Is he committing adultery with his own wife?

mkgal1 · Jul 24, 2013

Another article on meaning of adultery:

Total Health -- Biblical Definition of Adultery

This scripture make it clear that adultery includes the idea of the breaking of a covenant. But do not confuse the word breaking with the word destruction. One may break the terms of a covenant; yet, if repentance and forgiveness follow, the covenant remains intact.

IOW---what I had said earlier in this thread---adultery is not being faithful.

LinkH · Jul 24, 2013

mkgal1 said:
That's part of the problem, right there. We don't "own" other people. God has given us certain parameters in which we are to behave (if we desire to be like Him) in our relationships. Lust is outside those parameters......outside of His will. It's (lust, I mean) acting in the will of man (or woman).....not the will of God.

I'll get back to you on the rest.

Paul said to prevent fornication, let every man have his own wife and every woman her [/b]own[/b] husband. Song of Songs says, "I am my beloved's and he is mind." Paul wrote that the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband, and the husband does not have authority over his own body, from the wife.

I wasn't talking about slavery or legal ownership. But one of the ten commandments does use 'ownership' language. It says not to covet your neighbor's wife, house, manservant, maidservant, oxen, donkey or anything that is your neighbor's. In the way the verse is worded, a man's wife is his 'own.'

There is also a sense in which everything belongs to God. The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof, and 'Ye are bought with a price. Ye are not your own.'

Fornication involves using something that is not one's 'own', not one's right to use. I Thessalonians describes fornication in terms of defrauding on'es brother. It is taking or using what someone else has rights to.

LinkH · Jul 24, 2013

mkgal1 said:
Another article on meaning of adultery:

Total Health -- Biblical Definition of Adultery

IOW---what I had said earlier in this thread---adultery is not being faithful.

There is a literal meaning of 'adultery' and there are cases where the word is used for a metaphor. In one Old Testament prophecy, Israel and Judah were described as two sisters that committed adultery with foreign lovers. Adultery represented the idolatry of Israel with false foreign gods.

LinkH · Jul 24, 2013

mkgal1 said:
As to the definition of lust. I think this resource is clear:

Lust - International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

(1) Epithumia is used most frequently, and means a longing for the unlawful, hence, concupiscence, desire, lust. The following references hold the idea, not only of sinful desire known as "fleshly," "worldly," as opposed to "spiritual" "heavenly," "the will of man" as opposed to "the will of God," but also the sensual desire connected with adultery, fornication; verb in Matthew 5:28; Mark 4:19; John 8:44; Romans 1:24; 1 Corinthians 10:6; Galatians 5:16,17,24; Titus 2:12; 1 Peter 1:14; 1 John 2:16; Jude 1:16,18; Revelation 18:14.

How does this argue against what I wrote in my post about coveting? Matthew 5:28 has to be interpreted in light of the commandment it is explaining 'Thou shalt not commit adultery.'

mkgal1 · Jul 24, 2013

Just wanted to interject this quote that I just came across. This is what's behind the whole "Theology of the Body".

"Someone I was told, at the sight of a very beautiful body, felt impelled to glorify the Creator. The sight of it increased his love for God to the point of tears. Anyone who entertains such feelings in such circumstances is already risen ... before the general resurrection."
Saint John Climacus

mkgal1 · Jul 24, 2013

LinkH said:
Paul said to prevent fornication, let every man have his own wife and every woman her own husband.

Yes.....Paul *did* say that.....but, that's (for one thing) one single verse. The Good News of the Gospel is much more than that. That was also (IMO) a beginning step----not a fully sanctified sense of being. IOW.....simply being married doesn't mean one has an open-ended freedom to their sexual expressions.

Song of Songs says, "I am my beloved's and he is mind." Paul wrote that the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband, and the husband does not have authority over his own body, from the wife.

I think you meant, "and he is *mine*".......and, yes.....that's speaking of mutuality and unity in the relationship. How is that in contrast to anything I've mentioned?

I wasn't talking about slavery or legal ownership. But one of the ten commandments does use 'ownership' language. It says not to covet your neighbor's wife, house, manservant, maidservant, oxen, donkey or anything that is your neighbor's. In the way the verse is worded, a man's wife is his 'own.'

Yes......and, Jesus clarified some of that by His words in the Sermon on the Mount (including the adultery commandment). The Spirit of the Law (genuine love) is higher than the "letter of the law". It's also not something on the exterior......it's all related to absorbing and abiding in His love. IOW......it's something we *are*......not what we *do*.

There is also a sense in which everything belongs to God. The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof, and 'Ye are bought with a price. Ye are not your own.'

Good point, glad you brought that up.

Fornication involves using something that is not one's 'own', not one's right to use. I Thessalonians describes fornication in terms of defrauding on'es brother. It is taking or using what someone else has rights to.

This sounds ---to me---that you are implying that as long as one is married-----there are *no* boundaries (other than, maybe, not taking someone *else's* wife). You've posted things similar before (that it's not "adultery" unless the woman involved was (herself) married). I happen to believe there are more ways to be adulterous in marriage beyond that. I believe that "loving like Christ" means more than that.

LinkH · Jul 24, 2013

mkgal1,

As long as people don't do stuff like go to the strip club or to naughty sites on line to see some bodies to experience that....

I think the ideas you are promoting could lead to some marital problems. Here are examples:

- The husband looks his wife over when she comes out of the shower, and flirts with her, and she judges him of having an adulterous heart.
- The husband pursues his wife to have sex with him, and she accuses him of just wanting sex, and turns him down time after time because she says she doesn't want to indulge his adulterous urges. She defrauds him contrary to what the scripture teaches, leaving him unfulfilled, adding that much more temptation to really engage in adultery.
- The wife is able to justify divorcing her husband in her mind because she judges him of having an adulterous heart for wanting to sleep with her.

You can flip the genders around. It probably happens more often that the wife accuses the husband of being a pervert or just wanting her for her body because he desires her sexually. But you can switch the genders. Sometimes the wife desires the husband more and he thinks or says negative things about her.

Roman Catholics are anti-divorce, so if they hold to these ideas, it may not wreck marriages. But if someone who doesn't accept the whole RCC package on marriage, who allows for divorce, not just for physical adultery, but for sins of their spouse's heart that they judgmentally presume are there, you have a recipe for justifying sinful divorces. It can also wreck havok on a couple's sex life. Instead of teaching couples to satisfy each other's needs, it gives one of them a tool for justifying themselves for not meeting their partner's needs, and an unnecessary emphasis on judging a partners' motives.

If adultery against one's own spouse is an issue, why isn't the issue addressed in passages on marriage? 'Marriage is holy in all and the bed undefiled. But whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.' Here, whoremongering (fornication) and adultery are in contrast to the marriage bed, not something in the marriage bed.

LinkH · Jul 24, 2013

mkgal1 said:
Yes.....Paul *did* say that.....but, that's (for one thing) one single verse. The Good News of the Gospel is much more than that. That was also (IMO) a beginning step----not a fully sanctified sense of being. IOW.....simply being married doesn't mean one has an open-ended freedom to their sexual expressions.

It implies open-ended freedom to do what is lawful within the marriage.

I think you meant, "and he is *mine*".......and, yes.....that's speaking of mutuality and unity in the relationship. How is that in contrast to anything I've mentioned?

It also speaks of ownership. I was saying you do not covet that which is your own wife. In the 10 commandments, it says not to covet...thy neighbor's wife...or anything that is thy neighbors. There is possession in a sense here. It's not the same as having a house. But his wife is his. You don't covet your own house. If you covet a house, you covet someone else's house.

The isn't isn't having sexual desire for someone. It's coveting something or someone you have no rights to.

A man could unlovingly want to use his wife without committing adultery with her. If a woman tells wilfully lies about her husband to friends, that's bad, and it's even unfaithful, but it's not adultery. It might be bearing false witness, but it's not adultery.

Yes......and, Jesus clarified some of that by His words in the Sermon on the Mount (including the adultery commandment). The Spirit of the Law (genuine love) is higher than the "letter of the law".

Maybe that's the issue. There is no 'Spirit of the Law' in I Corinthians 5. The contrast is the same one found between the Spirit and being under the law in Galatians. Ambrose and Augustine though literal interpretation brought death, and allegorical interpretation (some of which had little to do with what the passage actually said) were spiritual. Maybe that's the kind of reasoning you have been reading about adultery. But it doesn't make sense to accept something so removed from the actual meaning of the texts of scripture if you don't accept the authority of the Roman Catholic Church. Even a Roman Catholic might reject it if he believes it doesn't represent the magisterium and if John Paul wasn't speaking ex-cathedra.

It's also not something on the exterior......it's all related to absorbing and abiding in His love. IOW......it's something we *are*......not what we *do*.

Okay. But that doesn't make every sin adultery. It doesn't make every sin that involves sex adultery either. It certainly doesn't make sex in marriage adultery.

This sounds ---to me---that you are implying that as long as one is married-----there are *no* boundaries (other than, maybe, not taking someone *else's* wife).

I am not saying there are no boundaries to marital sex. Just that violating boundaries is not 'adultery' unless it really is adultery. Let's say there is some sadist. I'll talk about women this time since I've been talking about men. Let's a wife is a sadist. Her husband doesn't know it. After they get married, she talks him into letting her tie him up for sex. Then she gets out a stick and beats him black and blue to satisfy some sexual kink she has. That's not adultery. She sinned by what she did to her husband, but it's not adultery.

You've posted things similar before (that it's not "adultery" unless the woman involved was (herself) married).

I believe I pointed out that was the way the term is usually used in the Old Testament. Fornication is also a sin.

I happen to believe there are more ways to be adulterous in marriage beyond that. I believe that "loving like Christ" means more than that.

I don't throw all sins related to not loving like Christ in the adultery bucket.

mkgal1 · Jul 24, 2013

LinkH said:
How does this argue against what I wrote in my post about coveting? Matthew 5:28 has to be interpreted in light of the commandment it is explaining 'Thou shalt not commit adultery.'

You have been posting that one cannot covet their own spouse. That seems to imply that Matthew 5:27-28 doesn't pertain to a spouse (isn't that what you've been posted all throughout this thread?) That definition I posted for lust.....this one:

1) Epithumia is used most frequently, and means a longing for the unlawful, hence, concupiscence, desire, lust. The following references hold the idea, not only of sinful desire known as "fleshly," "worldly," as opposed to "spiritual" "heavenly," "the will of man" as opposed to "the will of God," but also the sensual desire connected with adultery, fornication; verb in Matthew 5:28; Mark 4:19; John 8:44; Romans 1:24; 1 Corinthians 10:6; Galatians 5:16,17,24; Titus 2:12; 1 Peter 1:14; 1 John 2:16; Jude 1:16,18; Revelation 18:14.

doesn't seem to make any distinction between marital status or the person that the lust is directed towards. I guess it depends on what you interpret "unlawful" to mean.....and the "will of man" as opposed to the "will of God". Personally......I *don't* see it "the will of God" to have husbands/wives *not* loving their spouses as Christ loves us. That does violence to the imagery He set forth for us. He desires (as His will)----I believe--- that His creation proclaims His great mystery (HIs love for us).

This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.~Ephesians 5:32

LinkH · Jul 24, 2013

mkgal1 said:
You have been posting that one cannot covet their own spouse. That seems to imply that Matthew 5:27-28 doesn't pertain to marriage (isn't that what you've been posted all throughout this thread?) That definition I posted for lust.....this one:

1) Epithumia is used most frequently, and means a longing for the unlawful, hence, concupiscence, desire, lust.

Longing for one's wife is not unlawful. Longing for one's spouse is not unlawful. 'Marriage is holy in all and the bed undefiled'. A man longing for his wife is encouraged in Proverbs 5 and other scriptures. What about the Song of Solomon?

The following references hold the idea, not only of sinful desire known as "fleshly," "worldly," as opposed to "spiritual" "heavenly," "the will of man" as opposed to "the will of God," but also the sensual desire connected with adultery, fornication;

Sleeping with your own wife or husband is not fornication or adultery. Your definition does not prove your point. Why would wanting to have sex with your own spouse be opposed to the will of God. God said to be fruitful and multiply? If someone wants to sleep with their spouse, but goes about it in a selfish manner and sinful manner (e.g. with violence, or insisting on sex while the spouse is bleeding in the hospital, etc.) it's not the desire have sex that is sinful or lustful. Treating others in an unloving manner is sinful whether sex is involved or not.

mkgal1 · Jul 24, 2013

LinkH said:
mkgal1,

As long as people don't do stuff like go to the strip club or to naughty sites on line to see some bodies to experience that....

So.....as long as someone obeys certain external rules for themselves (like the above)....they keep themselves from going to strip clubs and they don't go to "naughty sites" online-----then, we can assume they are "loving as Christ"?

I think the ideas you are promoting could lead to some marital problems. Here are examples:

The "ideas I'm promoting" are loving as Christ loves. I don't see how that possibly can "lead to marital problems". People behaving outside of genuine love will create marital problems, though.

- The husband looks his wife over when she comes out of the shower, and flirts with her, and she judges him of having an adulterous heart.
- The husband pursues his wife to have sex with him, and she accuses him of just wanting sex, and turns him down time after time because she says she doesn't want to indulge his adulterous urges. She defrauds him contrary to what the scripture teaches, leaving him unfulfilled, adding that much more temptation to really engage in adultery.
- The wife is able to justify divorcing her husband in her mind because she judges him of having an adulterous heart for wanting to sleep with her.

Your words.......not mine.

You can flip the genders around. It probably happens more often that the wife accuses the husband of being a pervert or just wanting her for her body because he desires her sexually. But you can switch the genders. Sometimes the wife desires the husband more and he thinks or says negative things about her.

Roman Catholics are anti-divorce, so if they hold to these ideas, it may not wreck marriages. But if someone who doesn't accept the whole RCC package on marriage, who allows for divorce, not just for physical adultery, but for sins of their spouse's heart that they judgmentally presume are there, you have a recipe for justifying sinful divorces. It can also wreck havok on a couple's sex life. Instead of teaching couples to satisfy each other's needs, it gives one of them a tool for justifying themselves for not meeting their partner's needs, and an unnecessary emphasis on judging a partners' motives.

If adultery against one's own spouse is an issue, why isn't the issue addressed in passages on marriage? 'Marriage is holy in all and the bed undefiled. But whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.' Here, whoremongering (fornication) and adultery are in contrast to the marriage bed, not something in the marriage bed.

If something isn't conforming to the ultimate law (which is genuine love).....then it's sin. That's addressed all throughout the Bible.

The passages on marriage are more about our marriage (as the Body of Christ) to God. Just claiming marriage doesn't make us holy.

LinkH · Jul 24, 2013

mkgal1 said:
So.....as long as someone obeys certain external rules for themselves (like the above)....they keep themselves from going to strip clubs and they don't go to "naughty sites" online-----then, we can assume they are "loving as Christ"?

I didn't finish my sentence and you are putting words in my mouth. I don't see a problem with the quote unless it's used to justifying going around looking at people's bodies inappropriately so one can 'glorify God' over it.

The "ideas I'm promoting" are loving as Christ loves. I don't see how that possibly can "lead to marital problems". People behaving outside of genuine love will create marital problems, though.

That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about this mindset that some sexual desire for the spouse is sinful. The desire to have sex with one's spouse is not a sin. If someone is unloving toward their spouse while having sex, the sin is not loving one's neighbor. If someone is unloving towards their spouse while eating breakfast, the sin is not loving their spouse. Eating is not the sin.

If something isn't conforming to the ultimate law (which is genuine love).....then it's sin. That's addressed all throughout the Bible.

But that doesn't necessarily make the sin adultery.

The passages on marriage are more about our marriage (as the Body of Christ) to God. Just claiming marriage doesn't make us holy.

Do you think the verse I quoted from Hebrews 13 is primarily about Christ and the church? Does that make sense in context?

mkgal1 · Jul 24, 2013

LinkH said:
It implies open-ended freedom to do what is lawful within the marriage.

It also speaks of ownership. I was saying you do not covet that which is your own wife. In the 10 commandments, it says not to covet...thy neighbor's wife...or anything that is thy neighbors. There is possession in a sense here. It's not the same as having a house. But his wife is his. You don't covet your own house. If you covet a house, you covet someone else's house.

The isn't isn't having sexual desire for someone. It's coveting something or someone you have no rights to.

A man could unlovingly want to use his wife without committing adultery with her. If a woman tells wilfully lies about her husband to friends, that's bad, and it's even unfaithful, but it's not adultery. It might be bearing false witness, but it's not adultery.

Maybe that's the issue. There is no 'Spirit of the Law' in I Corinthians 5. The contrast is the same one found between the Spirit and being under the law in Galatians. Ambrose and Augustine though literal interpretation brought death, and allegorical interpretation (some of which had little to do with what the passage actually said) were spiritual. Maybe that's the kind of reasoning you have been reading about adultery. But it doesn't make sense to accept something so removed from the actual meaning of the texts of scripture if you don't accept the authority of the Roman Catholic Church. Even a Roman Catholic might reject it if he believes it doesn't represent the magisterium and if John Paul wasn't speaking ex-cathedra.

Okay. But that doesn't make every sin adultery. It doesn't make every sin that involves sex adultery either. It certainly doesn't make sex in marriage adultery.

I am not saying there are no boundaries to marital sex. Just that violating boundaries is not 'adultery' unless it really is adultery. Let's say there is some sadist. I'll talk about women this time since I've been talking about men. Let's a wife is a sadist. Her husband doesn't know it. After they get married, she talks him into letting her tie him up for sex. Then she gets out a stick and beats him black and blue to satisfy some sexual kink she has. That's not adultery. She sinned by what she did to her husband, but it's not adultery.

I believe I pointed out that was the way the term is usually used in the Old Testament. Fornication is also a sin.

I don't throw all sins related to not loving like Christ in the adultery bucket.

"What is lawful" = genuine love. Step outside that---and wish to posess another person/control another person/take away their freedom/mistreat them/dismiss their thoughts and opinions.....that is all acting outside of the boundaries of love. With our privledges......there are responsibilities. When we married.....we vowed to "love and honor".....those are the conditions of the covenant. The opposite of loving someone is using them for selfish means.

LinkH · Jul 24, 2013

mkgal1 said:
"What is lawful" = genuine love. Step outside that---and wish to posess another person/control another person/take away their freedom/mistreat them/dismiss their thoughts and opinions.....that is all acting outside of the boundaries of love. With our privledges......there are responsibilities. When we married.....we vowed to "love and honor".....those are the conditions of the covenant. The opposite of loving someone is using them for selfish means.

Would you say controlling another person or dismissing their opinions is 'adultery', too?

mkgal1 · Jul 24, 2013

LinkH said:
A man could unlovingly want to use his wife without committing adultery with her. If a woman tells wilfully lies about her husband to friends, that's bad, and it's even unfaithful, but it's not adultery. It might be bearing false witness, but it's not adultery.

I'm not saying that *all* unloving sins = adultery, either.

I'm *only* saying that lust (definition given earlier) = adultery (being unfaithful).

Okay. But that doesn't make every sin adultery. It doesn't make every sin that involves sex adultery either. It certainly doesn't make sex in marriage adultery.

I'll say it again (as it applies here as well). I'm not saying that "sex" in marriage = adultery. I've repeated, I don't know how many times, that desire and lust aren't the same thing. Lust = adultery.

I am not saying there are no boundaries to marital sex. Just that violating boundaries is not 'adultery' unless it really is adultery. Let's say there is some sadist. I'll talk about women this time since I've been talking about men. Let's a wife is a sadist. Her husband doesn't know it. After they get married, she talks him into letting her tie him up for sex. Then she gets out a stick and beats him black and blue to satisfy some sexual kink she has. That's not adultery. She sinned by what she did to her husband, but it's not adultery.

I believe I pointed out that was the way the term is usually used in the Old Testament. Fornication is also a sin.

I don't throw all sins related to not loving like Christ in the adultery bucket.

Neither do I. Just lust.

"But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart"~Jesus

mkgal1 · Jul 24, 2013

LinkH said:
Would you say controlling another person or dismissing their opinions is 'adultery', too?

To (truly) control another person is to lust for the unlawful. Lusting for the unlawful is adultery in the heart.

"But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart"~Jesus in Matthew 5:28

ImaginaryDay · Jul 24, 2013

mkgal1 said:
"What is lawful" = genuine love. Step outside that---and wish to posess another person/control another person/take away their freedom/mistreat them/dismiss their thoughts and opinions.....that is all acting outside of the boundaries of love. With our privledges......there are responsibilities. When we married.....we vowed to "love and honor".....those are the conditions of the covenant. The opposite of loving someone is using them for selfish means.

Been reading along all morning/afternoon. What I'm getting is buried in conditions for sexual expression in marriage (lawful, genuine love, boundaries in love, privileges, etc...). Anything short of these conditions is lust, then taking the next step and calling it adultery in marriage. Christ didn't do that, and I don't think we can do that either. As far as I think we can take it is to call it the love of the world, according to I John 2 that I posted earlier. Perhaps there are times in marriage that "the love of the Father is not in (us)" and we follow the "desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes" (which is in keeping with everything you have been saying), but to carry it to the extreme of adultery can't be justified. I just don't see it.

mkgal1 · Jul 24, 2013

apostolic34 said:
Been reading along all morning/afternoon. What I'm getting is buried in conditions for sexual expression in marriage (lawful, genuine love, boundaries in love, privileges, etc...). Anything short of these conditions is lust, then taking the next step and calling it adultery in marriage. Christ didn't do that, and I don't think we can do that either. As far as I think we can take it is to call it the love of the world, according to I John 2 that I posted earlier. Perhaps there are times in marriage that "the love of the Father is not in (us)" and we follow the "desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes" (which is in keeping with everything you have been saying), but to carry it to the extreme of adultery can't be justified. I just don't see it.

He didn't say physical adultery......but, He *did* say "adultery in the heart". But.....the Good News is......we are able to utilize His power to redeem us from our sin(s) in order to live out our marriages according to His will.

LinkH · Jul 24, 2013

Mkgal1,

Jesus did not call all lust adultery. He referred to something specific. If a man looks at a woman in order to covet her, he commits adultery with her already in her heart. If the desire to control or take advantage of someone comes from lust, that doesn't mean it is adultery. Looking at a woman with covetous is a specific act, and it makes sense to relate that to committing adultery in the heart.

If someone wants to beat the snot out of someone else, you could call that desire 'lust' but that doesn't make it adultery.

Notice that Job made a covenant with his eyes not to look upon the virgin with lust.

If you insist on a broad definition of 'adultery' notice that the exception clause in Matthew 19, the passage on divorce, does not say 'except for adultery.' Rather it says 'except it be for fornication.'

mkgal1 · Jul 24, 2013

This whole thread was really started because of a side comment I had made in reference to this book :

Fill These Hearts: Christopher West's Official Book Trailer - YouTube

and this one:
http://www.amazon.com/Love-That-Sat...03223&sr=8-1&keywords=the+love+that+satisfies

Another book that runs parallel is this one:

Keep Your Love On: Connection Communication And Boundaries: Danny Silk: 9780988499232: Amazon.com: Books#_

Another parallel is this:

Beloved: The Last Supper - Mike Donehey - Video Journal - YouTube

So much gets lost in the argument, so I will (try) to leave it at this. There is a reason why it's called a "profound mystery" in Ephesians 5:
("This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church").

Is he committing adultery with his own wife?

His perfect way sets me free. 2 Samuel 22:33

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