List of Doctrines on "Sin: Sexual Sin - Adultery"
779. Men and women are not to commit adultery.
780. The adulterer who repents can be forgiven.
779. Men and women are not to commit adultery.
Recorded in Exodus
Hyrum Mack Smith
President Spencer W. Kimball
Jesus
Marion G. Romney
President Heber J. Grant, J. Reuben Clark, Jr., David O. McKay
Joseph Smith
Joseph Smith
Joseph Smith
Abinadi
Alma, the younger
Joseph Smith
Jesus
Recorded in Proverbs
Paul
Recorded in Exodus
Thou shalt not commit adultery. (The Lord reveals the seventh of the Ten Commandments to Moses ) Exodus 20:14
Hyrum Mack Smith
"Thou shalt not commit adultery." Another soul destroying crime which is very rare among the Latter-day Saints. There is no other sin, save murder only, that will so soon destroy the spiritual and moral life of men—why, it is spiritual suicide to participate in any such deadly crime. We do not sustain it; and we do not suffer it; we do not tolerate it; and we do not commit it, as a people. So far as I am concerned I will not support any man or any set of men who are seducers and who commit this deadly sin, be they whom they may, within or without the Church of God; neither will I sustain the men, or the publications, or the party that protect or sustain such corruption. CR1906Oct:44-45
President Spencer W. Kimball
To be specific, let us postulate clearly and unmistakably that all sexual life outside of the proper marriage association—I said the proper marriage association—are evil and forbidden by God, and the unrepentant and those who indulge in these will be disillusioned.
Easy it is to create excuses and escapes to cover our own weaknesses. The fornicator minimizes his sins. The robber justifies his thievery. The pervert says that God made him that way. The petter rationalizes his act into insignificance. Let it be understood without equivocation that the common indulgences are transgressions, for sin is the breaking of the divine law. ACR(Sydney)1976:54
Jesus,
recorded in Matthew
recorded in Matthew
He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery. . . . (Jesus instructs the young man who had great possessions) Matthew 19:18
Marion G. Romney,
also quoting J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
One of the most corrupting and debasing vices rampant in our society today is unchastity. Let us be ever mindful that from Sinai the Lord thundered, "Thou shalt not commit adultery." (Exodus 20:14)
The penalty for so doing under the Mosaic law was death. Notwithstanding the fact that in this generation's corrupt permissiveness its violation is tolerated with impunity, under God's divine law it is as it has always been, a soul-destroying sin. Its self-executing penalty is spiritual death. No unforgiven adulterer is magnifying his calling in the priesthood; and as President Clark used to say, the Lord has made no "fine distinctions . . . between fornication and adultery" (CR1949Oct:194). Nor may I add, between adultery and sex perversion. CR1974Apr:117-18
President Heber J. Grant, J. Reuben Clark, Jr., David O. McKay
(First Presidency)
The doctrine of this Church is that sexual sin—the illicit sexual relations of men and women—stands, in its enormity, next to murder.
The Lord has drawn no essential distinctions between fornication, adultery, and harlotry or prostitution. . . .
. . . . You husbands and wives who have taken on solemn obligations of chastity in the holy temples of the Lord and who violate those sacred vows by illicit sexual relations with others, you not only commit the vile and loathsome sin of adultery, but you break the oath you yourselves made with the Lord himself before you went to the altar for your sealing. You become subject to the penalties which the Lord has prescribed for those who breach their covenants with Him. CR1942Oct:11
Joseph Smith,
receiving the Word of the Lord
receiving the Word of the Lord
Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else.
23. And he that looketh upon a woman to lust after her shall deny the faith, and shall not have the Spirit; and if he repents not he shall be cast out.
24. Thou shalt not commit adultery; and he that committeth adultery, and repenteth not, shall be cast out.
25. But he that has committed adultery and repents with all his heart, and forsaketh it, and doeth it no more, thou shalt forgive;
26. But if he doeth it again, he shall not be forgiven, but shall be cast out. (Revelation "embracing the law of the Church," Feb. 9, 1831) D&C 42:22-26
Joseph Smith,
receiving the Word of the Lord
receiving the Word of the Lord
And if any man or woman shall commit adultery, he or she shall be tried before two elders of the church, or more, and every word shall be established against him or her by two witnesses of the church, and not of the enemy; but if there are more than two witnesses it is better.
81. But he or she shall be condemned by the mouth of two witnesses; and the elders shall lay the case before the church, and the church shall lift up their hands against him or her, that they may be dealt with according to the law of God. (Revelation "embracing the law of the Church," Feb. 9, 1831) D&C 42:80-81
Joseph Smith,
receiving the Word of the Lord
receiving the Word of the Lord
And as ye have asked concerning adultery, verily, verily, I say unto you, if a man receiveth a wife in the new and everlasting covenant, and if she be with another man, and I have not appointed unto her by the holy anointing, she hath committed adultery and shall be destroyed.
42. If she be not in the new and everlasting covenant, and she be with another man, she has committed adultery.
43. And if her husband be with another woman, and he was under a vow, he hath broken his vow and hath committed adultery. (Revelation received Feb. 4, 1831) D&C 132:41-43
Abinadi,
quoted by Mormon
quoted by Mormon
Thou shalt not commit adultery. . . . (Abinadi teaches the Ten Commandments to the people of the wicked King Noah, about 148 B.C.) Mosiah 13:22
Alma, the younger,
quoted by Mormon
quoted by Mormon
Know ye not, my son, that these things are an abomination in the sight of the Lord; yea, most abominable above all sins save it be the shedding of innocent blood or denying the Holy Ghost? (Alma chastises his son for going after the harlot Isabel, about A.D. 73) Alma 39:5
Joseph Smith
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Thou shalt not steal; neither commit adultery, nor kill, nor do anything like unto it. (Revelation, Aug. 7, 1831) D&C 59:6
Jesus,
recorded in Matthew
recorded in Matthew
Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:
28. But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. (Jesus teaches the multitude, about A.D. 30) Matthew 5:27-28
Related Witnesses:
Recorded in Proverbs
But whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding: he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul. Proverbs 6:32
Paul
So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man. (Paul's letter to the Church in Rome, about A.D. 55) Romans 7:3
780. The adulterer who repents can be forgiven.
Joseph Smith
President Spencer W. Kimball
Elder Spencer W. Kimball
Boyd K. Packer
Joseph Smith,
receiving the Word of the Lord
receiving the Word of the Lord
But he that has committed adultery and repents with all his heart, and forsaketh it, and doeth it no more, thou shalt forgive;
26. But if he doeth it again, he shall not be forgiven, but shall be cast out. (Revelation "embracing the law of the Church," Feb. 9, 1831) D&C 42:25-26
President Spencer W. Kimball
When the unmarried yield to the lust which induces intimacies, it is called fornication, and when married people do so it is called adultery. The forgiveness, as stated, can come only through a total repentance. One has not repented of evil sins until he has suffered terribly. There must be an admission of sin to the proper Church authorities and a total change of the life—transformation. ACR(Santiago)1977:5
Elder Spencer W. Kimball
If adultery or fornication justified the death penalty in the old days, and still in Christ's day, is the sin any less today because the laws of the land do not assess the death penalty for it? Is the act less grievous? There must be a washing, a purging, a changing of attitudes, a correcting of appraisals, a strengthening toward self-mastery. And these cleansing processes cannot be accomplished as easily as taking a bath or shampooing the hair, or sending a suit of clothes to the cleaners. There must be many prayers, and volumes of tears. There must be more than a verbal acknowledgement. There must be an inner conviction giving to the sin its full diabolical weight. "My sins are disgusting—loathsome" one could come to think about his baser sins, like the Psalmist who used these words: "My wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness." (Psalms 38:5)
There must be increased devotion and much thought and study. There must be a re-awakening, a fortification, a re-birth. And this takes energy and time and often is accompanied with sore embarrassment, heavy deprivations and deep trials, even if indeed one is not excommunicated from the Church, losing all spiritual blessings. (The Miracle of Forgiveness, p. 155) TLDP:74
Related Witnesses:
Boyd K. Packer
There is a great cleansing power. Know that you can be clean. If you are outside of the Church, the covenant of baptism itself represents, among other things, a washing and a cleansing.
For those of you who are in the Church there is a way, not entirely painless, but certainly possible. You can stand clean and spotless before him. Guilt will be gone, and you can be at peace. Go to your bishop or your branch president. He holds the key to this cleansing power. Go and have an interview with him, and then you do what he says, and you can become clean again. ACR(Stockholm)1974:84
