Lord's Day 33

The seventh commandment is concerned primarily with our personal and relational purity. Adultery, while primarily defined by a sexual intimacy outside the bounds of marriage, also applies to our desires and our speech. As Christians, we are united in covenant with God through Jesus Christ, and as such, we are to live, love, and talk in a way that brings God honor and exemplifies the purity and Lordship of Christ. To live unchaste, intemperate lives is to break faith and covenant with God and our fellowship with one another. 

Francis Beattie’s commentary on this commandment teaches that “this command requires the preserving of our own and our neighbor's chastity in heart, speech, and behavior. This implies chastity in body and mind, affections, words and conduct, and the preservation of it in others. It requires us to keep a watch over the eyes and senses, temperance and keeping chaste company, wearing modest apparel, marriage under proper conditions, conjugal love and fidelity, diligent labor in our callings, avoiding and resisting all temptations to the violation of this command. Such are some of the main things which this command requires to be observed.” 

Interestingly, chastity is a word that is scorned in our popular culture as being “puritanical” and “outmoded.” Our own denomination (PC(USA)) has debated the inclusion of chastity as a requirement in the ordination of its deacons, elders, and ministers of Word and Sacrament. I Thess. 4:3-4 says, “For this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know who to control his own body in holiness and honor…” The clear teaching of Scripture reveals that, living in faith by the very grace of God, we are called to set aside the old life of sin and disobedience, to leave behind the ways of the flesh, and to live modest, humble, pure, and holy lives in faithfulness to God.