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What is…
adultery

Three types of adultery are spoken of in the Bible.

  1. Sexual Adultery

    “You shall not commit adultery.” —Exodus 20:14 NASB, see: 10 commandments

    Adultery is conjugal infidelity. An ADULTERER is a man who has sexual intercourse with a woman he is not married to, either a married woman or one is engaged to be married.

    The woman is an ADULTERESS.

    Adultery is fornication (sexual immorality). God regards adultery as a great social wrong (with serious ramifications) and a great sin.

    So serious is adultery that under Old Testament law for God’s chosen people, an Israelite man who committed adultery with another man’s wife was to be executed, along with the adulteress. The death penalty was prescribed by God Himself (Leviticus 20:10).

    “If a man is found lying with a married woman, then both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman; thus you shall purge the evil from Israel.” —Deuteronomy 22:22 NASB

    Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled, for the sexually immoral and adulterers God will judge. —Hebrews 13:4 LSB

    The one who commits adultery with a woman is lacking a heart of wisdom;
    He who would destroy his soul does it. —Proverbs 6:32 LSB

    See: What is WISDOM and how to find it?

    For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, sexual immoralities, thefts, false witness, slanders. —Matthew 15:19–20 LSB

    Our Creator God Himself established the marriage relationship between man and woman.

    The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. The man said,

    “This is now bone of my bones,
    And flesh of my flesh;
    She shall be called Woman,
    Because she was taken out of Man.”

    For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. —Genesis 2:22-24 NASB

    Jesus Christ repeated the above words in Mark 10:7–9 and added,

    What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate. …Whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her; and if she herself divorces her husband and marries another man, she is committing adultery. —Mark 10:9-12 LSB (also Luke 16:18)

    Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be!

    Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, “The two shall become one flesh.” —1 Corinthians 6:15-16 LSB

    …each man is to have his own wife, and each woman is to have her own husband… —1 Corinthians 7:2 LSB excerpt

    Flee sexual immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral man sins against his own body. —1 Corinthians 6:18 LSB

    Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. —1 Corinthians 6:9-10 LSB

    Unless such a person confesses their sin, truly repents of it and trusts their life to Christ, allowing themself to be forgiven of their many sins and regenerated by God’s Holy Spirit, they face The Final Judgment and eternal separation from God in the misery of Hell.

  2. Adultery without sexual intercourse

    Author: Ray Comfort.

    The Bible speaks of “wanton eyes” (Isaiah 3:16), “eyes full of adultery” (2 Peter 2:14), and “the lust of the eyes” (1 John 2:16).

    Jesus Christ warned,

    “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’; but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. —Matthew 5:27-28 LSB

    As with the breaking of any of the Ten Commandments, those who are not washed in the blood of Jesus Christ will have to pay the penalty. They will not enter the Kingdom of God.

    Punishment for transgression of this Commandment is the death penalty.

    Words descriptive of the BETRAYAL of adulterers
    • SELF-CENTERED TREACHERY
    • Faithless SIN against God, my spouse and others
    • Traitorous
    • Traumatic
    • Ungodly
    • Abandonment of commitment to one’s marriage companion
    • Anger / rage
    • Anguish
    • Breach of trust
    • Breaking of faith
    • Bringer of strife
    • Wounding
    • Cheaters
    • Cold-hearted
    • Corrupt
    • Covenant breaker
    • Covetous
    • Deadly to relationships
    • Death of affection
    • Death of trust
    • Deceitful
    • Defilement
    • Desertion
    • Destroyer
    • Destructive
    • Devious
    • Deviser of wicked thoughts
    • Disgraceful
    • Dishonest
    • Dishonorable
    • Disloyal
    • Division / divider
    • Emotional blindess
    • Emotional pain
    • Evil
    • Exploitation
    • Faithless
    • False-hearted
    • Foolishness
    • Fornicators
    • Fraud
    • Heartbreak
    • Heart-hardening
    • Heartless
    • Illicit
    • Immature / childish
    • Immoral
    • Impure
    • Infidelity
    • Insecurity
    • Isolating
    • Lack of integrity
    • Lawbreaker
    • Lethal
    • Loneliness
    • Loss of true intimacy
    • Lustful
    • Lying lips
    • On the path of destruction
    • Opposite of true love
    • Oppposite of faithfulness
    • Painfulness
    • Potently poisonous
    • Reckless
    • Rejection
    • Seducer into sin
    • Self-centered
    • Self-indulgence
    • Selfish
    • Shameful
    • Shortsighted
    • Spiritual bankruptcy
    • Spiritual darkness
    • Spiritual blindness
    • Stupidity
    • Tool of Satan
    • Tragic aftermaths
    • Unholy
    • Untrue
    • Untrustworthy
    • Violation
    • Wicked
    • Worthy of judgment
    • …and many others

    But for …sexually immoral persons… their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” —Revelation 21:8 LSB excerpt

  3. Spiritual Adultery

    Idolatry, covetousness, and apostasy are spoken of as spiritual adultery (Jeremiah 3:6, 8-9; Ezek. 16:32; Hos. 1:2-3; Rev. 2:22).

    An apostate church—one which refuses to continue to follow, obey, or recognize God’s Word and final authority—is an adulteress (Isaiah 1:21; Ezek. 23:4; 23:7; 23:37).

    The Jews were described by Christ as “an adulterous generation” (Matthew 12:39) (compare Rev. 12).

    He answered and said to them,

    “An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign [an attesting miracle]; and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet… —Matthew 12:39 NASB

  4. Adultery in Jerusalem before its destruction

    It has been inferred from John 8:1-11 that sexual adultery may have become very common during the age preceding the destruction of Jerusalem, for when an adulteress was caught in the act and brought before Jesus to be stoned by religious leaders, He responded, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” And the crowd, apparently knowing they too were guilty, “began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones” leaving the woman alone.

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Answers to frequently asked questions about ADULTERY

Article Version: October 1, 2021