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14 “You shall not commit adultery.
In hypersexualized culture like ours, a command like this could easily be waved off.
We certainly can see the damage of stealing from someone and murder is obviously bad. However some may say: This adultery thing just feels a little nitpicky. Almost as if God is the fun police trying to rob of us of some loose enjoyment.
That could not be further from the truth.
Remember, from the very beginning of our journey through the Ten, we said that one of the things that God is doing in these commandments is REVEALING His character. It is not just someone messing around in heaven, spoiling our fun. It is SOVEREIGN KING putting His holy and divine character on display.
Remember also, from the very beginning of our journey through the Ten, we said that the Ten are coming from someone with absolute authority and ownership of Heaven and Earth and all those who reside within it.
2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
These commands are not optional for those that call themselves Christian and name Christ as Lord.
These truths are true of all of the commands including this command: You shall NOT commit adultery
In Leviticus 18…we see a clearer picture of these truths.
Leviticus 18 is an entire chapter about sexual immorality of ALL KINDS.
In fact like all of the other commandments included in the ten, Leviticus 18 is in some ways a full unpacking of the seventh commandment.
In this chapter, we hear the outlawing of sex in every single relationship outside of the committed loving covenantal bond of a husband and wife.
Sex before marriage. Sex after a marriage has ended. Sex among those of the same gender. Sex among those the same kin (sister, brother, aunts, uncles, mothers, fathers, and on and on). Sex among animals.
Scripture also outlaws prostitution and any form of sexual violence.
But we don’t just hear the prohibitions…the “do-nots”…we also hear the whys and those whys are connected to the two truths I just mentioned that the ten have shown us from the beginning. The character of God and the authority of God.
God’s Authority is Revealed in our Sexual Ethics
God’s Authority is Revealed in our Sexual Ethics
First the sovereignty and authority of God...We hear these words several times: “I Am the Lord”.
I AM THE LORD. I AM THE LORD. What should make of that? We should make of it that God IS LORD over us and therefore gets to determine how we will live in every way. EVEN SEXUALLY.
Oftentimes, when we move outside of the sexual ethics of the Bible, you will hear people justify it by saying, “This is MY BODY!” And that is all fine and dandy for you to feel that way, if you also believe there is no god. In fact, I would expect you to.
The problem is many of us who are saying that are also saying that there is a God, and I worship Him. If that is what you are saying then this is what God is saying to you:
I AM THE LORD. I AM THE LORD.
The Apostle Paul says it this way in:
18 Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. 19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
YOU ARE NOT YOUR OWN. Not only does the Lord lay claim to your whole life as your creator. He lays claim to your entire life as your redeemer.
Leviticus 18:2 I AM THE LORD…In other words I CREATED YOU
1 Corinthians 6:20 For you were bought with a price…In other words, I GAVE MY LIFE FOR YOU.
Paul is saying our willingness to cross the sexual boundaries that God has laid out to us is a declaration to Christ that you don’t not own me. We are declaring with our actions “Jesus, You DO NOT own me!”
ARE YOU SAYING THAT WITH YOUR LIFE TODAY? ARE YOU WILLFULLY GOING AGAINST GOD’S SEXUAL ETHICS? DECLARING WITH YOUR ACTIONS EVEN IF WITHOUT YOUR WORDS, “You DO NOT own me!”
Pray for grace and strength this morning to turn away from a pattern of behavior that undermines His authority over your life rather than reflects it. Ask the Lord this morning to allow your life and your conduct to be a reflection of his truth, that you were bought with a price.
God is not just establishing His sovereignty in our sexual ethics. He is revealing His character.
God’s Character is Revealed in our Sexual Ethics
God’s Character is Revealed in our Sexual Ethics
We reduce the call away from adultery and other forms of sexual immorality to a mere discussion about freedom and bondage as many in our culture would do.
There is more to this call. It is a call to a higher idea. A higher value. A higher character.
In the very beginning of Leviticus 18 before God begins to lay out all of the sexual don’t’s to MOSES that we described above, He says this:
1 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, I am the Lord your God. 3 You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you. You shall not walk in their statutes. 4 You shall follow my rules and keep my statutes and walk in them. I am the Lord your God. 5 You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules; if a person does them, he shall live by them: I am the Lord.
One of the first things that should jump out to you in this text is how uncommon the sexual ethic that God is calling Israel to appears to be.
3 You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you. You shall not walk in their statutes.
Here the Lord is saying, SEXUALLY, don’t live how the people lived where you used to live and SEXUALLY, don’t live how the people live where you’re going to live.
Don’t live like either of them. Don’t absorb their sexual statutes. Don’t abide in their sexual ethics. Don’t embrace their sexual customs. Instead, VERSE 4...
4 You shall follow my rules and keep my statutes and walk in them. I am the Lord your God. 5 You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules; if a person does them, he shall live by them: I am the Lord.
Verse 4-5 is interesting because he basically says the same thing TWICE. Don’t be like either of them. BE LIKE ME. Don’t follow them. FOLLOW ME!
Some of us may be saying at this point, “But Lord, none of these people are living like this? None of these people view sex this way. None of these people view pre-marital sex this way. None of these people view post-marital sex this way. None of these people view sex among the same gender this way. None of these people view sex among distant relatives this way. None of these people view sex outside of marriage this way.”
And to that the Lord is saying, “PRECISELY, it is because I AM NONE OF THESE PEOPLE…I AM THE LORD.”
You may even be saying “But it is so counter-cultural. SAINTS of GOD…IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE! YOUR SEXUAL ETHIC IS A REFLECTION OF A HOLY GOD! WHY SHOULD WE EXPECT IT TO LOOK LIKE EVERY OTHER CULTURE’S ETHICS?!”
If your behavior and pattern of living is a reflection of the one and only true God, a Holy and Divine God that is distinct from everyone else, then it doesn’t make sense for the behavior you’re pursuing to be common. It only makes sense that the behavior and pattern of living be uncommon.
When we downgrade our sexual ethics, knowing that God is revealing his character through His ethics, we are in fact saying God is like EVERYBODY ELSE. HE IS NOT
No, the call is to a higher idea. A higher value.
The call is to the sacred institution of Christian marriage…
The Bible tells us in Ephesians 5 that Christian marriage is not just an act of couples getting together for life, but it is, at a higher level, a picture of the relationship between Christ and His church. It is a deeply spiritual act. And so, the sexual union is connected to a higher idea, a higher value, it is connected to the covenant that paints a picture of our union with Christ and thus carries FAR more weight, value, and seriousness than what the world would apply to it.
What is the message our sexual ethics is communicating?
Sexual union cannot come apart from whole person union.
God’s character reveals that His love is covenantal. Thus, the uniting of the deepest part ourselves cannot come apart from sacrificial covenant with one another.
That’s where adultery and other forms of sexual immorality gets it wrong. It exploits and misuses God’s plan for oneness.
It is something that God takes very seriously. Which is why you hear these words in Lev 20:10.
10 “If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.
The marring of His character. The undermining of His authority. The cheapening of His covenant. This is what we see in the act of adultery.
This is what C.S. Lewis says about it.
Exodus—Saved for God's Glory Eros Defiled
The Christian idea of marriage is based on Christ’s words that a man and wife are to be regarded as a single organism.… [T]he male and the female were made to be combined together in pairs, not simply on a sexual level, but totally combined. The monstrosity of sexual intercourse outside marriage is that those who indulge in it are trying to isolate one kind of union (the sexual) from all the other kinds of union which were intended to go along with it and make up the total union. The Christian attitude does not mean that there is anything wrong about sexual pleasure, any more than about the pleasure of eating. It means that you must not isolate that pleasure and try to get it by itself, any more than you ought to try to get the pleasures of taste without swallowing and digesting, by chewing things and spitting them out again.
One more thing I want to highlight in this Leviticus text…How God’s blessing is revealed in our sexual ethics
God’s Blessing is Revealed in Our Sexual Ethics
God’s Blessing is Revealed in Our Sexual Ethics
5 You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules; if a person does them, he shall live by them: I am the Lord.
HE SHALL LIVE. In other words, in these statues you will find life. In God’s ordinances surrounding sexuality you will find life.
So our commitment to God’s sexual ethic is not just because he owns us and its not just because it reveals His character. It is because there is life and blessing and following his way.
We see it again later on in the text.
24 “Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean, 25 and the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. 26 But you shall keep my statutes and my rules and do none of these abominations, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you 27 (for the people of the land, who were before you, did all of these abominations, so that the land became unclean), 28 lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you. 29 For everyone who does any of these abominations, the persons who do them shall be cut off from among their people. 30 So keep my charge never to practice any of these abominable customs that were practiced before you, and never to make yourselves unclean by them: I am the Lord your God.”
God is saying the nations that came in before you polluted the land and the land vomited out its inhabitants...
HOW YOU ASK BY NOT LIVING ACCORDING THE ETHICS and STANDARDS of verses 6-23.
By giving themselves over to sexual liberation, doing everything with their body that they were tempted to do.
The biggest lie that sexual liberation tells us is that in it we will find freedom and in it we will find life...
15 Drink water from your own cistern,
flowing water from your own well.
16 Should your springs be scattered abroad,
streams of water in the streets?
17 Let them be for yourself alone,
and not for strangers with you.
18 Let your fountain be blessed,
and rejoice in the wife of your youth,
19 a lovely deer, a graceful doe.
Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight;
be intoxicated always in her love.
20 Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman
and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?
21 For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the Lord,
and he ponders all his paths.
How should we view adultery?
How should we view adultery?
The commandment against adultery is a commandment protecting marriage. It is intended to preserve the covenant and the relational intimacy and union associated with that covenant.
It’s for this reason that we see Jesus take this command further in the new testament.
27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
When we look with desire and wish that who is not ours was ours we are already moving in the wrong direction in terms of honoring our covenant.
27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.
31 “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32 But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
33 “Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’