourselves therein: I am the Lord your God.

In my last post I mentioned how there does seem to be a period of ripening in sin before the earth “vomits” out the wicked, and God visits them with destruction and expulsion. Today’s verses further reinforce this notion that God recognizes degrees of corruption among the people. Here He speaks of a nation that is still broadly and officially aligned with His will, but which has the inevitable pervert who defies God’s commandments. God tells the people that these stray defilers must be cut off from the people.

There is a difference between the nation that at least tries to hold to God’s standard, and which has individual rebellions that are reproved by the state, and a nation that has embraced perversion as its state doctrine. It is the latter that faces being violently spued out by God and the earth, as there no longer remains any government authority to rectify it instead. It is therefore the nation that has sunk to this level of systematic depravtiy that should live in fear of judgment.

Let us also take a moment to consider the punishment of being “cut off from among the people.” This could mean various things, dependent upon the severity of the actual crime. We will see some instances where it means execution, others where it means religious excommunication, and still others that seem to suggest exile. All of these are different degrees of that which is perverse and hell-oriented being cut off from the whole that is good and upward striving.