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“What’s the difference between fornication and adultery?”

Translators make choices. English translators of different versions of the Bible over the centuries have rendered the same Greek and Hebrew words various ways in English. That diversity of language complicates our understanding of certain terms. It compels us to make a bit of an effort to put ourselves back in the shoes of those to whom the word of God first came.

Doing that is always rewarding, so let’s make an effort with these two words.

Fornication

The English word “fornication” is of its time. We don’t hear it much today. The most recent revision of the KJV uses it 32 times in the NT and four more in the OT, whereas the ESV, NIV, NASB and other popular modern translations don’t use it at all, probably because its meaning is not well understood. They opt for expressions like “unfaithfulness”, “unchastity” and most frequently “sexual immorality”. The Contemporary English Version translates it as “some terrible sexual sin”, which I think gets to the heart of the matter.

The Greek term they are all translating is the word πορνεία and its cognates (members of the same word family). These words have been studied intensely over the centuries, and we can say with confidence that πορνεία is an umbrella term referring to a variety of sexual sins, an entire category of wrong actions. Forgive the indelicacy, but Strong’s says it includes “adultery, fornication, homosexuality, lesbianism, intercourse with animals etc.” The “etc.” leaves it a bit open-ended, as it probably should. The open dialogue about sex that started in the 1960s mainstreamed a few sinful possibilities the ancients could not have envisioned: the inappropriate use of online viewing material, virtual reality and sexbots just for starters. These too may well fall into the category of πορνεία or “fornication”.

Despite efforts by so-called progressive Christians to exclude certain socially acceptable sexual deviations from the biblical definition of πορνεία, scripture definitely affirms that the word includes them. For example, 1 Corinthians 5:1 uses πορνεία to describe incest (“a man has his father’s wife”, presumably his step-mother). 1 Timothy 1:10 uses a cognate of πορνεία to describe homosexuality and 1 Corinthians 6:9 tells us unambiguously that those who practice this species of πορνεία will not enter the kingdom of God.

Adultery

Adultery is a subset of πορνεία or fornication, one of many ways human beings may be sexually immoral. The Greek word for adultery is μοιχός, transliterated as moichaō. It means sexual activity between one or more people bound by promises of sexual exclusivity. In the Jewish world, that included all married people as well as anyone who had entered into an engagement. Once you were promised to another, the proper name for any sexual activity you engaged in outside that relationship was adultery.

It’s worth noting that the Law of Moses makes a distinction between sex prior to marriage, which was certainly immoral and offensive to God, and sex where one or both partners were bound by vows, which was most definitely a worse sin.* We can tell because of the penalties prescribed in the law. In Israel, a man who seduced a virgin who was not betrothed was compelled to pay the bride price to her family and make her his wife. In the case of adultery, however, both adulterer and adulteress were to be put to death. The vow they had broken compounded their sin. The scripture makes no distinction, penalty-wise at least, between the severity of breaking your own marriage vows and the sin of intruding sexually on the marriage vows of others.

The Distinction in a Single Verse

Perhaps the best way to see the contrast between the two words in action is Matthew 5:32, where the Lord is talking about divorce. He says:

“But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality [πορνεία, or fornication], makes her commit adultery [μοιχός], and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery [μοιχός].”

So then, sexual immorality or fornication is the broader sin and adultery is a more specific subset of sexual immorality.

While Christians are not under law, it’s evident both activities are sinful and foreign to the new nature and heavenly calling of the believer. Even in the post-law era, the apostles warned the Gentile churches to avoid all expressions of sexual immorality. Of the various sexually immoral acts, adultery is among the worst possible, because it includes the additional component of breaking a vow, which the Law of Moses took very seriously.

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* That’s not to say that the law treated all expressions of sexual immorality at the same level as pre-marital sex with an unbetrothed virgin. Homosexuality and bestiality were also capital crimes in Israel.