Sermon on the Mount #15- Adulterers! Tear Out Your Right Eye and Cut Off Your Right Hand! (I)
Matthew 5:27-32
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. 31 “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32 But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
If I were to tell you the two most dangerous ways to interpret the Bible, one is a literal interpretation which looks at it superficially and the other is the transcendental attitude. The first one is literally interpreting the Bible like the dispensationalists and trying to substitute and to apply the entire word of the Bible into history and life. The second one is considering the entire content of the Bible as sacred and disconnecting it from people’s daily lives in history.
The common denominator of those who support the first interpretation method is their selfishness to look for what is beneficial to them. So for sure they use the Bible for what is advantageous to them. For example, the just war theory slogan to justify the atrocity of the Nazis was like that, and men’s literal application of the Bible is considerably selfish, as seen in the case of a government or a company quoting verses that say ‘obey those who are in authority’, when accusing the people or unions of their collective actions as a criminal behavior. This is the helpless demonic nature of men. As such, literalists can only lean towards a downright humanistic interpretation.
In the case of the latter, by sanctifying the word of God and making it taboo as the teaching of a sacred transcendent being, they conclude all we can do is just repent and pray, hiding in the shadow of the sacred being who decreed it. This is their attitude. Simply speaking, it is a method of unfaithfulness disguised in the resignation that the Bible will not and cannot affect our daily routines and deeds in our life. In another word, it is a Gnostic interpretation. Do you think it’s really like this? Do you think the Bible is something God, like a devil in hell swinging a horrendous whip, threw at us saying, “You’d better listen to me or I will send all of you to hell; you’d better keep it all or I will kill all of you and send you all to hell”? Is this the Bible? Or is it a sacred taboo that is completely disconnected from men? Then, what is Jesus doing on the top of the mountain here? Then, why are these disciples up there listening to Jesus? Do you think Jesus is over issuing the Sermon on the Mount to brag about His transcendental sacredness to the disciples who forsook everything and followed Him to listen to the teaching of the Son of God on the mountain when it’s something they cannot even approach and keep? Like “I’m teasing you~”? Both are wrong.
The word of God is beyond what can be literally or allegorically interpreted. Jesus is not talking about this kind of analytical issue here but His topic of discussion is about identifying Himself as the life, the core in completion of the commandments, and about a message for our true spiritual growth, so that we who are a new creation can no longer wonder about what is outside of life.
Definitely, the Bible will work within us with its power. Some may say the Bible has nothing to do with us and we will only sin and leave this world. But that is absolutely not true. If so, the cross of Jesus and what He did in this word will completely be nothing. Please do not misunderstand me. I am not speaking of the influence of the word as a mere catalyst in becoming a decent human being like the people of the world may say. It is not that kind of influence. Wouldn’t the world view and value system change as you come to know God, the kingdom of God, and men through the word? And by such a value system, your code of behavior is determined. I am talking about this kind of directivity and orientation.
In that perspective, let’s study the issue of adultery and divorce in today’s text. I will give you a picture of the overview today and will explain verse by verse in detail next time. Those who have been reading the Bible with Jesus Christ and the cross as its core would immediately realize these verses are not simply about social issues on banning adultery and divorce. Do you think Jesus would talk about banning these kinds of trivial social problems that are already in the Code of Hammurabi in that precious time? As I told you last time, Jesus is explaining the second half of the Ten Commandments here. If you read the Ten Commandments, you can see that God attached an explanation to the first five commandments. But from the sixth commandment, it ends after only listing the titles. Here on the top of the mountain, where He is giving the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is attaching an explanation to those commandments, starting from the sixth one. Isn’t Jesus the one to fulfill the Ten Commandments or the law? God gave the commandments and Jesus Christ the Son comes down to earth and completes the explanation of them. And He is fulfilling them on the cross. You’ve got to look at it with this perspective.
All of the Ten Commandments are summed up as one. What is it? “Human beings, you are not God. I am God. So do not serve idols!” All ten are about this. “Human beings, you are not God. You are disillusioned to think you have become like God after eating the fruit of good and evil, aren’t you? But you are not.” The idol the Ten Commandments are talking about is you. It is you. It is me. It is not ‘Baal’ or ‘Ashera’, which does not even exist. “Men, you are not God. Come to your senses!” This is what the Ten Commandments are about. That is why the first five commandments are about “Do not serve an idol, do not call my name in vain, keep the Sabbath holy, and Honor me because I am your father.” Like this, the commandments about serving God come out first and the Sermon on the Mount, which begins with “you shall not murder”, is explaining what the people of God, who must only serve and praise God, should do to only depend and serve God in the history of this world. I explained to you last week about murder, that it is not simply about killing a man but it is ‘me’ who killed the man called Jesus and Jesus who was murdered by me embraced me and brought me to perfect life only by grace. In believing so, I no longer live a life that insults His death on the cross. Isn't not believing it and feeling guilty lost in sin again killing Jesus all over again? What would Jesus do when that happens? He would say, “Do not murder, I have already died,” It is about this. That word means ‘do not slaughter.” This is what it means when He said, “Do not murder. Do not call your brother a fool”. Jesus is the only brother. However, the Pharisees, the legalists, the men, and the world called Jesus a fool. They came all the way to the cross and called Him ‘raca’. “You idiot!”
And ‘go and reconcile with your brother’ is about what our relationship with Jesus Christ is all about. It is not simply about “Do not call your brother an idiot or I will send you to hell.” Is it really so, people? Is there anyone here who has ever reported a brother for cursing you? Who? If you do that you will be criticized by the police. They would criticize you for suing for something like that when they are really busy. Then would the Bible be talking about that kind of stuff? It is not simply that cursing your brother is the same as killing him so you should try to refrain from cursing. What are you going to do about the cursing that stirs up in your heart? God sees even that.
The Bible does not determine only what is acted out as sin. That is why the Sermon on the Mount is all about digging into your heart, saying it is also a sin. God considers what is acted out and what is in the heart as the same. You may think “what is this?” Well, it is what it is. That is the Bible. Men will never agree to this because they will never let go of what they can achieve by working on and trying hard. Do you know why Jesus keeps digging into the heart of men and points out this is sin and that is sin? Do you know why He keeps pointing them out? God is pointing out the fundamental sin in an ontological perspective. The Sinners, whose existence in itself is sin and who are made of sin, are working hard to bring out something that is not sin and playing God saying, “Aren’t we doing great?” How can God leave them alone and let them be? That is why He sends the Holy Spirit and persistently teaches us what sin is, what judgment is, and what righteousness is till the end. “Do you know the real sin?” That is why only the saints who received the Holy Spirit get to live a painful life, due to that despicable sin. Others do not know what sin is. They only think sin is breaking the social laws or moral and ethical codes.
As I said last week, God is someone who exposes sins that men do not realize or hide even by mobilizing the law. That way, they can surrender before grace. People, please think carefully about it. Do weeds grow back up if you cut them off above the root when weeding or not? Don’t they spring up again? In the army, I got a good beating for pulling out only leaves and not the root because I thought I only had to cut the top. But for real, when I went back to see, they grew back. They may be called weeds for this reason. If the root is still alive, weeds can spring up even after 10 years or 20 years. Legalism is when men brag about themselves saying, “I am this kind of man” as they diligently cut off the leaves while leaving the root intact. Let’s say the top part was cut off and green leaves did not spring up for ten years. However, on the eleventh year, a little bit of green leaves came up but they were cut off immediately. Even so, do you think the root is dead? The Bible is pointing this out. God does not praise the duration of how long you held in saying, “You have done well for waiting it out for ten years” but points out, “See, you still have the root inside you” even if the bud is immediately cut off soon after coming up. But we keep cutting the top green leaves, our own good works, and say, “This should be good enough.” The Bible digs out the root. That is why you must be pained when the word is spoken. Jesus keeps pointing out even what is in the heart of men who misunderstand that only regulating one’s actions is law keeping.
I will give you an example. “Do not lust after wealth. Love of money is the root of all evil.” This is what the Bible says. Someone who knew this word well did a QT with this verse, determined not to love money, and went out to the field to work. After working in the field a while, something got caught in his plow. So he pulled it out and opened it. It was money, over 10 million dollars worth. Didn’t it really happen in Gim-jae, Jeollabuk-do? Someone there who ran a gambling site hid the money in a garlic field because he did not know what to do with the money. 11 Million dollars in new hundred dollar bills came out while plowing the field. But he did a QT in the morning on ‘love of money is the root of all evil’. So he carried the money on his tractor and went to the police station because he is a Christian. He said, “Even though there is over ten million dollars before me and no owner, I must take it to the police because I did QT this morning and received grace” and went on.
While going, he thinks about his cabbage field he abandoned because he could not pay for field workers. He thinks of the college tuition for his son who brought honor to his family by entering a college and how his son is working a part time job to pay for it. His mother who needs to go to a hospital comes into his mind. That is when he looks back and thinks for a short moment how all these problems will be solved if he only had 1/100 of that money. But he says, “No. That is not mine so I must take it to the police” and takes it to the police. Do you think God would call this man righteous? Absolutely not! People, God does not care if the greed in that man came out as an action or not. That greed came up even if it was for a short moment because something still was in him as a root. God pulls that out. You can have that ten million dollars. Honestly speaking, who takes it to the police when ten million dollars came out from a garlic field and no one saw it? If I say this, only I become a bad guy but who would not want to keep it? The Bible is saying if you wanted it, it is the same as having kept it. Even if you did not touch a penny of it, if you looked back and thought how nice it would be if it were mine for a moment, it is the same sin as having kept all ten million dollars. This is something legalism and humanism cannot understand, isn’t this? But the Bible clearly says it like this. And God is asking, “How are you going to resolve this?” That’s when we have no other way for us than to go to the cross.
Someone who lies a lot can stop lying for 20 years. He may lie once in 20 years and stop for another 20 years. God does not praise those years he does not lie but points out “See. You still have the root inside you.” Only the saints hear this voice. God does not think special of those remaining years the saints lived out well. That is why the saints are in pain. Do you think the Apostle Paul lied a lot? Do you think he committed adultery or robbery? But why would he call himself ‘the worst of all sinners’? The worst of all sinners means the leader of all sinners. It means he is the Satan, people. What sin must he have committed? The self-realization of the saints will eventually end up there. Going to “That is why I need Jesus” is the final destination of the saints’ life of faith. So now, we can easily see that ‘Do not commit adultery. Even having an adulterous thought in your heart is committing adultery’ is not about simply urging us to control our heart since having an adulterous thought in our heart is committing adultery for which we will be stoned to death. There is no one under heaven that can perfectly control his heart. Through this word, Jesus is declaring, “You have committed adultery and are still committing adultery.”If this word literally is a warning against physical adultery, we cannot preach the gospel in brothels and red light districts. And divorced people should not come to church. Isn’t it so? How can we bring those who committed what God absolutely forbids even in thoughts? How can we preach the gospel to them if we interpret this literally? If so, we can only say, “You are going to hell anyways so just live just as you are and go to hell.” What can we do? Jesus said He came to call the sinners. He said, “I did not come to call the righteous. I came to call the sinners.” Let’s resolve this dilemma step by step. In order for us to discuss on the issue of adultery and divorce, we should first know the stories about marriage as the Bible defines. We must know what the marriage the Bible speaks of is in order to know what adultery and divorce, which the Bible forbids, are. The very first wedding in the Bible comes out in Genesis. Let’s go to Genesis 2:21.
Genesis 2:21-25
So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made[a] into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”[b]24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. (this is marriage) 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
Sleep in the Old Testament often is a metaphor for death. It is symbolizing death. In Chronicles, it says the kings went into sleep when they died. This is the same word. Sleep metaphors death. This is the meaning of Adam’s sleep in Genesis 2- death. It says that Jesus became the first fruit of those who are asleep when He resurrected. Sleep there means death. To Hebrews, sleep indicates death.
A bride is born through the death of a groom and with what belongs to the groom as an ingredient. There is nothing of a woman. There is none. Before the man falls asleep, there is no woman. Right? That is why a man is ‘ish’ and a woman is ‘ishshah’. Ishshah means someone that came out of a man ‘ish’. How does the husband recognize the bride? He says she is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. It means you are me. You are me. This is a declaration of seizing where the existence of the bride is immersed into the groom. That is why he is saying you are bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. That is the groom’s recognition of the bride. What the groom is saying is what the Creator is saying- “You cannot be a living being without me.”
There is no shame between those two. Right? No matter what embarrassing things the bride does, the groom embraces all. Why? The bride is what the groom created. That is why there is no shame. That is why it says they were both naked but were not ashamed. Originally, this is how we should be before God. It is total dependence and trust. Thus, there is no shame. Let’s say you committed sin after believing in Jesus. For those who do not even feel guilty are not even human but you should soon come to the Gospel and go, “God, you will not look at this as my shame.” If you keep on pulling out your hair and saying, “How could I do this?” you would become like Judah. It is like hanging yourself saying, “I will be responsible for my own sin.” This is being Satan. There is no shame. Knowing that my groom is a great love that embraces all my weakness and faults no matter how bad they are is called reconciliation. That is total dependence and trust.
The ministry of the cross of Jesus Christ is foretold in the story of the birth of a bride in Genesis. The covenant of “The wedding banquet will be completed by the work of a man leaving his parents and becoming one with a woman” is in there in Genesis 2. Here, Adam is the man and Eve is the woman. Adam is the very first human being and he does not have parents. But the word parents come out here. What is being depicted here? It is incubating a story of Jesus who left God His parents and came to the world to create His bride. And Paul cites this and talks about Jesus and the church, right? From Genesis 2, the story of Jesus and the church is being continued. What would be the marriage perspective of the brides who understand such marriage relationships and their perception of the groom? “I could not even exist without him. Since I am a member of the groom’s body, I must exist for the glory of his body.” This must be their perception of marriage and the groom. But what would happen if the bride who is born by the death of the groom begins to keep her own individual self-ego and pursues her own individual achievements and merits? We saw this in Genesis 2. A man leaving his parents and becoming one body with a woman is marriage and a wedding. It is the union of the people of God and Jesus the lamb. The Bible is explaining here that this is what marriage is. It is explaining this to us using the concept of marriage, which does not even exist in heaven.
If the bride tries to keep her own individual autonomous self-ego saying, “Why should I live depending on you? I will eat the fruit of good and evil and become like God”, the relationship of the one body will break apart. This is separation. Right? This is separation. The Bible calls this divorce and adultery. They are not simply some kind of dirty physical things. Being separated from the groom, not being able to totally depend on the groom, and thinking she can exist as an individual without the groom is called divorce, the separation, and it is called adultery. The Bible is saying not to do this because it is being separated from the groom.
What happens if a branch falls off from the tree? It dies. If a branch says I want to bear my own fruit and comes off the tree, it dies. And what is He going to do with it after gathering it? Jesus says He will throw it into the fire and burn. But we think this is something praise-worthy. Isn’t this the cry of today’s healthy church shouting “Let’s work on it!”? Therefore, the adultery and divorce the Bible talks about are all the attempts and works made by the brides to prove their independence, ignoring the gospel of grace and pursuing legalism and humanism. This is adultery. This is divorce. It is the declaration of independence by the members saying “I will fall out from the body and become my own independent being!”, and the members who must exist for the body trying to secure their own independence. Jesus explains this attempt to separate from Jesus Christ the groom in an easy picture in John 15. Let’s look at verse 4.
John 15:4-6
Abide in me (Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, abide in me. That is how you become a living being), and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.
This is the divorce and the reality of adultery that Jesus is talking about. He is saying we must learn how ignorant and reckless it is for a branch to pursue separating from Jesus and declaring independence from the relationship with the groom, with whom it must exist as one body. This is an important thing that we must experience through our lives and through history. As we go through this, we will go down to the point of knowing, “I am such a dirty slut who only lives for my own worth of existence, my own satisfaction, and my own pleasure. I am Gomer the prostitute.”Isn’t it so? Even with our life of faith, we only live for ourselves. We breathe for ourselves and eat only for ourselves. Is there anyone who drinks water for the glory of God and sleeps for the glory of God? We live for ourselves till the day we die. What did it say that is? It is adultery and divorce. So who am I? I am Gomer the prostitute. Once this confession comes out from you and you are hung like a rag in the market place, Jesus goes there to buy you with one and a half homers of barley and fifteen shekels of silver, which is a total of thirty shekels of silver. This is the book of Hosea. What is another name for Hosea? What is Hosea in Hebrew? It is Jesus.
But do you realize this? As you learn the Bible, did you go down to that place? Or did you participate in making your worth even greater? You wanted to become better than others by keeping the word well and could not stand the word coming into you and exposing you. But what the Bible is requiring of us or what God is requiring of us is the opposite of this. That is why Revelation, the last book in the Bible, is ending with the wedding banquet of the lamb. We are exposed as Babylon, the adulterous woman, and Jesus with a white robe goes and looks for that slut. That is why the Bible, which begins with a wedding banquet from Genesis 2, ends with a wedding banquet. As such, history is a tool to prove how God makes a bride out of this slut-like history and the lives of Adams. Please look at Revelation 19:7-8.
Revelation 19:7-8
Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; 8 it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure”— for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.
What do you call the duration between Genesis and the wedding banquet in Revelation in verse 7? It is preparation time for the bride. History is the preparation time for the bride. How does she ready herself? What does it say in verse 8? What does the bride wear? Does she wear a bright and clean robe on her own or is it being granted for her to wear? It is in a passive voice. The robe is put on her. Who puts it on her? The groom puts it on her. And then the groom calls the robe her righteous deed. Not a righteous deed that we discerned and determined by the knowledge acquired from eating the fruit of good and evil, but there is a righteous deed that the groom acknowledges. What does Jesus call this in John? Let’s go to John 6:28-29.
John 6:28-29
Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?”(What must we do to do the right thing? What righteous deed must we do to receive eternal life?) 29 Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”
What is the righteous deed a bride must do during her life in history? It is just one thing- believing in Jesus. She must believe “The groom created me” and go. She does not go after maturing more as a better person than others or having become worthy of being a bride, but pursues confessing, “I cannot even exist without the groom. I am just a slut.” Without this robe, or faith, which a bride must wear, she cannot enter the wedding banquet.
Like this, the beginning and the end of the Bible is set up with an event called a wedding banquet and it is filled with content that reinforces and explains the wedding banquet. I told you this is a literacy device called inclusio. There is a bun on both sides and the inside reinforces and explains the bun. The Bible is all about the wedding banquet. For this reason, the first commandment God gives after creating Adam and Eve was ‘be fruitful and multiply.” Man cannot be fruitful and multiply by himself. Snails can because they are hermaphrodites. Man cannot. That is why it is given to a couple. I explained to you in detail what ‘be fruitful and multiply’ means when I lectured on Romans. Who is fruitful and who multiplies? Jesus is and Jesus does. It is about the cross. God continually tells Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to be fruitful and multiply. “Your descendents will be as many as the stars in heaven and the sand on earth. This is being fruitful and multiplying. Jesus completes this and gives it to them as a gift.
God making a man and a woman and saying, “be fruitful and multiply’ is His marriage proposal to human beings, His people and His bride. I will absolutely have Jesus born from you. He is talking about this. ‘Be fruitful and multiply’ does not mean ‘have many children’. It is God’s marriage proposal of “I will for sure marry you and we will give birth to Jesus.” This comes out in Hosea 2:19.
Hosea 2:19-20
And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. 20 I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord.
It says, “Once I marry you, you will know the Lord.” The Lord (Jehovah) is another name for God who proposes. ‘You shall know the Lord.” What did I say that the word know, ‘yada’, means? It means sleeping together as in “Adam knew Eve his wife.” ‘Yada’ means to ‘know’. It is the same word. What did I say sleeping together means? It is unity. A union between a married couple. It means “I will marry you and unite you as my bride. This is what “be fruitful and multiply" means.
The bride must be united with God and immersed into Him, who is the life, and this is the salvation of the saints. But when the bride forgets her original place and comes out from the union and wants to claim and build her autonomous individuality, it is divorce. This is adultery. God created history to marry us and to unite with us and we are to realize while we live in this history that “Unless God pulls me to Him, I will only end up leaving God and be adulterous and become fuel for hell after divorcing God." That is why we only hold onto God. This is called Christianity. You would feel ashamed once you declare your own independence from the groom, God, with whom you were one body and dissension occurs from divorcing and committing adultery. That is why as soon as Adam and Eve, the bride, ate the fruit of good and evil to keep their independence and their individual self-ego, they became ashamed. Even in a couple’s relationship, they may feel okay showering together when things are okay but when they fight, they will scream “How dare you come in” and throw things at each other if the other person walks in while changing clothes. I am not talking about my own household. Something like this will happen. They feel ashamed because dissension occurred. And what do they do? With their own effort and labor, with fig tree leaves, they diligently cover their shame. Jesus later explains that fig tree leaves are works of the law. Salvation is God coming to His bride and ripping off her dress and clothing her with His robe. Salvation is clothing her with His righteousness and covering her with His robe. Apostle Paul explains reconciliation in a union between a husband and a wife, or the wedding banquet of the church and the lamb, like this in Ephesians 5:22-32.
Ephesians 5:22-32
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. (There are people who read up to this point and scold their wife. They must read what comes after this.) 25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, (All the words included in the new covenant come out here) 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.[a] 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”(This is what comes out in Genesis 2. What does it say?) 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
He says all these things about a husband and a wife and says these are all about the church and Jesus the lamb. The reason God allowed a husband and a wife relationship, which does not even exist in the kingdom of God on this earth, is to teach how a groom called Jesus Christ created and loved a bride called the church. Therefore, husbands should diligently love their wife and learn the limitations of the groom in flesh and greatness of the spiritual groom. For that to happen, you must love her with all your life, even if it is hard. And wives, you must do all you can to obey your husbands and realize the impossibility of the wife in flesh saying, “How thankful I am to my husband for living with a person like me and not divorcing me.” Like this you should realize your limitations and learn the grace of Jesus, who holds onto us forever and never divorces us despite how we are. For this to happen, both sides must do his and her best to each other. You must do this for you to be able to truly praise Jesus and realize how hard this is. Is life hard for you? It needs to be for you to deeply realize the grace of Jesus. It means you are going the right way. Please do not say, “what a misfortune that I met someone like that.” Please do not forget that you get to realize grace more deeply because of that.
Setting that aside, the fundamental meaning of adultery the Bible talks about is a condition of spiritual ungodliness where the dimension of God’s life is discharged into or mixed with that of the earth. Therefore, for a saint to be set free from the spiritually adulterous condition and its pain, being immersed into the dimension of God’s life must take place first. If the word of the Bible becomes the law, regulations, ethics, and morals, you will fall into a false realization that your will and works to keep the word are necessary conditions for salvation. If so, you will try to win and prove and build your autonomy again. If you read the Bible as something you must act out, you will commit adultery through that Bible. And you will get to divorce. That is why Jesus cried and in tears shouted to Jerusalem, the bride who was trying hard to keep the word, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, my bride, my bride! That is not it. That is not it!” Therefore, the saints need a shift in recognition of the Bible, where they can read out the reality of the completion of their existence, praising God’s grace and dedicating themselves for His glory, and no longer see the Bible as a regulation or as a basis for judgment and condemnation. His sovereignty as the king of grace does not leave you to be unfaithful like that. That is why in the Bible, the story of the adulterous woman comes out like how the law was given on Mount Sinai. Do you know what decalcomania is? If you put some paint here and fold it in half, the exact same picture comes out on the other side. The story is being pictured just like that. Where does the story of the adulterous woman come out? It comes out in John 8. Let’s go there. Let’s read from the last verse, verse 53 in John 7. The story of the adulterous woman is in a bracket starting from there.
John 7:53- 8:11
53 [[They went each to his own house, 8 1 but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. 3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst 4 they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. 5 Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” 6 This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7 And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. 9 But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. 10 Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11 She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”]]
John 7 is about Jesus going into Jerusalem, the old temple, and shattering the law and constancy of the Jews, who are represented by the old temple. And the story of the adulterous woman is attached to this. The word adultery in the story of the adulterous woman is the same word Jesus used in the Sermon on the Mount. The story of the adulterous woman is our story. If you understand this well, it becomes clear what “you shall not commit adultery” means. In chapter 7, Jesus shatters Sabbath, explains the true meaning of circumcision, and denies the feast of tabernacle. He is denying the law and the seasons of Israel. As He denies the rituals the Jews practiced in the feast of tabernacle, He says He is the living water. That is chapter 7. I am the living water.
During the feast of tabernacle, two candles were set up in the temple. This represents the light, man-made light. And they diligently drew water and continuously poured water on the altar. So Jesus is saying, “I am the light. I am the water. I am the living water. Even if you make that synthetic light and synthetic water, you will never be saved by that.” This is why He goes up in the feast of tabernacle and says “I am the water, the living water. I can bring you to life. The law cannot give you life.” He is denying the law the old temple. However, they were still trusting the law, the temple, and their own works. What do you call this? I said leaving Jesus, who is the groom, and keeping their independent and individual self-ego is adultery and divorce. So chapter 7 is the appearance of the Jews, who are diligently divorcing and committing adultery and who are now in the state of being divorced. And the story of the adulterous woman is attached to this. I said chapter 7 is about legalistic behavior happening in the temple of Jerusalem and a warning against it and how does this story end? At the end of chapter 7, it says they each went to his own house. Here the word each is ‘hekastos’ and it means everyone. You know the word ‘oikos’ as ‘house’ but it means house of men, house of idols, the temple of idols. They diligently kept the Sabbath, went up to the old temple, and practiced religious works and observed the feast. They kept the law. And afterwards, where do they each go back to? Each of them is going back to the temple of idols. Everyone is. It is saying whatever they were doing was idol worship. What do the Ten Commandments call this? It calls this adultery. When those who must love God serve idols and finally return to the temple of idols, this is adultery. That is why the story of an adulterous woman is attached to this as an episode. Each of them is going to his own house, and house is the temple of idols and the true identity of the old temple. So they are going home but where does Jesus go to? Jesus is going to the Mount of Olives. The Mount of Olives is a mountain east of the city. Where did we see this? We saw this in Ezekiel. Where does the glory of God go after leaving the old temple? It goes to the mountain east of the city and in chapter 43, it comes back from the east to the new temple. And in the mean time, the story of measuring the temple is in there. “Only wish if you’ve ever read all these…” It’s talking about this here. That is why Jesus, who is the true temple, leaves the old temple, goes to the Mount of Olives in the east of the city and comes back to the temple when everyone is going to each one’s oikos, the temple of idols. It is the same story as in Ezekiel. “I will explain the episode where God newly creates the new temple and declares it good in His eyes and then goes back in there. In the old temple, I, who is the new temple, will explain how this old temple must be destroyed and how you will become my bride.” This is the story of the adulterous woman. Let’s read this once from verse 1.
John 8:1-11
but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. 3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst 4 they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. 5 Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” 6 This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7 And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. 9 But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. 10 Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11 She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”
The reason I read it twice is because the entire story of salvation is embedded in this story. If you understand this story well, you will not be moved by other stories. Let’s look for what is in verse 1 and 2 in Ezekiel. Please look at Ezekiel 11:23-24.
Ezekiel 11:23-24
And the glory of the Lord went up from the midst of the city (The old temple) and stood on the mountain that is on the east side of the city (The Mount of Olives). 24 And the Spirit lifted me up and brought me in the vision by the Spirit of God into Chaldea, to the exiles. Then the vision that I had seen went up from me.
Ezekiel 43:1-5
Then he led me to the gate, the gate facing east. 2 And behold, the glory of the God of Israel was coming from the east. And the sound of his coming was like the sound of many waters, and the earth shone with his glory. 3 And the vision I saw was just like the vision that I had seen when he[a] came to destroy the city, and just like the vision that I had seen by the Chebar canal. And I fell on my face. 4 As the glory of the Lord entered the temple by the gate facing east, 5 the Spirit lifted me up and brought me into the inner court; and behold, the glory of the Lord filled the temple.
The glory of God is in full inside you. It is full because the Holy Spirit is in you. Do not be intimidated. When the Holy Spirit is in you, it is not in you 10% or 20%. The complete God came and is inside you. Then, you are full of the glory of the Lord. It means you are the new temple. Life of faith is learning how the glory of the Lord is inside you again. You and the Lord are in union as one body in a marriage relationship. We are learning through the Bible, our lives, and our experiences how this marriage relationship is established. The glory of God leaves the temple of the law, the old temple, because it was not worthy of God’s glory. After the glory of God leaves, the new temple is established. The new temple is to be built and someone who measures the temple comes out. And He measures it in detail. “Is it really built just as the measurements and with the ingredients given and told by God?” Like this, it is measured one by one. And then He says, “Oh~ it is built perfectly.” Then, the glory of God goes in there and never leaves forever. How does that measuring take place in our lives? If you go to Revelation, the event of measuring the temple in Ezekiel is repeatedly written in words easier for us to understand. Shall we go there? Let’s look at Revelation 21:9-10.
Revelation 21:9-10
Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues and spoke to me, saying, “Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.” 10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God,
In Ezekiel, it was measuring the city, the temple, but here what is that city called? It is called “His bride”. Then, it is talking about us. (Is it difficult, people? It is not, right? Think fast and either stay put in your original church or go somewhere else.) Here it is called the bride and the holy city of Jerusalem. But what kind of Jerusalem? It is called the new Jerusalem. And it is measured and they are all numbers like 12, 12, 12, 144, and 1000. Please look.
Revelation 21:11-17
having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. 12 It had a great, high wall, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel were inscribed— 13 on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. 14 And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. 15 And the one who spoke with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city and its gates and walls. 16 The city lies foursquare, its length the same as its width. And he measured the city with his rod, 12,000 stadia.[a] Its length and width and height are equal. 17 He also measured its wall, 144 cubits[b] by human measurement, which is also an angel's measurement.
As you can see, the new temple, which the glory of God comes down and covers up, is God’s bride the church. Originally, the glory of God cannot come into Adam of the flesh. That is why you must experience life in the state where the glory of God left, even when you are saved. That is why you time to time experience things that make you say, “Why is God leaving me alone? Is God rejecting me? Is God being silent?” God is not someone who is with you to help your life in this history. God’s work is not helping you mature in the status of being praise by others and molding your character. God is saying “Trust my grace by experiencing where you end up at if the glory of God leaves you and experiencing what kind of existence you will be exulted to when His glory returns.” He is telling you to come immersed into His life. This is the substance of the life of faith.
As such, determining whether the bride, to whom the true glory of God will enter and unite, is qualified to be a bride is what temple measuring is. What are all the measurements when the temple is measured? 12X12X12X10X1000. 12X12 which equals to 144. If you go to Revelation 7 or 14, what is the bride? It is also called 144,000 for this reason. It is not that only 144,000 people will be saved like the Jehovah’s Witnesses say. How ignorant to say such a thing. What is 12? I told you it is a number for God’s sons. 12 sons of Jacob. That is why there is a scene of Jesus, the Son of God and the true temple, beating down the Old Temple when He was twelve years old. Not 11, or 13 but at the age of 12. It’s all 12. 12 apostles and 12 tribes. What did I say 12 apostles and 12 tribes were? They are the appearance of the saints who became the sons of God by entering into the true Son of God and His work. It is grace. Therefore, if grace does not come out no matter what part of the bride is measured or if something is added, even 1mm to grace, then she is disqualified. The glory of God cannot enter there. Therefore, you are to hold onto the grace in this world, not add something to it.
So, how is this relevant to the story of the adulterous woman? “Being built only by grace” is like a relationship of Adam and Eve, where Eve, who was freely created by grace in Adam, confesses “You are right to say that I am bone of your bones and flesh of your flesh. I could not have been born without you.” This is called a righteous relationship. But adultery is when you do not realize this and be like Adam and Eve, who ate the fruit of good and evil, trying to prove how great you are by substituting the word of God with things like the law, morals, and ethics. That is why the story of the adulterous woman is attached here. So this is a story about us.
After symbolically acting out the appearance of God’s glory returning to the new temple, Jesus sits down in the temple court. This place is called the temple. Right before this happens, the banquet of the adulterous prostitutes, or the old temple committing adultery, was pictured in chapter 7. That was the appearance of legalism. Jesus is sitting on that temple. He means to crush it down. When He does this, the legalists bring an adulterous woman before Him and challenge Him with the 7th commandment. They ask, “The law says to stone adulterous women to death. Should we kill her?” They are coming out to Jesus by the law. This was how the Jews were in chapter 7. It is picturing that as is. Jesus saw right through the appearance of the legalists, who spiritually were as adulterous as the adulterous woman. But those who are in legalism and humanism cannot realize they themselves are adulterous. That is why they are here trying to prove that they are not by beating and killing this woman who physically committed adultery. But the truth is that this legalism is adultery. This is true adultery that God forbids. But they do not realize it. What does God write on the ground Himself? In the Bible, God writing something on the soil Himself comes out three times. First was His writing of the law on the stone plate on Mont Sinai and the second was the message of “mene mene tekel upharsin". What happened each time? Sin was exposed. When God wrote something with His own arm on Mount Sinai, men who said they served God were exposed as to what they were really serving. It was an idol. That is adultery. “Mene men tekel upharsin.” “Do you think you are king? No matter how hard you try to be a king in this world, you are nothing but someone who must die when God weighs you on a scale.” Sin is exposed and judgment occurs. Didn’t judgment occur with the first stone plate of the Ten Commandments? It is the same. Jesus, who is God, writes something on the ground. “Anyone who is without sin, raise your hand!” The first stone plate is coming down here. “Anyone without sin, raise your hand!” No one raises a hand. Men naturally run away from grace instead of immersing into grace when their sin is exposed, unless grace is added to them. They do this to hide themselves. They are those who have not received grace. They are all running away.
And the second stone plate comes down. If you look at Exodus, Moses’ intercession is there before the second stone plate comes down. It is in between, right? When the first stone plate came down the people who said they serve God called on the name of God, but what they really served in their heart was a golden calf who promised prosperity for themselves. I said that is called an idol and adultery. That is when the judgment occurs and 3,000 are slain. They are all dying. But Moses, with his life as collateral, asks God to kill him instead and let them live. I said Moses was a model for Jesus, a prophet who was like Jesus. That is why Apostle Paul says Israel was baptized ‘in Moses’ in the sea and in the cloud. It is because Moses was a model for Jesus. That Moses is volunteering as an intercessor. “Please kill me.” And the second stone plate is given.
Then, from that time on, what should the people of Israel think about whenever they see the law, the second stone plate? Is it “We must keep it well”? No! I told you they all died because they could not keep it. Going to “If Moses, the intercessor, did not stand up blocking the wrath of God, we would have died again. Wow, thank you!” is the true meaning of the word of the second stone plate. We must learn this first.
Jesus writes something on the ground the second time. This means something happened in between. It means He will die instead of her. It means He will be the adulterer and die in place of her. Jesus is swallowing up her uncleanness and adultery. And Jesus is becoming a sinner. Jesus said “Anyone among you who is without sin, raise your hand! Anyone without sin, judge her” and all ran away. What does Jesus say later? He says He will not judge her either. This word means He became a sinner because of her. And then, He tells her to go and not sin again. What sin would this be? It is adultery Jesus is talking about. He is telling her not to commit a certain sin. “What would happen to the cross I bore if you feel ashamed in front of me who is your groom because others are condemning you when I am not condemning you? If you are, you are still committing adultery with them. I have forgiven you like this so do now and do not sin anymore.” It does not mean “If you go and sleep with another man again, I will kill you.” “Do not commit adultery” in today’s text in the Sermon on the Mount is talking about this. That is the theme of the entire Sermon on the Mount? It is the grace of Jesus, the cross. It is not about giving lessons on certain social regulations on this earth. People, what does Moses feed them when Israel was exposed as sinners before the first stone plate? He grinds up the golden calf and feeds it to them mixed in water. When he does that, they are exposed as sinners and slaying takes place. Where does this story come out in the Bible? It comes out in Numbers. In fact, this story is a story of an adulterous woman. Let’s go there. We will first read Jeremiah 17:12 and then go to Numbers.
Jeremiah 17:12-13
A glorious throne set on high from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary. 13 O Lord, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you (This is divorce and adultery.) shall be put to shame; those who turn away from you[a] shall be written in the earth, for they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living water.
Throughout John 7, it is talking about the living water and Jesus, the living water is being kneaded into soil. After saying “I am the living water” the living water is writing something on the ground. It is an act of God writing the names of those who turned away from Him and what would Jesus have written on the ground the second time? This story is about Jesus writing His own name. “To bring you to life, I am dying instead.” That is why God is cutting off Jesus like a branch from the tree called the cross. What does Jesus say? He says, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He is being divorced. Jesus is becoming the unclean. He is eating up our own adultery. And that is who we become - a pure bride - and not because we are good in anyway. Let’s go to Numbers 5:11-27.
Numbers 5:11-27
And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 12 “Speak to the people of Israel, If any man's wife goes astray and breaks faith with him, 13 if a man lies with her sexually, and it is hidden from the eyes of her husband, and she is undetected though she has defiled herself, and there is no witness against her, since she was not taken in the act, (It is speaking in comparison to how thorough human beings are to cover their sin. She did not get detected. But there is a way to expose this, though. ) 14 and if the spirit of jealousy comes over him and he is jealous of his wife who has defiled herself, or if the spirit of jealousy comes over him and he is jealous of his wife, though she has not defiled herself, 15 then the man shall bring his wife to the priest and bring the offering required of her, a tenth of an ephah[a] of barley flour. He shall pour no oil on it and put no frankincense on it, for it is a grain offering of jealousy, a grain offering of remembrance, bringing iniquity to remembrance. 16 “And the priest shall bring her near and set her before the Lord. 17 And the priest shall take holy water in an earthenware vessel (What is this holy water called in John 7? Living water which is the Holy Spirit.) and take some of the dust that is on the floor of the tabernacle and put it into the water. 18 And the priest shall set the woman before the Lord and unbind the hair of the woman's head and place in her hands the grain offering of remembrance, which is the grain offering of jealousy. And in his hand the priest shall have the water of bitterness that brings the curse. 19 Then the priest shall make her take an oath, saying, ‘If no man has lain with you, and if you have not turned aside to uncleanness while you were under your husband's authority, be free from this water of bitterness that brings the curse. 20 But if you have gone astray, though you are under your husband's authority, and if you have defiled yourself, and some man other than your husband has lain with you, 21 then’ (let the priest make the woman take the oath of the curse, and say to the woman) ‘the Lord make you a curse and an oath among your people, when the Lord makes your thigh fall away and your body swell. 22 May this water that brings the curse pass into your bowels and make your womb swell and your thigh fall away.’ And the woman shall say, ‘Amen, Amen.’ 23 “Then the priest shall write these curses in a book and wash them off into the water of bitterness. 24 And he shall make the woman drink the water of bitterness that brings the curse, and the water that brings the curse shall enter into her and cause bitter pain. 25 And the priest shall take the grain offering of jealousy out of the woman's hand and shall wave the grain offering before the Lord and bring it to the altar. 26 And the priest shall take a handful of the grain offering, as its memorial portion, and burn it on the altar, and afterward shall make the woman drink the water. 27 And when he has made her drink the water, then, if she has defiled herself and has broken faith with her husband, the water that brings the curse shall enter into her and cause bitter pain, and her womb shall swell, and her thigh shall fall away, and the woman shall become a curse among her people.
If the accused woman drinks the holy water mixed with the dust on the floor of the temple, she will show and her body will swell up if she is indeed adulterous. If not? She is not adulterous. In the story of the adulterous woman in John, Jesus who is the living water, the holy water, is kneaded with soil and given to the woman. Think carefully about it. There was only one woman who was left there and became the bride of Jesus. But this woman was a sinner, publically and self admittedly. She has nowhere to go. She will get stoned to death if she moves one step outside of the grace of Jesus. Because she knows this, she cannot go anywhere else. “I am a sinner and a slut who will get stoned to death. How can I leave Jesus and go anywhere?”
People, when the gospel of the cross where holy Jesus took all our sins is given to people, those who run away saying, “I think I can do this. I may be able to go to the place God wants by trying very hard” to first hide their dirty appearance will definitely die. Those who drink that and say, “Unless you Jesus are poured over me, who is like the dust of curse and the dust of nothing, I will remain as the dust. Water must be poured on the dust to become a being and a creation. How can I dare to come to a place of existing and become a bride of God without the living water called Jesus?” will come to life.
If you read Numbers it says the word is put in by washing it in that water? It means that is the gospel. It means that is the word. So when the word is tossed and given, only those who admit, “Yes, I am an adulterer” come up to life. People, even though you say you are saved, you still do not completely trust Jesus, do you? You still have yourself, your child, your parents, and your family in your heart. This is how everyone is like because they are human beings.
But the Bible calls this adultery. I am not saying you should not do this. I am just saying you must learn “I could have been ruined if not by the grace of Jesus” in that. That is why Jesus is saying “Tear out your right eye if it makes you sin and cut off your right hand if it makes you sin.” Where does this come out? In the incident of the fruit of good and evil, they saw it and touched it. Jesus is saying to us who are adulterers, “Now that you know this, you should not commit the sin like Adam and Eve did, should you? How dare you try to insist on your own independence before God? Cut it off! Tear it out!” It does not mean you should tear out both of your eyes because you watched pornography last night. Next week, I will continue explaining the story of adultery in detail connecting from Genesis to Revelation. Let’s pray.