The Ten Commandments
THE SACREDNESS OF THE HOME
(Ex. 20:14; Matt. 5:27-30; Mark 10:2-16; Eph. 5:22-33; KJV)
Subject
Home Security and Soundness of Character Rest On Pure Thought and Action
Golden Texts
“Thou shalt not commit adultery” (Ex. 20:14); “Keep thyself pure” (2 Tim. 5:22).
Plan of the Lesson
The Commandment That Protects the Sanctity of the Home (Ex. 20:14)
The Sinfulness of Impure Thoughts (Matt. 5:27-30)
The Teaching of Jesus Regarding Divorce (Mark 10:2-12)
Jesus’ Love for Little Children (Mark 10:13-16)
The Ideal Christian Home (Eph. 5:22-33)
Setting of the Lesson
Time: The Ten Commandments were given in 1498 B.C. The Sermon on the Mount was delivered in the summer of A.D. 28. Our Lord spoke the words recorded from Mark in February or March, A.D. 30; Paul wrote the epistle to the Ephesians probably in A.D. 64.
Place: The Ten Commandments were given from Mount Sinai. The mountain from which the Sermon on the Mount was given cannot be exactly identified. The words taken from Mark were spoken in Peræa. Ephesus was in the province of Asia, on the eastern shore of the Ægean Sea.
Scripture Reading: Exodus 20:14
The Commandment That Protects the Sanctity of the Home
20:14 … “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” See also Deuteronomy 5:21; the entire eighteenth chapter of the book of Leviticus; Job 31:9-12; and a great many passages in the book of Proverbs, especially chapter seven.
“Adultery usually denotes sexual intercourse of a married woman with any other than her husband, or of a married man with any other than his wife. Other unchaste relationships were disapproved, but they were described by different words. It was deemed an outrageous crime, striking at the rock of inheritance and inflicting a spurious offspring on the husband, and to be punished by death (Lev. 20:10; 19:20-22; Ezek. 16:38, 40; Cf. John 8:5)” (J. Poucher).
While the Bible does not explicitly define these various terms, we are justified in saying that adultery is a crime possible only when one or the other person is married. Fornication refers to all sexual relationships outside the marriage state, and in the New Testament one is condemned just as severely as the other. There is absolutely no passage anywhere in the Bible granting such relations between men and women outside of the state of marriage, and any such relationship outside of marriage is a deliberate sin in the eyes of God and a crime in civilized countries.
Reasons for the law
Though we have read extensively in what literature we could find dealing with this subject from a Biblical standpoint, we have yet to find a paragraph that actually goes to the root of the problem asking the question that many young people ask – “Why?” We realize that a generation has evolved in which an alarming number do not accept the Bible as eternal truth, and do not believe in God. Thus, many young men and women today have come to believe that such relationships outside of marriage are justified and even necessary. There is a terrible, swift disappearance in the present generation of any horror regarding sins of the flesh, so that the question will ultimately have to be faced by every young man as to why he should obey this commandment. Of course, we can say that it is a commandment from God, that God loves us, that God is altogether wise, that God knows what is best, and consequently that without asking questions we can obey this commandment, even though we do so blindly. And, frankly, God’s final judgment will prove that blind obedience to His Holy Word is always best. But, this will not suffice for most people today, and the “Why?” will continually come up. Fundamentally, we are made up of body, soul, and spirit, and these three make one personality, undivided and mysteriously inter-related. Every psychologist knows that the body has enormous influence over the mind, and over what we call the character of a man or woman. The Bible declares that man also has a spirit, with which he communes with God and comprehends spiritual truth, clearly affirms that the physical and spiritual are closely intertwined in a man’s personality. Inevitably impurity from a physical standpoint affects a man’s character and spiritual life; his love of the good, true, pure, and beautiful. Consequently, any habit, act, or indulgence that is beneath man’s highest possibilities, that coarsens him, cheapens life, or lowers one’s respect for both one’s self and others, is a sin, and ultimately must work, as it does, for the ruination of human life.
Marriage involves, and true marriage rests on and presupposes the union of two personalities, the husband and the wife, because of love for each other. It is not only a physical union, but also a union of mind and spirit, so that we may speak of marriage as the true completion and fulfillment of human life; and, by God’s ordaining, two become one. This marriage union can be established only in love, and only between two people – there is absolutely no other way. If two personalities become one, bound together in marriage, loving each other, how is it possible for either one to be bound in union with another without shattering that original oneness, and thereby blighting the love that brought husband and wife together, breaking the bonds of affection existing between them, destroying the very foundation of home, and making life to be not sacred, but common, not holy, but ordinary; in a relationship not of loyalty, but of promiscuity, not one in which self-control is exercised, but one in which the wildest license is allowed? Let modern literature speak to the contrary, and let godless people declare otherwise, yet it is fundamentally true in all ages, because God so ordained it, and we cannot escape from it, that a woman’s heart breaks when she knows her husband has bestowed what he calls his love and attention on some other woman, especially if the sin here spoken of has been practiced. Certainly a husband can never have the same regard for his wife if she does the same. When regard is gone, and love goes, and self-respect goes, and loyalty goes, what else does one have? The home is gone. The house may be there; the children may be there; the table may be set; husband and wife may be seen together in public; they may discuss together the problems of the home; but that cord of love that God ordained should be between two people, one husband and one wife, has been broken, purity has gone, and the foundation of domestic and national life crumbles. The matter a husband or a wife marrying the second time, following the death of the other, is not under consideration in this lesson.
Contemporary enemies of purity
There is no question; we are living in an age of the greatest moral looseness, probably the greatest since paganism fell under the power of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. There are many reasons for this. Probably the first, arising in the middle of the nineteenth century, would be a loss of respect on the part of many for the Word of God and a denial of its authority, followed, in many quarters, by a denial of the personality of God. Of course, if there is no God, there is no divine law; and if there is no divine law, then all law is humanly constructed, rests only on humanly conceived foundations, and can be altered according to the whims of men. The result of this is that many, yielding to the urge of the natural man and the wickedness of the human heart, refuse to acknowledge the authority of any law regarding social morality and prohibiting sexual crimes, so that millions of people today have come to the conclusion that any sexual life they choose is permissible.
In the second place, much of our modern psychology is declaring that man should not repress these instincts that are born in him, but should continually, as he chooses, give expression to them. Most modern psychologists falsely declare, from a psychological and physiological standpoint, that wide sex experience outside of the state of marriage is not only allowable, but commendable. This is nothing else than a Satanic lie; and, however great the names of so-called scientists who support these theories, it must be fought with the power of a divinely given Word, the Bible. Further, modern dress; our beaches, where the smallest amount of clothing is allowable, even nakedness in some places; our lascivious plays; the exaltation of sex in movies; the shameless way in which all sexual matters are discussed and pictured on the World-Wide Internet,, and, one might say, glorified, in much of our contemporary magazines; and the constant portrayal of open, flagrant, shameless sin in the matter of human relationships in our modern fiction, all inevitably must have a disastrous effect on the moral standards of our young people, making any desire on their part to live a clean, moral life nothing less than a constant, terrific battle against the tendencies that are about them.
Furthermore, the tremendous increase of travel made possible by the auto and plane, allowing a man or woman to escape from the sight of acquaintances, and to hide in rural, secluded sections; and the Internet provides easy communication and connection for illicit sexual behavior never imagined in past generations. Undoubtedly, the speed of modern life, the long, hard years of study that many of our young people undergo, the excitement of the days in which we live, the richness of our food, and many other things that we cannot escape, which are here, and to which we can only adjust ourselves, all tend to create an abnormal tenseness in social relationships.
Scripture Reading: Matthew 5:27-30
The Sinfulness of Impure Thoughts
5:27, 28 … “Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt not commit adultery: but I say unto you, that every one that looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” In His Sermon on the Mount, in which nearly every one of the Ten Commandments is quoted and then expounded in a richer, deeper, more spiritual way than that in which the Old Testament generally considers them, when He dealt with the Seventh Commandment, our Lord uttered a statement that Harold Begbie, in his book The Crisis of Morals, calls “the most daring, the most piercing, the most profound, and the most illuminating of all His aphorisms.” Our Lord said that “every one that looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.”
“The verb here translated ‘to lust after’ originally meant simply ‘to desire,’ ‘to long for’; but in the Scriptures it is used almost always for evil longings and wicked desires, and here man’s looking too intensely upon a woman for the purpose of stimulating and delighting in impure desire” (John A. Broadus).
“Who experiences at a first glance this desire, and then, instead of turning away and withdrawing from sin, throws a second glance with lustful intent, and, in order to retain and increase that impulse, commits the sin” (Rudolf Stier).
See Job 31:1 and Proverbs 5:8.
“It is through the eye primarily that passion enters; but if the eye be turned away, and the moral purity of the heart expel the intruding movement toward sin, then the law is not broken; on the contrary, it is kept. It is when the criminal impulse is so far indulged that the eye is purposely directed to rest with pleasure on the exciting object, that the earliest act of unchastity is committed. Even this is not yet the beginning of adultery. To look at a woman in order to lust after her is the earliest bodily manifestation of the sin; yet it is not so much the perpetration of the crime as the first proof that a man has perpetrated it. Before that look there came the inward indulgence of desire, the consent to a forbidden appetite, the surrender of the soul’s pure and loyal protest against unlawful relations” (J. Oswald Dykes).
There is an iniquitous theory, sometimes uttered by thoughtless people, expressing forth idea that thinking a thing is just as bad as doing it. Nothing could be more erroneous and dangerous than such an attitude as that. The lustful look has its evil consequences and is a sin, but certainly is not as dark and black as the act itself, which has frightful physical consequences that can never be undone or fully forgotten – neverbecause it involves some other person, often an innocent person, shaming, blighting, and ruining life forever. Only Satan himself could suggest that thinking an evil was just as bad as doing the evil. When our Lord says that, if the hand or the eye makes us stumble in this matter, i.e., becomes an agent or power leading us to violate this law of moral purity, we are to pluck out the eye or cut off the hand, He, of course does not mean that we are literally to this by operating on the body, because cutting off a hand or plucking out an eye never has and will never remove lustful desires. The heart will be just as wicked. Certainly, then, our Lord would not commend cutting off both hands and plucking out both eyes. What He means is that we are to keep every organ of the body under severest control, refusing to allow the body to incite us to sin, making them, as Paul says, “instruments of righteousness unto God.” We are to do this with a severity and finality that can be figuratively expressed only by plucking out the eye or cutting off the hand. It is indisputable, and true historians must acknowledge that the preaching of the Gospel, the distributing of the Word of God, the growth of the Lord’s church, have been the most powerful influences of social purity that history has ever known; in fact, where these are not, purity does not long obtain.
Scripture Reading: Mark 10:2-12
The Teaching of Jesus Regarding Divorce
10:2 … “And there came unto him Pharisees, and asked him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife? trying him.” The question of divorce is discussed in the New Testament in Matthew 5:32, 32; 19:3-11; and summarily in Luke 16:18. The whole question of the sanctity of marriage is discussed exhaustively and loftily by the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 6:9-7, through the word “divorce” never appears in the New Testament outside of the first three Gospels. The attitude toward divorce at the time of our Lord was an exceedingly loose and careless one.
“Rabbi Hillel taught that the crime of adultery was nothing but an ordinary or minor fault, and actually went the length, in his interpretation of Deuteronomy 24:1, of laying down the rule that a man might put away his wife ‘if she cook her husband’s food badly by salting or roasting it too much.’ Other celebrated rabbis took a rigid view of this question, and confined the legality of divorce to cases of proved unchastity on the part of the wife. The form of the question addressed to Jesus by the Pharisees shows the nature of the controversy between the rival rabbinical scholars, and also lets us see how far the pernicious teaching of the school of Hillel had permeated the social fabric. Men’s ideas about this sin were also debased by the polygamous habits then prevalent” (J.R. Willis).
10:3-5 … “And he answered and said unto them, What did Moses command you? And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of divorcement, and to put her away. But Jesus said unto them, For your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment.” The reference here is to Deuteronomy 24:1-3.
“The Lord does not deny that Moses permitted divorce; command it, he did not. No such regulations would have been necessary but for the hardness which has been innate in the Hebrew people from the first. The purpose of the legislation of Deuteronomy was to check this, not to give it head, and for the Pharisees to shelter themselves under the temporary recognition of a necessary evil was to confess that they had not outgrown the moral stature of their fathers” (H.B. Swete).
10:6-9 … “But from the beginning of thee creation, Male and female made he them. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh: so that they are no more two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” The reference here is to Genesis 1:27; 2:21-25; 5:2. There can be absolutely no question that the original intention of God was that man should be a monogamous being, i.e., one husband should live with one wife, and one wife with one husband. Further, our Lord here teaches that marriage is a divine institution, the earliest of all social relationships, the very foundation of all society, and that even though God is not recognized, if it be a true marriage, every marriage is a union approved and sealed by God, and no man has a right to break this union, either by wooing the wife away from her legitimate husband, or by putting away his own legal wife.
10:10-12 … “And in the house the disciples asked him again of this matter. And he saith unto them, Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her: and if she herself shall put away her husband, and marry another, she committeth adultery.” The teaching of this passage and the other passages on divorce in the Gospels seems clearly to be that no divorce can ever be allowed among Christian people except on the ground of adultery, of unfaithfulness on the part of either the husband or wife. In countries like America, there are various grounds for divorce; in the New Testament there is only one.
“At all periods of the history of Christian teaching, differences of opinion have existed within the church as to the practical application of Jesus’ words concerning adultery, divorce, and remarriage. These differences have been stereotyped in the Eastern and Western branches of the Catholic Church. The former takes the more lenient view, and permits the remarriage of the innocent divorcé(e), while the latter has always maintained the more stringent and (shall we say?) the more strictly literal conclusion from Jesus’ words that inequality of treatment is not to be tolerated, interpreting the conclusion by refusing the right of remarriage to either during the life of the other. On the other hand, the general consensus of theological opinion among English-speaking divines since the Reformation has leaned toward the view held by the Eastern Church” (J.R. Willis).
Scripture Reading: Mark 10:13-16
Jesus’ Love for Little Children
10:13-16 … “And they were bringing unto him little children, that he should touch them: and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it, he was moved with indignation, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me; forbid them not: for to such belongeth the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall in no wise enter therein. And he took them in his arms, and blessed them, laying his hands upon them.” These verses are an eagerly welcomed relief from the dark shadows of the preceding discussion, and it would almost seem that our Lord would at this very moment reveal to His listeners something of the infinite beauty, loveliness, and heavenliness of real home life and true, holy matrimony, by His words about and His actions toward these little children who were brought to him.
“The kingdom belongs to little children; they are in it through grace, and will never be far from it unless they willfully reject Christ’s gospel; if they die in infancy, they will surround the throne of the King. All Christ’s servants must be as dependent and as trustful as children are. Jesus calls the youngest child to Him. In the children Jesus saw, like the Psalmist (Ps. 8:2), the fragile beginnings of a mighty end, now infants, afterwards pillars in His temple” (Thomas M. Lindsay).
Dr. William Harrison’s mother often said: “Remember this, my son, every time you lay your hand on a child’s head, you are laying it on a mother’s heart.”
From the hour in which Jesus took these children up into His arms, and put His hands on them and blessed them, Christianity has become pre-eminently the religion of the child. There the church of our Lord must keep them; for the satisfying of His heart, and for her own well-being. Classical literature knows nothing of children: Christian literature is full of children. O, the glory of the Christian family where this ideal of marriage is realized and where this truth concerning children is accepted. May God multiply such families.
Scripture Reading: Ephesians 5:22-33
The Ideal Christian Home
The instructions Paul gives to members of the Christian family cannot be rightly interpreted unless we keep in mind that Paul regards these members of the family as members of the church, the mystical body of Christ. The commands of the apostle must be read in the light of this dual relationship. Paul insisted on the sanctity of family life. He regarded the family (not the individual) as the unit of society.
“The individualist and the socialist are the sworn enemies of the family. The former considers marriage as a contract between two parties, to be ended at any time by mutual agreement. The later regards the state as supreme in its authority over all individuals, and as the rightful custodian of all children; the socialist is determined to destroy both the family and the church” (Charles R. Erdman).
Paul treats marriage as sacred and blessed; an inseparable union between a husband and wife – a fit symbol of the relation between Christ and His church. He views the family as the sphere in which the sacred rights of womanhood can best be protected and without which cannot possibly be maintained. The “subjection” of wife to husband is merely that voluntary submission of one Christian to another which regards the family as a divine institution wherein the husband has the responsibility of leadership, support, protection, and loving care.
“It is absolutely remote from all that is harsh or tyrannical or selfish on the part of the husband, for it is in virtue of a submission on the part of the wife, which is that of trust and affection and devotion, like that of the church toward Christ. . . . The love, which for the accomplishment of such ends impelled Christ to give Himself up for the church, is the example of the supreme affection to be felt by husbands toward their wives” (Charles E. Erdman).
How to keep the life pure
First, we should store-up clean thoughts in our minds, so that we will not be so impoverished that we think only the worst thoughts. We cannot hinder evil thought from creeping into the mind; but we can certainly keep it from staying there. Because if it stays it will, in due time, work its damnation. Second, we should keep pure associations – evil companionships corrupt good morals. Obviously, there are some evil associations from which we cannot rid ourselves. There are evil-minded friends who love to spew out malicious suggestions. Against them we can only erect the barrier of aggressive purity. But those companionships we can control, we must control. And as perilous as it is to have an evil companion, so it is dangerous to be one. But what is our hope? Not in rules that someone may lay down in essays, or out of them. No, our hope is in the presence and power of Jesus Christ in our lives. He would make such evil impossible to us. Every man who makes a brave fight for the clean life with no scoundrelly argument for the right to be impure – something he would never grant to his wife or sister – every woman who stands clean, sweet and pure in the midst of the world’s evil helps to keep the commandment in the lives of the tempted and failing.
We might suggest that questions on this lesson will usually not elicit frank answers from classes, and perhaps should be asked in more personal, private conversations, or small group Bible study. We further suggest that the teacher might consider confining himself/herself to the straight teaching of this lesson, out of the deep convictions of his/her own heart.
