This is exactly the sort of passage that modern critics of Christianity like to cite, accusing us of unfair, patriarchal, and even brutal sexual ethics. It just doesn’t make any sense to modern sensibilities to put people to death for following their hearts and for giving in to what are, after all, natural bodily urges.

Well, however much verse 30 should remind us that all natural bodily urges are not in fact good or healthy, executing adulterers shouldn’t make any sense to Christians, either. As we saw in the devotional for January 18, Paul makes it clear that we are not to practice church discipline by capital punishment (see I Corinthians 5). And remember, Jesus Himself refused to go along with a mob who wanted to kill a woman after catching her in the very act of adultery (John 8:3-11).

But in that same passage, Jesus told her to go and “sin no more” (John 8:11) – clearly implying that sex outside of the bonds of marriage was, in fact, wrong. And it’s very likely that, since she was “caught in the act,” and since it obviously takes two people to commit that particular sin, the “one without sin” that He said should cast the first stone at her (John 8:7) might very well refer to her partner in crime, the man that the crowd was obviously willing to let slide. In other words, Jesus was taking a stand, not for sexual infidelity, but for equal treatment under the law for women as well as men.

And we see the same principle in today’s passage as well. After all, most ancient and many modern cultures treat women the way the crowd did in Jesus’ day – winking at male infidelity while ostracizing women who do the same sorts of things. But the Law of Moses makes clear that when adultery takes place, both partners are equally guilty (verse 22).

In fact, by taking into account the location of sexual sin, the Law of Moses is careful to give women the benefit of the doubt. Urban infidelity was to be considered consensual (verse 23), because in the days before glass windows and air conditioners, any strenuous objections would doubtless have been overheard by all the neighbors. But in rural areas, it was taken for granted that the woman was unwilling to go along – she cried out to stop her attacker, but that no one could hear her (verse 27). In such cases, only the man would be put to death.

And all of these rules point once again to God’s original plan – that sexuality is only to be expressed within the security of a life-long, public commitment between one man and one woman. Taking such kind of responsibility for our sexual partners is, after all, the best to express our love for them and for our children.

Deuteronomy 22:22-30 (NASB)

22 “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.
23 “If there is a girl who is a virgin engaged to a man, and another man finds her in the city and lies with her,
24 then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city and you shall stone them to death; the girl, because she did not cry out in the city, and the man, because he has violated his neighbor’s wife. Thus you shall purge the evil from among you.
25 “But if in the field the man finds the girl who is engaged, and the man forces her and lies with her, then only the man who lies with her shall die.
26 “But you shall do nothing to the girl; there is no sin in the girl worthy of death, for just as a man rises against his neighbor and murders him, so is this case.
27 “When he found her in the field, the engaged girl cried out, but there was no one to save her.
28 “If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her and they are discovered,
29 then the man who lay with her shall give to the girl’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall become his wife because he has violated her; he cannot divorce her all his days.
30 “A man shall not take his father’s wife so that he shall not uncover his father’s skirt.