Leviticus 20:11
And the man that lieth with his father’s wife hath uncovered his father’s nakedness: both of them shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them. And the man that lieth with his father’s wife hath uncovered his father’s nakedness: both of them shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.
Leviticus 20:11 is one of the laws God gave to Israel, distinct from the customs of the nations around them. It belongs with the prohibitions against the pagan abominations through which Satan ruled by the flesh the nations the Lord cast out of the Holy Land before Israel, showing their evil practices and the consequences they brought. Those nations were given four hundred years of mercy while God sent His servants to sojourn among them to win them to the right way, until they filled up their cup of iniquity so that blotting them from the earth became a blessing to future generations.
The verse prohibits unions within forbidden degrees of affinity, specifically a man lying with his father's wife as uncovering his father's nakedness. The sexual prohibitions in Leviticus 20:10-21 remain binding because they rest on moral considerations. Violation of the seventh commandment, including adultery, was punishable by death under Israel's law, but the death penalty does not make the commandment itself invalid. The term rendered bastard in Deuteronomy 23:2 may refer to the offspring of such an incestuous or otherwise prohibited union rather than to every child born out of wedlock.
Like each detail of these laws, the fuller meaning of the verse is found in the sacrifice, life, and work of Jesus Christ. The passage serves as a warning about the possibilities of evil connected with Spiritualism.