The sin of adultery
The sin of adultery
Posted on February 7, 2008
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Adultery has to do with violation of the marriage covenant. It is sex between a married person and another person with whom they are not married. The seventh commandment prohibited it. “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” Under Mosaic Law, when a couple was caught in the act of adultery, both parties were to be killed. (Deut 22:22).
Of course this punishment relates only to the nation of Israel under the Old Testament. However the moral principle still applies today.
But Jesus raised the bar when he taught his disciples: “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” Matt 5:27-28.
Jesus is saying that it is a sin to even look at a woman to lust after her. The sin is committed in one’s heart. Wanton lust places the heart in the same sinful condition as actually doing the act. God’s design was that the husband and wife should become “one flesh,” each being held sacred to the other. Jesus taught the “one flesh” principle of marraige.
Matthew 19:3-4: Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”
Let’s get the basics here. ONE man and ONE woman. The TWO become one flesh. So the spiritual principle is that two will become one flesh. Not the three, four or more will become one flesh.
Also notice that Jesus said that he created them “male and female”, not male and male or female and female. There is no such thing as same sex marriage. He created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!. However for now we can say that by Jesus’ definition of marriage, that is “male and female”, homosexual marriage does not exist. In general homosexuality is a sin that falls under the categories of adultery or fornication which are the subjects of this essay.
As a side note Jesus also discouraged divorce in these verses. “Let man not separate”. However in Matt 5:32 he made an exception for when there is fornication. A full explanation of divorce in the Bible is beyond the scope of this article. The main thing to remember here is that the Bible generally discourages divorce except in certain cases.
Very Important! Adultery is not defined by your own personal moral standards. Instead, it is defined by God’s absolute law.
God is sovereign and we are not. For example, if both parties of a couple mutually consent to a sexual relationship with some other 3rd party, that does not make it OK with God. It is still a sin. How do I know? I checked with The Manufacturer. He wrote it in his “Owner’s Manual”, the Bible.
Just because many people in the world have forgotten God’s moral law, it does not mean that he has repealed it. God is not taking an opinion poll on this subject and he is not going to ask us all to vote on it. God is still in charge.
