[AI translation] This commandment should be rendered in a more accurate translation of the original Old and New Testament, as thou shalt not commit adultery, or as thou shalt not commit adultery. In other words, do not break your own marriage or break into another's marriage, or do not break a marriage - whether your own or another's - which is yet to come! So this commandment is definitely the divine Word that protects the institution of marriage, that protects the purity and sanctity of marriage!First of all, let me stress very strongly that marriage is indeed a divine institution. It was not invented by man as a given form of life, it did not develop as a social formation in human coexistence, but was created by God for man. According to the Bible, marriage is based on God's creation, not on an agreement between two people, which can then be dissolved by another agreement. The mutual agreement of the two parties is, of course, necessary for marriage, but it is not the basis of marriage, but God's order, into which the two people who are to be married enter by mutual agreement, and which from that moment on applies to them, binding them together, making them one. Marriage is intended by God to be a blessing and a joy for man, an opportunity for two people to live together in full and devoted communion of love and to be a good instrument of God's power to create man. The order of marriage was brought back from Paradise by man who has fallen into sin, and in it the beauty, the happiness, the memory of the lost Eden still lives on, and therefore it is still intended to be the scene of true happiness on earth for man in an unhappy world. Such is the gift that God intended marriage to be for man. The more blessed a gift something is, the more terrible is the destruction of sin in it. So it is with marriage. Even if I could not believe that some great tragedy has befallen man, something the Bible calls the Fall, even if I could not believe in the destructive power of sin, the reality of Satan, the wickedness of demonic forces, I would be forced to believe it because of marriage; that is, if I consider what God created marriage to be and what man has made marriage to be.
In the mind of modern man, marriage has become an antiquity, an old-fashioned, outmoded, outmoded nuisance, which it is best to eliminate from life. Because marriage is an unnecessary bondage for man. And man doesn't like constraints, he wants to be free. So someone explained to me: it's boring to live with the same person all your life, and even if you have children, what a constraint, what a hindrance! In fact, what is annoying is that the free flow of love life is hindered by the fear of children. One should be completely free, then one can only be happy. Therefore, let the outdated institution of marriage be replaced by free love, in which all the gifts of nature, culture and technology must be used as a defence against the sacrifice of children.
Do you sense the satanic inspiration in this thinking? God created man and woman in the order of marriage. And autonomous man, man who has made himself independent of God, man who has made laws for himself, says: marriage is not a means, but an obstacle to man's living his masculine and feminine life! So, in the final stage, man goes so far in his rebellion against God's law as to abolish marriage outright as an institution, as something that has grown too big, as something that is unnecessary, as something that is superfluous, as something that is harmful.
All the evils, both the least and the greatest, in marriage arise from the refusal to regard marriage as ordained by God, the refusal to recognise the sanctity of marriage. I have just said that marriage is a divine institution, not something man invented for himself. It follows, therefore, that man cannot treat it as if it were his own invention, nor can he do with it as he pleases. And this is the problem: man regards marriage as if it depended entirely on him, as if he had invented it, as if he could step in and out of it without any scruples, according to what he desires, what his instincts drive him to do. Hence the fact that if one of the parties realises, or both of them realise, that they can no longer go on living together, they divorce, or if they can't, they divorce badly. Whatever! What God thinks about such things is of no concern to either party. Do you see the satan in that? You know what is satanic is that man is completely sovereign in his decision to set the laws of marriage for himself. He doesn't acknowledge that the laws of marriage have been set by God from creation. He treats the gift of God as if God did not exist.
Observe how this is so in practice. For example, when it comes to divorce. They realize they are not right for each other. So why force their lives together? It's better if they let each other go quietly, without any arguments. The man honestly declared that he was in love with another woman. The wife replied that she would not stand in the way of her husband's happiness and would retire. And they parted like two good friends doing each other almost a favour. Or perhaps they don't divorce at all. With the housing problem, and the office stuff, it might be better if they stayed together. It's cheaper that way. But the wife will understand that her husband is giving his love to someone else, or vice versa. After all, one cannot live the life of a monk! Is it not adultery if the spouses of a marriage which is not a happy marriage anyway, take their comfort elsewhere without each other's knowledge?! Isn't that how it is? The autonomous man, the man who lays down laws for himself, the man who is independent of God, thus defiles what is sacred!
Nothing shows how much man makes the law for himself better than the contrast between the opinion of Jesus and the general moral sense of man. Jesus said, "He that looketh on a woman for a cause of evil concupiscence hath committed adultery in his heart." (Mt 5,28) So he says: not only the act, but also the unclean look and the lustful thought is adultery. And the common moral opinion does not even consider the deed to be wrong, but only the consequence of it, if it comes out, if the world finds out, or if the other spouse finds out. As long as it is kept secret, or as long as the consequences are covered up by a simple foeticide, conscience does not really indicate that a sin has been committed, that a fence has been crossed which God has erected.
Well then: this is satanic! It is that marriage is no longer seen as a divine ordinance, the laws of which God has laid down for man, but as based on the mere agreement of two people, and so that those two people, or even one of them, are free to decide whether they wish to continue or not. Or under what conditions he is willing to maintain it. The autonomous man has excluded God from the very thing God has blessed him with: the whole problem of marriage. And do not think that we are now talking about the masses of people who are alienated from the church, unbelievers turned heathen! No! This is about you! You are the so-called believers who have sinned against the Seventh Commandment in the most subtle way. In thought or word, in secret or in open deed, you are pulling, tearing, trampling on this fence that God has put around your marriage or the marriage of others, that God has put around the sanctity of marriage in the first place!
The literal deadly seriousness with which God's Word speaks of the sin of adultery is astounding. Under Old Testament law, it was punishable by death without immunity. That is why they wanted to stone the fornicating woman whom the Pharisees had just caught in the act. In the New Testament too, God's judgment of adulterers is unmistakable. God is very clear that they will not inherit the kingdom of God. A man with an adulterous heart, an adulterous body, and an adulterous soul is excluded from eternity. The unclean earthly pleasures and the pure heavenly pleasures are two opposites that are absolutely mutually exclusive. How is it then, one might say, that Jesus almost saves from the punitive consequences of divine law someone who has just been caught in the act of adultery? Well, then, perhaps this woman was not so guilty, perhaps adultery is not so great a sin? Yes! Only there is something even greater than her: the grace of God! Adultery is a terrible, hateful, hellish, damning sin, but there is forgiveness!
Look at the case of this woman: We know not who-what she was before. We don't know how it happened, only that she caught me in the act. Was she to blame or was she a victim, was the situation such that she could not resist temptation or was she the tempter, did she drift into sin or did she lead others into it, was she sober or intoxicated, did she fall once or was she debauched before, was she a village bad or was she just momentarily dizzy? All this we do not know about him. And that's the good thing, because it's the very thing that reassures us that there is forgiveness for everyone, for those who have just stumbled, for those who have already sunk into the mire. There is forgiveness! But there is forgiveness only as there was for this woman: forgiveness that also means complete cleansing! The same Jesus who says to her, "Neither do I condemn you", also says immediately afterwards, "Go and sin no more" (Jn 8,11c). He could not sin no more without the cleansing power of forgiveness, but he could not accept forgiveness if he still wanted to continue sinning.
Yes: Jesus forgives you, but in such a way that you sin no more! Only the one who allows this forgiveness to cleanse his heart, his soul, his body, who therefore also stops the sin he has forgiven, will be forgiven! He who does not stop, does not receive forgiveness. So forgiveness does not mean that you can go on sinning! It is in vain to take communion if you are not willing to stop the sin that God has now judged in you! Rather do not take communion! You'll eat and drink damnation here! Abuse of the forgiveness of sins is a more severe judgment. Only when you hear Jesus' words, "Neither do I condemn you," will you hear with equal force his other words, "Sin no more."
That woman literally received her life again from Jesus, for the Lord had saved her from the death penalty! And I believe that this is the great meaning of forgiveness of sins: it is like receiving your life again! In fact, it is not only like it, but it is actually like it. For Jesus saved me from the death penalty: He died in my place for my sins! I have been given life again. I can start with a clean slate, I can start all over again, even what I have messed up, by His power, by His grace.
And here, let me return for a moment to what we established the first time: marriage is not a human invention, but a creation of God, a divine institution, a gift to man. God made it, prepared it for man. It is a human creation, a washing machine, for example, that is given instructions for use. It is good to study them and follow them, because it is easy to spoil the machine. God gave such instructions for His creation, His invention, marriage. Don't be surprised if you spoil your marriage if you don't live it according to the instructions. One of those instructions is precisely what our foundational hymn says: "Thou shalt not commit adultery." The same goes positively: love your spouse! And not only because and when he is lovable, but love him in spite of the fact that... ! Only those who can love "in spite of" love truly love. Loving the other is not always a pleasure, a pleasure, but first and foremost a task! A vocation! In marriage, God calls us to the task of loving the other person anew every day. And whoever asks for it, will also receive the strength to do it.
So, starting from the forgiveness of sins: live with God's gift as He says! You will never regret it! This is how your marriage will become what God intended it to be: a gift, a blessing!
Amen
Date: 27 April 1958.
Lesson
Mt 19,1-11