Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:
The command forbids not only the outward act of unfaithfulness but the inward cherishing of lust, so that to look with lustful desire is already to break it in the heart. It reaches thoughts, feelings, desires, purposes, imaginings and motives, condemning impure passion even when secret and never carried into action. Christ does not weaken or set aside the commandment but restores its true meaning and magnifies it, showing that the same law spoken from Sinai still binds the heart as well as conduct. It therefore binds husband and wife to loyalty in thought, word and deed, forbidding giving mind, heart and affection to another and protecting marriage from trivial divorce. Entertaining unchaste thoughts is the root that leads to improper advances and deeds and stands written as guilt, so faithfulness requires fighting against the natural heart, centering affection on one's own companion, and gaining victory by grace with the mind stayed on God.
Sermon Setting and Audience
Matthew 5:27 belongs to the Sermon on the Mount, spoken especially for the disciples yet within hearing of a large crowd, delivered on a level place on the mountainside after leading the people away from the crowded shore. It was taught plainly and with authority, so simply that even the unlearned could understand and a child could study it without being misled. That plain teaching provides a sure foundation for faith and practice.
The teaching came with God's authority and presented truth from God, drawn from Scripture rather than from the repeated sayings of human teachers. It stood opposed to the doctrines and practices of the self-righteous scribes and Pharisees and to their misrepresentation of God. It rejected reliance on repeated human claims such as they say, directing learners instead to the teaching of Christ and Scripture.
The sermon revealed that failure to walk in the light God had given had separated the Jewish people from Him, with darkness coming upon them in proportion to the light they had allowed to shine on their path and then failed to follow. It corrected false teaching and taught the conditions of entrance into God's kingdom. It set out the principles governing Christ's kingdom of divine grace rather than promising earthly power or glory.
The chapter reveals the truth about the laws of God's government and warns of the peril of disobeying God's commandments. The law explained in the pure gospel given on the Mount stands as a holy standard requiring love for God and neighbor, so that gaining unjustly at another's expense fails to meet it.
Heart Reach of Command
The command against adultery reaches beyond the outward act to the heart, so that to cherish lustful thoughts or to look with lust is already to commit adultery in the heart and to transgress God's law. Its significance extends to thoughts, feelings, desires, designs, purposes, imaginings and motives, condemning lust and other passions even when secret or never acted upon. The commandments are in this way broad enough to govern the inner life and everyday life, requiring purity in secret intentions and emotions as well as outward conduct.
Outward obedience alone does not satisfy the command, for its principles are far-reaching and its spiritual force exposes sin in the heart as well as in words and deeds. It cannot be narrowed to its smallest outward requirement or evaded by technical distinctions. A person may be inwardly adulterous while outwardly appearing loyal and upright to others, possessing integrity in the eyes of other people while violating God's law inwardly through thoughts and intentions even when no outward act or feeling reveals it.
Jesus does not weaken, abolish or diminish the commandment but explains its full reach and restores its true meaning. He shows that obedience concerns the heart as well as conduct, and that self-love transgresses the law. The thought of entering a marriage with someone still bound to a spouse is already a breach of God's law and should be rejected as soon as it arises.
Law Magnified and Restored
The same One who spoke the law from Mount Sinai is the One who in this teaching magnifies it and makes it honorable, restoring its true light and glory and dignity and original purity. Rabbinic traditions had obscured that glory by presenting the law as a cold code of commands and by burdening it with many exactions and human customs, and this exposition strips those traditions away. By explaining what each precept comprehends, the teaching makes manifest that the command against adultery does not concern outward actions merely but reaches to lustful desire itself, so that lust is adultery.
The law thus set forth is holy and just and good, spiritual, unchanged and still binding as the standard of righteousness as long as heaven and earth endure. It is based on love to God and love to others, and obedience to it comprises human duty and remains the believer's rule of life. The command against adultery remains binding precisely because the law's far-reaching claims extend beyond outward acts.
That reach extends to every phase of life, including the thoughts and intents and purposes of the heart and even unspoken thoughts. The reason is that the state of the heart regulates the life and character, so the claims of the law reach to the spirit of the law in the heart. The righteousness God requires is therefore both inward and outward, conforming the heart to His will rather than resting in merely external observance, requiring holiness within as well as correct outward conduct and correct outward words and actions. This heart principle must be impressed upon new converts, or labor for them is lost.
The law so revealed is a perfect system of morality that condemns evil in its full moral scope and demands perfect obedience. Its principles are fully developed in this teaching, and they were exalted and made honorable by perfect conformity to them in a sinless life. His followers are therefore to keep God's commandments as He did, with a true righteousness that exceeds the outward righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees.
Marriage Covenant Upheld
The command against adultery reaches beyond the outward act, for cherishing lustful thoughts makes a person guilty in the heart as surely as open violation. It exposes unholy passions that treat marriage as an obstacle to lust and protects marriage from being ended lightly. Putting away a wife for trivial reasons is condemned, and adultery is the only cause permitted for legal separation.
The law binds a husband to his wife and requires loyalty to marriage vows with faithfulness in thought, word, and deed. A married person who continually looks with lust and gives mind, heart, and affection to another commits adultery inwardly. Such a man dishonors himself and God and puts his own wife in second place. Loyalty also requires a pure character that does not encourage impure thoughts in others, for inward impurity is iniquity even in persons of great talent, light, or influence. Claiming sanctification while disregarding the marriage covenant or indulging lust is a deceptive, self-righteous distortion, since true sanctification means obedience to God's commandments and cannot make sin permissible.
Adultery is sinful and cannot be made lawful or holy. That includes dwelling in mind on someone other than the one to whom one is pledged, accepting improper favors, and engaging in sexual sin. A woman who receives even the least show of affection from another woman's husband is in need of repentance and conversion.
Purity Practice and Warning
These sayings in Matthew 5, including the command against adultery, are to be read, believed, practiced, heard and done in order to do the will of the Father and enter the kingdom of heaven. They are to be studied for individual benefit, and those who live by them build like a wise man upon a rock so the house does not fall. Living by these teachings develops Christlike character, plants divine principles in the heart, and forms followers who live in unity, love and Christian fellowship. Those who reject His teaching and prefer their own way face condemnation, for faultfinding, accusing others and spreading evil are contrary to His lessons and destroy believers' confidence in one another.
The lesson calls for practical purity and for faith that works by love and purifies the soul. The command against adultery cannot be separated from Christ's further teaching about the heart, and claiming sanctification or holiness while entertaining thoughts or conduct contrary to that teaching is self-deception, not holiness. True sanctification means obedience to God's commandments and cannot make sin permissible. Claiming sanctification while disregarding the marriage covenant or indulging lust, continually looking with lust and giving mind and heart to another, is a deceptive, self-righteous distortion.
Faithfulness requires fighting the good fight of faith against the prompting of the natural heart and against dangerous sentimental and spiritualistic affection worked by the enemy. It means being as true as steel to marriage vows and refusing in thought, word or deed to spoil a record of fearing God and obeying His commandments. Christ takes charge of the affections of those who love and honor God and centers them on proper objects, on respecting, cherishing and loving one's own wife. Grace from the Lord Jesus Christ gives victory, with truth triumphing in the life, while protection comes by keeping thoughts stayed upon God, with meditation of the soul upon the truth and the precious promises of God and the heavenly reward that awaits the faithful, which guards against temptation.
Entertaining unchaste thoughts, impure desires and vile imaginings about one other than one's wife makes a person guilty before God, for those thoughts are the root that leads to improper attentions and advances and then to improper actions. Such inward impurity is written as adultery opposite the name in the books of heaven, and it breaks the command even when carried into the house of God and into the sacred desk. The command reaches beyond outward acts to the thoughts, purposes and imaginings of the heart, requiring loyalty to marriage vows and a pure character that does not encourage impure thoughts in others. The violation is bad in those with only a common work, but it is a hundredfold worse in those who have accepted sacred positions of trust and who minister in sacred things with defiled hearts, and great talent, light or influence does not excuse inward impurity, which remains iniquity.
The command forbids not only the outward act of unfaithfulness but the inward cherishing of lust, so that to look with lustful desire is already to break it in the heart. It reaches thoughts, feelings, desires, purposes, imaginings and motives, condemning impure passion even when secret and never carried into action. Christ does not weaken or set aside the commandment but restores its true meaning and magnifies it, showing that the same law spoken from Sinai still binds the heart as well as conduct. It therefore binds husband and wife to loyalty in thought, word and deed, forbidding giving mind, heart and affection to another and protecting marriage from trivial divorce. Entertaining unchaste thoughts is the root that leads to improper advances and deeds and stands written as guilt, so faithfulness requires fighting against the natural heart, centering affection on one's own companion, and gaining victory by grace with the mind stayed on God.
Sermon Setting and Audience
Matthew 5:27 belongs to the Sermon on the Mount, spoken especially for the disciples yet within hearing of a large crowd, delivered on a level place on the mountainside after leading the people away from the crowded shore. It was taught plainly and with authority, so simply that even the unlearned could understand and a child could study it without being misled. That plain teaching provides a sure foundation for faith and practice.
The teaching came with God's authority and presented truth from God, drawn from Scripture rather than from the repeated sayings of human teachers. It stood opposed to the doctrines and practices of the self-righteous scribes and Pharisees and to their misrepresentation of God. It rejected reliance on repeated human claims such as they say, directing learners instead to the teaching of Christ and Scripture.
The sermon revealed that failure to walk in the light God had given had separated the Jewish people from Him, with darkness coming upon them in proportion to the light they had allowed to shine on their path and then failed to follow. It corrected false teaching and taught the conditions of entrance into God's kingdom. It set out the principles governing Christ's kingdom of divine grace rather than promising earthly power or glory.
The chapter reveals the truth about the laws of God's government and warns of the peril of disobeying God's commandments. The law explained in the pure gospel given on the Mount stands as a holy standard requiring love for God and neighbor, so that gaining unjustly at another's expense fails to meet it.
Heart Reach of Command
The command against adultery reaches beyond the outward act to the heart, so that to cherish lustful thoughts or to look with lust is already to commit adultery in the heart and to transgress God's law. Its significance extends to thoughts, feelings, desires, designs, purposes, imaginings and motives, condemning lust and other passions even when secret or never acted upon. The commandments are in this way broad enough to govern the inner life and everyday life, requiring purity in secret intentions and emotions as well as outward conduct.
Outward obedience alone does not satisfy the command, for its principles are far-reaching and its spiritual force exposes sin in the heart as well as in words and deeds. It cannot be narrowed to its smallest outward requirement or evaded by technical distinctions. A person may be inwardly adulterous while outwardly appearing loyal and upright to others, possessing integrity in the eyes of other people while violating God's law inwardly through thoughts and intentions even when no outward act or feeling reveals it.
Jesus does not weaken, abolish or diminish the commandment but explains its full reach and restores its true meaning. He shows that obedience concerns the heart as well as conduct, and that self-love transgresses the law. The thought of entering a marriage with someone still bound to a spouse is already a breach of God's law and should be rejected as soon as it arises.
Law Magnified and Restored
The same One who spoke the law from Mount Sinai is the One who in this teaching magnifies it and makes it honorable, restoring its true light and glory and dignity and original purity. Rabbinic traditions had obscured that glory by presenting the law as a cold code of commands and by burdening it with many exactions and human customs, and this exposition strips those traditions away. By explaining what each precept comprehends, the teaching makes manifest that the command against adultery does not concern outward actions merely but reaches to lustful desire itself, so that lust is adultery.
The law thus set forth is holy and just and good, spiritual, unchanged and still binding as the standard of righteousness as long as heaven and earth endure. It is based on love to God and love to others, and obedience to it comprises human duty and remains the believer's rule of life. The command against adultery remains binding precisely because the law's far-reaching claims extend beyond outward acts.
That reach extends to every phase of life, including the thoughts and intents and purposes of the heart and even unspoken thoughts. The reason is that the state of the heart regulates the life and character, so the claims of the law reach to the spirit of the law in the heart. The righteousness God requires is therefore both inward and outward, conforming the heart to His will rather than resting in merely external observance, requiring holiness within as well as correct outward conduct and correct outward words and actions. This heart principle must be impressed upon new converts, or labor for them is lost.
The law so revealed is a perfect system of morality that condemns evil in its full moral scope and demands perfect obedience. Its principles are fully developed in this teaching, and they were exalted and made honorable by perfect conformity to them in a sinless life. His followers are therefore to keep God's commandments as He did, with a true righteousness that exceeds the outward righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees.
Marriage Covenant Upheld
The command against adultery reaches beyond the outward act, for cherishing lustful thoughts makes a person guilty in the heart as surely as open violation. It exposes unholy passions that treat marriage as an obstacle to lust and protects marriage from being ended lightly. Putting away a wife for trivial reasons is condemned, and adultery is the only cause permitted for legal separation.
The law binds a husband to his wife and requires loyalty to marriage vows with faithfulness in thought, word, and deed. A married person who continually looks with lust and gives mind, heart, and affection to another commits adultery inwardly. Such a man dishonors himself and God and puts his own wife in second place. Loyalty also requires a pure character that does not encourage impure thoughts in others, for inward impurity is iniquity even in persons of great talent, light, or influence. Claiming sanctification while disregarding the marriage covenant or indulging lust is a deceptive, self-righteous distortion, since true sanctification means obedience to God's commandments and cannot make sin permissible.
Adultery is sinful and cannot be made lawful or holy. That includes dwelling in mind on someone other than the one to whom one is pledged, accepting improper favors, and engaging in sexual sin. A woman who receives even the least show of affection from another woman's husband is in need of repentance and conversion.
Purity Practice and Warning
These sayings in Matthew 5, including the command against adultery, are to be read, believed, practiced, heard and done in order to do the will of the Father and enter the kingdom of heaven. They are to be studied for individual benefit, and those who live by them build like a wise man upon a rock so the house does not fall. Living by these teachings develops Christlike character, plants divine principles in the heart, and forms followers who live in unity, love and Christian fellowship. Those who reject His teaching and prefer their own way face condemnation, for faultfinding, accusing others and spreading evil are contrary to His lessons and destroy believers' confidence in one another.
The lesson calls for practical purity and for faith that works by love and purifies the soul. The command against adultery cannot be separated from Christ's further teaching about the heart, and claiming sanctification or holiness while entertaining thoughts or conduct contrary to that teaching is self-deception, not holiness. True sanctification means obedience to God's commandments and cannot make sin permissible. Claiming sanctification while disregarding the marriage covenant or indulging lust, continually looking with lust and giving mind and heart to another, is a deceptive, self-righteous distortion.
Faithfulness requires fighting the good fight of faith against the prompting of the natural heart and against dangerous sentimental and spiritualistic affection worked by the enemy. It means being as true as steel to marriage vows and refusing in thought, word or deed to spoil a record of fearing God and obeying His commandments. Christ takes charge of the affections of those who love and honor God and centers them on proper objects, on respecting, cherishing and loving one's own wife. Grace from the Lord Jesus Christ gives victory, with truth triumphing in the life, while protection comes by keeping thoughts stayed upon God, with meditation of the soul upon the truth and the precious promises of God and the heavenly reward that awaits the faithful, which guards against temptation.
Entertaining unchaste thoughts, impure desires and vile imaginings about one other than one's wife makes a person guilty before God, for those thoughts are the root that leads to improper attentions and advances and then to improper actions. Such inward impurity is written as adultery opposite the name in the books of heaven, and it breaks the command even when carried into the house of God and into the sacred desk. The command reaches beyond outward acts to the thoughts, purposes and imaginings of the heart, requiring loyalty to marriage vows and a pure character that does not encourage impure thoughts in others. The violation is bad in those with only a common work, but it is a hundredfold worse in those who have accepted sacred positions of trust and who minister in sacred things with defiled hearts, and great talent, light or influence does not excuse inward impurity, which remains iniquity.