POLYGAMY - OBJECTIONS, Q & A (3) POLYGAMY IS ADULTERY

Extra-marital relationship is adultery, and we all know that. Thus polygamy is clearly adultery in its most outrageous form. What are you trying to justify?!

Make no mistake about it. I am not justifying adultery, which is a sin punishable by death as in Deut 22:22. But the above definition of adultery is according to the English dictionary and not according to the Word of God. We have to look at the Word, not the dictionary to see what is biblically considered as adultery in the eyes of God. Clearly, throughout the Bible, taking a married woman while her husband is still alive is adultery. God said, "You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife" (Ex 20:17, ) and there is strictly no two ways about it. Yet in about the same place after He said, "You shall not commit adultery", in Ex 21:10 (NKJ), He said that "If a man takes another wife, he shall not diminish the first wife of her food, clothing, and her other marriage rights". God cannot be condemning the act of taking another wife with death while He tells man that if he takes another wife, he shall not deprive his first wife of her marital rights. God was actually giving him instructions on how to take on another wife, which stipulate that the new wife must not be another man's wife and that he must not deprive the first wife.  So we see 2 different definitions, one according to the English dictionaries which according to the heathen Geco-Roman culture consider polygamy as adultery, while the other which according to the Word, do not consider polygamy as sin. Which definition one is prepared to take, depends on which God he is prepared to worship, the cultural god according to the English dictionary where monogamy dictates, or the God according to the Word that he believes.

Has there been any diversion or changes in this biblical definition through the generation? No. God never changes. And He has never softened His stand on what is adultery. We see Him judging King David, the apple of his eye, where His definition of adultery is clearly illustrated. After David took Bathsheba who was a married woman belonging to another man, God told him in 2Sam 12:8-9, "I gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your keeping, and gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if that had been too little, I also would have given you much more! Why have you despised the commandment of the LORD, to do evil in His sight? You have killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword; you have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the people of Ammon" (NKJ). The statement, "And if that had been too little, I would have given you much more" clearly shows that adultery is not having more wives and being responsible for them, but rather, it’s the taking of another man’s wife. David was very severely dealt with after that. The child that was born out of sin had to die despite David's intercession of prayer and fasting. The other son of Bathsheba, Solomon not only was legitimate, but well loved and vindicated to the next king by God. God never compromises, and He has never changed His stand to this day. The church has been deceived with a heathen definition of adultery and has ended up embracing heathen theology to condemn biblical polygamy as sin. If we call what is not sin as sin, we deprive many responsible polygamists of their God-given rights and become guilty of much innocent blood.