The seventh commandment

7.2 Do not commit unlawful relations between men and women

Leviticus 18.20

“And you shall not lie sexually with your neighbor’s wife and so make yourself unclean with her.”

1 Corinthians 10.8

Leviticus 20.10

“If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.”

Deuteronomy 22.22

“If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel.”

The language here is more explicitly directed toward adulterous activity, but we can assume that “uncovering nakedness” is also included. David shows us how the latter can lead all too easily to the former. Adultery constitutes an attack on marriage and family, the foundational institution of an ordered society, and violates the creation mandate of God concerning the proper context for sexual relations. Attaching the death penalty to sins of adultery would serve to remind the people of Israel of the sacredness of marriage and the family in the divine economy.

We do not put adulterers to death in our day (see on), but this is because of the availability of grace in this age of the Gospel. Nevertheless, we must not “wink” at adultery. The Church has proper measures of discipline which must be brought to bear whenever this or any transgression of God’s Law is uncovered within the Body of Christ.

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.