Adultery is ultimately the sin of crossing a boundary that shouldn’t be crossed.
The adulterer trespasses the marriage covenant and adulterates (destroys) the relationship that was forged in God. In fact, both parties of the affair are adulterers. One has trespassed and dishonored the marriage covenant boundary, whereas the other has failed to uphold their covenant oath, dishonored their spouse, and failed to strengthen and protect their marriage covenant boundary.
Furthermore, the sin of adultery is founded on lies, deception, and sexual immortality. But what is often overlooked is that adultery is actionable hatred for others. What the adulterer does is hatred toward their spouse and children. But God’s will is that we love our spouses and love our neighbors as ourselves.
What if you have committed adultery?
Most importantly, you should understand that God forgives repent adulterers. And if that is you, if you are broken over your participation in adultery, God will forgive you instantly. The only condition is that your repentance is authentic, not just convenient. In other words, are you ending the behavior and turning your life over to Jesus Christ and becoming a whole-hearted disciple of His or just wanting to be forgiven so that you don’t feel so bad? If you confess your sin to God in Jesus’s name, He will forgive you of your sins and cleanse you from all unrighteousness.
If you are unrepentant in your adultery, please know this: you are not only destroying your life, but the lives of all involved, even those related to the one you are with. Their spouse, their children, their parents, their siblings. The destruction goes far and wide. Please stop and turn the Lord. Ask God to cleanse you and then set about to live according to His blessed ways.
Consequential eternal promises:
Note: Consequential promises are warnings of eventual eternal judgment from the Lord unless a heart and behavior change takes place. We should want to understand consequential promises just as much as redemptive promises from the Lord. Both help us to walk worthy of the calling with which God has called us.
The eye of the adulterer waits for the twilight, saying, ‘No eye will see me’; and he disguises his face… But God draws the mighty away with His power; He rises up, but no man is sure of life. He gives them security, and they rely on it; yet His eyes are on their ways. They are exalted for a little while, Then they are gone. They are brought low; they are taken out of the way like all others; they dry out like the heads of grain. (Job 24:15,22-24)
Adultery has an initial excitement, but the end is disastrous for many.
Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. (1 Corinthians 6:9-10)
What is the warning? Do not be deceived. Even if you are a Christian, yet refusing to do what the Lord has commanded you to do (or not to do), you will not inherit the kingdom of God. A true Christian repents and learns to live according the Jesus’ teachings.
Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge. (Hebrews 13:4)
The marriage bed refers to holy sex, God-sanctioned sex, between a husband and wife. God is for sex, within His design. fornication and adultery is destructive. God’s ways bless relationships.
Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?† For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s. (1 Corinthians 6:18-20)
Redemptive eternal promises:
One of the last promises is a positive promise, a redemptive promise. After Paul warned the christians in Corinth about the eternal consequences of adultery, he also encouraged those who had repented. He mentioned that some of them in Corinth had repented and were clean, washed, redeemed, forgiven. They were no longer adulterers, but saints of the Most High. They had stopped the sin and turned to serve the living God, Jesus Christ!
And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:11)
So, remember, there is much hope and help for you if you simply confess your sin and commit to living for Jesus! Ask Him to help you and He will.
