You Shall Not Commit Adultery

“You shall not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14).

A little boy once asked his father, “Daddy, what does it mean, ‘Thou shalt not commit agriculture’?” Without hesitation his father replied, “Son, it means you’re not supposed to plow the other man’s field.” The answer satisfied them both.

The seventh commandment is every bit as relevant in modern America as it was 3500 years ago at Mt. Sinai. Negatively, it prohibits sexual immorality of every kind. Positively, it teaches us to honor marriage, God’s plan for sexual fulfillment. That plan is simple: one man and one woman in marriage for life (cf. Genesis 2:18-24; Romans 7:1-3; et al.).

In light of God’s command against adultery, we should consider some popular trends and how God’s people should respond to them.

Fornication and Adultery

Much like that little boy, increasing numbers of people don’t even know what “fornication” and “adultery” mean. Fornication describes all sexual intercourse outside of rightful marriage. Adultery is fornication in which at least one party is married to someone else. Some modern Bible translations use “sexual immorality” and “marital unfaithfulness” respectively.

While Americans may have trouble defining fornication and adultery, they have little trouble practicing them. Surveys and studies indicate the following:
• Only about 30% of us believe that pre-marital and extra-marital sex are always wrong.
• The average young person loses his/her virginity at age 16. By age 19, about 75% of girls and 85% of boys have had sex.
• Every year, one million teenage girls become pregnant and three million teens contract a sexually transmitted disease. America’s teen pregnancy rate is the highest of any developed country.
• Since 1970, the number of unmarried couples living together has increased more than 700%. The number of children born out of wedlock has tripled.
• The general consensus among researchers is that about 60% of men and 50% of women either have cheated or will cheat on their spouses.

God’s Spirit says, “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge” (Hebrews 13:4; see also 1 Corinthians 6:18; Galatians 5:19). In addition, homosexuality (male/male or female/ female sexual relations) is also condemned (1 Corinthians 6:9; Romans 1:26-27). In short, both Old and New Testaments forbid any sexual intercourse except that between a rightfully married man and woman.

In our culture, most adults view sex as a natural and inevitable part of dating. Marriage is increasingly regarded as a needless burden. Worse still, many adults not only expect but encourage teenagers to engage in sexual activity. The realities surrounding us make it all the more important that Christians commit themselves to God’s plan for sexual fulfillment — even if that makes us a little odd by the world’s standards.

Divorce

It would be an understatement to say that divorce is treated pretty casually these days. Over the last 30 years the divorce rate has increased by about 40%, while the marriage rate has fallen nearly 30%. Translation: fewer people are getting married, and fewer of those who do marry are staying married. According to most estimates nationwide, some 60% of new marriages will eventually fail.

God’s view of divorce is anything but casual. He hates it (Malachi 2:14-16). The world’s expectations of marriage may not be much, but God’s expectations are quite clear. Jesus addresses the subject of divorce in Matthew 5:32 and 19:9, Mark 10:11-12, and Luke 16:18. Put all these passages together and you get a simple formula: If a husband and wife divorce and either one remarries, that person is committing adultery against his/her original spouse. The only exception: if one divorces his/her spouse because of sexual immorality, he/she is free to remarry.

I find no valid reason to conclude that Jesus uses “adultery” to mean anything but “adultery” in these passages. In marriage, two people are bound together by God for life (Romans 7:1; Matthew 19:6). Sexual union with any other, even if civil law recognizes that person as one’s spouse, is adultery against the mate to whom one is bound by Divine law.

If you think Jesus’ teaching on divorce is strict, you share the opinion of the disciples who first heard it. Their reaction was, “If the relationship of the man with his wife is like this, it is better not to marry” (Matthew 19:10). Of course, God’s teaching about divorce is not designed to be a hardship, but rather to ensure the kind of commitment without which a marriage can be neither happy nor enduring.

Lust and Lasciviousness

When it comes to sexuality, God is as concerned with our thoughts as with our actions. Jesus explained, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’; but I say to you that everyone who looks on a woman to lust for her has committed adultery with her already in his heart” (Matthew 5:27-28).

Our culture needs to hear that teaching! I sometimes think lust has replaced baseball as America’s pastime. Our country is the world’s leading producer of pornographic videos; a recent statistic claims that 90% of the pornography sold worldwide is produced here. Rentals of pornographic videos are more than ten times what they were in 1985, accounting for one-fourth of all video rentals. Americans spend over $14 billion a year on pornography (including the millions worth of “pay-per-view” porn that is piped into their hotel rooms and living rooms).

Our national obsession with lust is self-evident. Every year, prime time network TV pushes the envelope of sexual content and nudity. Radio and printed media follow suit. Advertisements use sex appeal to sell everything from soft drinks to car parts.

God is grieved by this lustful mind set. His word condemns “sensuality” or “lasciviousness,” a word that describes unrestrained conduct, especially that of a sexual nature. God instead wants every person “to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in lustful passion” (1 Thessalonians 4:4-5). We must guard ourselves against the wanton impurity of the world. That will often mean turning off the TV or radio. It may mean taking a second look at how we allow our children to dress. It may mean changing some habits. Let’s have the courage to think differently from the world. Our souls depend on it.

You Shall Not Murder

“You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13).

Every moral and civil code in human history has prohibited murder. People have always recognized human life as inherently valuable, certainly more so than plant or animal life. Sociologists have fascinating theories as to why this is so, but the Bible offers a simple explanation. The creation account of Genesis tells us that mankind was created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27). Later, when Noah and his family emerged from the ark to replenish the earth, God warned, “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed; for in the image of God He made man” (Genesis 9:6). Human life is precious because we are made in God’s likeness.

Murder is an ancient evil, almost as old as mankind. After God rejected Cain’s offering and accepted Abel’s, Cain became angry and killed his brother (Genesis 4:3-8). God’s law had been broken; He said, “The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to Me from the ground” (verse 10). For his wickedness Cain was cursed and banished. To destroy what God has created in His own image is a direct assault on His holiness.

The classic translation of the sixth commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” can be misleading. The meaning of the word is “murder,” not just “kill.” God’s command to the Israelites did not preclude all killing. Craig Blomberg notes that “the underlying Hebrew did not include killing in self-defense, wars ordered by Yahweh, capital punishment following due process of law, or accidental manslaughter" (Matthew, 106). What this command prohibited was murder — killing as a result of wanton disregard for human life.

Any discussion of God’s command against murder brings up some important issues.

Suicide. Is suicide not simply murder of oneself? The Bible records a number of suicides, but it doesn’t record God’s opinion of them. However, it would be presumptuous to think that He views murder of oneself any differently from murder of another.

“Assisted” suicide. The last few years have focused national attention on this issue. Assisted suicide is when a doctor provides a terminally ill patient with the means to take his own life. Dr. Jack Kervorkian has done this enough times to earn the nickname “Doctor Death.” Some European countries have already legalized euthanasia (Greek for “good death”), and there is pressure from some quarters to make it legal in the U.S. But assisted suicide is still the willful taking of human life. The fact that a person wants to die does not diminish his value before God, nor does it diminish the wrongfulness of taking his life.

Abortion. In many ancient pagan societies, babies that were sick, deformed, or just unwanted were taken outside the city and left to die. We do basically the same thing in modern America. The only difference is that unwanted babies are now neatly (?) disposed of in sterile clinics before they can be born. Americans abort about 1.6 million babies a year — more than all the deaths in all the wars in our nation’s history.

Any way you look at it, the central issue in abortion is whether an unborn fetus is a human being. If it is, then destroying it is murder. The Bible indicates that God recognizes human identity before birth. “For You have formed my inward parts; You have covered me in my mother’s womb…My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret…Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed” (Psalm 139:13-16). The inspired physician Luke uses the same word for “baby” before birth (1:44) and after (2:16). God views an unborn child as a human life made in His image. For anyone who believes the Scriptures, that should settle the issue of abortion. And knowing that one pregnancy in four ends with the unborn child being murdered ought to sicken us.

New Testament Applications

The New Testament plainly condemns murder (Romans 1:29; 1 Peter 4:15), sometimes simply quoting the sixth commandment (see Romans 13:9; James 2:11). But, as we might expect, Jesus’ teaching on the subject goes even deeper. Hear His words from the sermon on the mount:

You have heard that the ancients were told, “You shall not commit murder” and “Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.” But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever shall say to his brother, “Raca,” shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever shall say, “You fool,” shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell (Matthew 5:21-22).

Jesus says that everyday contempt and abuse toward others are just as wicked as murder. He warns against anger without cause. He invokes “raca” (Aramaic for “empty-head” or “worthless”) and “fool” to represent the terms of derision people use to demean one another. He shows that if this is how we treat one another, we do no better than if we were murderers.

Anger is not necessarily evil. Jesus got angry (cf. John 2:14-17). God is angry over sin (Psalm 7:11). Anger isn’t necessarily evil, but it is dangerous. “Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity” (Ephesians 4:26-27). We should be slow to anger, “for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God” (James 2:19-20). Anger is easily hijacked by the evil one and used for his ends. It can cloud our judgment, distort our perceptions, and make us say and do evil things.

Paul expressed concern that he would find at Corinth “strife, jealousy, angry tempers, disputes, slanders, gossip, arrogance, disturbances” (2 Corinthians 12:20). Notice that all of these are far short of violence, yet they are spiritually destructive. We may not be killers, but contemptuous treatment of one another is just as deadly. “But if you bite and devour one another, take care lest you be consumed by one another” (Galatians 5:15).

John presses the point even further. “Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer…But whoever has the world’s goods, and beholds his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?” (1 John 3:15,17). True faith seeks to meet the needs of others (see James 2:15-16). To close our hearts to the needs of men made in God’s image makes us as guilty before God as if we murdered them.

In conclusion, hear these words of Paul:

If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. “But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good (Romans 12:18-21).