you shall not commit adultery

The countdown continues as we work our way backward through the Ten Commandments. This week we are up to the seventh commandment. I have to admit, we probably do not hear too many sermons on the topic of adultery. It seems like one of those issues that is just easier to avoid rather than talk about. And it also seems like—at least at first glance—it is an issue that does not impact and apply to everyone the way we have seen with the other commandments so far, commandments on issues such as lying or coveting.

So, before we take a look at the passage for today and approach the commandment which says you shall not commit adultery, let me remind everyone of the principles we have been capturing in each one of these commandments so far. Here’s the thing, I don’t want people tuning out because there is an immediate assumption that this one doesn’t have anything to do with me or with my life. However, we have noticed in each one of these commandments so far that there is not only a negative prohibition, but also a positive reinforcement. And again, the seventh commandment is no different. This commandment is about much more than merely saying what we should not do with our bodies, it also holds some implied instructions about what it is we should do with our bodies, how we should treat the bodies that God has created and given to each of us, and what that means for how we physically treat one another. And that has to do with every single one of us.

Today we see a passage from the apostle Paul to the Christians in the city of Corinth which helps us get into this difficult topic of adultery and open it up to see how our use of the body can be honoring and glorifying to God.

1 Corinthians 6:12–20 NIV

12 “I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but I will not be mastered by anything. 13 You say, “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy them both.” The body, however, is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14 By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. 15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! 16 Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” 17 But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit. 18 Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. 19 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.

Even though such few sermons exist in our churches on the topic of proper sexual ethics, it is certainly something our world and our communities ignore. It is a delicate issue because so very often it is something in which the church is caught in its own hypocrisy. We don’t have many sermons about it, but the church as a whole wrestles with the issue of sexual ethics. We may have longstanding harsh condemnations of promiscuous sexual behavior. But at the same time it is an issue that is shown to be just as prevalent among Christians as it is among nonbelievers. Those who are old enough to remember might recall the rise of popular evangelical leaders in the 80s like Jerry Falwell and Jim Bakker who gained notoriety as televangelists. And then both of these figures became engulfed in scandal when adulterous relationships were discovered. The Roman Catholic Church in particular has been necessarily forced to confront an avalanche of sexual abuse among a number of its clergy.

Paul gives the church a new way to frame the issue and see God’s design and desire for physical relationships

It seems as though the Christian community has pointed a finger of condemnation at a world which flaunts its sexual freedoms and lack of sexual restraint, all-the-while trying to hide and bury its own indiscretions which seem to put us right in that same world. And perhaps this is the reason why there seems to be so few sermons on the topic of adultery and sexual ethics. Such a thing forces the church to confront and admit the church’s own hypocrisy. Indeed, this is precisely what Paul is doing in his letter to the Corinthian church. He is not giving these instructions to the pagan nonbelievers outside of the church; Paul is calling out the bad sexual behavior going on inside of the church. And he gives the church a new way to frame the issue and see God’s design and desire for physical relationships.

Corinth had a widely accepted practice of prostitution

Let’s note a few features about the context of this passage in particular. The city of Corinth during the time of Paul’s life was notorious for its widely accepted practice of prostitution. This is why the verses we see here directly focus on that issue. Those who lived in Corinth would have taken for granted that the business of prostitution was just as normal a part of everyday life as the business of the corner grocery store. Everybody eats; it’s part of what the human body does; it is only natural to embrace that as part of our community structure. The Corinthians would have said the same thing about prostitutes. Everybody is sexual; it’s part of what the body does; it is only natural to embrace that as part of our community structure (or so the Corinthians thought).

Paul goes on in this passage to give his reasons for why prostitution, adultery, and bad sexual behavior is something we should avoid | more than just the negative prohibition of the seventh commandment, we also need to see the positive reinforcement of this commandment

You see the way Paul calls this out using the Corinthians own words. “I have the right to do anything, you say…food for the stomach and the stomach for food, you say.” You see the line of thought that the Corinthian people had about sex. The body was made for it; so why not? Well, the apostle Paul goes on in this passage to give his reasons for why prostitution, adultery, and bad sexual behavior is something we should avoid. But as I said at the beginning, we need to see more than just the negative prohibition of the seventh commandment, we also need to see the positive reinforcement of this commandment. And the positive reinforcement of this commandment is for everyone: married people, single people, young, and old.

Created for Relationship

humans have more than just the ability to know about God; we have the ability to be in relationship with God

In order to understand this we need to go all the way back to the very beginning. We need to start at the creation in which God gave human life. We are made in the image of God, created especially as part of God’s world with the ability to have relationship with God. Humans have more than just the ability to know about God. We have the ability to be in relationship with God. It is God himself who gave us this ability as part of his creation. And it is God who then reveals himself to us so that we may know him and have relationship with him.

God calls himself our heavenly Father | Jesus calls himself our brother

The relationship that God intends for us to have with him is much more than a cordial association. God reveals himself to us in family language. The first person of the Trinity calls himself our heavenly Father. Jesus calls himself our brother. God created us for relationship with him, and intends for it to be close relationship. Let me put even deeper words to it. God intends for us to have intimate relationship with him. Consider the way scripture points to this.

God says through Jeremiah,“I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.” Jeremiah 31:3 (NIV). God says through Isaiah, “See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.” Isaiah 49:16 (NIV). David writes in Psalm 103, “As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him.” Psalm 103:5 (NIV).

God says through Jeremiah,“I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.” Jeremiah 31:3 (NIV). God says through Isaiah, “See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.” Isaiah 49:16 (NIV). David writes in Psalm 103, “As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him.” Psalm 103:5 (NIV).

two features of God’s relationship to us

it is an intimate relationship

it is a covenant relationship

This love that God has for his people comes to us in a relationship that has two prominent features. It is an intimate relationship, and it is a covenant relationship. Do you see in these examples from scripture how these two things go hand-in-hand? Our relationship with God is based upon intimacy, and it is based upon covenant. Those two features work together as the glue which God uses to hold us as his people.

God built into us a way of knowing and echoing this relationship

But the other thing we see in the creation is that right from the start God built into us a way of knowing and echoing this relationship. When God creates Adam and Eve for the purpose of having a special relationship to God, he does so in a way in which they also express a special relationship to each other. And this special relationship—which we call marriage—echoes those same exact features: intimacy and covenant.

There is no greater expression of intimacy between two people than sex; and there is no expression of covenant between two people more fundamental than marriage

This is the reason why the church has historically always taught that sex belongs in a marriage relationship. There is no greater expression of intimacy between two people than sex. And there is no expression of covenant between two people more fundamental than marriage. God created humans with the capacity to echo the intimacy and covenant which also defines our relationship with God.

for single people too

Let me pause and be careful to acknowledge here that there is nothing more holy in married people’s relationship to God than in single people’s relationship to God. Being single does not leave people in a position of somehow falling short of God’s intended design for an intimate covenantal relationship with him. After all, the passage we see today was written by the apostle Paul who was himself a single unmarried person. So, please do not interpret this as some kind of insinuation that only married people truly understand intimate covenant relationship. Marriage is not a prerequisite to have intimate covenant relationship with God. Rather, it is an echo of that divine relationship which shows up in God’s creation.

intimacy and covenant are strongly tied together

All this to say that the unique way in which we experience intimacy in sexual relationships between two people is created and intended by God to be inseparably tied to the experience of covenantal relationship between two people. Whenever I guide a couple through pre-marriage counseling before officiating a wedding, this is one of the topics I cover, the way in which intimacy and covenant are strongly tied together.

More than Spiritual

God uses marriage language to describe his relationship to the church

Now then, let’s move on. A marriage relationship not only shows up in the Bible as something between two people. It is also an expression that God uses to describe his relationship to the church. The entire book of Hosea in the Old Testament draws upon God referring to his relationship to Israel through the lenses of a marriage relationship. At times the New Testament refers to the church as the bride of Christ.

the body is just as much a part of who God created us to be as the soul

I admit, we mostly think of this is metaphysical spiritual ways. We tend to think about the part of us which has a relationship with God is confined to the heart. When we talk about salvation we often make the mistake of reducing that salvation to just the soul. We forget those very last lines of the apostles creed, “I believe in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting.” The body. In Genesis 1 God did not create the souls of Adam and Eve and say it was good. God created the bodies of Adam and Eve, breathed his life-giving soul into them and said it was good. The body is just as much a part of who God created us to be as the soul.

Paul describes our union with Christ in the church using the same “one flesh” language as the Old Testament

Paul brings that home for us today in this passage. Paul says that the relationship of intimacy and covenant that God brings to his people cannot be confined just to the soul as though the soul is somehow ripped apart from the bodies God created in his people. He describes our union with Christ in the church using the same “one flesh” language that the Old Testament uses to describe the union between two people in an intimate relationship. Paul does not say that your soul is a temple of the Holy Spirit; he says that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.

our bodies are included as part of this redeemed temple of the Holy Spirit | what we do with our bodies matters, the way we treat other people’s bodies matters

what we do with our bodies dishonors God when we use our bodies in ways that fail to echo God’s covenant intimacy with us

Take this to the next step. Paul tells the church in this passage that you and I were bought with a price, that we are not our own but that we belong to Christ. And this is not just the soul. Paul says that our bodies are included as part of this redeemed temple of the Holy Spirit. This means that what we do with our bodies matters. The way we treat our bodies matters. The way we treat other people’s bodies matters. The seventh commandment, then, is about more than an ethic for sexual purity. It is a reminder that what we do with our bodies dishonors God when we use our bodies in ways that fail to echo God’s covenant intimacy with us. But the other side of that commandment implies that what we do with our bodies honors God when we use our bodies in ways that do echo God’s covenant intimacy with us.

Hebrew na’aph

The Hebrew word for committing adultery (na’aph) is also used elsewhere in the Old Testament to mean idolatry—especially in Jeremiah. Adultery and idolatry share similar meaning in the Hebrew language. This makes perfect sense. Idolatry is a failure to acknowledge, embrace, and live within covenant intimacy with God in our worship. And adultery is a failure to acknowledge, embrace, and live within covenant intimacy with God in our bodies.

Living as Temples of the Holy Spirit

To wrap it up, consider with me some practical ways in which we might take a step or two closer to using our bodies in ways that honor and advance what God desires for his people through the seventh commandment. Of course, the first and most obvious consideration is one that applies to married couples; it is an acknowledgement that the physical intimacy and covenant commitment of a married couple display an echo of the intimacy and covenant God provides for us.

solo weekend at the house

But this is about more than just married couples. There is application that includes single people as well. Because our bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit, our bodies deserve special attention and special honor. I am flying solo this weekend because the rest of my family went up to Ludington Friday to visit extended family. I’ve been staying home alone all weekend. Laura and the kids are getting home later this afternoon. Now I have to confess, I don’t run quite as tight of a ship when it is just me onboard. So, after I get home from church later today it means I will have to spend a little time loading all the dirty dishes from the sink into the dishwasher. I’ll wipe off all the kitchen counters. I’ll make sure the toilet seats are down. I’ll take out the trash and clear the recycling bin. I’ll go make the bed and arrange those twenty extra decorative pillows that have no other purpose being there. I don’t fuss with all of that when it is just me. But I want to make sure that my wife and kids come home to a clean and tidy house because they’re worth it.

there is immeasurable value and worth for every human being because God resides within us

You see where I am going with this. Some people may say, ‘it’s my body I can do whatever I want.’ But it is not just your body, the Holy Spirit lives there too. This creates immeasurable value and worth for every human being. People matter because God has created them and desires to live in covenant intimacy with them. This is why we treat all people (self included) with the dignity and respect and honor that God deserves, because all people (self included) are called to be temples of the Holy Spirit.

look for ways in which you may honor and lift others because they are temples of the Holy Spirit

So, as you go from here today, hold your head high; you are a temple of the Holy Spirit. God has such intimate covenant love for you that he desires for his Spirit to reside within you. And as you go from here into a new week, look for ways in which you may honor and lift others for one reason and one reason alone, because they are temples of the Holy Spirit too; when you honor them, you honor God.