"You shall not commit adultery” (Ex. 20:14).
We come now to the seventh commandment, ...Before entering into a more minute consideration of it, it will be worth while to consider its place among the ten.
We come now to the seventh commandment, ...Before entering into a more minute consideration of it, it will be worth while to consider its place among the ten.
Did it ever occur to the reader that the order of the commandments is not accidental?
The first reveals God in His essential attribute as the Savior.
The second naturally grows out of this, for “they have no knowledge, who carry the wood of their carved image, and pray to a god that cannot save” (Isa. 45:20).
Then we have, in the third, the assurance and the power of God’s name.
The fourth commandment reveals the name, “for Your wondrous works declare that Your name is near” (Ps. 75:1). It shows the Lord at work and at rest; and when we see His works understandingly, we learn His ways, and enter into His rest.
From the contemplation of God as Creator, we are now brought to consider Him as Father. He is the Universal Father, and human parenthood is the revelation of God working through the flesh. From the honor due to our parents, we are to learn the reverence due to God, the Supreme Father of all.
As the life transmitted from father to son is God’s life, the sixth commandment is designed to guard its sacredness.
Then we come to the seventh commandment, which also emphasizes the sacredness of life in showing that it must be kept pure and unadulterated.
The first reveals God in His essential attribute as the Savior.
The second naturally grows out of this, for “they have no knowledge, who carry the wood of their carved image, and pray to a god that cannot save” (Isa. 45:20).
Then we have, in the third, the assurance and the power of God’s name.
The fourth commandment reveals the name, “for Your wondrous works declare that Your name is near” (Ps. 75:1). It shows the Lord at work and at rest; and when we see His works understandingly, we learn His ways, and enter into His rest.
From the contemplation of God as Creator, we are now brought to consider Him as Father. He is the Universal Father, and human parenthood is the revelation of God working through the flesh. From the honor due to our parents, we are to learn the reverence due to God, the Supreme Father of all.
As the life transmitted from father to son is God’s life, the sixth commandment is designed to guard its sacredness.
Then we come to the seventh commandment, which also emphasizes the sacredness of life in showing that it must be kept pure and unadulterated.
Christ’s words in the sermon on the mount, show the spirituality of the commandment: “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” (Matt. 5:27, 28). Christ was not adding anything to the commandment which He Himself had given; He was revealing the breadth and depth of it."
E.J. Waggoner
