adultery – Speaking of Polygamy…

Christians read the Sermon on the Mount wrong. They commit interpretive error in one of two ways. The first, and most nonsensical, error is to say that Jesus, in delivering this sermon, did away with the Law and replaced it with an easier, less burdensome, less strict set of commands. This view might be expressed like: “Ancient Israel was required to keep an endless list of largely meaningless, needless, busywork laws as punishment, but all we have to do now is simply love each other,” or some variation of that. Anyone can clearly see that this interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount is false since Jesus speaks not only of avoiding murder, but of avoiding even anger (a.k.a. murder in your heart). Which is more strict, more difficult? Each will answer for themselves. Speaking personally, I have never struggled with the sin of murder, while anger is another matter (not that I am an angry person generally, but I have been guilty in this regard).

The other error is to say that Jesus gave commands stricter, and more demanding than the Law. This understanding, that the ancient Law is merely concerned with outward performances, is also a misunderstanding. The truth is that the Law of God has always been concerned both with conditions of the heart (or the inner person), as well as outward, observable actions. There are whole books to be written here, but I will briefly expound on Jesus’ teaching about adultery in the Sermon.

“Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” – Matthew 5:27-28

Some might say, “See, Jesus is elevating us to a different, higher law. The Law of Moses was concerned with physical adultery, but Jesus now tells us to avoid even desiring a woman.” The simple rebuttal to this naïve assertion is that Jesus’ comments about lusting after a woman do not constitute a change (neither in substance nor interpretation) to the 7^th commandment (no adultery). Rather, his comments are a reiteration of the 10^th commandment (no coveting)!

In the Law there is no punishment for coveting your neighbor’s wife (committing adultery with your heart). Afterall, how would anyone even know? Meanwhile, actual adultery (committed with your body), was punishable up to death (the penalty being carried out by stoning).

“And the man that committeth adultery with another man’s wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.” – Leviticus 20:10

This brings me to the point I want to make in this post. Jesus, lamenting the wickedness, pride, and hard-heartedness of his people proclaimed:

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee!” – Matthew 23:37

I have observed animosity towards polygamy from certain segments of Mormonism as well as broader Christianity; however, I am also observing an alarming increase (especially among Mormon circles) of those eager to hurl accusations of adultery at those, both past and present (from Abraham forward), who have polygamous families. It is becoming particularly popular to accuse the early Mormon apostles (after Joseph Smith’s death), particularly Brigham Young (but also other LDS presidents/prophets), of both committing and preaching gross wickedness, abomination, whoredom, and adultery in consequence of their stance on plural marriage.

These accusations are of course false (speaking of accusations against plural marriage generally and not against any individual crimes), and those who make false accusations (i.e. bear false witness) bring condemnation upon themselves (see Deuteronomy and Proverbs). What is worse, they also accuse other faithful Mormons of making accusations of adultery against Joseph Smith if they don’t align with their anti-polygamy ideology. Their assertion is that anyone who believes Joseph had more than one wife, is accusing Joseph of adultery, etc. They are falsely accusing believers of bearing false witness (they are bearing false witness of false witness – if you can wrap your mind around that). Of course this is a ridiculous accusation. Those who faithfully believe that Joseph taught and/or practiced plural marriage do not accuse him of adultery – they simply believe that he had multiple marriages. It is the anti-polygamy crowd that has changed the scriptural definition of adultery, slapped that label onto polygamy, then made accusations of accusations with their new and false definitions .

Regardless, these are serious pronouncements to make. According to God’s Law, those guilty of such false allegations (adultery, whoredom, etc.) earn themselves potential capital punishments – because the law for false witnesses is to receive the punishment that their witness would have brought upon the accused. Therefore, those who make such accusations desire to kill the prophets. By their accusations they desire to stone them (this is according to the Law). They have in fact stoned them – in their hearts. Therefore, I say to them:

Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor (for whosoever bears false witness shall receive the punishment affixed): But I say unto you, That whosoever falsely accuses the prophets, has stoned the prophets already in their heart. (a synthesis of Matthew 5:27-28 and Matthew 23:37)

Some months ago I had the opportunity to speak to a small audience. The subject I decided to speak on was the Marriage of Christ and the church, also called the Marriage of the Lamb. I posted the paper associated with my talk below. I hope you will enjoy it, and find it useful. In it I discuss this most important of all marriages from a scriptural perspective and the light that it throws on the atonement of Jesus Christ (or Yeshua Messiah).

I was participating in an online forum where various theories of the atonement were being discussed. The discussion was vigorous and interesting and was continuing much longer than typical discussion threads. I offered the following theory: that the Atonement is about restoring us to our marriage with God. Here is the summary (which I posted in the discussion thread):

We were married to God at Sinai. Then we played the harlot. He tried to convince us to return, but we didn’t. Eventually he divorced us. He still hoped we would come back, but we kept playing the harlot.

After this point, the Law, which he gave, forbade him from taking us back as his wife (see Deuteronomy 24:1-4). Ah, but the Law about marriage only applies to a wife while her husband is alive! Once her husband is dead, she is no longer an adulterer. And, what is more, if her husband comes back to life, then she is free to marry him again, and he is free to take her – he is a new man! (see Romans 7:1-3)

We are very impressed that he would do that to get us back.

So, we are still not married, but we are betrothed (engaged). We are waiting for the groom to come and take us as his wife – to consummate the covenant we have made. We want to know him and he wants to know us.

This idea was received eagerly. Many people had never heard about the Atonement in these terms (they were more familiar with the ideas of Penal Substitution, Ransom Theory, Christus Victor, etc.). Due to the response I received, I posted the same paper as below, which more fully explains this concept of the Atonement, and also why this explanation is relatively unknown (because it flies in the face of Replacement Theology). However, I was a little nervous since this paper takes the scriptural view of marriage, and this discussion group generally considers polygamy to be “the doctrine of devils”. If you are reading this blog you can probably see how these viewpoints will be at odds. However, this paper is not about polygamy per se, so I thought it wouldn’t generate too much controversy.

After a few people read the paper there were more questions generated, generally insightful. Among them was the following:

You touched on how the woman’s marital status is all that matters when determining adultery. Any insights into why that’s important?

I have written a blog post about this topic here, but thought carefully about my response. In the end, I opted to keep it in terms of God and his marriage practices. My response was:

After some thinking of how to answer your last question about adultery and the marital status of the woman, I will say that if the Lord is the husband (or the betrothed) of Israel, then it is adultery on our part to go whoring after other gods. However, it is not adultery on his part if he goes seeking after other nations. He has other sheep in other folds (John 10:16, 3 Nephi 15:11-24), and he is their God also.

It is of note that the heathen gods are limited to one land and one people (the Bible makes mention of this concept repeatedly), but not so with our God. He is the King of kings, Lord of lords, and the ruler of the whole world. Indeed, he has worlds without number (Moses 1:33).

There was no response, and this was the final comment on that thread.

Mystery of Marriage of the Messiah and the New Covenant Download