What Is The 7th Commandment?

What is the 7th Commandment? Is the commandment to not commit adultery still in effect? Was this written only to Israel?

The 7th Commandment

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

Was this commandment given only to and for Israel?  Is it still in effect today?  Does this commandment also include divorcing someone without just cause and then remarrying someone else?  These questions are going to be addressed from both the Old Testament and the New Testament and as we shall read, this commandment was not just for the nation of Israel…it applies to all people everywhere and for all time.

Adultery of the Heart

In the Beatitudes, Jesus upped the requirements of the Ten Commandments to not just external behavior but internal thoughts as well.  Jesus said in Matthew 5:27-28 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’  But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”  What did He mean by committing adultery of the heart?  God sees our thought life and the intent of the heart, not just the outward physical acts of sin.  Sin begins in the heart as James wrote (1:13-15) “Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.  But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.  Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.”  Clearly, sin begins and is conceived in the heart before it ever comes to fruition and births sin in the physical realm.  The desire, when conceived, “gives birth to sin” and then “sin when it is fully grown brings for [eternal] death.”

Becoming One with a Prostitute

Jesus, being God, can see the thoughts and intents of the heart and if we are lusting after someone who is not our spouse, He equates this as adultery.  Certainly the actual physical act of adultery is far worse than just thinking about it as Paul asks the rhetorical question, “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that he who is joined [literally “holds fast”] to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh” (1 Cor 6:15-16) so just as a man and a woman who are joined together in marriage become one flesh (Gen 2:24; Mark 10:8) so too does a woman or a man who commits adultery.  Does anyone really want to become one with a prostitute?  Even so, if a man or a  woman has sex outside of marriage with another they are joined with and actually become “one flesh” and in essence, one and the same with that person.   That’s why Paul warns us all to “Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body” (1 Cor 6:18) so committing adultery is sinning against one’s own body and that sin brings eternal death if it is not repented of.

Adultery within Marriage

If someone divorces another without having biblical grounds for divorce, like their partner continues in an unrepentant adulterous affair which Jesus sees as grounds for divorce, then that person commits adultery if they marry another.  Jesus is clear about this in Mark 10:11-12 “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”  There is no room for negotiating out of this at all.  It is black and white.  That’s why Jesus said “from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’  ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh.  What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate” (Mark 10:6-9). There is absolutely no room for “yeah but.”

Adultery of the Heart

Since a man or woman is what they think, if they are lusting after someone who is not their spouse, they are committing adultery with them already in their heart (Matt 5:27-28).  You don’t have to commit the actual act of adultery to be sinning as an adulterer.  We only have to be lusting after that person in our heart or mind.  The reason that God is so strict in this area is because He upholds the sanctity of marriage and regards it so highly.  Marriage is reflective of the relationship that Christ has with the church as Paul writes “the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church” (Eph 5:31b-32) and God expects His elected and chosen Bride, the church, to be living a holy life, the reason being that God “chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him” (Eph 1:4).

Conclusion

God hates adultery but He loves adulterers who have repented and confessed their sin and then asked for forgiveness.  For those who have committed adultery, in the literal physical act or in their minds, He is ready to forgive you but only if you will ask for it.  God will cleanse us from every sin for those who have repented and trusted in Him (1 John 1:9) and then we can take on the very same righteousness of Christ because Christ became sin for us so that we would become His righteousness (2 Cor 5:21) so that God the Father will see us just as He does Jesus.  Is that you?

Another Reading on Patheos to Check Out: What Did Jesus Really Look Like: A Look at the Bible Facts

Article by Jack Wellman

Jack Wellman is Pastor of the Mulvane Brethren church in Mulvane Kansas. Jack is also the Senior Writer at What Christians Want To Know whose mission is to equip, encourage, and energize Christians and to address questions about the believer’s daily walk with God and the Bible. You can follow Jack on Google Plus or check out his book  Blind Chance or Intelligent Design available on Amazon