“Thou shalt not commit adultery.” (Exodus 20:14. KJV)The seventh commandment deals with faithfulness and commitment in marriage. Giving of this commandment marked a major step in understanding the role of the home in an ordered society. Two terms were used to denote forbidden sexual relationships. Adultery applied to sexual relationships with another man’s wife outside of marriage. Fornication is the general term referring to any or all sexual relationships outside the sacred bonds of marriage. The case for sexual purity is based on the concept that sexual capacity is a God-given gift but to be used according to His purpose and plan. The closest of human bonds, the love of a man and a woman who have committed themselves in pledge to one another was the very first institution for human welfare, set by God Himself in the Garden of Eden for His newly created male and female, Adam and Eve. We can almost hear the exclamation as Adam beheld Eve, his bride: “This is now bone of my bones And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man.” (Genesis 2:23, NKJV). We hear the enduring commitment in the statement that follows: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24, NKJV).
Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount had strong teachings about adultery in the heart and how marriage should be sacred and binding. (Read Matthew 5:27-32). Within the law, exceptions had been made for many of the “Thou shalt not…” commandments. The seventh commandment, likewise, had explanations that made it less binding. Jesus taught that lust is highly damaging and already a commitment of adultery in the heart. He further warned against “easy” divorce and its consequences to husband and wife.
Today, statistics are phenomenal on marriage breakups because of adultery or unfaithfulness of one partner or the other. About one-half the marriages performed in America now end in divorce. This represents a serious weakening of the social foundation of our nation. Consequences are painful not only for the couple involved but for any children within the home. Broken relationships always point to failure. Failure to recognize God as the author of marriage, and His standards of one man and one woman “until death do us part” as His plan for this covenant relationship goes against the Christian way and the law. We need to return seriously to the admonition in I Corinthians 6:18-20: “Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.” (NKJV)
c Ethelene Dyer Jones; Wednesday, August 11, 2010
