Subscribe to Ailbe Newsletters
Sign up to receive our email newsletters and read columns about revival, renewal, and awakening built upon prayer, sharing, and mutual edification.
The seventh commandment
This commandment forbids all unlawful sexual practices and relations, that is, those engaged outside the bounds of marriage.
Exodus 20.14
“You shall not commit adultery.”
Deuteronomy 5.18
“‘And you shall not commit adultery.’”
Ephesians 5.3-13; 1 Thessalonians 4.3-8
Essentially, adultery is any unlawful sexual activity. It ranges from simple voyeurism to fornication, homosexuality, and bestiality. God is especially severe against sins of adultery, and for very good reasons.
Adultery is proscribed as contrary to the divine plan for a holy and just society. Adultery denies the divine order for human sexuality, attacks marriage as the foundational social institution, makes a mockery of the procreative privilege in our calling to fill the earth, and encourages unbridled passion as a guide to behavior. It is not to be tolerated among the people of God.
This series of In the Gates we present a detailed explanation of the Law of God, beginning with the Ten Commandments, and working through the statutes and rules that accompany each commandment. For a practical guide to the role of God’s Law in the practice of ethics, get The Ground for Christian Ethics by going to www.ailbe.org and click on our Book Store.