Adultery Grows Up

At a key turning point in Jesus’ ministry, Peter confesses that he is the Christ.

When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?"
They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets."
"But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?"
 Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." (Matthew 16:13-16)

When Peter finally gets it, Jesus goes on to explain to him what his mission is really all about:

 From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.  (v21)

Peter, however, still doesn’t quite “get it”.
Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. "Never, Lord!" he said. "This shall never happen to you!"
Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men."

Clearly, Peter understood some things about seeing life from God’s perspective (“having in mind the things of God”), but not others.  It isn’t enough to acknowledge that Jesus is the Christ, you have to embrace his type of mission as well, which requires service and sacrifice.  Included in the teaching that Jesus does from that point to his passion, he expands on this theme.  For instance, as you keep reading you come to these two statements:

And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.  (Matt. 18:3,4)

Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." (Matt. 19:14)

Whenever you have similar statements like that, you have the possibility that the author is  doing something intentional to help create a self-contained unit of teachings that relate to each other.  In this case, I think that it is very instructive to look at what comes between these two statements: 

What to do with a brother who sins against you (18:15-20)

The parable of the unmerciful servant (18:21-35)

Teaching about divorce  (19:1-12)

Most readers of Scripture would take all of these as individual teachings that don’t relate to each other and study them separately.  What, after all, does teaching about divorce have to do with the rest of this stuff?  The first three are all about forgiveness.  Some people think that the center one is about something they call church discipline, but for reasons I won’t go into here, I stand on my statement.  (For an explanation, see my bible study, Bringing Them Back) So here’s how I think it comes down:

Developing a Christian worldview (having in mind the things of God) means, at least in part, acknowledging that Jesus is the Christ and we exist to sacrifice and serve as he did.

This requires humility

            Which is demonstrated by a willingness to forgive

                        And an example of why this is necessary is divorce

I believe that this is where the battle really lies in the church today.  Many of us are like Peter: we can acknowledge that Jesus is the Christ, but fail to embrace our mission in this world to sacrifice and serve.  And I think that today the example Jesus uses of divorce is still valid.  One of the most common statistics that many people use today to verify that Christians just aren’t “getting it” is the fact that the divorce rate among Christians isn’t any lower than in the secular world, according to some studies, even higher.  I also think that is relevant based simply on my own, non-scientific experiences.  It certainly isn’t exhaustive, but so far every divorce situation I’ve been privy to has had something to do with one partner or both proclaiming that they aren’t getting what they want out of the relationship.  I’ve never heard anyone say that they want a divorce because they don’t have enough opportunity to serve in their relationship.  And that is why, I think, that this teaching is sandwiched in here, because that is what we’re talking about: relationships. And marriage is the most intimate one we have and the one in which achieving the worldview that we’re talking about can have the most impact.  But let me broaden this concept by taking you on a little Scriptural journey. 

In response to a question by the Pharisees on the issue of divorce, Jesus said this:

Jesus replied, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery."  (Matt.19,8,9)

Two terms to keep in mind here: hardness of heart, and adultery.  Try to think of adultery in the way Jesus uses here not as an excuse, but as a reason for that most intimate of relationships to fall apart.  Now let’s go to the Old Testament, where the prophet Ezekiel looks ahead to a new dispensation with the coming of the Spirit, and what that is meant to accomplish:

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.  (Ezekiel 36:26,27)

Isn’t that interesting?  The reason during the time of the law that people were permitted to divorce was because of the hardness of people’s hearts.  But now we live in a post-law time of the Spirit when our hearts of stone should be replaced by hearts of flesh.  Now let’s look at what should characterize lives that are filled with that Spirit, from Ephesians: 

be filled with the Spirit. Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. (Ephesians 5:18b-21)

The way this is put together in our bibles today doesn’t always make it very clear how the grammar is constructed in this passage.  What it is saying is this:
Be filled with the Spirit (an imperative)
            by speaking and singing with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs
            by giving thanks
            by mutual submission

Let’s review so far.  Jesus teaches about divorce that the reasons are hardness of heart and adultery.  The work which the Spirit is meant to do is to soften our hearts.  One of the ways that displays itself is a willingness to submit to others.  Now here’s what I find really interesting.  After this Paul gives an example of this mutual submission, and guess what it is?  Marriage.  

     Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.           Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her (Eph. 5:22-25) 

Sorry to break it to you guys, but this is not about your wives just submitting to you.  It is an example of mutual submission which is part of living as followers of Christ in the age of the Spirit.  And so we’ve come full circle and Paul is using the same example that Jesus did.  “Having in mind the things of God” means understanding that we’re here to sacrifice and serve others.  That requires humility, which displays itself in a willingness to forgive, and the best example available to us is in a marriage that either works really well or falls apart.  Because the bottom line issue is relationships. 
Now let me take it one step further and bring in one more author:  James, the brother of Jesus.  It seems to me that these guys were pretty tight, because when I study James I see someone who really understood what Jesus was trying to get at.  And here is an example.  Look at this passage from James 4: 

    What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
     You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.  (James 4:1-4)

Now isn’t his choice of words interesting?  “You adulterous people” he says.  It seems like James is really saying to us that we need to understand fully what Jesus was saying and that he was using divorce as an example.  Committing physical adultery in a marriage is just an extreme example of living to please yourself instead of loving God and serving others as we would if we really had in mind “the things of God”, rather than “the things of men.”  And it is our relationships—not just our marriages, but all of them—that are at stake.   Does anyone else hear in this echoes of God saying to Peter, “get behind me Satan?”  In fact James comes right out and says,

 Resist the devil and he will flee from you… humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up.”  (James 4:7,10)

All of the same themes arise:  the essence of our spiritual warfare, humility, submission.  I hope you see that this is the broad perspective of Scripture because this is the broad perspective that God wants us to bring to the way we live our lives.  If we do, our relationships will work out.  If we don’t, they will suffer.  

Time to let our definition of adultery grow up.  It’s really about pride and selfishness, which work themselves out as an unwillingness to forgive and to serve.  All of our relationships, including our marriages, will benefit if have in mind the things of God and not live adulterous lives.