What Happens When An Adulteress Meets The Light Of The World?

Surveys show that 22% of married men have committed an adulterous act at least once in their life. That number is 14 percent for married women. It is in the younger generation where these values are considerably higher, and the numbers of both sexes are closer together. 90% of American believes it is morally wrong to commit an adulterous act. In the United States, 17% of all the divorces that occur are due to adultery on the part of either or both the parties.¹ What does Jesus think about all this? He shows His thoughts in an encounter He had with and adulterous women in John 8.

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#S3-023: Why We Can and Should Rebuke Darkness in Jesus Name [Podcast]

[Tweet “Adultery is lumped in with stealing, murder, lying, idolatry, and is overall an abomination.”]

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About Emery

Emery committed his life to the Lord Jesus Christ over 40 years ago and has served as both a full-time pastor and an itinerant minister. Both he and his wife Sharon of 35 years emphasize personal growth and development through the Word of God. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is both the focus and the hallmark of their mission. Read more about them here.

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God’s Take on Adultery

Proverbs 6:32–34 (ESV) — 32 He who commits adultery lacks sense; he who does it destroys himself. 33 He will get wounds and dishonor, and his disgrace will not be wiped away. 34 For jealousy makes a man furious, and he will not spare when he takes revenge.

Adultery Is Against the Law

It’s not against the law in America, but it is against the Law of God.
The Law came directly from God to Moses.
It did not come via an intermediary, a prophet for example.
The Lord did not speak to a man and say, ‘Write these words for me on some tablets and give them to the people for me.’
No, God handed him the two tablets written with His own finger.
And on the second of these tablets are the following words.

Exodus 20:14 (ESV) — 14 “You shall not commit adultery.

That’s pretty plain, isn’t it?

Adultery Brought Uncleanness

Leviticus 18:20 (ESV) — 20 And you shall not lie sexually with your neighbor’s wife and so make yourself unclean with her.

Adultery violates the sacred space of God’s Holiness.
There is holy and unholy, clean and unclean in the heaven where God is and in the earth which He created.
It’s simple to connect these: what is holy is clean, what is unholy is unclean.
Wrong sex is unclean, and adultery is just that, it’s wrong, it’s impure.
Jesus expanded the definition of adultery making it broader.
The Father God wants you to know that adultery is more than just the physical act, it now includes the preview, the look.
See Matthew six.

Matthew 5:27–28 (ESV) — 27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Lustful intent, the preview that a person allows to go on, the day-dreaming that one does, the mental images and rehearsing, now fit the definition of adultery.

Adultery Is in Bad Company of Other Sins

Jeremiah 7:9–10 (ESV) — 9 Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, 10 and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’—only to go on doing all these abominations?

You can gauge how bad some sins are by looking at the company that they keep in scripture.
If you want to know how bad adultery is, look at the sins right next to it.
Adultery is lumped in with stealing, murder, lying, and idolatry.
It is considered an abomination in Jeremiah seven.
So, you can add it to all the other ‘abominables” in scripture.

Adultery Is One of the Land ‘Spew Out’ Sins

Genesis 15:13–16 (ESV) – 13 Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. 14 But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. 15 As for yourself, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. 16 And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”

What was the iniquity of the Amorites?
The iniquity of the Amorites included sex sins, innocent bloodshed, human sacrifice, extortion, robbery, and these kinds of criminal activity.

Isaiah 26:21 (ESV) – 21 For behold, the Lord is coming out from his place
to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity, and the earth will disclose the bloodshed on it, and will no more cover its slain.

You remember Genesis. 4:10 where Cain killed Abel and Ables blood cried out to God from the ground.

Leviticus 18:24–25 (ESV) – 24 “Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean, 25 and the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants.

Note “the land” registers the amount of sexual perversion committed in it just like the ground in Isa. 26:21 records the amount of innocent bloodshed upon it.
When that sin is ‘full’ or ‘fulfilled’, the land rejects its inhabitants – it vomits or evicts the people who live in it.
That’s why great nations fall?
The land ‘evicts them’ because of innocent bloodshed and sexual perversion.

The Lord Said Adultery Was Punishable by Death

Leviticus 20:10 (ESV) — 10 “If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.

Under the Old Covenant, adultery joins the following sins as capital crimes.
- Parental abuse – Exodus 21, 15,17.
- Blasphemy – Leviticus 24:16
- Breaking the Law of the Sabbath – Exodus 35:2
- Witchcraft – Exodus 22:18
- Rape – Deuteronomy 22:25
- Bestiality – Exodus 22:19, Leviticus 20:15
- Homosexuality – Leviticus 20:13
- Incest – Leviticus 20:11–12
- Kidnapping – Deuteronomy 24:7
- Idolatry – Deuteronomy 17:2–7)
- Murder – Leviticus 24:17
Adultery joins this list of twelve capital offenses making this list an even dozen.
Again, the point is to note the company adultery keeps.

Adultery Is Under the Judgment of God in the New Testament

But, adultery is not just under the Law of the Old Testament.
Grace doesn’t make adultery okay.

Hebrews 13:4 (ESV) — 4 Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.

Did you hear it, God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.
The phrase is future tense, which means this is something God is going to do out in the future.
Now, it’s much better to judge yourself instead of the Lord doing it.

1 Corinthians 11:31 (ESV) — 31 But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. 32 But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.

Here’s another verse that we do well to heed.

1 Corinthians 6:9 (ESV) — 9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality,

So, you can see that in both Old and New Testaments adultery is a highly unfavorable lifestyle choice.

Adultery in the Ancient World

Israel was not the only nation who thought adultery was a bad idea.
Adultery in the ancient world was akin to a pedophile because the act of adultery broke up homes which impacted the children.
Women were to avoid undue contact with men other than their husbands even today in some traditional Middle Eastern societies if a man is alone with a woman for more than twenty minutes people assume they have shared intercourse.²
Consider how adultery is viewed in the following ancient civilizations.

The Ugarit Condemned Adultery

Look at the following quote from the Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary.

It (adultery) is found in texts from Ugarit (Moran 1956: 280–81) and Egypt (Rabinowitz 1956: 73; see ANET, 24, where adultery is labeled a “great crime”). In several Akkadian texts, hatû, cognate to Heb ht, “to sin,” refers specifically to adultery (CAD 6:157); hatitum¯ (fem. sing. part. of hatû) indicates an adulteress (CAD 6:153).³

The Ugarits were a Canaanite people who were in existence as a vital economic and trade center at the time of the Exodus, around the year 1400 BC.
They were the ancestors of the Phoenicians.
They lived on the west side of what would later become the land of Israel right on the Mediterranean.
In 1928, a farmer accidentally uncovered a tomb while working in his field.
This discovery brought the Ugaritic language and people into prominence.
In their discovered documents, the Ugarites said adultery was a great sin.
The Egyptians in some of their discovered literature said that adultery was a high crime.
The Akkadians who are people who had a vast empire in the region of Mesopotamia which today is known as Iraq, they said in their documentation that adultery was a sin.
The Romans regarded the tolerance of adultery as pimping (Pseud.-Phoc. 177).
And so, you have all these ancient cultures who gave a big thumbs down to this sex sin.
Now let’s take a look at one of the most famous archaeological discoveries ever, the Dead Sea Scrolls and what they say about adultery.

The Dead Sea Scrolls and Adultery

The scrolls were discovered in some caves near Qumran by the west side of the Dead Sea.
The Dead Sea Scrolls condemned sexual impurity.
In 1947 a Bedouin shepherd stumbled upon a cave along the shores of the Dead Sea and found some ancient manuscripts, seven in total which as time went on fanned out into 900 documents from eleven caves in the area.
These scrolls have revolutionized biblical studies and the study of ancient Judaism.⁴
Among these 900 documents, they found both Bible texts and non-Bible material in these caves.
They found complete copies of every single Old Testament book except the Book of Esther.
The people who archaeologists believed put ink to scroll lived in Qumran, a military fort.
The Essenes, who lived between the first and second century BC, were a Jewish splinter group who believed that they were the true Israel.
They are one of at least four groups known in the first century, joining the Pharisees, Sadducee’s and the Zealots.
Essenes are not found in the Bible.

Everyone Thinks Adultery Is Bad

So, you get it, adultery is a bad, negative, a take your life down the drain kind of sin.
And everybody was of the same opinion.
- The Lord Most High is the standard – He says it’s a sin.
- The Jews, who got their input from God, said the same thing.
- The Essenes of Qumran voiced the equivalent opinion via the Dead Sea Scrolls.
- The Romans, one of the world’s great civilizations, thought it was a terrible deal.
- The ancient cultures of Mesopotamia and Egypt voted it down too.
- Even the Ugarit people who date back to just a few hundred after Abraham said it was no good.
So, there’s somewhat of a united voice in all this throughout the ages.

The Plot of the Pharisees

And so, the religious-minded haters of Jesus use this universally detested sin to try and trap Jesus.
Now, after hearing all of this, you have to feel that there is something foul about the approach of these religious leaders.

John 8:1–2 (ESV) — 1 but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them.

So the Mount of Olives is the scenic setting for this Jesus story of grace and forgiveness.

The Mount of Olives

The Mount of Olives is a super significant Bible place and with that thought here’s the Bible Background of the day.
Olivet is just that, a two-mile ridge of olive trees right by the Temple Mount.
You could easily call it ‘Olive Tree Hill.’
The Mount of Olives is also the scenic setting for several other Jesus encounters.
- Jesus most famous sermon on end-times found, in Matthew 24, happens here.
- The Triumphal entry where the crowd waves the Palm branches and shouts Hosanna unto Jesus occurs on this mountain.
- Gethsemane, the garden where Jesus came to pray, was here.
- Judas betrayed Jesus here.
- The Ascension of Jesus takes place here – Acts 1:12.
- And, Per Zechariah 14, the Second Coming happens here also.

Zechariah 14:4 (ESV) — 4 On that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives that lies before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west by a very wide valley, so that one half of the Mount shall move northward, and the other half southward.

Then, there are even more Jesus encounters which occur geographically close to the Mount of Olives.
- Bethany is on the east side of the Mount of Olives.
- Lazarus found life from the dead there.
- The Mary and Martha saga played out there.
- Jesus cursed the fig tree there.
  - When Jesus said, ‘Whoever says to this mountain be cast into the sea and shall not doubt in his heart but shall believe that those things that he says will come to pass”, that mountain was likely the Mount of Olives. He was probably looking at it when He said this.
And then there is the Kidron which sits directly west of the Mount Olives
This valley, aka Jehoshaphat’s Valley, is the place where the nations of the world will enter into judgment before the Lord.
Do you remember this verse in Joel?

Joel 3:14 (ESV) — 14 Multitudes, multitudes, in the valley of decision! For the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision.

That ‘Valley of Decision’ is the Kidron Valley.

The Jews and Resurrection

There are all kinds of Tombs and burial places in the Mount of Olives.
The Jews believe the resurrection of the dead will take place here.
Yes, Jews believe in the resurrection.
They just don’t believe in the resurrection of Jesus as Messiah.
In fact, the Talmud lists resurrection as one of the three core principles of Judaism.
Look at what Isaiah the prophet said.

Isaiah 26:19 (ESV) — 19 Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead.

Israelites of the first century, believe in the resurrection so strongly that 150,000 other tombs and burial places lay in and around the Mount of Olives.
Most notable of these tombs include the Apostle James and Mary, the mother of Jesus.
So that’s some background on the Mount of Olives.
Olive Tree Hill is the backdrop for this story of how an adulteress meets the Light of the World.
So, look at these religious leaders, they bring in this woman.

John 8:3–5 (ESV) — 3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst 4 they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. 5 Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?”

They brought the woman.
Automatically, this is a red flag, where is the man?
The Law said you must stone both of them.
The religious crew only brought the woman.

In Judaism, if you saw or knew of someone committing the act of adultery, there was an obligation that you warn them. The elders of a village were in charge of the morals of the village, and they should have dealt with this situation in such a way that both parties were confronted about their sin before it ever was brought to Jesus’ attention.[5. Ben Witherington III, NT221 The Wisdom of John: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on Johannine Literature, Logos Mobile Education (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014).

So, somebody did not do their job in this case.
If the land is going to spew its inhabitants because of sexual immortality than all the occupants of the community, have a vested interest in holding their neighbor accountable.
The theological graybeards policed the woman in this case but not the man.
So, this story, when you get down to the punch line is really not about the act of adultery at all.
It’s about religious bigotry.
All the leaders of the Law wanted was to discredit the God-man who would, in a short segment of time, give His life for them.
That’s the nasty nonspiritual face of religion apart from God.
Real religion, Jesus style, has compassion.
Pure piety is loaded with mercy.
These religious reprehensibles didn’t care about this woman nor the sin she committed.
Because if they had, they would have said to her what Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more.”

#S3-030: Do You Believe in the Resurrection of Jesus? [Podcast]

References:

https://www.divorcestatistics.info/latest-infidelity-statistics-of-usa.html ↩
(Delaney, 41). ↩
Elaine Adler Goodfriend, “Adultery,” ed. David Noel Freedman, The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 82. ↩
M. O. Wise, “Dead Sea Scrolls,” ed. Joel B. Green and Scot McKnight, Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1992), 137. ↩

emeryhorvath.com

Equipping people to pursue God's glory

What Happens When An Adulteress Meets The Light Of The World?

Podcast: Light on Life Season 6 Episode 36

by Emery Horvath

Listen to the Audio

Click Play to Listen | Right Click to Download | Subscribe in Stitcher Radio

Read the Notes

Accept the Challenge

Gifts of the Spirit are part of life kingdom life in God. Earnestly desire to be used by the Spirit to bring help, strength, and encouragement to people.

Join the Conversation

What gift of the Spirit has the Lord used you in to help set someone free? How did you minister healing in Jesus Name? Share your experience. Please leave your comments in the comments section below.

Episode Resources

About Emery

Subscribe to the Podcast

Stitcher Radio Google Play

iTunes

God’s Take on Adultery

Adultery Is Against the Law

Adultery Brought Uncleanness

Adultery Is in Bad Company of Other Sins

Adultery Is One of the Land ‘Spew Out’ Sins

The Lord Said Adultery Was Punishable by Death

Adultery Is Under the Judgment of God in the New Testament

Adultery in the Ancient World

The Ugarit Condemned Adultery

The Dead Sea Scrolls and Adultery

Everyone Thinks Adultery Is Bad

The Plot of the Pharisees

The Mount of Olives

The Jews and Resurrection

Listen to the Audio

Click Play to Listen | Right Click to Download | Subscribe in Stitcher Radio

Read the Notes

Accept the Challenge

Gifts of the Spirit are part of life kingdom life in God. Earnestly desire to be used by the Spirit to bring help, strength, and encouragement to people.

Join the Conversation

What gift of the Spirit has the Lord used you in to help set someone free? How did you minister healing in Jesus Name? Share your experience. Please leave your comments in the comments section below.

Episode Resources

About Emery

Subscribe to the Podcast

Stitcher Radio Google Play

iTunes

God’s Take on Adultery

Adultery Is Against the Law

Adultery Brought Uncleanness

Adultery Is in Bad Company of Other Sins

Adultery Is One of the Land ‘Spew Out’ Sins

The Lord Said Adultery Was Punishable by Death

Adultery Is Under the Judgment of God in the New Testament

Adultery in the Ancient World

The Ugarit Condemned Adultery

The Dead Sea Scrolls and Adultery

Everyone Thinks Adultery Is Bad

The Plot of the Pharisees

The Mount of Olives

The Jews and Resurrection

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