What Does the Bible Say About…Adultery?

“Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.” (Psalm 51:4; ESV)

I think many would agree that the concept of sin is slowly eroding in our culture.  Things that were hardly spoken of 50 years ago are paraded across our television sets without a second thought.  It’s not as if we were less sinful as a society 50, 40, or even 30 years ago.  What has changed is what we view as sinful.  30 to 50 years ago, things that are now done out in the open for everyone to see, were kept under the covers.  In years past, more people had a common knowledge of what was considered “sinful,” so they hid their sinful acts from public scrutiny.  Over the intervening years, through the influence of popular culture and the social and sexual revolution of the 1960’s, a slow, unrelenting attack on our social mores has altered our view of morality and sin.  So much so, that if you look at our culture as it stands in the first decade of the 21^st century, it is radically different than that of the 1950’s.

When people think of 1950’s pop culture, they think of Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows Best.  In other words, the culture of the 1950’s was thought of as an era of wholesome morality where everything was innocent.  Now I’m not naïve enough to actually believe that the society and culture of the 1950’s mirrored that found on those TV shows.  Yet there was a conscious effort to use television and other media to promote a prescribed sense of morality.

This almost begs the question:  What changed?  How did we go from Father Knows Best to Desperate Housewives?  The answer to that question is beyond the scope of this article, but suffice it to say that the short answer to that question is:  Sin sells!  As a society, we have decided that it is better to turn a profit than be good stewards of our culture.  And nothing turns a better profit than sex-the racier the better!  We are a culture that is awash in sex.  It’s in our movies, our TV shows, our music, our media, and our literature.  Both the movie and TV studios that create the shows we watch and the public that consumes these shows with fervor are to blame for this change.  The result of our over-sexualized culture is that nearly all boundaries of sexual propriety have been obliterated.

I would like to categorize three general areas of sexual sin that have fallen by the wayside in our culture.  First is fornication.  Fornication can be defined as “consensual sexual intercourse between two persons not married to each other.”  Generally speaking, this would be sexual relations between two consenting single persons of the opposite gender.  Clearly this sexual boundary has been completely demolished.  No longer do we, as a society, view fornication (as defined) as “sin.”  As long as the two people are consenting adults over the age of 18, what they do in private is their own business.  A sexual scene on TV or in a movie between two unmarried people no longer elicits shock, and instead of teaching our children to wait until marriage to engage in sexual activity, we assume they’re going to do it and instead caution them to use birth control.  In other words, instead of fighting what seems to be the losing battle of teaching sexual morals, let’s just try to limit the casualties.  Even if birth control fails, one can always get an abortion (see my article What Does the Bible Say About…Abortion?).

The second general area of sexual sin that has fallen by the wayside is homosexuality.  Homosexuality is defined as “sexual relations between two people of the same gender.”  While there are still people who believe that homosexuality is wrong, they are in the minority.  Furthermore, to even suggest that homosexuality is wrong can be considered “hate speech” in some countries.  Those who promote the “rights” of homosexuals have waged a war of perceptions against our culture and have generally succeeded in turning what was once universally thought of as sin into an “alternative lifestyle.”  We have shifted our thinking from saying that “homosexuality is wrong” to saying “homosexuality may be wrong for me, but not for everyone.”  Popular culture is complicit in this shift in our thinking.  Homosexuals are portrayed in TV and movies as friendly, well-adjusted people who just want to “get along.”  Nowhere was this more obvious than in the movie American Beauty, starring Kevin Spacey and Annette Benning.  This movie, which is really just one big slap across the face of American suburban society, portrays a whole slew of dysfunctional people with the sole exception of the homosexual neighbor.  That neighbor is then killed by a fundamentalist Christian, anti-homosexual bigot; who happens to be a closet homosexual himself.

The third and final area of sexual sin that has fallen prey to our society’s changing sexual morals is adultery.  Let’s define adultery as “voluntary sexual intercourse between a married person and someone other than his or her spouse.”  Some will argue that this boundary hasn’t been completely eliminated; a majority of people will agree that adultery is a betrayal of the marriage vows.  I would agree with this statement.  Unlike fornication and homosexuality, adultery is still typically frowned upon.  However, in OT Jewish society, adultery was an offense punishable by death.  It was considered an offense of the highest degree in Jewish society to stray outside the bounds of marriage.  Why?  The reason is because the sanctity of the family was held in a much higher regard than it is today.  Adultery not only destroyed marriages, but it ruined families as well; and the family was the bedrock of Jewish society.

Now, I’m not advocating a return to OT standards regarding adultery.  However, do we as a society still attach a social stigma to adultery?  Not really, not anymore.  We don’t even use the word adultery in everyday speech anymore.  When was the last time you heard the word “adultery” outside of a church setting?  When two people commit adultery (and it does take two to commit adultery), we call it “having an affair.”  That sounds so much better than “they committed adultery.”  There is a subtle shift going on with this change in verbiage.  “Adultery” carries with it a negative image as one imagines a red-faced preacher pounding the pulpit warning against the “sin of adultery.”  The phrase “having an affair” can range the gamut from negative to positive.

While pop culture will not go so far as to endorse adultery, they will attempt to show the neutral or positive side of “having an affair.”  Again, how many movies or TV shows depict adultery as a one time lapse of an otherwise moral person?  The idea behind this portrayal is that it can happen to anyone.  The truth of the matter is…it can, but that doesn’t excuse it.  Other attempts to soften adultery in pop culture depict two star-crossed lovers who are both stuck in dead, loveless (or even abusive) marriages.  When they meet, we see that their love is true and meant to be.  The moral of the story being that true love cannot and must not be denied!  Finally, we rarely see the negative effects that adultery has on family and loved ones.

OK, what does the Bible have to say about adultery?  Whether or not you’re a Christian, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the Bible condemns adultery as sin.  We need look no further than the seventh of the Ten Commandments, “you shall not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14).  In case anyone wants to think that the Ten Commandments became obsolete after Jesus’ resurrection, this command was cited in Matthew 5:27 and Romans 13:9 and is alluded to in 1 Corinthians 6:9 and Hebrews 13:4; so there’s no getting around this one.  For most Christians, it’s enough to say the Bible says adultery is sin (“The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it”).  However, in my own experience, simply knowing something to be sin doesn’t guarantee that I won’t indulge.  How many stories of adultery and scandal involving pastors have you heard, or between two otherwise obedient Christians?  My brothers and sisters, we are not immune!

David and Bathsheba

There are many places in Scripture I could turn to, but I want to turn to the most well known story of moral failure in the Bible-David and Bathsheba.  I believe this story gives us the anatomy of a “moral failure.”  The story is told in 2 Samuel 11-12.  King David has done it all.  He has risen from shepherd to king.  He has withstood the persecution from King Saul.  He has survived a Jewish civil war and reunited the kingdom.  He has conquered all of Israel’s foes.  This is the point where, if we’re not diligent, we can become complacent, and King David became complacent.  As far as he was concerned, he did everything that needed to be done and he lost his “wartime” mentality.  The narrative begins, “In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel. And they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem” (2 Samuel 11:1).  David was not where he should have been-leading his troops into battle.

When a person becomes complacent, they lose their mental edge.  They become bored and the mind wanders into places it shouldn’t.  That’s what happened to King David.  When he should have been out leading his troops in battle, he was wandering around the palace bored and complacent-a perfect candidate for a moral failure.  You know the rest of the story how David takes Bathsheba for himself and gets her pregnant and then conspires with Joab to have Uriah, her husband, killed in battle. 

The point in telling all of this isn’t to point out the obvious-that David sinned-but maybe the not so obvious-that David sinned long before he slept with Bathsheba.  Sin happens in the heart long before it is realized in our actions.  Before David called for Bathsheba to be brought to him, he saw her bathing.  The sight of a beautiful woman bathing stirred within the restless king sinful emotions and desires that ultimately led to David committing adultery with Bathsheba.  The physical sex act was the culmination of sinful desires running rampant in a complacent mind.

Jesus taught this truth in his sermon on the mount.  He said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:27-28).  This is precisely what David did; he committed adultery with Bathsheba in his heart prior to committing adultery with her in his body.

In addition, adultery, far from being a sin with little or no consequences, is a sin with massive consequences.  When David took this sin of adultery out of his mind and into reality, he involved another person in his sin.  This is not to absolve Bathsheba from any responsibility, but David was clearly the initiator.  Moreover, his cover up also led to the death of her husband, Uriah.  How many adulterous affairs end in violence?  I don’t know the answer to that, but most premeditated murder involves people who know each other; and jealous spouses top the list.  There is also the family havoc that is wreaked.  The consequences of David’s adulterous affair led to the eventual breakdown of his family.  Finally, adultery is a sin that is ultimately committed against God (Psalm 51:4).  When David repented of his sin, he wrote Psalm 51 as a response.  When David was confessing that his sin was against God, he wasn’t neglecting the consequences his sin had on others.  He was simply acknowledging that ultimately, his sin was a direct disobedience to the clear commands of God.  Until David repented, his relationship with God was broken.

Bottom Line:  Adultery is not only a sin, but it is a devastating sin.  As we have seen, it has severe consequences that range far beyond the simple guilt of the two people involved.  Adultery is a sin against God himself.  The Bible uses adultery as a metaphor for idolatry.  Just as physical adultery is being unfaithful to one’s spouse; spiritual adultery (idolatry) is being unfaithful to God.  It is a metaphor that is used all throughout the OT and NT to reference God’s people turning away from pure religion to pursue false gods.

How can we avoid the sin of adultery-both physical and spiritual?  I think the answer lies in learning the lesson of David’s moral failure and avoid complacency.  We’re in a spiritual battle with a real opponent.  The enemy of our souls would like nothing better than to see God’s children stumble and fall into sin and temptation; and since adultery is so devastating, it is a favorite tool of his.  We need to realize that we’re in the midst of this spiritual battle.  Even though the power and penalty of sin has been broken at Calvary, the presence of sin is still with us.  Becoming mentally complacent is akin to having the city guards sleeping in their watch towers-we become vulnerable to the enemy’s attacks.  We need to take our evil thoughts captive (2 Corinthians 10:4-5) and stop sin before it festers in our hearts and minds. 

Finally, we need to realize that “there but for the grace of God go I.”  Just because you have never succumbed to the sin of adultery doesn’t make you immune.  Thank God that by his grace you have been successful in this area of temptation, but also realize that God’s grace is vitally necessary for any future spiritual victories.  The Bible tells us that pride goes before the fall.  In other words, when we least think we’re prone to stumble, that is usually the point in time we do.  We need to be humble and maintain our “wartime” mentality.