Adultery Proper – The Seventh Commandment

Adultery Proper

The Seventh Commandment

Guard against all adultery.

Leviticus 18:20

“And you shall not lie sexually with your neighbor’s wife and so make yourself unclean with her.”

1 Corinthians 10:8

Leviticus 20:10

 “If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.”

Deuteronomy 22:22

 “If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel.”

The language here is more explicitly directed toward adulterous activity, but we can assume that “uncovering nakedness” is also included. David shows us how the latter can lead all too easily to the former. Adultery constitutes an attack on marriage and family, the foundational institution of an ordered society, and violates the creation mandate of God concerning the proper context for sexual relations. Attaching the death penalty to sins of adultery would serve to remind the people of Israel of the sacredness of marriage and the family in the divine economy.

We do not put adulterers to death in our day (see on), but this is because of the availability of grace in this age of the Gospel. Nevertheless, we must not “wink” at adultery. The Church has proper measures of discipline which must be brought to bear whenever this or any transgression of God’s Law is uncovered within the Body of Christ.

We are now accepting registrations for the course, Spiritual Maturity 1: Revival. This free, six-session course by T. M. Moore allows you to study by yourself or with a mentor, and includes free resources from Patrick, Columbanus, Luther, and Edwards, among others. Visit The Ailbe Seminary for more information on this training opportunity.

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In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore, editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001, 2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.