Adultery - Part 1

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

After the weekend, I’m picking back up on my short topical Bible study of the Ten Commandments of God. There is no argument that sinning is fun, or else nobody would be doing sinful acts. Hebrews 11:24-26 explains, “By faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward.” The reality is that sins are temporary pleasures, harmful to our life, and ultimately, deadly in their consequences because we sin against the Sovereign Lawgiver, God, and the wages of sin is death.

James 1:13-15 “Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.”

Our Creator Lord God Almighty is Sovereign in His authority over His creation, defining, setting, communicating and sustaining the laws and order of the Cosmos, including all that lives and breathes. In act, one of the purposes of the Law of God is to provide boundaries that keep us from getting hurt when we transgress them. Used rightly (right in the eyes of God), the law is actually a means to help us celebrate.

Romans 7:7 “What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, “You shall not covet.”

The same for “You shall not commit adultery”, and the seventh commandment provided an excellent example of this principle. To understand this, we must look to the first marriage in history, between Adam and Eve. Genesis 2:18-25 explains that God made man and woman for each other, that He created marriage so that we would not be alone. In the marriage relationship, husband and wife come together as one flesh in a mystical union that images the union of Christ and His church (Ephesians 5:31-32). I heard a pastor state that the godly marriage union was equivalent to gluing two wooden boards together, to where to pull them apart would break, splinter and damage the two pieces. God’s purpose for marriage is that we would have a relationship in which we can be vulnerable to another person without fear or shame. It’s a God instituted institution.

The Lord Jesus said in Mark 10:7-9, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’; so then they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”

Let’s continue this message on “adultery” in the next post.

In Christ, Brian