  Foundations of the Faith
By Robert P. Mills The Presbyterian Layman Friday, March 26, 1999 Foundations of the Faith explores and explains the fundamental doctrines of our Christian faith. |
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There is also no doubt that adultery is forbidden by God. Nowhere does Scripture list circumstances that exempt God’s people from obeying this commandment. Indeed, the more Scripture we read, and the more we come to understand the far-reaching implications of this expression of God’s will for his human creation, the more we will appreciate the benefits that flow from obeying God’s command “You shall not commit adultery.” Adultery as unfaithfulness Descriptions of adultery in the Old Testament include: sexual relations by a man with the wife of another man (Lev. 18:20; 20:10; Deut 22:22); sexual relations by a man with the fiancee of another man (Deut 22:23-27); and, sexual relations by a wife with a man other than her husband (Hos. 4:13; Ezek 16:32). Throughout the Old Testament adultery was viewed as supremely serious. Hosea 4:2 includes it with cursing, lying, murder (the sixth commandment), stealing (the eighth commandment), and “breaking all bounds.” Job 24:13-17 lists the adulterer along with the murderous thief as one who makes friends “with the terrors of the dark.” The penalty for adultery was death, usually by stoning (Deut. 22:24). Adultery is singled out in the Decalogue because this sin, more than other illicit sexual behaviors, demonstrates unfaithfulness within a covenant relationship, an act equivalent to having other gods, thus a violation of the first commandment. Both adultery and idolatry are reprehensible to the God of the covenant, whose character it is to be totally faithful, for adultery in a marriage involves not only unfaithfulness to the marriage partner but also unfaithfulness to God. Adultery as idolatry In ancient Israel, adultery was understood primarily to be a crime against Yahweh (Gen. 39:9; Jer. 3:1). Like idol worship, adultery was seen as an intentional, premeditated turning away from commitment to Yahweh (Isa. 57:1-13; Jer. 3:6-9; Ezek. 23:36-49). The connection between adultery and idolatry is more than metaphorical. As contemporary Christian experience shows all too clearly, when one is tolerated, even advocated, so is the other. Two recent examples are especially relevant to Presbyterians. First, the 1993 ReImagining conference, which rejected God in favor of explicitly female deities, was organized, partially funded and defended by prominent Presbyterian leaders just two years after a General Assembly task force declared adultery appropriate in certain circumstances. That task force report was overwhelmingly rejected by the 1991 GA. Second, and ongoing, the National Network of Presbyterian College Women, a denominationally funded initiative, has embraced with equal fervor sexual relationships outside the covenant of marriage and theological perspectives that would steer young women away from the God who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ. That physical and spiritual adultery are so often linked should come as no surprise. The home, grounded in the faithful, covenant relationship between husband and wife, and the church, the bride of Christ, are ordained by God to be models of his steadfast love. Thus, as Ron Mehl notes, “It is in Satan’s interest to mar and disfigure both those models.” |
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| ‘But
I say to you’ In a remarkable series of sayings in Matthew 5, Jesus contrasts the true and ultimate meaning of the Old Testament commandments with the more popular interpretations of the Jewish religious leaders of his day. Beginning “You have heard it said … But I say to you,” Jesus opposes not the law itself, but a superficial and therefore inadequate understanding of what God’s commandments entail. Perhaps recognizing the potential misinterpretation of his words, Jesus even warns his hearers, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matt. 5:17). Jesus specifically addresses the seventh commandment, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matt. 5:27-28). Jesus shows the depth of this biblical imperative by emphasizing the underlying thoughts, which themselves condemn a person. The sin of adultery, like other sins, is rooted in the life of the mind. To look at a person lustfully, desiring or imagining a sexual relationship, is to commit adultery in one’s heart and thus to violate the deepest intention of God’s law. (Here it should be noted that the Greek word translated “woman” means any woman, not simply the wife of another. Jesus’ raising the spiritual standard of this commandment thus refutes those who would discard the biblical prohibition against adultery on the grounds that this commandment is a relic of a patriarchal mindset, where a wife was nothing more than her husband’s property.) R. Kent Hughes offers a helpful explanation, “Jesus forbids the second look. Generally, one is not responsible for the first look. But culpability begins with the repeated look, the stare, the libidinous leer. This is why Job said, ‘I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl’ (Job 31:1).” The importance of the eyes in lusting is vividly caught by Peter who writes of, “eyes full of adultery” (II Pet. 2:14). Illicit contemplation Of course, an entire generation of Americans will find it difficult to think about this commandment without recalling presidential politics. While running for president in 1975, Jimmy Carter told an interviewer that although he had never physically committed adultery, he had “lusted in his heart” after other women. The secular media had great fun at Carter’s expense. Perhaps they did not expect such a candid admission from a man seeking our nation’s top elected office. Or perhaps those who mocked the future president did so to hide their own uneasy recognition of the truth of Jesus’ words, words that leave no room for legal maneuvering or contorted anatomical definitions. As the British commentator R.V.G. Tasker notes, “Adultery is but the final expression of lustful thoughts harbored in the imagination and fed by the illicit contemplation of the object of desire, so that the lust of the eyes and the lust of the flesh cannot be dissociated.” An attack on God “Adultery,” writes David W. Torrance, “is an attack on God and his relationship with us and our partner in marriage.” That blunt assertion no doubt sounds harsh to many modern Christian ears, which have grown increasingly accustomed to rationalizations and redefinitions of sin in general and sexual sins in particular. But the word that God has spoken to his people is “You shall not commit adultery.” That is the word we therefore must obey, the word that we must speak to one another and to the world (Matt. 28:18-20). |
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| The Presbyterian Layman March/April 1999 | ||
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