Adultery, spiritual
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· 16 viewsIn Scripture there is a close link between sexual sin and spiritual corruption and immorality as promoted by false teachers. Scripture frequently uses the language of sexual sin to expose the infidelity of God’s people.
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The link between sexual sin and spiritual adultery
The link between sexual sin and spiritual adultery
In practice
In practice
While Israel was staying in Shittim, the men began to indulge in sexual immorality with Moabite women, who invited them to the sacrifices to their gods. The people ate the sacrificial meal and bowed down before these gods. So Israel yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor. And the Lord’s anger burned against them.
See also Ex 34:15; Ho 4:14
In false teaching
In false teaching
Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols. I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways. I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds.
Now I say to the rest of you in Thyatira, to you who do not hold to her teaching and have not learned Satan’s so-called deep secrets, ‘I will not impose any other burden on you, except to hold on to what you have until I come.’
See also Nu 31:15–16; 2 Ti 3:6; 2 Pe 2:13–15; Jud 4; Jud 8; Re 2:14–16
Spiritual adultery and God’s covenant relationship with his people
Spiritual adultery and God’s covenant relationship with his people
God as a husband to his people
God as a husband to his people
Eze 16:8 The spiritual relationship between God and his people is defined in terms of the intimate and exclusive bond of marriage.
See also Is 54:5; Je 3:14; Je 31:32; Eph 5:31–32
God is jealous for his people’s affections
God is jealous for his people’s affections
Ex 34:14 Just as husband and wife are jealous for their relationship in love, so God is jealous for the affections of his people.
See also Ex 20:4–5; Dt 4:23–24; Dt 6:13–15
The history of spiritual adultery among God’s people
The history of spiritual adultery among God’s people
Before Israel’s kings
Before Israel’s kings
And the Lord said to Moses: “You are going to rest with your ancestors, and these people will soon prostitute themselves to the foreign gods of the land they are entering. They will forsake me and break the covenant I made with them.
See also Le 17:7–9; Le 20:4–6; Jdg 2:16–17; Jdg 8:27; Jdg 8:33–34
In the northern kingdom of Israel
In the northern kingdom of Israel
When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, “Go, marry a promiscuous woman and have children with her, for like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the Lord.”
See also 1 Ch 5:25; Eze 23:1–8; Ho 2:2–3; Ho 4:10–12; Ho 5:3–4
In the southern kingdom of Judah
In the southern kingdom of Judah
“If a man divorces his wife
and she leaves him and marries another man,
should he return to her again?
Would not the land be completely defiled?
But you have lived as a prostitute with many lovers—
would you now return to me?”
declares the Lord.
“Look up to the barren heights and see.
Is there any place where you have not been ravished?
By the roadside you sat waiting for lovers,
sat like a nomad in the desert.
You have defiled the land
with your prostitution and wickedness.
Therefore the showers have been withheld,
and no spring rains have fallen.
Yet you have the brazen look of a prostitute;
you refuse to blush with shame.
See also 2 Ch 21:10–11; Is 57:3–8; Je 2:20; Je 5:7–8; Je 23:13–14; Eze 16:15–22; Eze 23:11–21
In Jesus Christ’s generation
In Jesus Christ’s generation
Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.”
He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.
See also Mt 16:4
God’s judgment on spiritual adultery
God’s judgment on spiritual adultery
and say, ‘Hear the word of the Lord, you kings of Judah and people of Jerusalem. This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Listen! I am going to bring a disaster on this place that will make the ears of everyone who hears of it tingle. For they have forsaken me and made this a place of foreign gods; they have burned incense in it to gods that neither they nor their ancestors nor the kings of Judah ever knew, and they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent. They have built the high places of Baal to burn their children in the fire as offerings to Baal—something I did not command or mention, nor did it enter my mind.
See also Je 3:6–10; Je 16:10–13; Eze 23:36–49
Believers are not to be drawn into spiritual adultery
Believers are not to be drawn into spiritual adultery
Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.
See also 1 Co 10:6–11; Col 3:5; Heb 3:12–14; Heb 10:26–31; Jas 4:4–5; 1 Jn 5:21