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The Seventh Commandment I
Do Not Commit Adultery
The next four messages which are to be derived from the Seventh Commandment have to do with issues of marriage and sexuality. These are not easy issues to handle and I would appreciate your prayers as I go along. When Jesus taught about God’s intent for marriage the disciples were a bit discouraged. "If this is the situation between a husband and wife,” they said, “it is better not to marry." So we are not the first generation to struggle with God’s plan for marriage. The problem of course isn’t with God’s intentions but with human fallenness. And we will see as we go along that human fallenness is drawn out nowhere else as in the marriage relationship.
As I have prepared and thought about bringing this word, I have been reminded that many of us here today have experienced profound heartbreak and disappointment in marriage. Many have experienced great joy and ease in their marriages. Many are struggling in their marriages. For most there is a mixture of beauty, of brokenness, and of just plodding along -- all mixed together. Some who are not married may wish they were married, and some who are married may wish they weren’t married.
I have both been married long enough and have dealt with enough people in their marriages to not have a utopian or overly sentimental view of the institution. I find the Scriptures to be refreshingly realistic, and really quite uncomplicated on the subject.
As I bring these words from the Scripture about the issue of marriage, I rejoice in the work of grace and beauty God is doing in many of the marriages represented here, and also that He cares about the real trials and challenges many are going through. I also come from an imperfect marriage -- as any of you who know me and Susan know. I do not have a secret key to marital bliss ready to hand out to all who need it, ready to sell to all who are ready to pay. And so as we think about this subject together let us be prayerful, tender, and sensitive to one another. And at the same time, let us take very seriously from wherever we sit today what the Scriptures have to say to us about marriage and sexuality.
We need to keep in mind the relationship between law and grace. There is a big difference between ethics that deals with the potential sinner and ethics that deals with the proven sinner. All of here are both potential sinners and proven sinners. (From Bockmuehl)
In other words, we ask the question, “How do we act ethically, rightly, honorably.” This is the ministry of law, of commandment.
But we also ask the question, What do we do now after we have acted unethically, wrongly, dishonorably.” This involves the ministry of restoration, of grace.
We find hard preventative statements regarding purity and the sanctity of marriage coming forth over and over from the mouth of Jesus. These words are needed to help keep us from sinning, to show us the way, to spur us on to godly behavior. Jesus didn’t speak with leniency when he was talking about how we should act, about the principles that should guide our walk as Christians. Jesus didn’t, we shouldn’t.
But gentle restorative measures are often in order for the repentant who have sinned, who are under the weight of guilt and discouragement. Jesus came to call sinners to repentance, those who needed a doctor, not those who did not need a doctor. It is as proven sinners that Jesus calls us to Himself. Jesus has justified us so that as proven sinners we might know the blessing of relationship with Him.
But God’s grace is life changing. He saves us not only that we would know Him, not only that we would be free from condemnation, but also so that we would walk in newness of life. There is a passage in Hebrews I have come to appreciate so much, taken from Psalm 95, “Today when you hear His voice, do not harden your heart.” You know, none of us can do a thing about yesterday except forgive and be forgiven. We hear the word and we obey the word in the present, today. So wherever we are today, whether we are married, never married, divorced, or divorced and remarried, whether we are eight or eighty, male or female, these Scriptures speak to us in all of our varying situations.
The Seventh Commandment is very short, and framed in the negative. Do not commit adultery.
That’s all it says. Obviously it speaks about marriage, but as we explore the Scriptures it has to do with more than marriage itself, but with sexual purity in general. It speaks to the person not married as well as to the person married.
Remember that we have said that all these last several commandments are details of the more general commandments to love our neighbor and to love one another. Whether we are married or not married, this commandment says something to us about how we are to treat or not treat our neighbor.
If we are married this commandment says we are to be devoted and faithful to our husband or wife in mind, body, internally and externally. We are to uphold and honor the estate of those who are married and the purity of those who are not. We are not to covet our neighbor’s husband or wife. We are to exercise self control when it comes to our desires and passions. If we are not married, we are to uphold and honor the estate of those who are married and the purity of those who are not. We are not to covet our neighbor’s husband or wife. We are to exercise self control when it comes to our desires and passions.
But we really are ahead of ourselves. To lay a strong and solid foundation for how we are to love one another rightly through the sanctifying of marriage and by living lives of purity before the Lord, I think we simply must go right back to the beginning. So, this week we are going to look at the first great foundational passage that speaks about marriage within the plan of God, and next week the other. Then we will go on to look at the specific commandments about purity, and then we I will give some general teaching about marriage, divorce, and remarriage. So this will take four weeks instead of the two in the original outline. Somewhere in the middle of this I hope to be out of the pulpit for a week or two helping with a new baby and Charlie will bring the messages.
As we saw in our Scripture readings this morning, when Jesus was asked to render a judgment about the issue of divorce, he began by quoting from two passages in Genesis, the first from Genesis 1 the second from Genesis 2.
When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went into the region of Judea to the other side of the Jordan. Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there. Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?" "Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate."
We saw several weeks ago that there were three creation ordinances -- marriage, work, and rest from work. I would like for us to spend the rest of this morning looking at the creation ordinance of marriage from the first of the two passages quoted by Jesus. Turn in your Bibles if you would to Genesis 1:26.
Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it" (Genesis 1:26-28a).
Now there are several things worth noting here in the Genesis 1 passage. First of all, notice that it says “let us make man in our image.” It is the Trinitarian God who makes mankind. Within the godhead there is perfect community and communication between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; there is not solitude. There is community and communication, not loneliness. What this means is that to be made in God’s image is to be made for relationship, for community. This doesn’t mean that we are made only to have relationship with God. Just as the God who made us has community and relationship at His level, within Himself, so also we have community and relationship at our level, with other human beings.
When Jesus prayed that we as His people would be one as He and the Father are one, this is what He meant. We cannot fulfill our calling as God’s image bearers in solitude, but in relationship, in community. To be made in God’s image means that we are made to reflect who God is. We are to be created representations of our Creator (Blocher, p. 85). We can only rightly do this in relation to others. We were not made to be alone.
Second, notice that the passage says that “male and female he created them.” You know, you might think that we could have had “community” which reflected the “inner community of God” by simple being created as lots of androgynous beings, or by being created all male or all female. Surely in the church the relational oneness I have with a brother in Christ mirrors the oneness of the relationship between the Father and Son and Spirit.
So why then male and female? Why are we not all the same? You know, there are a host of reasons which I will talk more about next week when we look at Genesis 2. But for now let me just say this: We learn a lot about relating to God as other when we are face to face with one who is truly “other,” one who is unmistakably not the same as us, whether in a married relationship or friendship relationship. Making mankind as male and female, with all the real differences between male and female, is a way to have otherness within sameness. Male and female forces us to relate to “other,” which I think trains us relationally to relate to God, who is “other.” The existence of our complementary opposite in a way forces us to deal with personhood outside of us, which propels us into community. In the face of one who really is other, the man and the woman learn to relate to God as “other.”
Again: “Male and female He created them.” The male/female marriage relationship also mirrors the relationship between God and humanity. The covenant Lord of the Old Testament is said to be husband to His people. Remember how God taught this lesson to Hosea:
When the LORD began to speak through Hosea, the LORD said to him, "Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness, because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the LORD." So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son (Hosea 1:2-3)
"In that day," declares the LORD, "you will call me 'my husband'; you will no longer call me 'my master. ‘I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips; no longer will their names be invoked. In that day I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field and the birds of the air and the creatures that move along the ground. Bow and sword and battle I will abolish from the land, so that all may lie down in safety. I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will acknowledge the LORD (Hosea 2:16-20).
The New Testament takes up this language. Jesus Christ is the bridegroom. The Church in totality, as men and women, is the bride of Christ. As the Lord Jesus Christ loves the church and cares for her, so the man loves and cares for his wife. Even Paul admits that this is a mystery, as he says:
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.... "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 (Ephesians 5:25-32).
In this light we see the horror of adultery and divorce. Man and woman were meant in their unity not only to mirror the oneness within the godhead. Faithfulness in marriage also mirrors the covenant faithfulness of God to his people, his bride! Being unfaithful in marriage not only is a sin against the offended party, but a sin against God who made us to reflect things to the world about Him. And he is not unfaithful, but faithful. Praise God!
In this light we also see the unnaturalness and horror of homosexuality or androgyny. The tendency in some toward homosexuality, which I will admit for many is very real, and for the one fighting against it very very painful, is nevertheless a result of the fall. It is human sexuality gone awry because of sin and its effects. There is in history a sad but fascinating correlation between homosexuality and idolatry. The physical acts on the spiritual. Homosexual union is a rejection of the diversity and order which God has built into his creation. It is a rejection of the “otherness” of the opposite sex. It idolizes that which is the same, which prepares the heart to worship not God who is other but idolize the creature, which is not so much other. We must say “No!” to homosexuality. It is in the complementary union of male with female that we mirror the relationship of God and His people.
Again, it says,” male and female he created them.” We are created as male or as female. This is not the first truth, but the second truth about us. The first truth is that whether male or female we are made in His image. But our sexuality is also the work of God and is not incompatible with our being made in His image. The male and the female is each is made in God’s image. Each is equal as God’s image bearers. But being equal is different from being the same. We cannot escape our sexuality. Our sexuality is part of who we are as creatures. It isn’t our fallenness that has caused us to be sexual beings. We were created that way before sin entered the world.
All the trouble that human beings have experienced, that urge and desire we now call lust, unbridled sensuality, unbridles passion, lack of self control (and we are going to talk about how to deal with this in the upcoming sermons)-- all of this results from our being created as sexual creatures who are now fallen and separated from God. Our sexuality was not originally something we would struggle with. As we will see next week, Adam and Eve were naked and felt no shame. But now, even as we in many ways struggle with our sexuality and the power it seems to have in our lives, we should never conclude it to be a bad thing in itself. No! God built sexuality into us. Indeed, it is his gift to us.
We must also realize that the distinction between male and female is one that pervades the entire person and extends to the whole personality. There is a kind of truth to the idea that “men are from Mars, and women from Venus.” Men and women are different in anatomy. We have different hormones. These different hormones pervade our bodies, which means that our masculinity or femininity permeates the entire person, intelligence, feeling, and will. We have different brains. In many ways we see things differently. This is not all the result of the fall, but these differences, which are supposed to be complementary, now cause us to be in opposition to one another because of our sin.
Having said all this about the way male and female are different and meant to complete and complement the other, I must hasten to add that the Scripture provides an important check. A man or a woman does not have to be married to be whole and to be fulfilled as a person. Jesus was never married, and yet we could hardly say he represented unfulfilled humanity. The unmarried believer can rejoice that he or she walks in the footsteps of Jesus himself. Paul was never married, yet certainly he was not incomplete or frustrated in his humanity. In a fallen world, where there is much distress in general, and where there is much distress in marriage in particular, it can be very difficult to serve the needs of a spouse and also follow the Lord freely. Thus Paul can advise, “it is good for a man not to marry.”
The unmarried man or woman is training for the future. You might say they are getting a head start on heaven. Why? Because in the final consummation, men and women will neither be married nor given in marriage. In some way, we will then know wholeness and completeness apart from a relation of oneness with our sexual opposite. Before the Lord we will be whole and complete.
Even in this life a single man or woman living purely and honorably before the Lord can know much of the beauty and blessing of being in relationship with the other sex. You don’t have to be married to understand the otherness of the opposite sex. You don’t have to be married to enjoy many of the blessings of this otherness. It stares you in the face all the time. It is not just married woman who throw up their hands in exasperation at “men!” nor married men who discover the otherness of “women!” Plus the Lord in His relationship with us compensates in so many ways for our needs. Whatever void you might think would be there for a man or woman not in a relation of marriage with the sexual opposite, well, the Lord has a way of filling this up. Again, Jesus was a whole person in every way, yet he was not married.
Third, we notice from the passage that man and woman are made to exercise dominion over the earth, over the other animals and creatures. This calling is to them both. They are to be partners in the work. They don’t just look at each other, they look together toward the world they are stewards of. In this they are called to be friends and partners in the work of God in the world.
Fourth, we notice from the passage that God gives a blessing to man and woman made in His image. He says, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.” In order for mankind to carry out the mandate to rule over the earth, there must be more than just the two human beings. In order to be God’s vice regents, His deputies, His faithful stewards of the earth, mankind must increase in number. And so God blesses mankind, made in his image, male and female. “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.”
Obviously it is mankind’s sexuality that enables them to multiply, to reproduce. We are made as creatures able to make more of us. We are made and created by God to bring into the world yet more human beings made in His image. We call this “procreation.” Have you ever though of what that word means? Being in God’s image we, in a sense, create as he creates. He uses us to make more of those creatures that are to be like Him. This is important even after the Fall. Human life and culture goes on. The command to be stewards of the earth goes on. And since the Fall, the work of redemption goes on. Remember that God promised that from the “seed” or offspring of Eve the Savior would come who would crush the head of the serpent? Through human procreation, after generation and generation and generation, came the mother and father of Jesus. So even in a fallen world God uses procreation to bring about his purposes. Even Jesus traces his biological lineage to Adam and Eve through his mother.
But we are called not only to fill the earth and subdue it, but to bring forth godly seed, as we read in Malachi:
You flood the Lord's altar with tears. You weep and wail because he no longer pays attention to your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands. You ask, "Why?" It is because the LORD is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth, because you have broken faith with her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant. Has not the LORD made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth.
God brings man and woman together in sexual union in order that he may bring forth a godly offspring! See, the covenant people of God includes not only those adults who profess faith in the Lord but their offspring as well! And through the influence and teaching of godly parents children grow up to understand the things of God and hopefully themselves to submit to His lordship. In this way the covenant people press forward from one generation to another, filling the earth, salting it, populating it with offspring who can bear witness to God as they grow up to take the Lord as their own. Yes it is true that God has no grandchildren. Every person must come themselves to have faith and trust in the Lord Jesus. But it is true that children from godly Christian homes are more likely to grow up themselves to accept and receive the Lord and then to go on to grow in him than those who are not.
In summary, God said “let us create man in our image.” We are made for community, for relationship, and marriage is one aspect of that.
He said “male and female he created them.” Our sexuality is part of God’s will for our lives. It is part of the very good of creation. It has been corrupted in many ways by the fall into sin, but it is only bad in its fallenness, not in itself.
Marriage is a mirror of the relationship between God and His people. Since God is faithful, we are to be faithful.
Finally, God blessed man and woman. “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” God has placed his own blessing upon the sexual act that brings about new life. he works through the generations of mankind, and he works to bring about godly offspring from His people.
Amen |
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