"You Shall Not Commit Adultery" (Part 1)
[Editor's Note: Sometime during the year, 1991, Terry Hightower (who was then at the Shenandoah Church of Christ in San Antonio, Texas) asked me to write on "You Shall Not Commit Adultery," which became the first of about 100 manuscripts of mine to be published in various lectureship books. That book (and it remains one of the greatest lectureship books) was titled, Biblical Ethics, and it was distributed during the 1992 Shenandoah lectures. Unfortunately, it has been out of print for a number of years. It will be reproduced here over the next few weeks.]
Two years ago, a first-year college student wrote the following autobiographical sketch for a composition course, the contents of which are indicative of the problem this chapter is dealing with.
Our instructor had told us to do freewriting for 10 minutes. So what are my thoughts? I am in my first semester at ICC [Illinois Central College, GWS] after being out of school over 20 years. Needless to say, I have a lot of emotions churning around inside of me. Scared, happy to be in school, hurt, anxiety, and even calmness sometimes. I want badly to do well and I need to get good grades for my intended degree. I am also tired for I have been studying my math & chemistry a lot and my brain is exhausted by nightfall. But school is the only positive thing I have going in my life at the moment.
Well, not the only thing but one of them for sure. My husband of 22 years has left me for another woman—that hurts. I am attractive but don't want to do the dating scene. So I am going to busy myself in school. I am seeing a counselor, and she is helping me work thru all this.
Divorce is a word that I don't like for with my religious background, I don't believe in it. So what do you do when something hurts so bad it consumes your mind all the time? I can't even write a paper and not talk about it. I hate this. I want to go on with my life even if he doesn't want one, but saying that and doing that are 2 different things. So that is why I am in school, to help me focus my life on something positive and also to gain an education, something that I could not do before.
I also gave my time to my kids and my husband, but they are all gone, so now it is just me. So I am doing what makes me happy for the 1st time in my life. It is a high feeling but scary too and that is basically why I am here. You seem like a good teacher. I am enjoying your class.
The seventh commandment that God gave to Israel seems plain enough: "You shall not commit adultery" (Exodus 20:14). But the lustful desires of the hearts of men necessitate a chapter on this statute—not so much to explain what adultery is, but to set forth reasons to abstain from committing the unlawful act.
ADULTERY IS A PROBLEM
In his book, Straight Talk to Men and Their Wives, James Dobson reports the rationale of a man who left his wife and married his secretary.
"I am the father of four kids," he said. "I have been a full-time husband and father for ten years, putting up with constant noise and bickering and family pressures at home. I have rarely had any time for myself, and my life has been one long obligation. Then Martha came onto the scene, and I went with her, because, quite frankly, fun and games looked good to me" (118).
Elders, preachers, and other members of the Lord's church have certainly not remained immune to the voice of allurement. In the state of Illinois alone we are sorry to admit that several instances of adultery have been committed by brethren over the past twenty-five years. Two cases involved a preacher's wife and an elder; in one congregation a preacher cheated on his wife with the unmarried daughter of an elder and later divorced his wife to marry her; a personal work director committed adultery with a woman who had recently been restored; another preacher was unfaithful to his wife while in one congregation—then he moved to another one (despite warnings) and behaved similarly there; yet another preacher moved away to another state, and the following Sunday several women of the congregation he left went forward to confess adultery with him—he continued his philandering ways in the next church he went to; in Peoria itself more than once have "Christian" couples divorced and married other divorced Christians.
The few examples above verify the statement of David Seamands: "Sexual temptation is no respecter of persons, no respecter of theological labels, no respecter of leadership positions" (Shelly 16). The same issue of Leadership in which that statement appeared also contained a survey of ministers in which 12% acknowledged that they had sexual intimacy with someone other than their spouse (12). In light of all these assorted sordid instances and the anonymous admonitions, can there be anything more relevant and pertinent than a prolonged exhortation against the committing of adultery?
DEFINITION AND USAGES
A check of various dictionaries and lexicons will find very few differences in how adultery is defined. As Kittel begins a discussion of the Hebrew word used in Exodus 20:14, he states simply: "This root represents 'sexual intercourse with the wife or betrothed of another man'" (Vol. 4, p. 542). This same source tells us that the root word occurs 34 times in the Old Testament. In the New, moicheia (or one of its forms) appears 35 times.
The Bible contains four basic applications of adultery. The first is the obvious act of sexual infidelity as mentioned above. This breach of the marriage vows is unfortunately all too common in today's society, as has already been demonstrated.
In both testaments, adultery may be used in a spiritual sense in which it refers to man's unfaithfulness to God (Jer. 3:8-9; James 4:4). The idols (and the immoralities that often attended their worship) led God's people astray numerous times. Until the captivity, Israel and Judah alike violated God's first two commandments by chasing after various idols, eager to play the harlot (Hosea 2:2-5). We are likewise warned to keep ourselves from idols in the New Testament (1 John 5:21), and we are given a broader definition of idolatry, which may include covetousness (Eph. 5:5; Col. 3:5). Actually, Jesus warned us not to put anything ahead of Him (Luke 14:26-27), thus echoing Exodus 20:3-5.
A third occurrence of adultery was presented by Jesus, who identified the origin of the problem as stemming from what goes on in the mind of man. "You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Matt. 5:27-28). This mental devouring of a woman can be nothing other than sin; furthermore, it frequently leads to the physical act. The heart can truly devise wicked plans (Matt. 15:18-20) that will defile a man. It is essential to keep one's thoughts pure; righteous thoughts must replace the evil ones (Phil. 4:8).
The fourth type of adultery is also defined by Jesus. "And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery" (Matt. 19:9). Fornication, as used in this passage, is a general word for sexual immorality, which includes both adultery and homosexuality.
Divorce followed by a subsequent marriage lacks God's blessing unless fornication is the occasion of the divorce. God authorized divorce for no other reason—period. Why do so many divorce? Many think like the woman whose letter Ann Landers published on July 31, 1991. She fell in love with "Bob" a number of years ago, but for some reason he married her sister. She herself later married a man whom she has never loved. Now she is sexually involved with "Bob" and wants to know if they could divorce their current mates to marry each other. These two have no authority to divorce, and if they follow the suggested scenario, they will continually commit adultery.
Jesus knew the hearts of men and women. He knew that many people would get themselves into or find themselves in an unhappy marital situation. But God does not allow less-than-blissful couples to just walk out of the relationship because someone better has come along. Marriage was designed to be permanent: who enters into it without that knowledge? The person who legally dissolved one marriage (but not for adultery on the part of his mate) in order to form another union commits adultery as long as he remains in that unlawful state.
One would think our generation is the first one in the history of the world to realize that unhappy marriages exist. Do we honestly think that in other ages and cultures everyone enjoyed perfect marriages? Were all the couples wed as a result of an arrangement by parents thrilled with the selection that had been made on their behalf (perhaps when they were children)? When Jesus told the people that unlawful divorce and remarriage was a form of adultery, were there none who were guilty of the sin? The problem of an unhappy marriage was not invented by us!
Furthermore, God knew when He instituted marriage that both males and females would find themselves in unfortunate but permanent situations; that is the reason that the permanence of marriage is stressed. If we know that there are no alternatives, it deepens our commitment to succeed.
In the past fifteen years in the Lord's church we have seen what man's craving for the fulfillment of fleshly lusts has done to the once pure doctrine regarding marriage and divorce. Although the meaning of Matthew 19 is fairly plain, certain brethren have now found various ways to remove about every particle of meaning from it.
Consider the above diagram. Notice the only three possibilities that exist in a marriage: 1) a non-Christian marries a non-Christian; 2) a non-Christian marries a Christian; or 3) a Christian marries a Christian. For many years brethren generally accepted that Jesus' teaching on this subject applied to all mankind. But in the late '70s a few men wrote books which advocated that the passage under discussion did not apply to non-Christians at all. Some argue that non-Christians are "outside the covenant." Draw an X through the left side of the chart.
Certain brethren also argue that 1 Corinthians 7:12-15 provides yet another reason for divorce. If the non-Christian wants to leave, the Christian would be free to remarry. Scratch the upper box in the second column.
If these assaults upon the Biblical doctrine were not enough, another brother entered the picture with the good news that even Christians could divorce and remarry. All that was necessary to do in order to justify this teaching was to redefine the meanings of both marriage and adultery. Cross out the remaining box in the chart.
The observant reader will now note that the chart has been pretty well obliterated—as has the Lord's teaching on the subject. Yes, brethren have become so ingenious that they have turned the Lord Jesus Christ into little more than a "dispenser of drivel."
The Matthew 19 text (if these brethren were to have their way) cannot now mean absolutely anything to anybody because every vestige of meaning and application has been stripped from it. When the noblest teaching ever given on the holy institution of marriage can be reduced to an absurdity, then it becomes essential for us to rethink and re-evaluate our theology. We need to quit playing word games and thinking up inventive strategies calculated to circumvent the plain and obvious teachings of the Holy Scriptures (to be continued).