Adultery – The Law of God and Public Policy: Marriage and Sex (2)

Adultery

The Law of God and Public Policy: Marriage and Sex (2)

Adultery is treachery against marriage and the divine economy.

“You shall not commit adultery.” Exodus 20:14

Because the family is the foundational institution for attaining the promises of God and filling the world with His goodness and glory, and because sexual enjoyment is reserved by the Law of God to the confines of the family, adultery in all its forms represents nothing less than treachery against the family and the divine economy. It is for this reason that adultery is always treated with the utmost seriousness in the Law of God.

Adultery takes many forms, as we shall see. But, as Jesus explained, adultery is first of all a condition of a heart which has not been disciplined to love God and one’s neighbor as oneself (Matt. 5:27, 28). The cause of rampant adultery, such as is everywhere the norm in our society, is directly related to the abandonment of God’s Law as a primary resource for disciplining the affections (cf. Deut. 6:4-7). Where the Law of God is neglected, denied, or otherwise forsaken, the human heart, deceitful and desperately wicked without the fetters of grace and truth (Jer. 17:9), will embrace every self-serving motive and practice which is offered to it, as the experience of our first parents makes plain (Gen. 3:1-6). The only true preventive for adultery is instruction in and enforcement of the Law of God, beginning in the home. Such a prescription will sound quaint and prudish to our “enlightened” and narcissistic age; nevertheless, it meets the approval of God, and Christians must prefer that God be regarded as true, and every alternative to His norms a form of the Lie (Rom. 3:4).

The Law of God understands that what is conceived in the heart will come to expression in particular ways in the life. Therefore, the statutes, precepts, and rules supporting the seventh commandment are specific as to what kinds of behavior constitute adultery and are therefore forbidden. The rest of Scripture, including the New Testament, confirms the adulterous character of the practices we will be examining in this section. In the New Testament the penalty for such practice is mitigated, given the conditions of the Kingdom age which we have previously examined (the Church does not bear the sword, we live in a time of grace and the Spirit). So we can say that the sins of adultery spelled out in the Law of God remain sins throughout Scripture, into the period of the New Testament, and, therefore, unto our own day.

All such behaviors and practices as we shall consider in the remaining installments of this section of our series on the Law and public policy are therefore to be considered forms of adultery, compromises of God’s design for sexual enjoyment, threats to the stability of marriage and the family, assaults on the divine economy, and, for all these reasons, abominations in the eyes of God.

The question each believer must consider is whether they shall be regarded as such in his eyes as well.

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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.