A Biblical Catechism on Sex and Marriage: Sexual Sins: Adultery

[This post continues a series of posts entitled 'A Biblical Catechism on Sex and Marriage'.  The intention is to provide basic material for further instruction by a trusted teacher of God's Word in a church that is committed to Biblical authority.  The Church’s mission is to invite people to live under God’s righteous rule.]

Question 3. What sexual sins are mentioned in the Bible?

Answer: Any sex outside of marriage between a man and a woman is sin.

Comment 1: The following sexual sins can be found in the Bible:

Adultery: sexual desire or acts with another person’s spouse

Genesis 39:9  [When Potiphar’s wife wants to commit adultery with Joseph, he says:]  How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?"

Exodus 20:14  "You shall not commit adultery.  [Note: accusing a wife of committing adultery is explored in Numbers 5.11-31.]

Deuteronomy 22:20-21  But if the thing [i.e., that the wife was not a virgin at the time of marriage] is true, that evidence of virginity was not found in the young woman,  ²¹ then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she has done an outrageous thing in Israel by whoring in her father's house. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

Deuteronomy 22:22  "If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel.

2 Samuel 12:9  [When King David has sex with another man’s wife, kills the man, and then marries the woman, God sends a prophet to him.  The prophet says:]  Why have you despised the word of the LORD, to do what is evil in his sight?  [See the whole story in 2 Samuel 11:1-12:25.]

Proverbs warns repeatedly against adultery.  For example:

Proverbs 5:3-23  For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil,  ⁴ but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.  ⁵ Her feet go down to death; her steps follow the path to Sheol;  ⁶ she does not ponder the path of life; her ways wander, and she does not know it.  ⁷ And now, O sons, listen to me, and do not depart from the words of my mouth.  ⁸ Keep your way far from her, and do not go near the door of her house,  ⁹ lest you give your honor to others and your years to the merciless,  ¹⁰ lest strangers take their fill of your strength, and your labors go to the house of a foreigner,  ¹¹ and at the end of your life you groan, when your flesh and body are consumed,  ¹² and you say, "How I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof!  ¹³ I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my instructors.  ¹⁴ I am at the brink of utter ruin in the assembled congregation."  ¹⁵ Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well.  ¹⁶ Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets?  ¹⁷ Let them be for yourself alone, and not for strangers with you.  ¹⁸ Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth,  ¹⁹ a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love.  ²⁰ Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?  ²¹ For a man's ways are before the eyes of the LORD, and he ponders all his paths.  ²² The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, and he is held fast in the cords of his sin.  ²³ He dies for lack of discipline, and because of his great folly he is led astray.

Cf. Proverbs 2:16-20; 6:23-35; 7:1-27; 9:13-18; 30:20.

Malachi 3:5 "Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the LORD of hosts.

Matthew 15:19  For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.