Do Not Commit Adultery

¹⁸ “You must not commit adultery.

Kings who would live after the time of Moses and the great Patriarchs who lived before him, often had multiple wives or those who bore them children. Abraham was married to Sarai but had a child with Hagar, Jacob was tricked into marrying both Leah and Rachel, David had eight wives and Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines. Meanwhile, Moses himself appears to have had two wives, though whether they were both alive at the same time is not clear.

As these examples perhaps demonstrate, how much easier it is, when things become difficult in a relationship, to avoid dealing with the roadblocks to genuine depth. How much easier to find solace elsewhere than to work through the issues that prevent us finding it where we should. How often, the grass is greener.

In any friendship, when we scratch the surface of another person we discover that which we don’t like, that which triggers the worst in us, that which will require commitment and humility to work through.

How much more likely are we to encounter these as we unpeel the onion layers of complexity in our deepest relationships?

How tired we become, when yet again we are faced with a mirror into our own imperfections. How much easier to demand that our partner provide that which we need, than to work through the hindrances to us receiving those things from them? And when another seemingly offers to fulfil those needs at no apparent cost, how much easier to see that as love rather than love being the commitment to work through the issues with the one who we chose to marry?

Marriage is the highest picture that God provides us, of the relationship He desires between us and Himself. An extraordinary relationship between those of equal value. A relationship of mutual submission, of mutual adaptation. A relationship with nothing between, unclothed, unmasked, unhindered. A relationship that requires love as a persistent choice rather than an attractive emotion.  A relationship in which everything within you wants to give up and run away, a relationship in which you are utterly spent, a relationship of the most profound tears. A relationship of unspeakable joy, of confidence and value, of peace and security, of hope and fulfilment.

The antithesis to this ideal of marriage is adultery. The short-cut to an emotional or physical high. The pretence that intimacy can be created without sustained commitment, that knowing someone can happen without the disappointment of imperfection, that true love can exist without the mundane, without the bone-crushing weariness of the ordinary. Adultery removes the imperative to press into, to work through, to face the challenges, it destroys the prospect of true marriage.

Of course, we all of us need help to build covenant relationships, whether in marriage or in close friendships. We need the safety of others, the counsel of others, the encouragement of others. No couple arrives at the depths of good marriage on their own. And the same applies to our relationship with God. How easy to misunderstand Him, how easy to attribute to Him the wrong motives, the wrong actions. How easy to blame, how easy to hide from our own fears, how easy to fall into the superficial, the traditional, the acceptable to others.

How easy to run to the open arms of the world or the enemy when we despair that our relationship with God will ever be better. How easy to receive the comfort of a seemingly compassionate other, when the tears of loneliness or tragedy are all that we can see.

But, oh, what we miss we when we stop short; the inexpressible joy, the utter delight, the assurance, the wonder, the adventure, the laughter, the knowledge that we are loved.

Whether in our human relationships, or our divine relationship:

Do not commit adultery.