Remain Faithful!

You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world sets himself as an enemy of God. James 4:4

When a Christian couple gets married, they promise before God to remain faithful to one another till death do they part. If sometime down the road one spouse decides that they want to be with someone other than their spouse intimately, they have committed adultery and would be an adulterer. John MacArthur writes the following about this verse:

“In referring to adulteresses, James uses the term  metaphorically in a way that his Jewish readers     would clearly understand, referring to men as well  as women. He is not talking about sexual but  spiritual infidelity, as the term is often used in the Old Testament of God’s unfaithful people, Israel. Through Jeremiah, the Lord said, “I saw that for all    the adulteries of faithless Israel, I had sent her away and given her a writ of divorce, yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear; but she went and was a harlot also” (Jer. 3:8). Similarly, Ezekiel spoke of Judah as an “[adulterous] wife, who takes strangers instead of her husband!” (Ezek. 16:32).

Scripture nowhere uses the terms adulterer or  adulteress figuratively of Gentiles, because only Israel had a covenant relationship with God to be unfaithful to, just as husbands and wives have the covenant    relationship of marriage. Gentiles could be spiritual fornicators, as it were, but not adulterers—a contemptible distinction reserved for Israel, the unfaithful wife. Whether they turned to pagan gods and idols or simply turned to the world as their supreme love, to do so was to be unfaithful to the Lord and commit spiritual adultery, a figurative name for apostasy.

Jesus spoke of unbelieving Israel of His day as “an evil and adulterous generation” (Matt. 12:39; cf. 16:4; Mark 8:38). It was because most Jews, even those who were religious, had turned away from the Lord and His revealed Word to gods of their own making and to their own man-made traditions that they did not receive Jesus as their Messiah. They used their traditions to interpret Scripture, and in doing so they strayed from and often contradicted Scripture, becoming blinded to God’s truth and even to His own Son (Matt. 15:1–9; Mark 7:1–13; Col. 2:8; cf. John 5:39–40). Despite fierce claims of faithfulness to Judaism and the God of Judaism, they were adulterous and apostate.”

The same can be said of those who claim to be Christians and attach themselves to the church but have no saving relationship to God or love for Him or His Word. They were found even in the early church, and James calls them    adulteresses. There is no middle ground.

When you became a Christian you became part of the Church.  As part of the church you are now the bride of Christ. We are to be faithful to Christ above all others. Nothing in this world should draw us a way from Christ. What say you Christian, are you faithful to the one who saved you? Are you salt and light? If you can’t  answer yes, then you are a spiritual adulterer.

Your shepherd,

Pastor Mark