Rev. Jared Buss
Pittsburgh New Church; March 8, 2026
Readings: Genesis 2:15-25 (children’s talk); Matthew 19:4-6; Married Love §180;
True Christian Religion §313
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Our sermon series on the ten commandments has brought us to the sixth commandment, which says, “you shall not commit adultery” (Ex. 20:14). Much like the commandment before it—“you shall not murder” (v. 13)—this one is short and straightforward. We all know more or less what adultery is, and we all know that it’s harmful—and that’s why the Lord says “don’t do it.” There’s the sermon.
But actually, there’s quite a bit more that’s worth saying. This is one of those instances where it makes a big difference to understand what the commandment is there to protect. Another way to put it is, why is adultery harmful? What does it do damage to? We might answer, “well, it’s harmful because it’s a betrayal, and because it’s deceitful.” It’s true that adultery often is those things; but according to New Church teachings, adultery would be harmful even if it didn’t involve betrayal and deceit. If a person had an extramarital affair with the full permission of their married partner, they would still be breaking the sixth commandment. The sixth commandment isn’t there to protect honesty; honesty is protected by its own commandment. The sixth commandment is there to protect marriage.
So before we reflect any further on adultery, we’re going to look at some teachings that show us what marriage is—or what it was designed to be. We’re going to spend some time reflecting on the good stuff. If we can come to a clear understanding of what marriage is meant to be, then questions about what adultery encompasses and why it should be shunned will almost answer themselves. Teachings about marriage can be challenging in their own right, because many of them present us with ideals, and all of us fall short of those ideals in one way or another. But take those words in: all of us fall short of those ideals. And the Lord knows who He’s created. These teachings were not given for perfect people who don’t exist: they were given for people like us. They’re aspirational, and that’s okay. In other words these teachings are not about where you have to be right now: they’re about what the Lord wants to give you.
In the gospel of Matthew, the Lord quotes from the story that was read to the children—the story about the creation of woman—and in so doing He establishes that that story is foundational to the way that we’re supposed to understand marriage. He’s asked if it’s lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason (19:3), and here’s His reply: [vv. 4-6].
There are two ideas expressed in this teaching that, as I said, are foundational to the idea of marriage that’s been given to the church. The first is that God designed marriage. In the beginning, God made them male and female, with the intention that they be joined to one another in marriage. And He had something good in mind when He designed us that way. “Therefore what God has joined together, let not man put asunder” (v. 6). If He made it, it’s not ours to take apart. The second idea is that God designed marriage to join a husband and wife together so that they become one. “So then, they are no longer two, but one flesh” (v. 6).
New Church teachings build on this idea: they say that men and women are designed to be joined to one another not just physically, not just by living in the same house, but on a spiritual level. The Heavenly Doctrine says that since ancient times the world’s understanding of marriage has steadily declined, and that an understanding of the spiritual potential in marriage was lost; but the Heavenly Doctrine also says that the Lord is working to restore that understanding, by means of new teachings that He’s provided for His New Church (ML §§78.8; 81.5). In the book Married Love we’re told that true married love “originates from the marriage between good and truth” (§60). The idea here, in brief, is that good and truth—or love and wisdom—are meant to be joined together and are always striving to unite themselves (§§88, 89). Love finds its expression in wisdom and wisdom finds its purpose in love. And the book Married Love says that, “Male and female were created to be the very image of the marriage between good and truth” (§100). Men are designed to be forms of the wisdom that clothes love, and women are designed to be forms of the love that clothes wisdom (§32); that’s what we are on the deepest level. So men and women have a capacity to be joined together on the deepest level (§§157, 158).
Another thing we’re told in the book Married Love is that true married love corresponds to the marriage of the Lord and the church; “In other words,” we read, “as the Lord loves the church and wants the church to love Him, so a husband and wife love each other” (§62).
We’ve gone over these teachings very quickly. The simple takeaway is that the Lord has designed us with the intention that husbands and wives be joined to each other on the deepest level. There are several reasons why He’s built us this way. One is that unions like this are good for us. Another is that they make us happy. Intimacy—or closeness with another human being—feels good; and in an orderly marriage the deepest intimacy is possible. That intimacy is something that the Lord can bless with all His power. In Married Love we read: [§180].
That passage goes on to say that the Lord’s desire to share those blessings has everything to do with why He designed men and women the way He did—why He designed us to be married.
Now that we’ve gone over all of these lofty teachings, it’s important to go back to the idea that these teachings are aspirational. If we look around at the world, it becomes perfectly obvious that every marriage takes work, that every marriage has its unlovely bits, and that some marriages end. If that’s obvious to us, then surely the Lord knows it too. He’s not telling us that we should have figured out all of these things already: He’s saying, “here’s the goal—strive for it!” And if we do what He says we can reach that goal. Even if it takes longer than we want it to. Even if it doesn’t happen in this lifetime. In Married Love we read, “For people who desire true married love, the Lord provides similar partners, and if they are not found on earth, He provides them in heaven” (§229). It’s so important, and so easy to forget, that the Lord sees eternity, whereas we often struggle to see past this week. All of the years that we spend in this world are just a prelude to the life that we were really created to live.
One more thing that needs to be said about the way that marriage was designed is that sexual intimacy is meant to be part of marriage. It’s part of the mechanism that joins a husband and a wife together (ML §§172, 210; cf. AE §1005.2). Some churches teach or have taught that sex is impure, and that celibacy is preferable to marriage—but the teachings of the New Church say the opposite (ML §156). If sexual intimacy was less than ideal, why would the Lord have designed us to be joined to our spouses and become “one flesh?” (Gen. 2:24; Matt. 19:4, 5). There is nothing shameful or unclean about sexual relations within the context of an orderly marriage—quite the contrary (ML §§143, 144). But by design, sexual intimacy belongs to marriage; and if it’s separated from marriage, then something out of order has taken place. The idea that we’re supposed to be pure and that a mistake makes us impure forever is no good; but it’s also true that sexual intimacy belongs to marriage.
So we come back to the sixth commandment—which says, “you shall not commit adultery”—because adultery, by the simplest and most common definition, is when a married person has sex with someone other than their married partner. In the light of everything that’s been said so far it should be easy enough to see that an affair like that is fundamentally wrong not just because it involves breaking promises, not just because it involves betrayal, but because it involves breaking apart what God has joined together.
But the sixth commandment is about more than just extramarital affairs. Last week, when the subject was the fifth commandment—“you shall not murder”—it was said that physically killing someone is not the only way to break that commandment. And that’s because that commandment is really about hatred, hatred that expresses itself in violence to the degree that it can get away with it. That hatred is murderous even if no actual murder is committed. The sixth commandment works the same way. It says, “you shall not commit adultery,” and in a strict sense adultery is a physical act; but in that broader sense, adultery is an intention—an intention that leads to acts that break marriages apart, or that take the clean things of marriage and make them unclean. All of this is explained in the Heavenly Doctrine. We turn now to our final reading for today, which is from True Christian Religion: [§313].
So looking at someone to lust for them is adulterous, even if that look doesn’t lead to anything. Now, the Lord isn’t saying that if we notice someone and find them attractive we’ve committed adultery. We can’t always help what we notice. But we can decide whether or not we look twice. When we deliberately look at someone in a lustful way, that look expresses an intention; and as far as our spirit is concerned, an intention is the same thing as an action. “Willing and doing obscene things” is also against the sixth commandment. Even if no married people are involved, obscene or criminal sexual acts still do damage to things that belong to marriage; so they are adulterous.
At its heart, adultery is a spirit that opposes true married love; it’s a spirit opposed to the love that joins two together and makes them one flesh. We’re told in the teachings of the New Church that the love of adultery ruins married love, destroys it, and finally loathes it (ML §423). And in so doing, it hurts people. Married Love is a gift the Lord gave us because He wants us to be happy, and adultery takes that gift away from people. And people who willfully damage what the Lord has made are hurting their own souls. That’s why the Lord says, “don’t do it.”
I said earlier that many of Lord’s teachings about marriage are aspirational. We don’t have the power to make all of these beautiful promises come true right now. The sixth commandment, however, is not aspirational—it’s not something we’re meant to get to “someday.” The sixth commandment is where the Lord tells us what we can do right now. Everyone has the capacity to reject acts of adultery, and to search inside themselves for the spirit of adultery and shun that too. That’s true even if we’ve done adulterous things in the past. The Lord has the power to separate us from the past. He’s looking at who we’re choosing to be right now; and if we’re willing he can make us clean (Mark 1:40).
What’s wonderful is that the sixth commandment—this unlovely, down-to-earth commandment—is also the most powerful tool for finding the happiness promised in those lofty teachings. The Heavenly Doctrine says that to the degree that we shun any evil, we love the good that that evil opposes. Specifically it says, “insofar as someone refrains from adultery, so far he loves marriage” (Life §75). To the degree that we shun adulterous things, a love of marriage will flow into us and become strong; and the Lord, in His time and according to His wisdom, will bless that love, and bring it to fulfilment.
Amen.