[AI translation] Back in November, I announced that we would return to this upcoming part of the Sermon on the Mount on the last Sunday in January. Jesus is explaining the seventh commandment here: "Thou shalt not commit fornication" (Exodus 20:14) In the original Bible text, the word here is one that can be translated as it is translated in many foreign languages: Do not be adulterous, do not commit adultery!In fact, it doesn't matter how you say it, because in the end it's the same thing. The many sexual miseries of the world are rooted in the misery of marriage. There is a lot of misery in the world between men and women. In the consulting hours of pastors and psychiatrists, 95% of the problems discussed are marital conflicts. There is a lot of confusion in the sex life. And at the root of all this confusion, the root cause is the problem of marriage. So Jesus is defending marriage with these words that I have just read. All uncleanness, all fornication, is ultimately nothing but an attack on marriage, that is, adultery. All sexual immorality is, in the final analysis, a defilement of marriage. Therefore, marriage is the crucible of every fight against fornication. The essence and meaning of marriage must be rediscovered. Save marriage, God-given and God-willed marriage, and you will save the family, the nation, the state, the happiness of millions of men, women and children.
God created man male and female. In this manhood and womanhood is the deepest difference and the most extreme affection of life. Neither is complete in itself, either physically or spiritually. But in each other they mutually carry the promise of life's fulfilment and satisfaction. That is why it is so profoundly true what God says: "It is not good for man to be alone" (Genesis 2:18). But to look out for one another, to need one another, to be attracted to one another: it is good. It is right. It is the God-given essence of man and woman.
That is why God created marriage, so that man and woman, bound together in love, would be faithful to each other, to stand by each other in all things that pertain to life on earth and to life eternal. The child is not the end of the marriage relationship, but its fruit. The end is the community of life itself. This community of married life is an unspeakable opportunity for man and woman. It is the highest service that man and woman can render to each other. Here they can become discoverers of the wonder of life for each other, in the most ancient and profound human community. It is in marriage that a man gives himself completely, it is here that he loses himself in the other, because he says: I am yours and you are mine. It is here that man's being can be fulfilled in its richest harmony. It is through and in relation to each other that they become what they are: man and woman. It is in marriage that man is realised in his fullness.
God does not leave this extremely important thing, marriage, on which so much depends for the individual, for the family, for humanity as a whole, to the arbitrariness and pleasure of man. God Himself holds it in His hands and regulates it for man. God leads Eve to Adam as it were with his own hand. This is why Jesus says: "What God has joined together, let no man put asunder" (Mt 16,9). He gives them the wonderful gift of love, He levels their living conditions so that their life together becomes socially possible. His work is to make the two no longer two, but one. In other words, marriages are truly made in heaven. Man himself cannot marry, God can only marry between two people. Man did not invent this way of life, God did. Therefore, the author cannot be left out of it. Yes, the author of marriage. And that's why Jesus defends marriage with such deadly seriousness, with such unheard of harsh words like those we hear in the Word.
So it's not our love and faithfulness that is the backbone, the supporting pillar of marriage - thankfully - but the work of God in 'knitting' a man and a woman together. Marriage is not built on human goodwill, love, noble and good feelings, but first and foremost on a divine foundation, on the will of God. Hence the divine command: 'Thou shalt not commit adultery', that is, 'Thou shalt not commit adultery'.
It is this act of divine intervention which is completed by man's faithful acceptance and obedience to it. Man and woman respond to God's call with love, or if you prefer, with love and fidelity. God puts love in man's heart, but man must love. This is our part in the institution of marriage. That is why when a man and a woman marry, they pledge love and fidelity - not to each other, but to God. So love and fidelity to God is a commitment of the spouses to God. It follows that marriage is always a matter of faith on the part of man. It is a matter of faith. To enter into marriage means: to believe about each other, that God has structured us to each other, and so to accept each other from God's hand.
And here then lies the deepest foundation for all marital conflict and all sexual dysfunction. That is where man leaves out the author of marriage and becomes the author of marriage. Man is one who can say yes to God, submit to divine guidance, but also withdraw from it and take the whole matter into his own hands. That is, into the hands of his own moral conception, desires, plans. I do what I want, what I feel like doing. And if one doesn't care what God says, then one is completely at liberty to do what "I" says, or what a partner says, or what the movies say, or what pornographic literature says, or what my blood says.
Then there is no longer any obstacle to someone seeing a woman as "evil for the sake of evil desire" and vice versa. Anyone who takes marriage out of God's hands and takes it into his own weak, sinful, trembling hands, drops it, and then this precious gift is always broken somewhere. It suffers damage. Marriage is such a heavy matter that man cannot bear it alone. The sexual instinct, taken out of communion with God, is like a flywheel that does not turn on its axis, and so it shakes everything to pieces, destroys everything.
Do you know where the deterioration of marriage begins? Before marriage. Before marriage. So it is with the apple. The insects lay their eggs in the bud, and when the apple develops, it may look flawless on the outside, but on the inside the worm is already there, chewing away, and it's suddenly burrowing somewhere. That's why there are so many wormy marriages, sick inside, because the worms of fornication have laid their eggs in the body and the mind of man in the budding young years. The tainted fantasies of the young years, the company of bad friends, the flood of coarse jokes, the filthy writings, the pictures, the atmosphere of depraved eroticism which the young soul breathes from morning till night in the street, among friends, in society - these are the streams which then feed the wide stream of marital decay. Thus the very fabric of the building of marriage is corrupted before the building itself has begun. How can a pure marriage be built from such bricks?
The commandment not to commit adultery also applies to young people who are yet to be married. Yes, dear young people, your body and soul are also the temple of the Holy Spirit, which must be kept as holy and pure outside marriage as inside marriage, as the house of God. From the very first awakening of the sexual instinct, you are responsible for the marriage that God may have in store for you. With a view to the future happiness of your own lives, I beg you not to presume upon rights which can only lead to true happiness in the way and time ordained by God. Do not throw away the petals of the beautiful flower of your life prematurely, so that by the time it comes to marriage you will only have a plucked stalk to give to someone else. Don't sell the best of your life for a bowl of lentils! Do not believe the satanic delusion that sin can make you happy! It is not true! You can never get happiness from Satan. They are false pearls that you must pay for with the most precious possessions of your body and soul. The foretaste of stolen joy is sweet, but the aftertaste is terribly bitter. A reckless watch may make you weep bitterly for years. Take care of yourselves and the opposite sex! Who can make the unclean clean? Who can give from an unclean youth a clean and happy marriage to someone? The corruption of marriage begins before marriage.
"He that looketh on a woman for an evil lust hath committed adultery in his heart" (Mt 5,28) I know that temptation is always at hand in this area. We are always, all of us, on the edge of a precipice in this regard. But whoever is giddy, let him not look into the abyss, for he will be dizzy. Nor should you look into it, even if you see great prospects there.
Who can look into this incredibly sharp mirror of Jesus' words without also feeling the accusation? Here, then, no pretense can really help. 'Let him who is not guilty in this matter,' Jesus once said, 'cast the first stone. When Jesus called on the proud Pharisees to do this, no one came forward. (John 8:4-11) Is there anyone here who would be willing to cast the first stone? There is no other way and no other thing to do here but to turn with our own corrupt and filthy hearts to the One who can wash away all filthiness with His holy blood, who can be the only help and saviour of marriage and of all sexual misery: Jesus.
If all the trouble stems from the fact that man's whole affair has been separated from God, then the only way to find a solution is to return to God. I saw a picture once. A man and a woman holding hands, but standing there together in front of the cross. That's it. This is the solution. Man and woman, married or unmarried: before the cross of Christ. This is what truly unites those who belong together in marriage, and this is what separates those who do not belong together in marriage. Before the cross, where there is forgiveness, where there is purity, where there is true love. At the bottom of all the troubles of marriage and sex life is this: the abandonment of God. The real trouble is not that the man and the woman have developed an inappropriate relationship, but that the relationship between the man or woman and God has been broken. That is why the first thing to do if you want to fix a wrong relationship is to return to God. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved" (Acts 16:31)
This applies to the whole of marriage and the whole of sex life. Don't say that this is an exaggeration of the problem. I know there are a lot of detailed problems in this area. But God does not want to give us His help in the details - because if He pulls you out of one abyss, you fall into another - but He wants to help us fundamentally. Not even our problems in the first place, but us. Inside, where the worm bites. It is only when we become a different person inside ourselves that the detailed problems are solved. This is what God wants: to make you and me different people through the power of His forgiving grace. If you don't want this, all other help is useless. He cannot be helped.
There is only one antidote to sin, sexual sin and marital sin: grace. Mary Magdalene was purified in this, in the power of this she became a different person. It was then that Jesus could say to her, instead of reproach and accusation, "Go and sin no more" (Jn 8,11).
Who among us can Jesus now say, "Go and sin no more"?
Amen
Date: 26 January 1964.
Lesson
Jn 8,1-11