7th Commandment

As a starting point, let’s be clear: God is not against sex, intimacy, beauty, or physical pleasure; he invented them!

In the proper context, sexual intimacy is a gift from God (2X).

You’ve heard of a match made in heaven? Let’s talk Adam & Eve!

Gen. 2 has the 1st“not good” in creation account. The Lord said: “It is not good for the man to be alone”

People are wired differently; some prefer single life and God’s Word recognizes singleness as honourable, healthy, and good

But as God watched Adam name the animals, birds, and fish, the Lord saw it’s not good for Adam to be alone

None of the animals were suitable as a helper for Adam; not a fish, nor a bird, nor a dog makes a suitable helper for Adam

It calls for Emergency surgery!

The Lord made a helper suitable for Adam

Let’s be clear: not “cute little helper” but a strong partner

ezer – OT word describes God protecting & rescuing his ppl

Ezer – helper

beautiful, but not sexy: 18 h labour & delivery together

beautiful, but not romantic: a couple experiencing dementia together, cancer, mental or physical degeneration

Union b/t husband & wife incl. a perk, a privilege, a duty of marriage “they became one flesh”

you can’t capture the wonder of loving, sexual intercourse in art

Note: this was b/f the FALL into sin;

Adam & Eve could be naked w/o shame,

not b/c nobody else around; they had nothing to hide

Goodness in their relationship. Not just before Fall; even after A&E’s disobedience knocks the world off-kilter, relations b/t husband & wife can be wholesome, good, and beautiful.

God has a book in the Bible that celebrates physical love: Song of S

All night long on my bed

I looked for the one my heart loves;

I looked for him but did not find him.

I will get up now and go about the city,

through its streets and squares;

I will search for the one my heart loves.

So I looked for him but did not find him.

The watchmen found me

as they made their rounds in the city.

“Have you seen the one my heart loves?”

Scarcely had I passed them

when I found the one my heart loves.

I held him and would not let him go

till I had brought him to my mother’s house,

to the room of the one who conceived me.

Song of Solomon 3:1–4 (NIV)

It’s only a taste of the love and desire celebrated in the Song of Songs. But there’s a warnings mentioned several times in the book:

Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you

by the gazelles and by the does of the field:

Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.

Song of Solomon 3:5 (NIV)

Why the warning if God created sex and intimacy good?

Why the 7th commandment, “You shall not commit adultery”?

Sexual relations are designed to be good and pleasurable. But anything that is good can become harmful in the wrong context. Don’t arouse or awaken love too early b/c that leads to problems. Teen pregnancy and STDs are just the tip of the iceberg.

Connecting to someone through sex is complicated.

It’s not just physical. You connect on many levels: emotional, social, psychological. The sensations and images of intimacy stick w/ you.

Becoming “one flesh” w/ someone affects you deeply. It changes you. Intimacy ought to be about giving and receiving: love, touch, and pleasure. It takes time. It calls for maturity and commitment. It calls for self-sacrifice. Don’t take it lightly. Nothing casual about sex.

That’s what the 7th commandment is about as well. Don’t become “one flesh” w/ someone you aren’t married to. It’s wise counsel for anyone living in God’s creation. Follow your Creator’s instructions for the best results.

But Chr. can’t impose God’s standard on people w/o connection to their Creator. “You shall not commit adultery” was part of the law of the land in OT Israel, where God’s authority was recognized. When the culture rejects God’s authority, there’s no longer willingness to live by God’s instructions. It’s no longer the law of the land.

The 10 Commandments don’t carry weight and significance w/ people who don’t recognize the Lordas Creator and Ruler. We shouldn’t be shocked if people w/o allegiance to Jesus as Lord and King ignore his commands. What’s surprizing is how many people recognize the importance of reserving sexual behaviour for marriage w/o faith in Jesus as Creator and Redeemer!

If you are part of the Kingdom of God, if you’ve been adopted into God’s family, if you have been grafted into the body of Jesus Christ, God’s instructions for goodness are revealed by his Word and Spirit.

Your connection to God makes all the difference in the world!

Consider the Israelites in the OT. God rescued them from slavery in Egypt. At Mt Sinai, the Lordproposes a covenant relationship with the Israelites. The Lord marries the ppl of Israel: He will be their God; they will be his people. OT prophets make the connection: idolatry (having other gods) is adultery against God.

At Mt Sinai God organizes his rescued ppl as a nation according to the principles and best practises of his creation. The commandments

Honour F & M

Don’t murder

Don’t commit adultery

Don’t give false testimony

As God’s covenant people, the bride of Christ is in a similar position: We’re being renewed and restored from a culture that idolizes beauty, that caters to fantasies about sex, and makes an idol of sex. The goodness of marital relations gets twisted.

Jesus’ teaches on the 7th commandment in his famous Sermon on the Mount. He reveals it isn’t just about the physical activity. God is concerned about impure thoughts, attitudes, and imagination:

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.

Matthew 5:27–28 (NIV)

By Jesus’ standard, everyone past puberty faces temptation, even earlier for some kids. By gr. 1 or 2, most kids are fascinated w/ bodily functions, holding hands and kissing . . . and most of it is innocent.

But some kids are exposed to porn or are abused when they are very young and vulnerable. Abuse messes up God’s good gift of human sexuality for them, their families, and some of their friends.

Sex is powerful and can be very good, but in the wrong context, sexual activity like pornography or sex outside of marriage can destroy lives. Shame, brokenness, and wrong-doing can be a barrier b/t you and God. Both abused people and people guilty of sexual abuse have told me they don’t think God can ever love or forgive them for what they’ve done and experienced.

But brokenness, perversion, and evil don’t get the last word. God is not willing to leave his people wallowing in a cesspool of harmful behaviour or toxic sexuality. Just like God came down to Egypt and rescued the Israelites, God has come down into his creation to rescue his people from sin and brokenness.

As part of his suffering, our rescuer, Jesus – God himself who became human – was stripped naked. When he was exposed and nailed to the cross, he bore your shame, your guilt, and died in your place. By faith in his resurrection, you are raised to life; raised to holiness.

The water of baptism symbolizes the cleansing power of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Jesus’ righteousness is like a white robe that gets draped around your shoulders and securely tied around your waist: no more shame; no more guilt. You have received life and holiness as a citizen of Jesus’ Kingdom, as a brother or sister in the family of God, and as a member of the body of Jesus Christ.

Jesus’ love for his people, his care and self-sacrifice are a model for the love and purity of his people. Just like the OT people of God were married to God at Mt. Sinai, marriage imagery is used for Jesus and the Church. It’s a model for the relationships and households of God’s NT people as well.

The marriage b/t Christ & his Church is made explicit in God’s word to Church in Ephesus, when Paul discusses Chr. standards in marriage:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

Ephesians 5:25–27 (NIV)

Paul makes a similar point about purity based on our connection to Jesus in his 1stletter to Chr. in Corinth.

Corinth in Paul’s day was a seaport. Not just a red-light district; there were temples to fertility gods. Sexual immorality in all its forms was a constant temptation for the Christians in Corinth. They thought freedom in Christ gave them the right to do anything.

In the 1st letter to Corinth, Paul explains the call to holiness:

The body, however, is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also.

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!

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.” But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit.

I Corinthians 6:13–17 (NIV)

Your body is NOT your own. You are part of the body of Christ. You have freedom to marry another believer, but not to have sexual relations outside of marriage.

Negative: You shall not commit adultery.

Positive: Keep the marriage bed pure.

Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. Hebrews 13:4 (NIV)

Relationships in the family of God.

Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity. I Timothy 5:1–2 (NIV)