“And you shall not commit adultery” (Deuteronomy 5:18).

In the Old Testament, as well as other ancient texts from the Near East, ‘adultery’ was referred to as the: ‘great sin’. Here, adultery refers to sexual relations between people where both, or one is married or engaged. This does not mean that the sexual sins of the unmarried are looked on favourably by Scripture – fornication is equally condemned by God’s Word!

Marriage is also portrayed in Scripture as the unit of husband and wife, providing the foundation on which society is built. It shows God’s high regard for having a protected place for children to grow up. In Genesis 2:24 we read that: ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.’  The words: ‘hold fast’ are quite hard to translate from the Hebrew, as there it refers to something more akin to being glued together – and therefore, not meant to be separated! Therefore, the consequence of breaking this Commandment can often leads to damaged lives and damaged families as it often results in a disrupted and troubled childhood for the divorced couples’ children. The sad truth of the damage adultery does an individual has been encapsulated by the words of Solomon who wrote in Proverbs 6:28-29 : ‘can one walk on hot coals and his feet not be scorched? So is he who goes in to his neighbour’s wife; none who touches her will go unpunished’  The wider implications are also aptly expressed by Frank McClelland when he points out: ‘Adultery commits two wrongs at once.  One sin destroys two people at the same time. Very often the same, one sin destroys two families at the same time.’[1]

In 1 Corinthians 7:4 the Apostle Paul writes: ‘For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.‘ So marriage is the exclusive and protected place for sexual intimacy between a husband and wife. The Bible never speaks of sex within marriage as ‘dirty’, but rather, to be commended (see 1 Corinthians 7:5). Indeed, one of the greatest love poems ever written can be found in the Bible. When I preached the Songs of Songs I decided to move the Bible readings to just before the sermon, after the children had gone out to their activities. This was due to the sexually explicit nature of this book, which celebrates the intimacy between a man and a woman in its rightful context, marriage!

Furthermore, marriage is often depicted by Scripture as the kind of a relationship that exists between God and his people. Indeed, Thomas Watson observes, in reference to Ephesians 5:22, that: ‘Marriage is a type and resemblance of the mystical union between Christ and his Church.’[2] In the Old Testament Israel’s rejection of God is compared to adultery. This is most notable in the Book of Hosea where the prophet’s Hosea’s relationship with his unfaithful wife Gomer, acts as an example of God’s love for His unfaithful people in truly amazing and moving ways. Apart from anything else Israel’s spiritual adultery showed an incredible ungratefulness towards God, and thus, a key aspect of adultery is demonstrating our lack of gratitude towards God for the marriage partner.

Human love matters greatly to God; in Proverbs chapter 5 the writer initially warns of the dangers of adultery, – but later, in verses 15-20, the tone changes to a positive celebration of faithfulness within marriage: ‘Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well. Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets? Let them be for yourself alone, and not for strangers with you. Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love. Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?’

As we saw from our examination of the Sixth Commandment, it is not merely a case of keeping God’s law by our actions – we need to keep them in our hearts and thoughts. Jesus, in Matthew 5:27-28, relates the breaking of this commandment not just to the acts, but also to lustful thoughts, and not excluding those who are not married! So, we need to guard against temptation, because temptation always starts with what we see and hear and what we think! This should remind us again that God is a God of grace in His dealings with us, because our good works (keeping the letter of the Law) just do not cut it! They will never be enough to compensate for our failure to keep God’s Law with all our heart. The Apostle Paul when writing to the Ephesian church sums it up this way: ‘For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.’ (Ephesians 2:8-9).

To end on a positive note, however, let us consider that God designed marriage for the benefit of men and women – and I would encourage those in marriages to keep the romance alive! Marriage, and sadly, even Christian marriages are under a great deal of pressure today. Husbands and wives need to guard their time carefully. Try to make time for a ‘date’ or even, if you can, the occasional romantic weekend away (as surprising as it may seem grandparents often love having their grandchildren to look after). Do not become so busy with work, family or even Church that the romance dies. This isn’t just my advice; the Bible commends it! One of the loveliest parts of the Song of Songs describes a couple taking such a romantic break: “ Come, my beloved, let us go out into the fields and lodge in the villages; let us go out early to the vineyards and see whether the vines have budded, whether the grape blossoms have opened and the pomegranates are in bloom. There I will give you, my love. The mandrakes give forth fragrance, and beside our doors are all choice fruits, new as well as old, which I have laid up for you, O my beloved” (Song of Songs 7:11-13). Now that sounds like a hot date!

[1] Frank McClelland. The Ancient Law for the New Age, A Concise Examination of the Ten Commandments (Toronto, Wittenburg Publications, 1990) 89.
[2] Thomas Watson. The Ten Commandments (London, The Banner of Truth Trust, 1965) 153.