The 7th Commandment: “You Shall Not Commit Adultery”

<Ex 20:14> “You shall not commit adultery.”

3 key points today:

• Covenant loyalty.
• Chastity
• Caution

Covenant Loyalty

• Marital loyalty often compared with loyalty between God and His people.
• Adultery: Breaking of covenant loyalty.
• The 7th commandment upholds the sacredness of marriage instituted by God.
• <Mt 19, ESV> 4 He (Jesus) answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
• Timothy Keller: “…sex was not created just for pleasure but for mutual self-giving toward a deep, permanent union that creates character and new human life. In sex outside of marriage, we maintain our independence and fail to give our whole selves to the other person.”
• Deep connection between faithfulness to God and sexual purity (cf. David in Ps 54).
• The Bible frequently equates adultery with idolatry.
• Idolatry divides the heart, and steals loyalty.
• God has ordained that sex is only proper in the context of marriage covenant.
• God’s design for marriage and proper sex brings blessings.
• But whatever goes against God’s design brings penalties.
• With the 7th commandment, God is not withholding good things from us, but protecting us and preserving for us the dignity found in sexual purity.

Chastity

• Heidelberg Catechism, Q 108. What does the seventh commandment teach us?

A: That God condemns all unchastity,

and that therefore we should thoroughly detest it
and live decent and chaste lives,
within or outside of the holy state of marriage.

• Q 109. Does God, in this commandment, forbid only such scandalous sins as adultery?
• We are temples of the Holy Spirit, body and soul, and God wants both to be kept clean and holy.
  That is why God forbids all unchaste actions, looks, talk, thoughts, or desires, and whatever may incite someone to them.
• Chastity: Shift in attitudes/definition in modern times.
• Some view sexual life as private matter, so outsiders shouldn’t meddle.
• Our sexual purity (or not) is indicator of our spiritual health and our relationship with God.
• Do we “detest” unchastity?
• Be sexually pure both outwardly and inwardly.
• <Mt 5:27-28> “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
• Sexual lust: The desire to engage in or enjoy illicit sexual activity (cited from Ligonier).
• Chastity commanded both in marriage and in singleness.

Caution

• Timothy Keller: “Sex is the most delightful and the most dangerous of all human capacities.”
• WLC 138: What are the duties required in the Seventh Commandment?

Answer: The duties required in the Seventh Commandment are, chastity in body, mind, affections, words, and behavior; and the preservation of it in ourselves and others; watchfulness over the eyes and all the senses; temperance, keeping of chaste company, modesty in apparel; marriage by those that have not the gift of continency, conjugal love, and cohabitation; diligent labor in our callings; shunning all occasions of uncleanness, and resisting temptations thereunto.

• Precautions:
  • “Watchfulness over eyes and all senses, temperance, shun and resist temptations”
  • “Keeping of chaste company”
  • “Modesty in apparel”
  • “Get married if no gift of contingency”
  • “Conjugal love”
  • “Diligent labor in our callings”

Reflection:

1. Are your views about chastity before, outside of and within marriage affected by what is morally acceptable in today’s culture? Do you find God’s commandment restrictive? Can you appreciate God’s purpose for the 7th commandment?
2. Do you “detest” unchastity? How can we live decent and chaste lives in a sin-sick world?