Nakedness and Fornication – The Seventh Commandment

Nakedness and Fornication

The Seventh Commandment

Fornication begins in the heart.

Leviticus 20:19

“You shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother’s sister or of your father’s sister, for that is to make naked one’s relative; they shall bear their iniquity.”

Leviticus 20:21

“If a man takes his brother’s wife, it is impurity. He has uncovered his brother’s nakedness; they shall be childless.”

Here is another instance in which uncovering nakedness and fornication are equated. Clearly, God intended His people to make the connection between these. If you look on the naked body of your neighbor, it’s as if you had committed adultery already. This is doubtless the basis for Jesus’ remark in Matthew 5:27, 28. Jesus went on to emphasize the importance of guarding against this by every means, using hyperbole to make the point that we must not allow in our lives anything which inclines us to commit adultery, if only in our hearts (vv. 29, 30).

In recent years, as in other generations prior to ours, sexual sin has compromised and undermined the Church’s witness to the world. The wisdom of God’s Law in teaching us to guard against even the beginnings of illicit sexual activity is justified by the disastrous effects of our ignoring these statutes in the believing community today.

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.