How Can I Develop A Christian Conscience? (Crucial Questions, #15)

by R.C. Sproul

A man can kiss a woman who is not his wife. That’s not adultery. It’s not sexual intercourse. The relationship can progress through stages of deeper and deeper involvement sexually. The relationship may start as something innocent such as a righteous friendship, but the friendship can progress in stages in the direction of an illicit, unlawful relationship that culminates in the physical act of adultery. There are steps along the way between righteousness and the heinous act of adulterous intercourse. Lust is usually one of those steps. When lust is born in the mind, that’s the first step towards moving in the direction of carrying out the fantasy that actually ends in adultery. The point Jesus made is that the law that God gives—“Thou shalt not commit adultery”—is not kept fully if one merely refrains from the physical act of adultery. When God forbids adultery, the full measure of that prohibition incorporates within it the whole complex of that sin, not only the actual act but all of the things that are a part of it. If you lust, Jesus said you have not fulfilled the whole measure of the law. That’s a vital point for us to understand because otherwise, the scriptural ethic would make no sense.