What is adultery, biblically?
Why does the definition of adultery matter?
ADUL'TERY, noun [Latin adulterium].
Everyone has heard the word adultery, in truth I would be willing to wager that nearly everyone personally knows someone accused of, or someone who has actually committed adultery at some point in their lives. All sin is terrible, but adultery is one that was punishable, biblically, by stoning to death. It’s not something to take lightly, not in committing the sin, or accusing someone of the sin.
How many Christian pastors have been fired or had to resign due to allegations of or committing adultery? The Christian world right now in the USA is up in arms over Pastor Steve Lawson’s “inappropriate relationship” and his work in ministry has been ended due to what Christians are calling adultery.
Why am I writing an article about something we all know and accept what it means, is it even up for debate?
Because understanding what this one word really means unlocks an unbelievable amount of understanding of the word of God, His nature, His plan for us, and His laws. Getting it wrong causes an immense damage to the body of Christ, as it reaches and touches so many other issues and beliefs, if you get adultery wrong, your errors compound exponentially. The majority of Christianity has had the definition and understanding of adultery wrong for quite a while now, and the fruits of that error are obvious to those who have been shown the truth. The misunderstanding of adultery affects lives, families, and generations of people in incredibly impactful ways.
I thought I knew what adultery was, growing up hearing the word used, it was obvious it meant “marital unfaithfulness” by either the man or the woman in a marriage. “Cheating” on your spouse/partner. That is the accepted definition by the unbelieving world, and the believing world the same.
What does the dictionary say about it?
adultery | əˈdəlt(ə)rē | noun
- voluntary sexual intercourse between a married person and a person who is not his or her spouse.
If you Google adultery, this is the definition you will get across various dictionary websites or in-app dictionaries, if you ask Siri, that’s what it will tell you. I don’t have Alexa, but I imagine it would tell you roughly the same.
Is that the biblical definition?
Easton’s bible Dictionary has this as the definition of adultery:
- conjugal infidelity. An adulterer was a man who had illicit intercourse with a married or a betrothed woman, and such a woman was an adulteress.
Thayer’s Greek Lexicon (Greek)
- τινα (γυναῖκα), to commit adultery with, have unlawful intercourse with another's wife:
[נאַף] verb commit adultery
- usually of man, always with wife of another; with accusative woman,
Do you notice the difference? We’ll get to that.
Backstory
A few years ago I was encouraged by the Father to figure out what adultery meant, in God’s terms, because something about the definition I grew up with wasn’t sitting right with other things He was revealing to me at the same time. I set out to study it not having any idea why or the road that the simple study of one word would lead me down. I went to the web to search for all the biblical uses of the term.
BlueLetterBible shows "adultery" occurs 39 times in 33 verses in the NASB95.
One of the [Ten Commandments] is “you shall not commit adultery”.
I already knew I shouldn’t commit adultery like any other Christian knows it, I’ve heard and read the Ten Commandments all my life, but that didn’t explain what adultery is or how not to commit it without reading into that command definitions of the word imported from Christian teaching, or the world. If we haven’t been taught a biblical definition of adultery, we can’t obey the command not to commit it properly, can we?
I needed to know how the scriptures define adultery, so I kept going, as it turns out it wasn’t too far away in Leviticus:
It was at this moment that something clicked in me. I needed to study more, because what the Bible was saying here is not what I had been taught. There had to be another law somewhere that made this law equal (because that is what I have been taught all my life as a 30+ year old man growing up in an overwhelmingly gynocentric/feminist world.), for the man and the woman, or the “spouses” or the “partners” in a marriage. The law, the way it was written here, is not equal between the sexes.
If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife
Another man’s wife? What if he commits adultery with a single woman? Adultery, as I was taught, is a sin against the partner/spouse. But that is not how this law is worded, and words matter a great deal. The way it’s worded here makes it a sin against the man, whose wife the adulterous man took. From the woman’s perspective, a sin against her husband. But what about when a man who has a wife, sleeps with another woman who does not belong to any man, isn’t that a sin against his wife? Surely there had to be a law that covered that, so I continued searching.
I wanted to see if anyone else had been led down this road, I could not be the only man to try to figure out what adultery meant based on the scriptures. To Google I went with: “what is adultery based on the Bible”. The results were the usual sites that come up at the top of the searches on Christian issues, GotQuestions.org, Christianity.com being two prominent ones. They used the same worldly definitions of adultery in their write-ups. I continued to search for resources and was led to the website The Berean Patriot, specifically to this article ... I sat down with my iPad and some coffee for what I quickly realized was quite a lengthy write-up. It was worth every minute. Please take the time to read through his blog, it is a gold mine of biblical information.
After reading through his very well written and studied article, and verifying the things that were revealed to me through it against the scriptures, the click that happened early was now a resounding, ground shifting bang, the conclusion of which was:
Adultery requires a married woman.
An adulterer is a man who takes another man’s woman. A woman belongs to the man (Exodus 20:17). If another man goes into her, he is defiling another man’s property. A woman who allows herself to be defiled by another man, is an adulteress. Both of them, according to the Law of God (or law of Moses, which are synonymous) should be stoned to death (Lev 20:10) for their sin against the man, the husband whose property was stolen or defiled.
That begs the question, if a “married” man sleeps with an unmarried woman, is he an adulterer?
Not according to the laws of God.
This single revelation led me to study everything that I have about marriage and divorce in the scriptures and to where I currently stand on biblical marriage. I believe a proper understanding of biblical adultery is the “Rosetta Stone” of biblical marriage. It unlocks everything.
The laws for man, and woman, are not the same.
After letting this revelation set in, it became immediately obvious that the laws for the man and the woman, biblically, are not the same. This in itself was a revelation growing up in a gynocentric, feminist inspired, effeminate version of Christianity which very much taught that the husband and the wife are “partners” and most pastors are reading out of gender neutralized versions of the Bible to appeal to modern ears who have lost all understanding of patriarchy, and in fact, have joined forces in the worldly effort to “smash it”.
You will not find a single example of a man in scripture who had one wife, and took another woman to himself, be it as a wife or concubine, who is accused of or rebuked for committing adultery, unless the woman he took belonged to another man already.
King Solomon had 700 wives, 300 concubines, and repeatedly wrote about adultery warning us not to engage in it.
The word of God is not contradictory, how could a man with 1000 women to his name warn us about adultery? Modern Christendom would teach that Solomon was committing adultery 999 times against his first wife, but was never rebuked by God or told to stop adding wives except for in the end, where he was chastised for taking the foreign women, who in his old age led him into pagan worship/idolatry.
Most Christians will quote verse 3, when arguing about men having multiple wives (polygyny) but fail to include the context of verse 1 and 2, which clearly indicate that Solomon’s failure and disobedience was taking foreign, or strange women, from nations around them who they were commanded not to associate with because of their pagan worship. We are commanded the same today, to not become bound together with unbelievers (2 Cor 6:14).
Solomon’s issue wasn’t having 1000 women, it was not having 1000 women who worshipped his God if he wanted 1000 women.
His father David did commit actual adultery when he took another man’s wife, the wife of Uriah the Hittite. But King David already had many wives. In the LORD’s rebuke of him by the prophet Nathan, God’s word tells us that He gave David many wives and would have given him more if that’s what he wanted.
In fact He describes David as “rich” for having many flocks and herds (wives), while the man with only one ewe lamb (wife) was “poor”. Let that sink in. Credit to Jacob Foulk author of “Exposing the Spirit of Ashteroth” for that revelation.
The LORD does not participate in sin, He certainly doesn’t encourage men or command men to sin. If the LORD gave David wives, on top of wives he already had, there is simply no way to reconcile that having more than one wife (woman) is adultery against the first wife as modern Christianity teaches.
It was this revelation that led me to really study polygamy, or polygyny which is the proper term for a man specifically having more than one woman to him as a wife/concubine. Polygamy is an umbrella term that could include polyamory (many loves), and polyandry (one woman, multiple men), both of which include arrangements that are strictly forbidden by God’s law. There is good reason for this but I’ll break that down in a later article about polygyny specifically.
Didn’t Jesus change the laws on adultery?
This is an entire series of articles in itself. I’d love for you to check out the article I referenced earlier here as he does an incredible job of breaking down the nuances of Jesus’ teaching on divorce and adultery, to this day I have not found anyone else break it down as well as he did there. It’s worth your time.
For the purposes of this article I will say this as it is a foundational truth that needs to be understood as you approach the scriptures to learn.
Many Christians will tell you that Jesus came and “elevated the law” or “raised the bar” or something along those lines, inferring or outright saying that the law of Moses was “old” and “not good enough” and Jesus came and gave us a new and “better” law. This is how we get to the point where Christians say that adultery was different in the “Old Testament”, and now the rules apply “equally” (keep an eye out for everything regarding equality among the sexes within doctrines).
Ask yourself these questions and answer them:
- Did Jesus come to change the laws?
- Did Jesus have the authority to change the laws?
- Does the law apply to us as Christians?
The answer to question 1 can be found from the mouth of Jesus Himself:
Not the smallest stroke. Not until heaven and earth pass away.
Jesus did not come to change the law. He didn’t “elevate” it or raise the bar, He taught what the law actually says while rebuking religious leaders of His day for their traditions which they had added on top of and were using to invalidate the commands of God, or the “law”. Much like we do today, we have abandoned the law of God to appeal to the traditions, or commands, of men.
The answer to question 2 can be found in Deuteronomy 13
If Jesus had taught against the law of God, He would fail the test of prophets in Deuteronomy 13. He would have counseled rebellion against the LORD by teaching against the law. This is what the religious leaders of the day wanted to catch Him doing but could not. Because Jesus taught the Torah, the law of Moses, His law, His nature, His character that He delivered "mouth to mouth" with Moses.
Jesus taught the law (Torah), Jesus rebuked men who used their own laws and traditions to invalidate His commands. Jesus did not change the laws on adultery, He corrected their misunderstanding and misapplication of His laws on adultery. We need to do the same today in Christendom, because we have it all wrong again.
Does the “law” apply to Christians?
The answer to that hotly debated topic is not as complicated as many would make it. The answer is yes, and the easiest way to know that is by listening to what Jesus told His followers to do while He was teaching them.
What was read in the “chair of Moses”? The Torah, or the first 5 books of the Bible. The “law” as we refer to it. What did Jesus tell His followers and disciples to do? Listen to the Torah being read, observe and do the Torah but do not do what those who are reading it do, because they do not do what they are reading, but they do their own traditions.
Jesus taught the Torah. Jesus didn’t change the smallest stroke. He told us that annulling even the least of the commands and teaching others to do so would result in you being known as least in the kingdom.
If you teach others incorrectly on adultery, you are not annulling one of the “least” of the commands, you are annulling an incredibly important command that has a massive impact on the lives of believers.
If you teach a woman that she can divorce her husband because he took another woman to himself under the notion that he committed “adultery” you are teaching a lie, counseling rebellion and teaching that woman that she is free to divorce that man while biblically she is not.
If you teach believers that Jacob was committing adultery with Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah, because he was married to Leah first, you are falsely teaching and profaning the name and character of Jacob (Israel) and any other patriarch that took multiple wives.
In fact, you are profaning the name of God the Father when you do so. See Ezekiel 23 on that.
If you fire a pastor or make him resign because He took another woman to himself, you are firing a man for something that is not a biblical offense/sin.
I will write a separate article on divorce, remarriage, and other related topics to this so that this article stays focused on adultery.
I encourage you to take what I have written and verify it all yourself against the word of God. Read the article from The Berean Patriot. Then go to Jesus’ teaching on adultery in Matthew 19, Mark 10, and Luke 16 and try to understand what Jesus was teaching with the proper understanding of adultery and see where you land. Remember, Jesus was being asked about divorce, or putting away a woman for “any reason at all”. Biblically speaking, there is a difference between a divorced woman, and a “put away woman”. More on that later.
I hope this was edifying for you, if you made it this far, thank you for your time, and I pray that you take everything that I have written and test it thoroughly against the word of God. Please reach out to me on social media or email hello@biblemarriages.org with feedback, suggestions or to correct anything you believe needs correction.
May Yah bless you in your walk with Him. All Glory to the Most High.