You shall not commit adultery (Exod. 20:14).1
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her (Eph. 5:25).
The sweet bright fire
Of sinful sexual desire
Is a dreadful liar2
– J. I. PackerQuestion: What is required in the seventh commandment?
Answer: The seventh commandment requireth the preservation of our own and our neighbour’s chastity, in heart, speech and behavior
– Keach’s catechisms“For me to think I’m above falling into this sin is to think that I’m wiser than Solomon, stronger than Samson, and godlier than King David.”
–Voddie Baucham3
1. Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture citations in this article are taken from the ESV.
2. Rhyme adapted and inspired largely from a “Grook” found originally in J. I. Packer, “Why I Walked,” Banner of Truth USA, January 27, 2003.
3. Voddie Baucham Jr., Family Driven Faith (Paperback Edition with Study Questions): Doing What It Takes to Raise Sons and Daughters Who Walk with God (Crossway, 2011), 24.
The seventh commandment is very straightforward to understand and on one level simple to keep. Old Testament scholar and churchman, Dr. John Currid helpfully notes the command (“You Shall Not Commit Adultery”) “in the Hebrew is only two words, but its brevity and terseness add gravity to the charge. It strictly forbids married individuals having sexual relations with anyone other than their respective spouses.”4 Yet while the seventh commandment is simple and straightforward on one level, on another level it is incredibly difficult (for nearly every person5) to faithfully follow and never trespass. Charles Haddon Spurgeon rightly noted “these commandments take a far deeper sweep than mere words . . . thou shalt not commit adultery includes every form of unchastity and impurity.6”
4. John D. Currid, A Study Commentary on Exodus: Exodus 19–40, vol. 2, EP Study Commentary (Evangelical Press, 2001), 46.
5. I am leaving open the rare brother or sister in Christ who has the gift of celibacy (meaning they have no desire for marriage/sexual intimacy). They do exist, and while very rare, we should remember them. It is important we equip and encourage these brother and sister saints with the gift of celibacy to be directed towards kingdom purposes and pleasing the Lord (1 Cor. 7:32). And at the same time if they have the desire for sex we should also lovingly rebuke or gently correct them if they wrongly claim they have the gift of celibacy (they clearly don’t see 1 Cor. 7:9) Important pastoral note: one brother in Christ who has a gift of celibacy once told me, “In my view no group like us is more forgotten that we celibate people and no group like us is able to so excusably justify our selfishness and worldliness. We need faithful pastors and church members’ counsel, correction, and accountability.”)
6. Charles H. Spurgeon, “Exodus 20,” Spurgeon Bible Commentary, BibliaPlus.
Today there is almost certainly more of a need—not less—for heartfelt conviction, genuine guilt, and a sincere biblically-based, Spirit-wrought contrition and repentance for violating this commandment (and guarding against it). This is particularly true when understood according to Scripture’s consistent teaching on adultery. Our Lord Jesus Christ ties adultery directly to lust and divorce (see Matthew 5:27–32 and Matthew 19:1–12). Furthermore, it is not hard at all to see that adultery is next to inseparable from a cluster of other deeply evil sins against the Lord. These sins include idolatry, coveting, lying, stealing, and often divorce. All sins are wicked expressions of unfaithfulness and pain on their own. However, adultery almost invariably wraps multiple sins up together, compounding trespass upon trespass. Consider King David in 2 Samuel 11 as exhibit A of how his adulterous sin with Bathsheba led to other sins. Adultery is the deepest kind of betrayal, leading to the most extreme sorrow and deeply broken trust. Once broken, this trust often seems irreparable. Many spouses would likely rather have their spouse die than be unfaithful to them. Committing adultery is profoundly irrational, deeply foolish, and inescapably destructive to trust, marriages, and families.
Many decades ago, accomplished American author Pat Conroy rather unforgettably detailed his own painful divorce, pithily noting “each divorce is the death of a small civilization.”7 Similarly, adultery is the sin that often spawns painful divorce and this “small civilization’s” destruction. One study from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) found 88% of divorced couples identified infidelity as a major factor in the breakdown of their marriage.8 And it seems there is hardly a month that goes by without adulteries of elected officials. Yet fundamentally, adultery is first against God. The late Old Testament evangelical scholar J.A. Motyer observed, “in Ps. 51:4, regarding the sin of adultery with murder, David can say to God, ‘Against you, you only, have I sinned.”9 Adultery is first and foremost a rejection of the Lordship of the faithful God.
7. Pat Conroy, “Anatomy of a Divorce,” Atlanta Magazine, November 1, 1978.
8. Techopedia.com, “Infidelity Statistics: US Tops the Cheating Charts While 31% of Affairs Involve a Co-Worker,” PR Newswire, September 9, 2024.
9. Alec Motyer, The Message of Exodus: The Days of Our Pilgrimage, ed. Alec Motyer and Derek Tidball, The Bible Speaks Today (Inter-Varsity Press, 2005).
The Context of and Consequences for Adultery in Ancient Israel (and beyond)
In Genesis, the Lord clearly created and established earthly marriage as a covenantal, monogamous union. “A man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Gen. 2:24). A Baptist pastor and denominational leader of a prior generation, B. H. Carroll (1843–1914) would go so far as to state, “Marriage is the first human relation, the highest human relation, the most important human relation, and it antedated even the Sabbath day” (Carroll 2023, 78).10 Every Hebrew would understand God to be the Creator, Lord, and lawgiver. They would know adultery was one of the chief violations of God’s law; the prophets accused Israel of practicing it both literally and spiritually (Jer. 5:7–8; Hosea; Mal. 3:5). Situated between thou shalt not murder, and thou shalt not steal (both wicked sins and heinous punishable crimes), the command to not commit adultery would only be heightened in hearers’ ears and readers eyes. And since adultery was often practiced by wicked nations and led directly to their own judgment, Israel’s own unholy uncleanness and idolatrous defilement was often labeled as spiritually adulterous (see Jer. 7:9; Hos. 4:2; Hos. 7:4).
10. Founders Press. The Ten Commandments.
The God of heaven and earth created marriage to point to Himself ( Hos. 2:19; Isa. 54:5; Eph. 5:22–33). Throughout Scripture, in both the Old and New Testaments the Lord explicitly speaks of Himself as the husband to His people (i.e. His bride). For example, Jeremiah 31:32 says, “My covenant that they broke, though I was their husband” (Jer. 31:32). Thus an eternal everlasting relationship of God to His covenant people is displayed in miniature here on earth as one husband (the Lord) is devoted to his one wife (His covenant people). The breaking of this exclusive covenantal marital bond between one man and one woman destroys and distorts a portrait of the very love of God. To commit adultery in ancient Israel was to be unfaithful to one’s own spouse but also was to be unfaithful to the faithful Lord. The same is true today. Adultery revealed a corrupt, unbelieving, impure and idolatrous heart.
Adultery also leads to disaster spiritually, relationally, and societally. Polygamy in particular leads not only to unnecessary discord and distrust (Leah was clearly unloved and longed for her husband’s love; see Gen. 29:31–34) but also to bitter jealousy (Gen. 30:15).
Is Lust Adultery?
In recent years influential often conservative commentator and best-selling author Dennis Prager has made waves by claiming (and doubling down defending) lust is not a sin in Judaism. Prager provocatively claimed that, of the 613 commandments in the Torah, not one of the commands says ‘thou shalt not lust.’ He went on to argue against covetousness being equated with lust and claimed Judaism is more concerned with behavior and Christianity with our inner thought life.11 However, Prager is quite clearly wrong on this count. In his Exodus commentary, late Old Testament scholar J. A. Motyer rightly notes, “It is quite wrong to think of it [the decalogue] as a list of rules to which we simply conform and that it awaited the teaching of Jesus to extend obedience to the heart (Matt. 5:21–30). To the contrary, in each of the great areas of obedience there is a call for purity of mind and heart.12 Indeed, Scripture in both the Old and New Testaments is clearly concerned with our actions and also clearly reveals that the Lord sees and is deeply concerned about the inner life of our hearts and thoughts. Furthermore, the Hebrew word “heart” in the Old Testament is often not merely an organ but the governing center of a person’s entire inner life (the Hebrew word for “self/soul also has deeply internal meanings in multiple contexts). For example, Deuteronomy 6:5–6 notes:
11. Anthony Costello, “Dennis Prager and Matt Fradd on Pornography & Lust,” Patheos, April 28, 2023.
12. Motyer, Message of Exodus, 217.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.
Later on in the Hebrew Bible, Proverbs repeatedly connects a man’s heart to his well-being:
Keep your heart with all vigilance,
for from it flow the springs of life. (Prov. 4:23)
To what the Lord judges above a man’s ways:
Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart. (Prov. 21:2)
And significantly, to avoid adultery:
My son, give me your heart,
and let your eyes observe my ways.
For a prostitute is a deep pit;
an adulteress is a narrow well.
She lies in wait like a robber
and increases the traitors among mankind. (Prov. 23:26–28)
The consequence for such a sin was death for both the man and woman who committed adultery (Lev. 20:10). To commit adultery was to pridefully ignore the Lord’s gracious warnings against following these adulterous and sexually immoral customs of the nations. Adultery is listed and condemned directly in line with bestiality, homosexuality, incest, and other grossly immoral, deeply wicked sexual practices that pagan, godless people engaged in, so much so that the Lord spewed or vomited them out from the promised land that He then gave to His people (Lev. 20:23). To commit adultery, then, was not only a disgraceful evil. It was also to invite God’s judgment and foolishly desire their own suffering and God’s great displeasure. The sins of adultery and lust are also tied to the failures and shortcomings of great kings in Israel’s history. This is seen in King David’s adultery (2 Samuel 11) and David’s son King Solomon, who takes many wives, whose heart is led astray (1 Kgs. 11:4). The late Voddie Baucham put it, “For me to think I’m above falling into this sin is to think that I’m wiser than Solomon, stronger than Samson, and godlier than King David.”13
13. Baucham, Family Driven Faith, 24.
Later on in Scripture, it becomes clear that adultery’s consequences extend far beyond the real and horrific earthly consequences, even earthly death. Adultery incurs the eternal wrath of God: it is repeatedly mentioned as that which will lead to the damnation of their souls and exclusion from God’s kingdom (1 Cor. 6:9–11; Gal. 5:19–21; Rev. 21:8)
Equipped for Battle: A Spray of Practical Applications
For individuals.
- Consider the end of lust and the end of adultery. The end of adultery is death. The end of adultery is judgment. The often eminently quotable Puritan theologian John Owen wrote,
“Sin aims always at the utmost; every time it rises up to tempt or entice, might it have its own course, it would go out the utmost sin in that kind. Every unclean thought or glance would be adultery if it could; every covetous desire would be oppression, every thought of unbelief would be atheism, might it grow to its head.14”
14. John Owen, The Mortification of Sin, Chapel Library; In a modernized version of this, Aaron Renn put it this way: “You know what sin did to David and to so many other people. Sin always aims for ultimate destruction. Every time is rises up to tempt or entice us, if left to follow its own desires, it would go to the most extreme sin of that kind. Every lustful thought or glance would be actual adultery if it could be . . . sin is like the grave—it is never satisfied. And here is where a big part of the deceitfulness of sin lies, and how it ends up hardening people until they are lost (see Hebrews 3:13). Sin starts off small in its first temptations and activity, but once it gains a foothold in someone it constantly presses further onward to increasing depravity.”
- Confess your adultery and your sexually immoral sins today. In Psalm 32:3, David says, “When I kept silent, my bones wasted away.”
- Do not attempt to go at this alone. Whether you are single or married and tempted to be a loner fighting the fight of faith effectively and giving God glory maximally means yielding to and practicing His wisdom. You belong to a people the church of Jesus Christ and your temptations towards certain sins, including lust and adultery, will grow in power if you embrace isolation. Scripture calls us repeatedly to not isolate ourselves (Prov. 18:1; Heb. 10:19–25) nor to be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, but to exhort one another every day (Heb. 3:13–15).
- Every one of us ought to be vigilant in knowing when we are personally the most tempted towards sexual immorality and should not be embarrassed to take what many (even many Christians) might consider to be extreme lengths to guard your heart from lust-which is wicked and which is adultery (albeit a less destructive form of it). Matthew Henry rightly asserted, “our chastity should be as dear to us as our lives, and we should be as much afraid of that which defiles the body as of that which destroys it.”15 Seriously guard what you listen to and watch. The music, movies, and shows we consume go a very long way to pull us into entertaining forbidden sexual fantasies and subtly justifying adulterous immoralities.
15. Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible: Complete and Unabridged in One Volume (Hendrickson, 1994), 125.
For married couples.
- Honor the Lord’s call for your lives. Neither spouse should leave their homes sexually frustrated or dissatisfied. They must love one another well by talking together and coming together regularly as part of the delightful duty God has given them to protect and satisfy them. Husbands, love your wives, being gentle and sacrificial with her, remembering she is the weaker vessel (1 Pet. 3:7), and wives, respect and submit to your husbands in all things, knowing he is your head and it is a good place of honor to be under him (1 Pet. 3:1–6). Be on guard for anything that can come between your spouse and you. This means even a counselor, a trusted friend, a parent, a sibling, a pastor, a church, or even a child. Your first ministry unto the Lord you are accountable to is to be a husband or a wife, and all other ministry usefulness flows from the health of this relationship.
For pastor-elders.
- When officiating weddings, require seriously robust pre-marital counseling and follow through on this. It is vital to the health and wellness of God-glorifying, adultery-proof marriages that men and women understand their God-given roles and responsibilities. Far too often, what opens the door for lust and adultery is not merely a dissatisfaction with one’s spouse but a distorted view of sex in marriage. The Lord makes it plain in His Word that in ancient Israel a man was to be free at home one year to give happiness to his wife he has taken (Deut. 24:5), and that husbands and wives must stop depriving one another except by agreement for a time, so that they might devote themselves to prayer and come together again so that Satan will not tempt them because of their lack of self-control (1 Cor. 7:5).
- Continue to faithfully teach on, equip the saints for, and call for discipleship in marriages. Emphasize often that if the Lord has called a congregant to be married their first and most important ministry unto God is their marriage. Married Christian men must be appropriately asked and appropriately encouraged and disciplined to drink water from their own cistern and delight themselves in the wife of their youth (Prov. 5:15–23).
- Invest money and time for your church and work through biblically faithful resources that will aid your congregants in this lifelong battle (examples of this include John Owen’s Mortification of Sin; Joe Rigney’s More Than a Battle; Jared Moore’s 33 Days to Freedom From Lust; Mark Jones’ Knowing Sin; or Kris Lundgaard’s The Enemy Within).
For local churches
- Start (and don’t stop) reading, memorizing, and loving Scripture. You need the Sword to sanctify your mind and there are many wonderful resources to aid you.
- Brothers use and even overuse the phrase “sister” in Christ for women at church (sisters do likewise for brothers).
- Mock the Billy Graham rule at your own peril. It is decidedly not pharisaical or legalistic but rather a practically wise and God-honoring guardrail to realize that “You will not have sex with a woman who is not your wife if you are never alone with a woman not your wife.”16 You are not Jesus. You are a sinner who Jesus has saved by His grace, who still battles with indwelling sin. Do not arrogantly walk on this earth ignoring your sinful flesh and the folly that has taken many stronger men down.
- Purchase, read, and reread late biblical counselor David Powlison’s excellent article “Sexual Sin and the Wider Deeper Battle.” It is worth every penny and powerfully and pastorally presses beyond lust to the unbelief behind it. Powlison writes, “Every deviant motive—each lust of the flesh, lie, false love—is a hijacker. It mimics some aspect of God. It usurps some promise of God.”17
16. Billy Graham, Just As I Am: The Autobiography of Billy Graham (HarperCollins, 1997), chap. 11.
17. David Powlison, “Sexual Sin and the Wider, Deeper Battle,” The Journal of Biblical Counseling 24, no. 2 (2006); this article is behind a pay wall but a related talk by David Powlison is available for free here and related article here. (Making All Things New: Restoring Pure Joy to the Sexually Broken)
Consider the Lord. The Lord sees all (Prov. 15:3). He has been faithful to you, and you are created to reflect Him and bring Him honor and glory.
Consider adultery’s victims. Perhaps no sins more than lust and adultery present God’s people with the bitter, brutal end—death. The Lord presents adultery as a lair of death:
For many a victim has she laid low,
and all her slain are a mighty throng.
Her house is the way to Sheol,
going down to the chambers of death. (Prov. 7:26–27)
Consider your ruined legacy. Your sin will find you out (Num. 32:23). For but a brief few moments of sinful pleasure, you will ruin your entire legacy. Drink deeply from the truth in Proverbs 6:32–33 that soberingly tells us:
He who commits adultery lacks sense;
he who does it destroys himself.
He will get wounds and dishonor,
and his disgrace will not be wiped away.
Understand, dear brother or dear sister in Christ, that your shame will never be wiped away here on earth (Prov. 6:32–33). You may have served Christ and His church admirably for decades, but if you commit adultery, understand what your legacy will be: Servant . . . and adulterer. Add to this anything else you desire to accomplish in the life God has given you. Husband . . . adulterer. Father . . . adulterer. Bible scholar . . . adulterer. Pastor . . . adulterer. Missionary . . . adulterer. President . . . adulterer. Inventor . . . adulterer. Leader . . . adulterer. Successful . . . adulterer . . . Millionaire . . . adulterer. Entrepreneur . . . adulterer.18 Burn that lasting shame into your brain even as you seek to glorify God and remember you are not your own but were bought at a price, and the Spirit of God dwells in you (1 Cor. 6:18–20).
