You shall not commit adultery

God's steadfast love and faithfulness

Good evening, everyone. For those who haven't been with us recently, we've been walking through the Ten Commandments, and in the last two weeks in particular, we've begun to see how God's people ought to relate to one another. Tonight, we're going to see how God regulates the most intimate of human relationships. That's marriage. Seventh Commandment, found in Exodus 20, verses 14 and verse 14 in Deuteronomy 5 verse 18 is this, you shall not commit adultery. Simply put, adultery is marital infidelity. It's voluntary sexual relations between a married person and someone other than their spouse. And it's a monstrous sin because marriage is a magnificent relationship. To disregard the bounds of marriage is to rebel against God's design for both unity and intimacy. This command is also not just for married people. Scripture closely ties adultery and any sexual immorality together. And like other commandments, the negative prohibition in this verse also implies positive commands that we find elsewhere in Scripture. This is in the seventh commandment. God's people receive a prohibition against both adultery and sexual immorality, and they are called to chastity outside of marriage and fidelity in marriage. In our culture, sex is God. It's one of the most pervasive idols that we see today. Our culture currently seems to have no other gods before sex. Perverted sexual expression, sexual identity, sexual fulfillment. These are what drives our culture's values, our politics, our entertainment, and it's seemingly every other facet of American life. But God created sex not to be consumed and worshipped, but instead as the ultimate expression of love and promise. So Lord willing, tonight, our understanding of marriage and sex is going to be magnified so that our God will be glorified in it. Per usual, we're going to consider this commandment in four ways. We're gonna see God's character in this commandment. We're gonna see the sin it exposes in us. We'll see how Christ fulfilled this commandment. And then finally, our response in view of the gospel. So point one, this commandment is a window into God's heart, into God's steadfast love and faithfulness. Marriage, established in Genesis 2, is a permanent earthly relationship between a man and a woman. It involves leaving father and mother, holding fast to one's spouse, and becoming one flesh. In marriage, man and woman become stuck to one another. They become glued together, bound in an indistinguishable and comprehensive unity. Marriage is a covenant. It's a relationship marked by promises and voluntary obligations. Covenantal framework is also how God relates to his people. He covenants with them. He makes promises and he voluntarily obligates himself to fulfill those promises. And here in the 10 commandments, In Exodus 20, God is establishing a covenant with the nation of Israel. He's writing their vows as the nation who would be bound to God. In this covenant, we see the heart of God. The only reason God enters into this relationship with Israel is because he desired it. He chose them not because they enticed him, but simply because he chose to pour out his affection onto them. And his affection all throughout the Old Testament is defined by this simple but profound word pair, steadfast love and faithfulness. The two words are always together, and they always work together in the Old Testament to provide a full-orbed definition of how God relates to his people. So every time the Bible references God's steadfast love and faithfulness, we see it in Exodus 34. It's what Psalm 117, the shortest psalm in all of scripture. That's what this, that's what the psalm is all about. Many, many other places. Steadfast love and faithfulness captures the nature and the character of God's affections toward his people. And steadfast love and faithfulness should also mark the marriage covenant as well. Marriage is a covenantal relationship established by God to be an image bearing relationship. Marriage expresses the exposure, the intimacy and the union that man should have with his creator. Marriage was originally marked by unashamed nakedness, the full self fully displayed with sheer confidence and dignity before the face of God and one spouse. And all of this, this promise, this unity, this intimacy, this endurance, all the glory and beauty of marriage is most profoundly expressed in the act of sex. God designed sex to be the culminating covenant act of marriage. It is a seal of love and faithfulness between a man and a woman. The seventh commandment, it's calling us to submit to God's good and glorious design for sex. It's a call to faithfulness. It's a call to exclusiveness. It's a call to image God's love for his people, to be steadfast in love and faithfulness to our covenant partner. Seventh Commandment, it's a window into God's commitment to his people. And we see it, as we've been seeing every week, it's also a mirror. And we see ourselves reflected in it. But as we look into this law, we don't see steadfast love and faithfulness naturally within ourselves. Instead, we're exposed to our unfaithfulness, our immorality, and our lust. The most evident place that we see this is in Jesus's teaching on adultery. To point to the sin exposed is our lustful hearts that defile us. Matthew 5, 27 to 28 says,

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.

As Jesus is fulfilling the true intention of this commandment, he teaches us that adultery is not just an outward act. It's first and foremost committed in the heart. Sin doesn't just merely affect our sexual expression, but it also affects our inward sexual intentions. Lust is an intention of the heart that is opposed to God's covenantal love. It's not steadfast. Lust distracts and it deviates. Instead of remaining true and faithful, lust chases whatever crosses its path. And while we're called in marriage to leave father and mother and to join to our spouse, lust tempts us to leave our spouse and join to anyone else. Lust is the antithesis of covenantal love. Jesus also teaches us that our adulterous hearts defile us. Matthew 15, 18 to 20 says,

what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart comes evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, and slander. These are what defile a person.

Going back to the Torah, Leviticus 18 teaches us that God's strict sexual ethic was imposed on Israel so that they would remain faithful to him and undefiled before him. But as we look into the seventh commandment, Jesus teaches us that our hearts, corrupted by adultery and sexual immorality, they prove us to be unfaithful and defiled. Sexual immorality, it feels dirty because it is dirty. Sexual sin is unclean. It's defiled. It's perverted before God. Sex within God's good design is beautiful, and it is no small thing to be sexual outside of marriage. Sex is God's masterpiece of human intimacy and unity. And adultery, it's a complete corruption of sex. So imagine someone going into the Louvre and taking a can of spray paint and just going at it at the Mona Lisa. Devil horns and glasses and the mustache and words all over it. I mean, the world will be mortified at such a ridiculous defilement of such a work of art. But that's how we handle sex when we engage with it outside of marriage. We abandon our love, our loving and faithful creator. We defile ourselves as image bearers, and we dehumanize the image bearers who we engage in sexual immorality with. Our bodies are not meant for sexual immorality. They're not meant to be used for our own passions or desires or cravings, because they're so much more valuable than that. Your body's value is not based on its physical attractiveness, its provocativeness, or its seductiveness. Our culture's wrong. Sexuality does not define you. Your creator does. And if you're in Christ, your creator has deemed you to be the object of receiving his steadfast love and faithfulness. The gospel, the good news, is that Jesus Christ fulfilled the seventh commandment by faithfully keeping his covenant promise to redeem his beloved bride. So point three, Christ fulfills this commandment as the covenant keeper. Christ not only fulfilled the intention of the law in his teaching, but he also obeyed this commandment by faithfully loving his church and laying down his life for her. In Ephesians 5, Paul tells us that the original establishment of marriage in Genesis 2.24, that