You Shall Not Commit Adultery - Part I

You Shall Not Commit Adultery

[Hosea 2:2-7] 2 Plead with your mother, plead: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband: let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts; 3 Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and slay her with thirst. 4 And I will not have mercy upon her children; for they be the children of whoredoms. 5 For their mother hath played the harlot: she that conceived them hath done shamefully: for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink. 6 Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths. 7 And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them: then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it bet-ter with me than now.

           
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Thou shalt not commit adultery, says Exodus 20:14. When we read this in the Bible, we think of adultery between a man and a woman. This way of thinking reveals that we have read the word of God as a moral code or criminal clause of man.
While we are still infant believers, there are times when the Word reads to us as such. However, that stage should be only for a short period of time. If we continue to be such infants for thirty or forty years, we cannot say we are saved. 

We should not commit adultery even in the absence of the Bible. Regardless of what we think we should do, however, the adultery in the Bible does not refer to the adultery of this world, but it refers to something spiritual. It is obvious if we think that atheists and believers of other religions also try not to commit adultery even without the Bible. If you think the adultery in the Bible is same with that of the world and other religions, then what is the difference? I mean, what is the particular reason that we have to believe in Jesus? 

We should know that even though the Bible introduces the concept of physical adultery, it is only an expedient for conveying the spirit to the readers. We, therefore, when we read the Scriptures, should not stay at the literal meanings, but we have to find the spiritual meanings of them always.
I will now explain what God wants to talk to us about through the concept of the adultery.

Outline

In Hosea Chapter 1, God speaks to the prophet Hosea as follows: Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the LORD(Hos 1:2b).
So Hosea married Gomer and had the son Jezreel (which means ‘God scatters’), the daughter Lo-Ruhamah (it means ‘no mercy’), and the son Lo-Ammi (meaning ‘not my people’). We can imagine from their names that they are not loved by Him.

In Chapter 2, He speaks to the Israel: “Plead with your mother. She is not my wife and I am not her husband because she has committed adultery. If you do not let her put away her whoredom out of her sight and her adulteries, I will strip her naked and set her like a dry land and slay her with thirst. I will not have mercy on her children.”
The mother of Israel says, “I will go after my lovers who give me my bread, my water, my wool, my flax, my oil, and my drink.”
God then foresees that she will not find her paths and will say, “I will go and return to my first husband for then was it better with me than now.”

Now, I shall explain the following points:
First, what does it mean to play the harlot? It is not what we generally think.
Second, God said to plead with you mother regarding the matter of playing the harlot. And who is this mother? We will be able to plead with her only when we know who she is.
Third, the mother of Israel left God and followed her lovers, and who are these lovers?

What is It to Play the Harlot?

We already know well the act of playing the harlot or the act of adultery. Adultery is defined in the dictionary as sex between a married person and someone who is not their husband or wife. The person who does this kind of act is called an adulterer.
However, the Scripture does not mean this adultery or fornication. As I said, the Scripture explains the spiritual world by borrowing the concept of physical adultery. It likens the relation between God and the Israelites to the relation between the husband and the wife. Read Isaiah below:

For thy Maker is thine husband; the LORD of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called. [Isaiah 54:5]

The people of Israel are the wife of God. He says they are adul-terous and played the harlot, which means that they left God and had sex with other persons. And, of course, the Israelites are us, the believers, the chosen people of God in the spiritual sense.
God says the mother of Israel has committed adultery and He says, “Plead with your mother, plead.”

If the mother has committed adultery, why does God not tell her directly not t? Is it reasonable to tell the children to put away the whoredom from your mother? You may defend yourselves by saying that you are not the mother who committed adultery.
However, God is right. He cannot be wrong. We should thank God for taking off the secret of being born again by allowing the mother to come on stage here.

Who is the Mother?

Who is our mother? The mother is us. We are the mother, and the child of the mother is us, too. I will now explain the reason why we are our mother.
We all recall the dialogue about being born again between Jesus and Nicodemus in John.

3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. 4 Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born? [John 3:3-4]

In this instance, before thinking that Nicodemus was a man of ignorance, we should realize we too, are as ignorant. Because, if we had rightly known about being born again, we would also have correctly identified who the mother was whom God referred to. If we have no idea about who she is, we are asking the same question as Nicodemus, “Can I enter the second time my mother’s womb and be born.”

Jesus speaks about the being born again according to the spiritual meaning. That is, a man can go into the kingdom of God when he is born again. The born again man has to have two beings, one is the ‘self before being born again’ and the other is ‘self after being born again.’
How can the ‘self before being born again’ be born again? Will he have to enter his mother womb again and come out of it? No. Self that is not born again will be born again when he receives the seed of God and gives birth to a child. Therefore, the mother of the ‘me after being born again’ is ‘me before being born again.’ Both of them represent me. Thus, my mother is me.

Whose Seed Does My Mother Receive?

Here is the most crucial part of the passage. We are the wife of God who is supposed to receive the seed of God to be pregnant and deliver the life of Jesus in you. When we deliver the life, we will be saved and born again by the very life we delivered (Mat 1:21, 1Ti 2:15).
The life we deliver is dependant upon the seed we receive. I mean if we receive God’s seed, we will deliver the son of God. If we receive non-God seed, which is called adultery, we will deliver a non-God child. They are not sons of God, and they will be called Jezreel (God scatters), Lo-Ruhamah (No Mercy), Lo-Ammi (Not My People) as mentioned in Hosea Chapter 1.

God says we are adulterous because we receive the seed, which is other than the seed of God. Then, how are we receiving different seed other than of God? We all receive the word of God from the Scripture and without doubt, we keep it as instructed.

Some of us may think like this:
“I, as a Christian, read the Scripture, study it, pray, and experience spiritual gifts and so I am deadly sure that I receive the word of God this way. What else can I do to receive the word? God must be talking to somebody else but me…”
Yes, I agree. All who believe in Jesus will receive the seed from the Scripture, not from the books of other religions. If this is true, then we should have known the meaning of adultery; and would not have repeatedly committing sins and repented of the same; we would not  have thought that the completion of sanctification would come only after death, while leading a laborious and heavy-laden life. Because the Scripture makes us holy as God is and it gives us once-and-for-all forgiveness.

Unfortunately, we are not so.
The reason for this paradox is this. Even though we read the very Scripture, if we fail to understand its spiritual meanings, we have got to receive the superficial and literal meanings of it, which actually are the commandments of men.

For example, regarding the word, thou shalt not commit adultery, if we understand this commandment as physical adultery; we have substantially received the word of men, even though we think we received the word of God. Thus, the Scripture is transformed into the word of men in us unwittingly. Can this word make us pregnant and deliver the new life? No. If so, all those non-believers who did not commit adultery out there would have been born again with the new life. 

Therefore, as long as we read the Scripture in such a fashion, it can never bring us to being born again, and we will remain as sinners regardless of whatever we do in the church. We can see those who sow the commandments of men wrapped up as the word of God, and those who receive the same, are committing the fornication that the Scripture warns of.

This is adultery that we are committing everyday. No wonder our faith in Christ is so powerless. This is the very reason why we are not changed even though we have believed in Jesus for several dec-ades of years. And many people have left and are leaving the church being fed up with the shallow teachings of the church. So sad, they try to seek truth in other religions. Nevertheless, there is no truth, except Jesus.
Now, most of you will think that you are born again. Okay. Then, what kind of seed have you been receiving? Doctrines of men, right? What do you expect your faith, your spiritual child, would be? Don’t tell me you are expecting he would be the son of God. He should be one of the following three: Jezreel, Lo-Ruhamah, Lo-Ammi.

If you think your being born again should be re-looked at, then now is the time for you to plead with your mother not to take the seed of men, but God. Then, you will be able to deliver the son of God, which is the born again you!
Let us look at the father, the seed-giver.



Cont'd.....2

Chung DuckYoung
Pastor
www.fass.kr

Taken from < Fresh Eyes to Read the Bible II >

Last CopyEdit : 7 May 2010