I go mostly to the teaching that Jesus gave in the gospels:
“You have heard that it was said to those of old,‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.” (Matthew 5)
Here we are told that to commit adultery even with our eyes makes us hellbound, it is better to be sightless; a pretty strong condemnation.
Then if you search against all the warnings against adultery as the soul destroying activity that it is, this just undergirds the warning.
I find the plea in Proverbs 5 to be especially poignant:
” My son, keep your father’s command,
And do not forsake the law of your mother.
Bind them continually upon your heart;
Tie them around your neck.
When you roam, they[b] will lead you;
When you sleep, they will keep you;
And when you awake, they will speak with you.
For the commandment is a lamp,
And the law a light;
Reproofs of instruction are the way of life,
To keep you from the evil woman,
From the flattering tongue of a seductress.
Do not lust after her beauty in your heart,
Nor let her allure you with her eyelids.
For by means of a harlot
A man is reduced to a crust of bread;
And an adulteress[c] will prey upon his precious life.
Can a man take fire to his bosom,
And his clothes not be burned?
Can one walk on hot coals,
And his feet not be seared?
So is he who goes in to his neighbor’s wife;
Whoever touches her shall not be innocent.
People do not despise a thief
If he steals to satisfy himself when he is starving.
Yet when he is found, he must restore sevenfold;
He may have to give up all the substance of his house.
Whoever commits adultery with a woman lacks understanding;
He who does so destroys his own soul.
Sure, I can agree with that.
I have long wondered about Mt 5:28 though, and I would be interested to discuss my wonder.
“woman” is Strong’s 1135: http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G1135&t=KJV
1) a woman of any age, whether a virgin, or married, or a widow
2) a wife
a) of a betrothed woman
Now please, correct me if I’m wrong, but adultery was, and is a crime that occurs when one or both of the participants are married. So surely, Jesus is saying adultery can occur in the heart, ie. when one or both of the participants are married, which is what adultery means. Why would we assume that he is extending adultery to the unmarried?
If unmarried, perhaps they are committing fornication in their hearts, but not adultery, since that is not what adultery means.
Thoughts? I’ve just long wondered about that one.
I just checked a couple of French bibles, wondering if they use mademoiselle or madame, but they use femme, so there’s no clarification there.
Proverbs 5 is really good for this subject.
God gave you a brain. Use it.
We are hardwired to procreate. Every man and woman of age on this earth will look on attractive people of the opposite sex and their thoughts will shift. It is not Satan that is shifting their thoughts. It is human biology - the very workings of the machine which God created.
Acting upon perfectly normal thoughts and thinking about them are two entirely different things. Please don’t equate them.
True and not true. While Jesus walked the earth, we were still under the Old Covenant. I believe He explained the insidious nature of sin, and our inability to avoid it in our human condition, to ensure we would understand that without His upcoming intervention, we were all doomed.
When we are told that, "Blessed are the poor in spirit..." it is taken to mean that, even after we are saved by His Blood and our acknowledgment/acceptance of Him as our Savior, we will suffer the same trials Paul's so eloquently stated when he lamented that he was constantly doing that which he would not do and not doing that which he would do. In other words, even being saved, and having direct contact with the risen Lord, he was unable to keep from sinful acts and maintain full obedience to the Will of God. he was blessed because he recognized and agonized over this shortcoming.
Being saved doesn't mean we never commit sinful acts, it means we have been forgiven for them and are much more aware of our unworthiness - we are worthy only because He has made us so, despite our failings.
Prophesy told us that God would set a New Covenant where He would forgive our wickedness and recognize our sins no more. If you take everything Jesus told us (while under the Old Covenant) and try to apply it to even those who have accepted Him, then there would still be nobody with Heaven in their future.
About the only unforgivable sin is to blaspheme the Holy Spirit and there is a lot of questions about whether someone who has accepted Christ is capable of committing that one particular sin.