Fornication and Adultery
In many churches in North America, there are many Christians who commit fornication prior to marriage, or by living together outside of marriage, or while under the marriage covenant. At one church function, a single mom walked in with her children and I over heard and elder say to a deacon, "Its OK to look, but not to touch." As the other responded, "I may be old but I am not dead." People in the church, including leaders, do not know what the scriptures say concerning the sins of fornication and adultery. Today the foundation has been sacrificed in order to build a bigger house:
Nevertheless, God's solid foundation stands firm, sealed with this inscription: "The Lord knows those who are his," and, "Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness." (2Ti.2:19)
The very foundation of salvation is not "You are saved, now do your own thing" The foundation of God's salvation is repentance from sin- acts that lead to death:
Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, (He.6:1)
If the foundation is wrong, we place the whole house in jeopardy. If repentance from acts that lead to death is optional in the Christian life, then Christianity has lost a key understanding of what Christ's blood has truly bought:
How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God! (He.9:14)
For the grace that saves us from the penalty of sin also saves us from the power of sin enabling us to be transformed into the character of Christ today:
For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, (Ti.2:11-12)
We have a new mind having our consciences cleansed from acts that lead to death:
But we have the mind of Christ. (1Co.2:16)
Worldly sorrow is being sorry that you have been caught, while Godly sorrow hates the act itself to the point of change. Repentance is a change of mind: from finding sin a pleasurable experience, to finding sin a repulsive extravagance. This change of mind must take place before one is saved:
Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done. At every point you have proved yourselves to be innocent in this matter. (2Co.7:10-11)
The scripture tells us exactly what the act that lead to death are:
Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral (fornicators) nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. (1Co.6:9-11)
These are acts that lead to death because they will not enter the enter the kingdom of God:
Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. (Ga.5:19-21 note Eph.5:3-7)
I am not addressing fornication and adultery because it is socially unacceptable. In fact the opposite is true, fornication has been accepted by the North American and European cultures as being normal. The North American gospel is that "Christ came to save you in your sin" while the Bible teaches us that "Christ came to save us from our sin." I am addressing fornication and adultery because the scripture teaches us that we died to sin- the acts that lead to death:
Shall we go on sinning, so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? (Ro.6:1-2)
If we died to sin how can we live committing fornication and adultery. Those who continue in the sins of fornication and adultery after claiming to have received Christ can only expect one thing:
If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. (He.10:26-27)
The question is not how one starts the Christian life but rather how one ends his Christian experience on earth:
You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. For in just a very little while, "He who is coming will come and will not delay. But my righteous one will live by faith. And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him." But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved. (He.10:36-39)
If a person lives a sacrificial life to Christ then becomes a fornicator or an adulterer it doesn't mean that divorce or remarriage is acceptable to God, it means they returned to their vomit:
If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. Of them the proverbs are true: "A dog returns to its vomit," and, "A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud." (2Pe.2:20-22 note 1Jn.2:19)
Most people ask if a Christian can lose his salvation by a sin that leads to death, but by asking the wrong question you naturally will get a wrong answer. A Christian cannot lose his salvation, but by committing an act the to death he proves he is not a Christian:
Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him. (1Jn.3:15; note 1Jn.3:9)
Going to church and praying the sinners prayer or being baptized does not make one a Christian:
It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace. (He.6:4-6)
It is important to know the difference between tasting and eating regular. When I was a teenager I use to watch police show where sometimes they made a drug bust. The first thing they did was to open one of the packages of white powder, wet their finger and touch the powder then place it against their tongue. They were not a regular user of the drug or an addict, just tasting to see what kind of drug it was. Fornicators and adulterers are just tasting of the goodness of Christianity, but not full of the heavenly gift. Jesus told us:
Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. (Mt.24:12-14; note Mt.10:22)
A person could have a fine start in his Christian life, demonstrating tremendous zeal, then return to their vomit. Satan started right, but he organized rebellion against God, then tempted Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit. Judas started as a disciple of Christ; yet he betrayed him and is now in hell. It is not how you start, it is that you finish:
But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation-- if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. (Co.1:22-23; He.3:14)
Jesus said:
If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. (Jn.15:6)
Therefore fornication and adultery are acts that lead to death, a person who returns to these sins has not lost their salvation, rather they prove they never had it and will suffer hell.
Many Christians are being divorced and being remarried today in the church. For this reason church leaders must heed the scriptural teachings concerning divorce and remarriage. They must act according to scriptural principles in order to prevent this spiritual leprosy from devouring the body of Christ.
It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father's wife. (1Co.5:1)
The man was committing fornication the sin of sexual immorality outside the marriage covenant with his father's wife. The woman was his step-mother formerly married to his father, in this way it was not just sexual sin but adultery as well. Yet how does God require that we should deal with this individual?
And you are proud! Shouldn't you rather have been filled with grief and have put out of your fellowship the man who did this? (1Co.5:2)
The reason why we put the individual out of the realm of fellowship of the church is first to prevent others from following his example, and also to make a statement about the eternal state of this individual- he is outside the saving grace of God:
But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat. (1Co.5:10-11)
The person was not a brother in the Lord, even though he called himself a brother. This is evident when we read that his spirit is not saved:
hand this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord. (1Co.5:5)
The person who committed the sin was not saved spiritually for the person who lives a life of fornication and adultery is still living in the flesh. The Bible clearly teaches us that the flesh has died:
Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. (Ga.5:24-25)
Since the person is still controlled by the sinful nature, he cannot please God and does not belong to Christ:
Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. (Ro.8:8-9)
By not associating with this Christian imposter we are handing him over from the kingdom of God to the kingdom of Satan to dwell in the world
I have written to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people-- not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. (1Co.5:9)
God's mandate to the church leadership is clear, we must judge the sin of the individual to see whether it is incongruent with the life the Scriptures call us to:
What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. "Expel the wicked man from among you." (1Co.5:12-13)
The church leadership must judge, but the must have adequate testimony. If they have only one witness then it is their word against yours; if you have two witnesses you have adequate testimony, but if you have three witnesses you have abundant testimony:
I am afraid that when I come again my God will humble me before you, and I will be grieved over many who have sinned earlier and have not repented of the impurity, sexual sin and debauchery in which they have indulged. This will be my third visit to you. "Every matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses." I already gave you a warning when I was with you the second time. I now repeat it while absent: On my return I will not spare those who sinned earlier or any of the others, (2Co.12:21-13:2)
The Bible teaches us that those who remarry while their spouse still is alive are adulterers, and adulterers cannot enter the kingdom of heaven:
Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral (fornicators) nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. (1Co.6:9-11)
This makes remarriage a matter of eternal consequence:
Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. (Ga.5:19-21 note Eph.5:3-7)
Since remarriage is a matter of eternal consequence, I felt that the length of this paper was justified. Therefore the church must deal with fornication and adultery with clear Biblical teachings on divorce and remarriage, then be willing to put out both the fornicators and the adulterers from the church.