The Sacred Bond and the Social Cancer Text: Deuteronomy 22:22
Introduction: The World's Cheapest Grace
We live in an age that has made peace with treason. Not just political treason, which is still frowned upon in certain select circumstances, but a far deeper and more fundamental treason. I am talking about covenantal treason. Our modern world has taken the sacred covenant of marriage, the very icon of Christ and the Church, and has rendered it a temporary contractual arrangement, a flimsy thing to be entered into lightly and discarded with even less thought. And when the inevitable betrayal comes, as it must when oaths are treated like tissue paper, our culture offers a cheap and sentimental grace, a grace without teeth, a grace that costs nothing and is therefore worth nothing.
We are told that what God has joined together, man may put asunder for any number of reasons, from "irreconcilable differences" to simple boredom. Adultery, in this framework, is not a catastrophic betrayal of a sacred oath sworn before God and men; it is a therapeutic misstep, a personal failure, an unfortunate but understandable search for fulfillment. The church, tragically, has often followed the world's lead, muttering pious platitudes about forgiveness while refusing to call the sin what God calls it. We have traded the sharp sword of God's Word for a soft, sentimental pillow.
Into this mushy consensus, a verse like Deuteronomy 22:22 lands with the force of a meteor. It is stark. It is severe. It is entirely out of step with our modern sensibilities. And for that very reason, we must pay careful attention to it. For if we do not understand the gravity with which God views the violation of the marriage covenant, we will never understand the glory of the gospel. If we do not see the terrible price that sin demands, we will never appreciate the infinite price that Christ paid. This law is not some embarrassing relic from a primitive past; it is a foundational lesson in the grammar of moral reality. It teaches us what marriage is, what sin is, and what justice requires. And in doing so, it points us to the only one who could satisfy that justice.
The Text
"If a man is found lying with a married woman, then both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman; thus you shall purge the evil from Israel."
(Deuteronomy 22:22 LSB)
The Crime: Covenant Treason (v. 22a)
We begin with the description of the crime itself:
"If a man is found lying with a married woman, then both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman..." (Deuteronomy 22:22a)
The language is straightforward and unambiguous. The act is adultery. But we must understand what adultery meant in the context of the covenant nation of Israel. This was not merely a private sin, a personal moral failing between two individuals. It was a public act of treason against the entire covenant community. Why? Because marriage was the bedrock of Israel's social and theological structure. The family was the basic unit of the nation, and the nation was in a covenant marriage with Yahweh. Every earthly marriage was to be a reflection, a living parable, of that ultimate reality.
Therefore, adultery was a direct assault on the integrity of the nation. It attacked the principle of legitimate heirs, which was essential for inheritance and the stability of the promised land. It introduced chaos into the fundamental building block of society. It was a lie made flesh, a violation of the most solemn oath two people could make. In a theocracy, a nation ruled by God's law, such an act was tantamount to sedition. It was a cancerous cell that, if left unchecked, would metastasize and destroy the entire body politic.
Notice the equal culpability. "Both of them shall die." This was not a patriarchal law designed to oppress women, as our ignorant critics would have it. The law held both the man and the woman equally responsible for their willing participation in this covenantal vandalism. This stands in stark contrast to the surrounding pagan cultures, where women were often treated as mere property and the man's sin was all that mattered. Here, both are treated as responsible moral agents who have committed a capital offense.
Now, we must immediately think of the scene in John 8, where the Pharisees drag a woman caught in adultery before Jesus. Where was the man? The law required both to be brought. Their hypocrisy was evident from the start. They were not interested in God's justice; they were interested in trapping Jesus. They were using God's law as a weapon, which is a profound form of blasphemy. Jesus, in His divine wisdom, did not set aside the law. Rather, He upheld its true and righteous standard by turning it back on the accusers. "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her." He was likely referring to the sin in question, not sin in general. In a group of self-righteous men, who among them had not committed adultery in his heart? He exposed their hypocrisy and upheld the law's true intent, which is to bring all men to an acknowledgment of their need for a savior.
The Purpose: Purging Evil (v. 22b)
The verse concludes with the rationale for this severe penalty.
"...thus you shall purge the evil from Israel." (Deuteronomy 22:22b)
This phrase, "purge the evil" or "put away the evil from among you," appears repeatedly in Deuteronomy. It is the central purpose of the civil law. The civil magistrate is given the sword for a reason: to punish evildoers and to protect the righteous (Romans 13:4). This is not about personal vengeance; it is about corporate sanitation. The presence of high-handed, unrepentant, public sin in the midst of a covenant people is a defilement. It is a spiritual poison that leaches into the soil of the community and corrupts everything.
God was teaching His people that holiness has a corporate dimension. A nation that tolerates public treason against its foundational institutions is a nation committing suicide. A society that redefines marriage, that makes adultery a trivial matter, is a society that has lost its moral immune system. The disease is not just in the two individuals; their act has introduced a contagion into the camp, and it must be purged for the health of the whole community.
This principle is not abolished in the New Testament; it is carried forward into the life of the church. When Paul confronts the Corinthian church for tolerating a man sleeping with his father's wife, what does he command? "Purge the evil person from among you" (1 Corinthians 5:13), a direct quote from Deuteronomy. The form of the purging changes from civil execution to excommunication, but the principle of corporate holiness remains. The church that refuses to discipline public, unrepentant sin is a church that is making friends with the cancer. It is failing in its duty to guard the holiness of God's name and the health of His people.
The Gospel Application: The Ultimate Purge
So what are we to do with such a law today? Are we to advocate for the civil magistrate to begin executing adulterers? No, and the reason is not that God has lowered His standards or decided that adultery is no longer a serious offense. The reason is that the ultimate penalty for this sin has already been carried out.
The law shows us the true nature of our sin. It shows us that our sin is not a small thing. Our covenant-breaking with God, of which all our other sins are just symptoms, is an act of cosmic treason. We have all "lain with a married woman," so to speak. We belong to God, our creator, and we have prostituted ourselves to idols, to sin, to the world. The wages of that sin is, and has always been, death (Romans 6:23). This law in Deuteronomy is a bright, flashing signpost pointing to that unalterable reality.
But the story does not end there. God, in His infinite mercy, provided a substitute. God the Son, Jesus Christ, came into the world. He lived a life of perfect covenant faithfulness. And then, on the cross, He stood in the place of covenant breakers. He took upon Himself the curse of the law that we deserved. He, the innocent one, was treated as the guilty party. He was executed by the civil magistrate, put to death as a traitor and blasphemer, so that we, the true traitors, might be forgiven.
On the cross, God Himself purged the evil from His people. Jesus took the full, unmitigated penalty for every act of adultery, every lustful thought, every broken vow. He drank the cup of God's wrath down to the dregs. He died the death that Deuteronomy 22:22 prescribes, so that all who repent and believe in Him might be spared that death.
Therefore, we do not look at this Old Testament law and recoil in embarrassment. We look at it and see the terrible holiness of God and the profound evil of our sin. And then we look at the cross and see a mercy so much greater than that sin. This law shows us the magnitude of the debt we owed. The cross shows us the infinite payment that was made on our behalf. The evil has been purged, not by our own efforts, but by the blood of the Lamb. And now, living in light of that ultimate sacrifice, we are called to live as a holy people, to honor the covenant of marriage, not out of fear of the magistrate's sword, but out of love for the one who took the sword in our place.