Articles
Ten Commandments (7)
The Ten Commandments (7)
Mike Willis
The seventh commandment is “You shall not commit adultery” (Exod. 20:14). Adultery is a prohibition of marital infidelity. Douglas Stuart wrote, “No one is allowed to have sex with any married person except his or her spouse, and no married person is allowed to have sex with anyone other than his or her spouse” (Exodus, The New American Commentary, 463). The Bible refers to adultery as “the great sin” (Gen. 20:9; Exod. 32:21, 30-31; 2 Kings 17:21).
In many cases, adultery destroys marriages. The adulteress and adulterer sometimes destroy two marriages, when the wife in one marriage has sexual relationships with the husband of another marriage. Their sin frequently results in divorce, with the children suffering the consequences of the selfish behavior of the two guilty of adultery. Usually in such cases, the fathers of both families are unable to parent their own children (although there are rare exceptions). Psychologists describe a litany of problems that divorce has on one’s children (see “The Effects of Divorce on Children,” Patrick F. Fagan and Aaron Churchill, presented by Marriage & Religion Research Institute). Their research documents what effect it has on the parent-child relationships, the child’s increased trouble in romantic relationships, their own likelihood to divorce, lessening of religious involvement, education, standard of living, crime rate, and abuse of drugs. A society that ignores the “you shall not commit adultery” commandment harms itself.
In first century Rome, divorce and remarriage was commonplace. William Barclay wrote, “Seneca speaks of women who were married to be divorced and who were divorced to be married” (The Gospel of Matthew, 1:154). Since the implementing of no-fault divorce, American culture has moved in the same direction: The family unit is collapsing.
The laws included in the Ten Commandments are for mankind’s good. Moses wrote, “I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days; and that you may dwell in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them” (Deut. 30:19-20).
