Articles
Coping with Life 44 – Adultery
Coping with Life 44 – Adultery
Mike Willis
Previously, I wrote about God’s creating mankind, male and female, with the command to be fruitful and multiply, indicating that sexuality is a part of God’s good creation. The sexual bond was reserved for marriage (Heb. 13:4) and the Old Testament law defined the punishment for those who have sexual relations outside the bond of marriage. So promiscuity or fornication is condemned in Scripture (1 Thess. 4:2-6).
The sixth of the Ten Commandments is “You shall not commit adultery” (Exod. 20:14). The seriousness of the sin of adultery is seen by the punishment God decreed for adultery: “If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death” (Lev. 20:10). While the New Testament does not provide civil law for a state, as the Old Testament Torah was for Israel, adultery is still included as sinful in the New Testament (the sin is listed in 18 verses).
When a man or woman has sex relationships with someone married to another, he/she is guilty of adultery. Jesus Himself said, “. . . whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.” The teaching of Jesus clearly states that divorcing one’s mate for any reason other than fornication and marrying someone else is adultery. America’s divorce-for-any-reason marriage law has resulted in many couples living together in a marriage relationship that Jesus defined as adulterous.
Jesus also stated that looking on a woman to lust after her is tantamount to adultery: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matt. 5:27-28). Coveting another man’s wife is specifically listed under the command of “you shall not covet” (Exod. 20:17). When men and women participate in pornography they are lusting, committing adultery in their hearts.
Scripture states that the sexually immoral will not go to heaven: “But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the SEXUALLY IMMORAL, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death” (Rev. 21:8).
American culture rejects what God teaches in His word about sexual immorality. It openly affirms that “there are no moral absolutes,” a statement that is self-contradictory! It affirms absolutely that there are no moral absolutes. We may ignore the word of God in this twenty-first century culture, but we cannot ignore the problems created by sexual immorality. Adultery frequently breaks apart one or two marriages. Studies of children from divorced homes consistently report the scars that divorce leaves on the children in the home. Those who are unfaithful to one mate are frequently unfaithful to the next mate. Sex outside the marriage bond sometimes brings diseases to the innocent mate. But, none of these temporal problems compare to eternal judgment before God. One may ignore God in this life, but the Bible foretells a future judgment to which all men are accountable. “It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment” (Heb. 9:27).
The good news of the gospel is that Jesus has given Himself as a sacrifice for your sins and mine. His conditions for salvation are simple: believe that He is the Son of God and that His crucifixion on Calvary was a atonement for our sins (John 8:24); repent of your sins (Luke 13:3), confess your faith in Jesus and be immersed in water for the forgiveness of your sins (Mark 16:15-16).
