The seventh commandment is about being set free from unhealthy and unholy relationships with other people. It reads, “You shall not commit adultery.” While the sixth commandment is about not harming other people, the seventh commandment deals with another facet of unhealthy relationships: finding pleasure from one another or giving pleasure to one another in an inappropriate way.
As with the other commandments, there is the obvious and literal meaning of this commandment -- not to have a sexual relationship with another person’s spouse. An adulterous relationship is both sad and perverted. It is sad because it violates and tears at one of the most precious relationships in all of God’s creation. It is perverted because it twists what God created and intended for a husband and wife. The sexual relationship between a husband and wife is extremely special. The pleasure and joy that they give to one another is so extraordinarily high because the wisdom of God created it to bond the hearts of the husband and wife in a deep connection and affection that almost defies description. It is not only for the satisfaction of the sex drive alone, but it is a rich experience that leads to a unique heart-tie. Between each husband and wife, there is a unique relationship unlike any other. Each spouse, in a healthy marriage, can say of the other, “there is no other person on the whole earth who does that to me except you; there is no one else who makes me feel the way you do.” Because of this, there is a heart-tie between those two that extends into the whole life that they live together.
This is why adultery is so terrible -- it rips at this connection between husband and wife, merely for the purpose of finding a little bit of pleasure.
This terribleness is the reason why the punishment for adultery in the Old Testament was as severe as for murder -- capital punishment; that is, the death of the guilty parties. Literal adultery is as severe of a sin as murder. It is basically murder of the special relationship of marriage.
So, what causes adultery? The cause is the desire to find pleasure in a way that God did not intend.
Each one of us has his own life to live, that God created him for. This is what the sixth commandment is about. Similarly, each one of us has the pleasures that God designed for us. We should be looking to find those pleasures, within the sphere of what God designed, and not looking for it some other place. This is what the seventh commandment deals with.
The greatest pleasure of all -- even greater than that of the marital relationship -- is the pleasure of that unique relationship each one of has with our Lord Jesus Christ in the flow and power of the Holy Spirit. “He who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her…. But he who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him” (I Corinthians 6:16-17). In our spirit within us, the Lord Jesus is our husband. We are one with Him. His glorified humanity has been joined to our humanity, within our spirit, filling us with God and the divine nature.
When we are drawn away from this One who is our spiritual Husband, to worship and serve God in some other way other than in this union with Him within our spirit, it is spiritual adultery. When we are drawn away to please other people, instead of our Husband, this is adultery. When we attach ourselves to a group of people, such as in a church setting, and attempt to fit in by mimicking their teachings and ways, and act like we believe just like they do in order to get them to like and accept us, this is spiritual adultery. In situations like these, we are drawn toward other people, and seek to attract them to ourselves, so that we are harmonious and fellowshipping in a way that is from fleshly desires and not in the spiritual nature that is ours in the Holy Spirit. We are finding pleasure in them, and giving them pleasure, in a way that is sick and unhealthy.
One example of this is found in Paul’s letter to the Galatians. One way to look at the circumstances that drove Paul to write this letter to the Galatians is that the Galatian believers were being drawn away from Paul’s teachings to the teachings of other people. This, however, is an incorrect view of what was happening. Rather, they were being drawn away from Christ, to be persuaded by people. There was an adulterous attraction going on, drawing them from the Spirit into the flesh. They were being persuaded by the flesh of men, instead of by the life of the Spirit of God. This is why Paul uses these seemingly strange words near the beginning of his letter: “Do I now persuade men? Or God?” (verse 10 of chapter 1). You see, this statement seems strange, since at first glance we look at what he wrote and think, “Yes, you are trying to persuade the Galatians.” But, this is not really what was happening. Instead, Paul was in God, flowing in the wisdom and love of God toward them. He was not trying to use human methods to try to persuade them. He was attempting, by the divine power and wisdom and working, to draw them back to a place where he could be one with them in the Spirit.
Paul goes on to say, in the second part of the same verse, “Or am seeking to please men? If I did still please men, I would no longer be a servant of Christ.” He was not trying to please or persuade them by drawing them away after his own flesh, and his own way of thinking about things. He was attempting, by the Spirit, to draw them back into the Spirit.
In fact, this is really the theme of the book of Galatians. Paul loves them so much, that he longs for them to live in that place of being one with the Holy Spirit, of being filled with the Holy Spirit, of making their every step of daily life by the Holy Spirit (Galatians 3:2-3, 4, 16, 20-21, 5:16, 25). And, in that place of experiencing the Holy Spirit, “you are all one in Christ Jesus” (3:29).
There is a mystery about this oneness. The truth is that God desires us to be one with each other. But, when people want to be harmonious with us in a wrong way, this is a false oneness, a false unity that actually produces death, and disrupts our relationship with God. Jesus prayed that “they may all be one” (John 17:21). But he continues His praying by explaining how this oneness comes about: “As You Father are in me and I in You, that they may be one in Us.” It is by union with our God in Spirit -- our spirit and being coming into God and moving and flowing and living in and by His glorious being, in the Holy Spirit. We each flow in the nature of God, and thus are all part of the same glorious “one new man” (Ephesians 2:15). This man is the human who is one with God, filled with God, and moving in the moving of our Father’s being. We are one in that one nature -- God-filled humanity.
But, in a way that worked contrary to this oneness, people had come to the Galatians, had lured and seduced them, persuading them that they needed more than this union with God. They persuaded them that they needed to follow the Old Testament law also. Paul says this about these people, “They zealously seek you, but not in a right way; yes, they want to exclude you [separating them from other believers] so that you might zealously seek after them” (4:17). They were trying to get the Galatian believers to seek after themselves! You see, the issue was not really about the law, per se. It was about flesh being drawn by flesh. These law keepers wanted to be affirmed by drawing people after themselves. Everyone who followed them affirmed their hearts that they were “right” - among the good people. And, the end result was that the ones who followed them were “excluded,” or separated, from other believers. This spiritual adultery caused division -- breaking the oneness of believers in the Spirit, that oneness we have in the divine nature.
The sad thing is that it also caused a break in the Galatians’ oneness with God -- breaking that spiritual marriage (see 5:2-4).
So, when we attempt to be “one” any way other than by being united in the nature and Words and works of the moving and dynamic working of our Lord Jesus’ being, it is adultery. When we persuade people by mere human reasoning, this is adultery. When we try to get people to change and become more “holy” by the external pressure of human arguments, by being persuasive, by the giving or withdrawing of our affection depending on their performance in order to get them to conform to what we desire, this is adultery. When we are drawn away from the power of Christ by slick sounding reasoning, and slick ministry of people, and are attracted to a person so that we think or say “what an awesome man of God that preacher is,” then that is adultery.
These types of things, of course, do not only happen in ministry or fellowship settings with believers. They happen, for example, at work, when we are drawn into bad mouthing a boss or fellow worker. We do not want it to happen. We just find ourselves drawn into an unhealthy discussion, being pleased by these people and their words as they churn up our emotions, and then we join in the unhealthy discussion by throwing in our two bits of agreement. In the heat of the moment, it feels good. We feel justified in our feelings and words. Then we feel guilty. We have given in to the flesh, and we know it. We have committed adultery, spiritually speaking. Instead of giving our God pleasure, by finding His response to what is being discussed (coming from union with Him and interacting with Him while this conversation is going on around us), we have turned from Him and that marriage with Him, to be joined with those around us in a fleshly interaction. Sometimes this happens so subtly that we did not see it coming until we are in the middle of it.
These are only a few examples of unhealthy interactions and relationships. There are countless similar examples, spread throughout all of human interactions. In fact, apart from Christ, and apart from His cross killing these tendencies by the working of the Holy Spirit within our hearts, there is no hope of being set free from these things. When we were in the world before receiving new life, this is how we lived in nearly every area of our lives. The world is driven by these types of relationships. The whole world of politics, for example, is driven by persuading and being persuaded by the flesh. It is driven by candidates trying to please voters. It is driven by voters being enamored by candidates. It is driven by appeals to emotions, appearance, fleshly attractions.
Instead of giving and receiving unhealthy pleasure in these (and many other) ways, we need to be released from that pleasure, by the working of the Holy Spirit within us. He empowers us to die to that pleasure, and instead live in what our God is doing. We are set free from persuading or being persuaded by the flesh, to seek to only give to others in the Spirit, and only receive from them in the Spirit. We die to false unity. We die to fleshly reasoning, fleshly pressure, fleshly agreements. We die to pleasing people in the flesh. We die to finding pleasure in other people in the flesh. We die to drawing people after us, and being drawn to them.
Then, and only then, can we truly love other people. You cannot love people by giving or receiving in the working of the old nature and the old ways of the flesh. You can only love them by giving and receiving in the flow of the divine nature -- in that freedom from false unity and pleasing one another, to think and feel and respond by the new nature inside of us. Really, when we find that true, holy fellowship with other people in the flow of the divine nature, we are finding the Lord’s pleasure.
Consider, for example, Isaiah 53:10, which speaks of how our Lord Jesus pleased the Father. “It pleased the LORD to bruise him…, and the pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand.” It pleased the Father to bruise Jesus. This was not because He wanted Him to hurt, but because the Father knew that it was only through Jesus’ pain that we could be saved, by dying to sin and being raised up into new life through Jesus’ resurrection. So Jesus’ choice to obey the Father in order to love and save and heal the world pleased the Father. It was love that pleased the Father. It was union with the man Jesus Christ, resulting in God’s good pleasure coming to pass that gave God such pleasure. So the Father’s joy in the love and obedience of the Lord Jesus gave the Father immense pleasure. Similarly, when we die to our natural tendencies and find the way of our Father, by the power of the Holy Spirit working inside of our being, the pleasure of God prospers. He has pleasure in this spiritual union with us. He has pleasure when the union with Him produces actions and a way of life in us that is the fruit of that union – His nature coming out in our lives.
This pleasure of our God in us, as we are united to Him in marriage, is going to grow to such significant levels that He is going to sing for joy over us. “The LORD your God within you is mighty. He will save and rejoice over you with joy. He engraves [within you] with His love. He rejoices over you with singing” (Zephaniah 3:17).
As we endeavor to relate to other people only in union with our God, only in the oneness that is in Christ Jesus, then we are living the freedom prophesied by the seventh commandment. If the other person or people do not know how to flow together with us in the love of God, then we honor them, do good to them, do no harm to them, pray for them, and wait for them to come into the divine nature. We relate to them in a way that our union with God dictates. We let God’s words and ways flow out toward them. But we do not submit to their attempts to lure us into fleshly harmony, nor do we try to attract them to ourselves. We stay free from them. Only in that way can we truly love them.
In the Eighth Commandment, this freedom from hurting people and having unhealthy relationships with people is extended to include not taking their things from them….