The history of Bible printing may not usually be considered the source of riveting stories, but there is one from the early editions of the old Authorized Bible, the King James Version. In 1631 printer Robert Barker made a small, but costly, error producing one of the most scandalous Bibles of all times. In Exodus 20:14, when type setting the Seventh Commandment, he accidentally forget the little word "not" so that the negative command became positive: "thou shalt commit adultery." This error went out on the market and soon became known as the "Wicked Bible." They were soon discovered and promptly destroyed. Barker was fined £300, a huge sum in those days. Surviving copies of this Bible are among the most valued among book collectors, I’m not sure if because of their rarity or that they confirm the desires of so many people. The Seventh Commandment may be the least popular, and the one broken with the most glee and satisfaction. There is a story that goes that Moses, descending from Sinai, clutching the stone tablets, began to address the children of Israel by saying, "I've got good news and bad news. The good news is that we've got them down to ten. The bad news is that the one about adultery is still in there." We live in a culture in which confusion over our sexuality is accompanied by a rejection of the significance of marriage, so that we are perplexed regarding this prohibition. In the past 40 years, we've gone from a culture in which TV programs were not permitted to show husbands and wives sleeping in the same bed to today in which 94% of every sexual activity is between partners who are not married to each other. Our culture has come to the point that it glamorizes, defends, and promotes adultery. Katie Roiphe writes for the New York Times Magazine and says, "Women's magazines practically recommend [adultery] to their readers as a fun and healthy activity, like buying a new shade of lipstick or vacationing in the Caribbean." (Mark Adams, God’s Detour to a Happy Marriage, 1999) The message being machine-gunned into our minds literally thousands of times over a year is that fun, unrestricted sexual expression is your right as a human being. It's your RIGHT, no matter what you said to your spouse at the marriage altar, no matter what God says, no matter who gets blown away in the process. Our culture says that if you find yourself powerfully attracted to another person, you owe it to yourself to pursue that attraction. So while we pursue pleasure, we are left with shattered lives where 1/5 of our nation's children have lost their virginity by 13 and where 25% of all 15 year old girls are sexually active, and that number increases to 81% for nineteen year old girls. Boys are slightly higher. Despite all the dissemination of knowledge about "safe sex," over a million American teenage girls get pregnant each year, and 400,000 of those have abortions. 40% of all girls who are now fourteen will be pregnant at least once before the age of twenty. Josh McDowell, who has done extensive studies of Christian young people in the area of sexual purity, states that his surveys have revealed that of young people in evangelical churches in America 43% of them say they have become sexually active before the age of 18. Our society is plagued with unwanted pregnancies, abortion, AIDS, and a surging rise in venereal diseases. Right now, there are thirty-eight different sexually transmitted diseases that are at epidemic levels, with three million adolescents contracting these diseases each year. The situation for adults is equally distressing as 60% of singles, including those who attend church regularly and participate in Bible studies, are not only sexually active, but half reported having sex with multiple partners. While the skewed findings of the ‘80’s Hite Report shows that ¾ of women married over 5 years have had an affair, more reliable statistics from the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago show that only 15% have ever cheated on a spouse. (Christian Science Monitor, 10/28/93). Nevertheless, the problem is very real and the Church appears to have fallen headlong into the same morass, as findings show the numbers are the same for those who profess faith as those who do not. God’s Word has much to say about this, and we will turn to that familiar command regarding adultery in Deuteronomy. 5:18 as our starting point so that we can see more clearly our need for our Savior, our faithful Bridegroom, Jesus Christ.
Our word "adultery" comes from the term "adulterate," which means to contaminate or make impure, and in that sense it is a euphemism, whereas the Hebrew term has at its root having sex with one other than your spouse. To understand why this prohibition is listed here, we need to first realize that: The problem with adultery is that marriage is good Our starting point must be with what God intended. In Genesis we learn that God created us male and female. The sexual dimension of human personality was not an afterthought by God. He intended there to be an attraction between men and women. God’s intended purpose for human sexuality was not just so that married couples might populate the earth, but it was also so that they might enjoy the riches of the very deepest and most intimate level of personal and pleasurable communication possible. C. S. Lewis once wrote, "Pleasure after all is God’s invention, not Satan’s." There is a mistaken notion rampant in our world that Christians think sex is equivalent to sin. Terms such as "puritanical" and "Victorian" equate Christianity and the repression of sensual pleasure. It is bad history to make the Puritans the bad guys, despite their dour portrayal since Hawthorne’s scathing critique in The Scarlet Letter. In fact, they could be rather earthy sorts, speaking far more freely and positively of marital bliss than we do today. Marriage is not a contrivance from the Fall, rather it is part of God’s good plan for creation. When Adam was presented with Eve he recognized that she was the completion of him, that she made up what he lacked and that together their union was greater than the sum of their parts, calling her "bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh." They could stand before one another naked and without shame, we are told, pointing to the goodness of marriage and the pleasures offered in it. Their union, celebrated in coitus, is a one flesh-ness that extends even to their common name. Adam (ish) calls his wife woman (isshah), a derivation of his own name. Their unity is total. Our marriages must communicate God’s design What God instituted in marriage was a living illustration teaching us how God relates to us. In marriage we see how the Covenant is to operate. Paul brings out this relationship in Ephesians 5 when he takes the one flesh relationship of a husband and wife and applies it to Christ and the church. "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery--but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband." (Ephesians 5:31-33) In marriage, that the two individuals become one points to God's own character. We have a living, breathing illustration for ourselves, our children, our neighbors as to who God is, how He relates within the Trinity, how He relates to us: by the example of our marriage. God relates to His people not only as a sovereign King but as a Husband. When we looked at the Second Commandment, "You shall have no other gods before me," we best understand it in the context of having another spouse. So the command against adultery is a command to remain committed, faithful to the one to whom you made a vow. When we live in light of God’s design, it should not be a surprise us that there is a benefit. The latest research by social scientists is confirming over and over again that this is true. A study published in 1994 by the University of Chicago came up with the following conclusions: Married couples reported being the most physically pleased and emotionally satisfied. The lowest rate of sexual satisfaction was among single men and women... the very ones the media portrays as having the best time. The group most intimate is not the young and footloose but the old and married. Physical and emotional satisfaction started to decline when people had more than one partner. These scientists admitted being especially surprised when their data revealed that the most consistently sexually-satisfied women in the country were conservative Protestants. (All of whom had a greater & more pleasing sex life than did those with no religious affiliation!) Again and again there has been independent confirmation like this by social scientists that God's plan for our sexuality really does make sense. (Mark Adams, God’s Detour to a Happy Marriage, 1999) The problem with adultery is that a promise is important Having laid a brief foundation as to what is right with marriage, let us look at the reason why adultery is wrong, why is it prohibited here and why it seems to come up so much throughout the Bible. The reason is that at the core of marriage is a commitment, a vow, a covenant which points to the promise God makes to us. For us to break that vow in our marriage is to treat as filth the promise God has made. When you commit adultery you are not just breaking a commitment, you are betraying a person. That's why you will hear the offended spouse crying out, "How could you do this to me!" Interesting statement, isn't it? Technically, nothing was done to the offended party. The innocent spouse is really saying, "How could you break your exclusive commitment to me? How could you deceive me, lie to me and be so disloyal to me?" That’s where the pain and agony come in. It is a pain which destroys a commitment, a pain that is often said to be greater than death. According to Atlanta psychologist Dr. Frank Pittman, "It's not the sex that destroys the trust, it's the lie. The lie destroys the intimacy of marriage. People get into these [situations] not because they met somebody 'wonderful,' because somebody wonderful is not screwing around with married people. They fall in love as a way of running away from a life that's too real for them. These are the people willing to give up their husband, wife, children, parents, job, grandmother, antiques - anything – for somebody they just met on an escalator." ("Having An Affair?" Kahn & Carton) Since marriage is given as a living illustration of God’s promise to us, when we trample on marriage we are likewise spitting on God’s promise to us. Malachi 2 brings this out when he describes the horrors of divorce. The prophet here makes a connection between our spiritual life and our home life, by calling divorce breaking faith, the marriage a covenant and destroying this vow bloodshed. In Jeremiah 3 there is the common connection between idolatry and adultery, between false worship and immorality. The problem with adultery is that it begins within Don’t flatter yourself with the idea that you cannot be charged with immorality because you have abstained from the actual deed while your heart is a cesspool. Sin is a condition first, then an attitude; only then does it become an action. Action flows from the thought. So we are condemned by even the entertainment of the thought. Matthew 5 makes it clear that sin begins in our heart. For this reason our sexuality is a lot like a toboggan going down an icy run. Some of you may know what its like to have six or eight people loaded on a toboggan, trying to break it free and push it down the hill. If someone yells "Stop!' when you're just breaking it free, you've got about 3 or 4 feet in which you can still hold on to that thing. But when you get beyond the 4 foot range, and its going down the hill, and it will literally drag you with it. When lust takes control of our minds, we allow the seeds of sexual sin to take root in our hearts. As soon as we start frothing over sexual fantasies, God becomes unreal to us; He seems very distant and far away. The only thing that seems to matter is the immediate gratification of our sexual need. The reason why people spend billions of dollars each year to watch other people commit adultery is so that it will fuel their own passions to eventually go and do what they see. The Illinois Department of Natural Resources reports that more than 17,000 deer die each year after being struck by motorists on state highways. According to Paul Shelton, state wildlife director, the peak season for road kills is in late fall. Why? The bucks are in rut in November. "They're concentrating almost exclusively on reproductive activities," he said, "and are a lot less wary than they normally would be." Deer aren't the only ones destroyed by preoccupation with sex.(Greg Asimakoupoulos in Fresh Illustrations for Preaching & Teaching) It is certainly difficult to control our lusts, to put a damper on the fantasy. But it is at this point that God not only demands it of us, but gives us the grace to obey Him. In 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8 Paul makes it clear that we must control ourselves in this area. Martin Luther said: "You can't stop the birds from flying over your head, but you can stop them from building a nest in your hair." The solution for adultery is that Christ kept His promise Christ commits Himself to mend broken promises The antidote to adultery is, or should be, for most of us, a good marriage. This means a marriage in which there is the right kind of sensual fulfillment. It is a good gift and should not be neglected. But it would be a mistake to create guidelines for spouses, lists on how to deal with the opposite sex, limits for dating couples. These methods may make for stronger and better relationships, but the final answer is not found in this, especially when the commitment has been broken. Marriage is no panacea, no magical charm to produce happiness and virtue. Family life will not make you holy and happy; nothing in creation will ever do that. Rather what each of us needs is something outside of ourselves, outside of our homes, outside of our nation. We need grace! By the standards of the Seventh Commandment none of us are left standing. When fantasizing about a body on the page, ignoring one's spouse or denying him or her our full sympathy and devotion, using a date as an object rather than a person, we all want to justify ourselves with technical and clinical definitions, but by our Lord's standard, none of us passes the test. The good news is that God has more grace than we have sins. The good news is that God can mend broken lives; He'll mend our broken promises, our broken relationships. As fallen sinners, we love pointing our fingers at everyone and reminding them of their sins. We love verses whose bite does not apply to us. 1 Corinthians 6:9 is often such a favorite. But verse11 hits us like a ton of bricks: "...and such were some of you." But you were washed. Not that you washed your self. Not that Christ will wash you. But you were washed, sanctified, justified by Christ. Maybe in your past, maybe right now, you are wrestling with the torment of broken promises, of commitments destroyed by adultery, lust, addiction to immorality. I've got great news: there is hope. Christ died for people like you and like me. His love, His commitment, remains despite our broken promises, despite our immorality. All He asks is that we go to Him to be washed. Christ commits Himself to maintain His promise Though the sins of adultery and lust are all terrible in the sight of God, God's grace through Jesus Christ can cover over all of your sin, not because your sins are not heinous, but because His sacrifice is so great. It took the spilled blood of Jesus Christ to cover the spiritual stains we all have for violating the Ten Commandments. The good news is that the worst violator here today can receive God’s grace. Be willing to humble yourself before God and say, "I have sinned against you, God; I have violated your Holy Law. I confess my sin and grieve over it. And I receive your free gift of forgiveness and right standing before you because of what Jesus has done for me through His death, burial and resurrection." In Matthew 5 when Jesus sets the high standard of righteousness He requires of you, He knew when He gave this standard that it would be an impossible standard for you to keep in your own strength. So why did He set this high standard? To cause you to despair of your own lack of personal righteousness and to seek His righteousness. Getting rid of harmful influences will not change a corrupt heart into a pure heart. Outward acts cannot produce true inner transformation. The Lord's answer for a wicked heart is a new heart which can only come by means of a new birth through repentance and faith in Christ. And the Lord's answer for your ongoing helplessness is the experience of His sufficiency which comes only as you learn to lean on Him and abide in Him. The Bible begins with a good marriage gone bad as our first parents rejected God’s wonderful gift. When they broke the Covenant with God, they saw their own nakedness and in shame hid from one another. Ever since, we’ve hid from God and from others; we’ve sought refuge in fantasy and lust, in virtual or casual sex. But the Gospel takes us from the Garden, through the Fall and in light of redemption brings us to another marriage, a bad marriage made perfect by a perfect Groom. In Revelation 19 a wedding feast is described. At the consummation of the ages the elect will be gathered as the Bride of Christ, having been prepared by God through all time. She, the Church, will ready herself by adorning the wedding gown given to her. Clothed in the righteousness of Christ, having laid aside the filthy garments of our own sin, of even our foolish attempts to live purely apart from God’s grace, we will be accepted as the Bride. In this passage, there is an odd statement. In verse 8 we are told: "Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints." This seems to contradict what was just said, that the fine linen was given for her to wear. This reinforces the great truth that the imputed righteousness of Christ will create imparted righteousness in our lives. It is not as though you may live immorally and God cares little for what you do with your body. Rather, what you do matters greatly. But He gives grace to live according to His Law. You’ve been bought with a price. You must and can, glorify God in your body. As we await the great feast in Heaven, God feeds us now with this simple but vital meal of bread and wine. The elements set before you are not magical, but when you take and eat all the while looking to Christ to feed and nourish you, then you can have the power, from God through the grace of the Holy Spirit, to live as God commands. |
