[AI translation] A few weeks ago, we were discussing the interpretation of the seventh commandment according to the Heidelberg Bible. I announced at that time that I had only got to one half of what the KJV had to say, so I would like to say the other half at a later time. So let me continue now. First of all, listen again to how our ancient creed explains this sentence of the Ten Commandments, "Thou shalt not commit adultery":Question.
Answer. Therefore, all immoral acts, conduct, speech, thoughts and desires are forbidden. Anything that might provoke to this." (Q. 109 - Answer).
Last time - you may remember - the sermon was mainly about marriage, its sanctity and purity. But the seventh commandment does not only refer to the purity of marriage, but to the purity of our whole life in general. God binds this commandment to the conscience not only of those who are already married or about to be married, but also of those who are unmarried. God is not only calling men and women to account here, but also sons and daughters. All, because in the seventh commandment God forbids, in the words of our KJV, 'every immoral act, conduct, speech, thought, and desire, apart from adultery. Anything that might incite to such things." That is, even that which would provoke a man to do so! That is why this is a difficult problem, because man is constantly exposed to influences that could provoke him to all kinds of impure actions and thoughts. After all, we are human beings in the flesh, and the flesh has its own natural desires, needs, instincts - especially in the sexual sphere - and these all demand to be satisfied. So what do we do with them? What do we do with our bodies? Physicality has always been a problem and always will be. So what is the right solution to this problem?
There are two opposing extremes in the views on this. One extreme is the famous "glass of water" theory. According to this theory, satisfying the body's sexual desires is as simple as relieving its thirst. Satisfying an instinct that is purely physiological is an act that is beyond the bounds of right and wrong, just like the heart beating or breathing. According to this theory, sexual problems are not a moral problem. Just as one does not ask whether it is morally right or wrong to drink a glass of water, so it is unnecessary to ask this question in the case of sexuality, since the whole of sexuality belongs to the same plane as drinking water. Instincts must be satisfied, and this satisfaction is a purely physiological, bodily event. I do with my body what I want, or what the instinctive desires of my body demand.
But there is another extreme. According to this, the body is something despicable in man, the body is a harmful thing, a veritable prison for the poor soul, a hotbed of sin. To act out the sexual instincts of the body is the sin of sin. There was a time in the history of the Church when people, out of religious conviction, allowed their bodies to be defiled, as an expression of their contempt for the body. There have been exaggerated people who never washed their feet and were repulsed by the very idea of bathing. By neglecting the body, even by torturing it, by denying all bodily desires, they sought to make their spiritual life as pleasing to God as possible, to force it.
The sexual desires of the body must be set free, because they are natural, says one. The sexual desires of the flesh must be put to death because they are sinful, says the other. Cult of the body on one side, and condemnation of all carnality on the other. So which is right, which is true? Which is the rule for the believer? It was long believed, and many still believe, that the Bible is right for those who despise the body as something inferior and relegate the carnal life to the background for the sake of the soul. Let me say this categorically: this is a big mistake! God's revelation in the Bible does not despise the flesh. The idea that man is made up of an immortal soul and a mortal body comes not from Jesus, not from God, but from Plato, among others.
The anti-bodilism of which Christianity in general is accused has been introduced into the Christian Church's thinking not from the Bible but from Greek philosophy. The Bible does not make such a distinction between body and soul, for the benefit or at the expense of one or the other. The Bible always sees man in his own physical and spiritual reality. A body without a soul is not a man, but a corpse. A soul without a body is not a man, but a phantom. According to the Bible, the physical and spiritual realities in man are distinct but inseparable. It is not as if there is an immortal soul locked in the prison of the body, eager to be released. It is not even possible to draw a line between the body and the soul, the two are so intertwined that it is simply not possible to untangle them. The mysterious depth of the intertwining of the soul and the body in man is shown, for example, by modern hormone theory. Hormones, these quantitatively quite tiny, chemically highly complex particles of matter, influence our spiritual and even mental lives as much as our purely physical ones.
According to the Bible, man is a living person in the physical and spiritual sense, someone created by God for eternity. Man is a spiritual animal with spiritual functions. And just so: person, "I". How far the Bible does not esteem the body inferior to the soul, nothing proves better than the fact that God, the absolute spiritual being, has clothed a part of his spiritual reality in Jesus. Yes, into such a body as we have, and after his death he also raised him up in a body, however mysterious and elusive the quality of that resurrected body, but it was a body. That is to say, God created and redeems the body of man just as he does the soul. God does not redeem souls for eternal life, but human beings, persons who are human in their very physical and spiritual reality. Our bodies have just as eternal vocation as our souls.
This is how the Bible speaks of eternal life, as a certain kind of 'bodily' life - if not bodily life in the physical sense, then pneumatic body, but bodily life. That is why we believe in the resurrection of our bodies with salvation. That is how "materialistic" the Bible is about the body. This is how we can understand God's thought, expressed by the Apostle Paul in our passage, "your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who dwells in you". There can be no higher esteem than this for a body. This body is - think about it - a temple. It is a sanctuary in which God wants to dwell. In my body I carry God, Jesus. My hands, my feet, my eyes, my tongue, my eyes, my heart - my whole bodily being is a banner through which the Spirit of Jesus wants to radiate from within into my surroundings. What a dignity, what a gift, what a task for the body! To those who worship the body, and to those who despise the body, Paul cries out: what are you doing with your body? Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who dwells in you? Temple! Sanctuary! God's. Jesus. Not yours. You can't do what you want with it, you can't ruin it with pampering or oppression. "Since both our body and soul are the temple of the Holy Spirit, God desires both to be kept pure and holy," says the Catechism. If this is so, then all fornication - or, as our KJV details it, all unclean acts, unchaste behaviour, words, thoughts, desires - is in fact temple profanation. Wouldn't it be awful if, for example, horses were tied up or pigs were fattened in this temple? Or how disgusting it would be if we were to turn this house of God into a bar after the service, drinking cocktails from communion pots while the organ played sensual jazz music and mood lighting? Not even people who never go to church would do that to the house of God! And we who love this temple, which is made of stone and is a dead thing in itself, do the same thing to the other temple, which is something much holier than this one, which has an eternal purpose: with our bodies or with the bodies of other people!
We commit temple blasphemy whenever we use or regard our own or another's body as a means of unclean acts or thoughts. If boys and girls, men and women, took the divine dignity of the body with the slightest seriousness, they might shrink back when their blood boils, when hot voices are whispered by the tempter, to defile this great temple of God by unclean acts. Perhaps by unclean gestures, words, thoughts, they would not so lightly poison their souls and imaginations, for that is also temple blasphemy, and it is like blasphemy in the house of God. Then perhaps young people would respect each other's bodies more in their intercourse with each other, perhaps they would not play with fire, with the fires of passion, with immodest, provocative dress, with the showing off of their charms. Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit? Or if you know it and yet you do it, is it not something like what Jesus once said about sinning against the Holy Spirit? Is not conscious fornication a sin against the Holy Spirit? Yes, it is. It is written, "If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will defile it." (1 Cor 3:17)
Therefore our KJV says in the words of the Scripture, "God has cursed all uncleanness!" What does this mean? Perhaps we will understand better if I say it this way: the curse of God is the lack of God's blessing. An act that is unclean before God, or a happiness that is not obtained in a righteous way, not in a straight way, does not have the blessing of God. And that is then a very bitter "happiness". For example, if a man wishes to take his own body out of God's dominion, and thinks he can do with it what he will, because the instincts must be given free rein: he is at a loss, for there will never be freedom from it, but on the contrary, slavery. Instincts taken out of the dominion of God become themselves tyrannical rulers over man, and impel him into a sexual chaos which he himself did not originally want. This is always a tragedy for man who wants to be independent of God. He thinks he has been freed from the bondage of divine law, but he is under a much more tyrannical bondage: the bondage of his instincts and desires. This is the curse of God. This is the absence of God's blessing.
And may be pointed out here the multitude of degenerate children who are a constant, silent, painful indictment of their parents, who in their youth did not sufficiently guard the sanctity of the temple of their bodies. Or to the immense process of suffering that engulfs so many marriages. Or to the oppressed lives of young girls and boys whose lives were shattered before they could unfold. Or the sad symptom that those who infect their bodies and souls with impurity slowly become desensitised to the sacred, to what is truly beautiful and pure. One may point in particular to the passage which says that fornicators cannot inherit the kingdom of God (cf. 1 Cor 6:9-10). Yes, God has cursed all uncleanness.
But that is not the real motive for avoiding uncleanness. It is not fear of God's judgment, but rather what Joseph said at the time, "How then shall I commit this great wickedness, and how shall I sin against God?" (Gen 39:9) Because God hates impurity, so does the godly man. The most profound motive for a holy and pure life is that my body, my soul, is the temple of the Holy Spirit. That for my body, for my soul, Jesus paid a great price. It is not mine. It is His. I cannot treat it according to my desires, my instincts, I am responsible for it. There may be hard battles to be fought sometimes for purity, but the victory is all the greater. Let no one think that this struggle is in vain, even if one stumbles in it sometimes.
As Jesus said, "This is my body... this is my blood." (Mt 26:26-28) He gives man His body and blood, so pure and holy, as food, and with it He offers complete physical victory over all uncleanness. Live by Him," He says. So let us live with him! Let us live in the victory of Jesus, for Christ can be even in our flesh, even in our blood. Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who dwells in you? And do not let anyone think that this is now some sad, resigned way of life, killing the body, killing the desires of the flesh. No! It is not. In fact, it is the way to the true joys of the flesh. After all, the gospel is the gospel in Hungarian. God is not a sad God, but a happy God. Jesus wants to make those who believe in him joyful. The gospel is also good news for the flesh. According to the gospel, eating and drinking are not only for the purpose of keeping the body healthy, but also for the natural joy of bodily life. The purpose of clothing is not only to cover the body, to keep it warm, but also to adorn it. A summer holiday is not only a training ground for new work, but also an opportunity for the body to enjoy the relaxation and playful pleasure it deserves. The sexual instinct was given by God not only as a means of procreation, but also to make joyful the love of two people for each other in marriage. The believer must choose not between the pleasures of sex or abstinence, but between the pleasures of sex sanctified by God or mere excitement. God is the source of all joy. The right thing, therefore, is not to force one's life to be joyless, but to concentrate all one's energy, including sexual energy, on the source of pleasure: God. Yes, that is exactly right: even in their physical life, these are the truly happy ones...
And just one more thing: it is true that all impurity is cursed by God, but impurity that is repented of and confessed from the heart is forgiven by God. Jesus sat at the table with tax collectors, fornicators, sinners. He does the same today. And he says to them, "abide in this my love... that my joy may abide in you and your joy may be full." (John 15:9-11)
Amen
Date: 13 September 1964.
Lesson
Zsolt 119,1-11