Ten Commandments, P7: Do Not Commit Adultery

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

“Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness…” (Galatians 5:19, KJV)

There is a lot of potential for sin surrounding sex. God has given us many parameters regarding it: who it is appropriate to have it with by gender and marital status. The freedom with which we are permitted to deal in it. No matter the way we look at it or try to slice the conversation, God is pretty clear about what He wants in that area for us.

He wants for sex to be between one married man and one married woman (1 Corinthians 7:2). Anything more or less is not something sanctioned by Him. Some sexual sins may be obvious to us like no orgies or devious sexual immorality. Some sexual sins are harder to tow the line on. Nowadays, premarital sex is the norm. Saving one’s purity for the one person you marry is rare. But even lusting is considered a sexual sin. After all, it is Jesus Himself who yet again, followed the big, scandalous sins back to the root of the problem.

In Matthew 5, Jesus also talks about how the law is clear that “Thou shall not commit adultery,” but in all reality, all adultery traces back to lusting after someone else that is not your spouse. In this passage of scripture, Jesus says that if someone so much as lusts after another person has already committed adultery in their heart which is just as egregious as the actual committing of adultery. 

Jesus advises in the same scripture that if your eye should cause you to sin, it is better to pluck it out and if your right hand should rebel against the Lord, it is better to cut it off. It seems overboard and crazy, but His point is that if there is a weakness within us that would cause us to disobey the Lord’s commands in sin, it is better for us to dismember our flesh to take the temptation away than to allow that temptation to cause us to sin against God.

Of course we do not have to mutilate ourselves to maintain a healthy and pleasing relationship with the Lord, but this goes to show that we need to root out sin and temptation in our lives at all costs. Even if it means the detriment of our comfortability or if it goes against our natural inclinations.

So lust, being the root of adultery, is just as offensive to the Lord as the actual act of adultery. So what is adultery exactly? 

Adultery is the act of having extra-marital sex where one or both parties are married to other people. This sin was ultra-taboo in Jewish culture because it went against not only God’s intention behind sex, but it also flew in the face of the institution of marriage.

In Genesis 39, when Potiphar’s wife tries to seduce Joseph into sleeping with her behind her husband's back. Upon being invited into her bed, Joseph vehemently denies her, saying that she is the one thing he could never dream to attain in his master’s house and to do so would be a wicked sin against God. 

Despite what today’s culture would suggest, sex is more than just satisfying a carnal urge. People would have you believe that sexual freedom and sex-positivity is having it with whomever you want, whenever you want, and as often as you want. But often, what that leads to is emotional damage and the undermining of what God intends sex to be with your spouse. 

In reality, sex binds two people. That is the intention of it. It connects them in the heights of intimacy and unifies two souls in covenant with each other. It is something deeply spiritual and cannot be engaged in lightly. That’s why when infidelity is discovered in a relationship, the fallout is devastating. That’s why divorced couples have said that losing that spouse was like losing a piece of themselves and the grief is akin to a death. 

No one gets married with the idea in mind that their marriage will fail. No one gets married with the intention to betray their beloved. But adultery damages people in some of the deepest ways possible. That’s why the Old Testament law outlines many punishments for adultery and why the New Testament teaches to avoid it at all costs. Paul writes in Galatians that adultery is the antithesis of the Fruits of the Holy Spirit. Walking in and acting on adultery cannot produce anything remotely glorifying to God.

And while the effects of adultery are deep and damaging, the wonderful news is that God’s mercy and grace covers it all. There is no sin too far-gone that God can’t forgive and redeem you from. What must be done to enjoy that grace is that all sin, including sexual sin, would have to be turned from and ended entirely.

Why? Because God is worth more to us than any earthly pleasure. His grace is all-sufficient and never-ending. It leads to eternal life and security. And I get it, sexual pleasure can be a hard thing to deny oneself. It’s something most people struggle with daily, but God is clear: the only way to enjoy that God-designed pleasure is by intimacy with one’s spouse. So if you have committed adultery, lusted after someone else, or had extra-marital sex, and you are convicted by this message today, take solace in the fact that you are far from the first or last person to deal with it; not only that, but God is a God who will walk with you through your temptations and be delighted to save you from the sins that were your downfall before salvation.

The way to His mercy is to turn away from those things that lead to sin and spiritual death. When we feel temptation, we turn to Him and let Him satisfy our needs. The truth is that God honors our obedience and faithfulness to Him, and that includes our sexuality, purity, and our reverence to the institution of marriage that He designed for us to be in covenant with one spouse.