19 Sep 2014

Matthew 5:27-28

Posted by joncooper

Matthew 5:27: “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:
28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.”

This corresponds to what we saw earlier, about anger. Sin begins in the heart. We can’t entertain evil thoughts and then pretend that we’re good people because we never acted on those thoughts. The desires themselves are wrong.

Since we’ve already gone over this in detail, I’m not going to repeat it all here. The rule here is pretty simple: if the action itself is wrong, then the desire to perform that action is also wrong. Even if you never carry that desire out, the desire itself is still a sin. In God’s sight lust is morally equivalent to adultery. (No, that does NOT mean that if you lust after someone you might as well go ahead and commit adultery with them. That just adds sin on top of sin.)

I do want to say one thing. There are many people who use this verse to justify divorce, saying “So-and-so might not have committed adultery, but there was lust present, and that’s the same thing.” Keep in mind that in the previous verse, Jesus said that anger was morally equivalent to murder. Therefore, if you want to argue that lust is grounds for divorce, you must also accept that anger is grounds for being executed. Are you willing to be put to death the next time you are angry for an ungodly reason? Then no, you cannot divorce someone for lust.

Is lust wrong? Absolutely. But it is actual physical adultery – not lust – that is grounds for divorce.

Tags:

Comments are closed.