Exodus20v1to17: THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

Introduction: Read Exodus20v1to17

Much has been written about the Ten Commandments. My treatment although skimpy by comparison will still be quite lengthy. I will concentrate on to what extent the Ten Commandments are relevant today and how far they are a good guide to Christian living.

(1) What the Ten Commandments cannot do.

The Israelites did not become the people of God by keeping the Ten Commandments. The passage begins: "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 20v2. Abraham's descendents were God's people by God's choice. They were delivered from slavery and sustained in the wilderness by God's power. They owed their freedom to God's intervention.

Nobody becomes a Christian by keeping the Ten Commandments. It is by no means the chief purpose of the church to promote these commandments as if keeping them would be the solution for all societies' ills. The Israelites were slaves and had a slave mentality. They were saved from their lamentable condition by God's grace.

What men and women need today is not the Ten Commandments but Jesus. We are delivered from slavery to our sinful natures by Christ's sacrifice on the cross. If we submit to him and trust in him for forgiveness Jesus will give us a new life by his Spirit and God will adopt us into his family. Christians are the salt of the earth and will transform society in so far as they love and obey Jesus.

It is possible to keep the Ten Commandments and yet to fall far short of conduct pleasing to God. For example a person can be scrupulously honest but lacking in generosity. I had a great uncle - a greengrocer - who gave exact measure. If someone asked for a pound of sprouts - he would weigh them out a pound and if necessary cut a sprout in half to give exact measure. Jesus told his disciples to give GOOD MEASURE - heaped up, pressed down and running over - the sort of measure that cut into your profit margins. We could live in a society where everyone abided by the Ten Commandments and find it lacking in compassion, kindness and benevolence.

The Ten Commandments are not the whole Law. The sacrificial system accompanied the ethical demands of God. The sacrificial system acknowledged that men and women would fail on occasions to please God. They could atone for failure by offering him a sacrifice. It was a kind of token payment for wrong done and depended upon God's gracious acceptance for its efficacy. Jesus brought this aspect of the Law to completion when he offered himself as a sacrifice for man's sin on the cross.

(2) Why God gave the Ten Commandments.

There are two main reasons:

(a) These laws were good for the Israelites and as such revealed God's concern for them. Laws are necessary. This is evident to everyone who plays sport of any kind. A sport is defined by its laws. Cricket would not be cricket without the laws of the game. If you tried to play the sport without laws chaos would ensue. Eventually the bat would be used to club opponents to death!

The Ten Commandments were given to define the society beneficial for men and women's welfare. This fact is acknowledged over and over again in the Old Testament - particularly in the Psalms. For example the author of Psalm 1 wrote: Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the LORD and on his law meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers. Ps1v1to3. Psalm 119 is a paean of praise to God's Law.

This contrasts starkly with Paul's comments on the Law in Romans. He may write that the Ten Commandments are holy, righteous and good but he hardly rejoices in them because, insofar that he cannot keep them, he is condemned by them. See Romans7v7to25.

Jesus teaching on Sabbath rest strongly supports the view that the commandments were given for man's benefit. His disciples were criticised by the Pharisees for picking ears of corn, rubbing them in their hands, blowing the chaff away and eating the grain. They were not condemned for theft. What they did was allowed by the Law. The Pharisees condemned them for working on the Sabbath - harvesting, threshing and winnowing. Jesus replied: "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath." Mk2v27and28.

I believe that the Ten Commandments are do-able. They are not too demanding unlike the two summaries of the law: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and love your neighbour as yourself." Lk10v27. Also: Dt6v5 and Lev19v18. None of us can claim to consistently keep these two commandments. However the Ten Commandments are the bare minimum that God expects. Paul claims that as a Pharisee he was blameless as far as the Law was concerned. The rich young ruler gives the impression that he had kept the commandments from his youth up and Jesus does not contradict him. I am sure that a man like Daniel - a holy man if ever there was one - would have abided by the Ten Commandments.

The Ten Commandments also allow for a certain amount of flexibility. The Jews were forbidden to work on the Sabbath without a rigid definition of work being given. This allows for a certain amount of common sense and should have prevented the sort of legalism rife in the time of Jesus.

(b) The second reason for the Ten Commandments is that they prescribe the sort of behaviour God expects of his people. They establish the bare minimum standard of conduct acceptable to God in the people of his choice. God calls the Israelites his treasured possession, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. They would hardly be that without abiding by the Ten Commandments. The Israelites were under an obligation to keep God's laws because he had chosen them, redeemed them and provided for them.

Jesus said to his disciples: "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit." John15v5. We are grafted into the vine by exercising faith in Christ. However, once we belong to him the believer has to bear fruit to justify his position in the vine.

John also wrote: Yet to all who received him, (Jesus) to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God - children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God. Jn1v12and13. We enter God's family by grace and through faith - just as the Israelites became God's people by his choice and Abraham's faith. As the Israelites were expected to justify their special status by obedience to the Law so Christians are expected to live as God's children. This involves being obedient to Christ.

(3) The relevance of the Ten Commandments.

The apostle Paul wrote to the Galatians: So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ. Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law. Gal3v24and25. The Greek word interpreted in the NIV as 'put in charge' is paidogogos. William Barclay writes: In the Greek world there was a household servant called the paidagogos. He was not the schoolmaster. He was usually an old and trusted slave who had been long in the family and whose character was high. He was in charge of the child's moral welfare. It was his duty to see that the child ran into no temptation or danger and that he acquired the qualities essential to true manhood. ..... He had nothing to do with the actual teaching of the child, but it was his duty to take him in safety to the school and to deliver him to the teacher. Paul likened the Law to the paidogogos, the child minder who prepared the child for the teacher. The simple instruction given by the child minder was added to, developed and extended by the teacher but that does not mean it entirely lost its relevance. Jesus said that he did not come to destroy the Law but to bring it to completion. The Ten Commandments have not lost their relevance but have been supplemented and developed by Christ's teaching. So it is not enough to refrain from physically committing adultery; looking at a woman with lust is committing adultery in the heart.

Paul develops this theme in Gal4v3: It is just the same with us. When we were infants we were in subjection to the elementary knowledge which this world can supply. After Barclay. Paul likens the Law to elementary knowledge or stoicheion. The Greek word, stoicheion, meant the A B C - something fundamental to eventually acquiring advanced literary skills. You certainly do not jettison the A B C when you begin to compose poetry. It is the same in Mathematics. The multiplication tables are very elementary but however good one becomes at Mathematics they can never be dispensed with.

So though Christian ethics are superior to and more advanced than the Ten Commandments, and though the sacrifice of Jesus paves the way for a new and better covenant, it is wrong to think the Law can be forgotten about and has no relevance. It is no less relevant to Christian living than the multiplication tables are to higher Mathematics.

So it is time to look at the challenge of the Ten Commandments.

(4) The challenge of the Ten Commandments.

(a) God comes first. You shall have no other gods before me.

The Israelites encountered many gods in Egypt. Later they were seduced by the gods of the Canaanites and Moabites followed by the gods of the Assyrians and Babylonians. James K Bruckner writes in his commentary on Exodus: The gods of money and prosperity (the Baals), sexuality (the Asheroth), and the safety that comes from military power (Molech, Asshur, Marduk) took different forms in different nations, but they always vied for the people's allegiance. God tells the Israelites that they must put him before all his rivals.

It is easy for us to say that we believe in the one true God - the sovereign creator of the universe. The adherents of Christianity, Judaism and Islam would be of one mind on this. Furthermore Christians would accept that the one God has revealed himself: in his promises to Abraham, in the Law given to Moses and supremely in the life and ministry of Jesus. But I think we must ask ourselves, "How does God fare against his rivals for our devotion?"

It is true that God has nothing to fear from Baal or Molech but how does our devotion to him compare with what we have for our work, our hobbies, our homes and gardens, our families, our pets? How do we spend our time? What do we talk about? What do we think about? Do we put God's interests first?

(b) God must not be represented by an idol. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow to them or worship them.

Muslims have gone to extremes and will not have pictures or carvings of plants and animals in their mosques. However the instructions for the tabernacle included flower like cups, buds and blossoms for the lampstand and a curtain of blue with cherubim worked into it. The priestly robes were to have a hem decorated by multicoloured pomegranates. It is dangerous to have an inflexible attitude to the Law.

God did not object to fine art but to men and women worshipping an object of their own creation. God was opposed to this for three good reasons:

  • It is an insult to represent the creator of all life with a lifeless copy of what he has made. The entire creation cannot adequately convey the greatness of God so how can a paltry, man-made object.

  • It is an attempt to limit God and to assert control over him. If he is made to man's design, God becomes subservient to his creature. Indeed he is beholden to his creature for his very existence.

  • It is a way of gaining influence and power. Others can be persuaded to worship the God you have made and own. Gideon fell into this trap. He persuaded his followers to donate the gold ear-rings they had plundered from the Midianites. Gideon made the gold into an ephod, which he placed in Ophrah, his town. All Israel prostituted themselves by worshipping it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and his family. Jd8v27. The sad story of Micah, his idols, his priest and the Danites also illustrates this point. See Jds17and18. Jereboam consolidated his grip on the ten tribes that rebelled against the rule of Rehoboam by making two golden calves for his people to worship and installing one at Bethel and one at Dan. See 1Kings12v25to31.

Although most people in Britain do not worship objects made by human hands they may have made God to their own design. They have a mental image of him - one that suits them, one that makes no demands of them - a god they are comfortable with. This god may be a life force - an impersonal power with whom it is impossible to have a relationship. Or, perhaps, he is a benign, indulgent 'Father Christmas' figure whom we can lobby for a variety of goodies. Or, he is a demanding control freak who allows his subjects no freedom and who will punish everyone who disagrees with his elect. These mental images are every bit as bad as old fashioned Canaanite idols.

(c) God's name must not be taken in vain. You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God.

We are not told what this means exactly! Some Jews took the commandment too far and would not write out the name by which God called himself at the burning bush. So instead of 'Yahweh' they wrote, 'YHWH'. Nor would they pronounce the name. Instead they referred to 'Yahweh' as 'hashem' meaning, 'the name'.

I think God's name is taken in vain when it is used to gain a personal advantage. For example, when it is used to:

  • Give added emphasis or weight or impact to what is said. It may be used to express surprise or shock or to give a mundane opinion more gravitas or to make a promise or oath more convincing. So when a person is giving evidence at a court of law they swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me God. Jesus taught his disciples not to make an oath in God's name. "Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes', and your 'No', 'NO'". Mt5v37.

  • Support an action or decision. For example there is a type of Christian who will say, "God has told me it is time to move to another church," when in reality they are just getting bored and fancy a change. There are even sad cases who inform an unsuspecting young lady, "God has told me that you are the right girl to marry," - a cry of desperation if ever I have heard one.

  • Justify boasting about success. There are church leaders who preface a report of all the wonderful things that are happening under their ministry with the phrase, "God is blessing us." Are they really giving God the glory or publicising the success of their ministry? However are the poor wretches who labour on with no tangible signs that God is blessing them supposed to feel? It is wrong to use God's name to broadcast how great you are.

  • Give the impression of piety. There are Christians who sprinkle their conversation with, "The Lord this and the Lord that." Such people are close kin of the Pharisees who prayed on street corners thereby parading their super spirituality. Jesus did not think very highly of them. He said, "And when you pray do not be like hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen of men. I tell you the truth they have received their reward in full." Mt6v5to8.

(d) Rest from work one day of the week. Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work.

There are just a few things to note about the fourth commandment:

  • It applied to everyone including slaves and even to beasts of burden. What a boon this turned out to be. It gave black slaves in the deep South of the USA a day's respite from their labours. It was a blessed relief to factory workers exploited by ruthless employers during the industrial revolution. The dark satanic mills fell silent for one day of the week.

  • It benefitted everyone. It is important to remember Jesus' words after his disciples were criticised for picking ears of wheat on the Sabbath: "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath." Mk2v27and28. The Pharisees had forgotten this fact and developed a legalistic attitude to what was and what wasn't work. Instead of realising that God had not defined work for a purpose - to allow for a certain amount of flexibility - the Pharisees had hundreds of definitions of what work consisted of.

  • The seventh day of the week was specified as the day of rest. It was the same for everybody. This was a wise provision on God's part as it meant family and friends could spend time together.

The relevance of this commandment today:

  • I would say that work is what we do for a living. It is not a spot of recreational gardening or a friendly game of tennis. One of the things I still resent about my boyhood is the prohibition against playing games on a Sunday. My brothers and I were not allowed to go to the village green and kick a football about after church on Sunday mornings. I was so bored and depressed it gave me asthma.

  • It teaches us that it is very foolish to overwork. If God needed a rest so do we! People who work too hard get stressed and family life suffers. One of the chief complaints of British children is that their parents seem stressed all the time.

    It is wrong for employers to demand excessively long hours of work. I watched a TV program about long distance lorry drivers recently. Some are told to make a delivery at a certain time on a certain date regardless of the number of hours continuous driving this necessitates. The drivers use magnets to rig their tachymeters so that they can drive without taking the breaks the law demands. The result is tired drivers and accidents.

  • It is very sad that so many people in England work on a Sunday. Some work is necessary but a lot is not. It means that families are not able to spend leisure time together and some folk find it difficult to attend church.

    When I was a boy preachers would inveigh against what they called the 'continental Sunday.' They gave the impression that most European nations treated Sunday just like any other day. This was not, and still is not, true of Germany. Germany's Basic Law protects Sunday and public holidays as "days of rest from work and of spiritual improvement." It is a family day.

(e) Honour your parents. Honour your father and mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.

Once again little guidance is given as to what this entails. The Bible teaches that a man's first loyalty is to his wife rather than his parents after he has married. See Gen2v24. Jesus taught that it might be necessary to break with parents in order to follow him. See Lk14v26. When a Muslim converts to Christianity it is often at the expense of their relationship with their parents.

The life of Jesus provides guidance on what it means to honour your parents:

  • He was obedient to them. See Lk2v51. This should be the default position of children - to obey their parents. There are, of course, circumstances when a child could legitimately disobey their parents - if, for example, they were told to break one of the other commandments!

  • It seems likely he supported his mother after Joseph died. He entered late into his ministry. We have a good insight into the relationship Jesus had with his mother in John's account of the first miracle at the wedding feast at Cana. Mary went to Jesus in the expectation of help. Why? Because he had helped her many times in the past. See exposition on John2v1to11.

    I think we need to be sensitive to the wishes of our parents as Jesus was to the needs of his mother. When parents get old there is a temptation to think we know what is best for them. In doing so we can fail to honour our parents and break the fifth commandment.

  • The teachers of the law provided a way of wriggling out of one's obligation to support parents. You could say that your wealth was, 'Corban', that is a gift promised to God. In other words, your wealth is left to God in your will so you are unable to use any of it to support your parents. Jesus considered that this device nullified the word of God; it offended against the spirit of the commandment to honour parents. The Saviour obviously felt that children should provide financial assistance to parents in need. When my father and mother retired from Christian ministry I bought a house for us all to live in.

  • He remembered to provide for his mother even as he hung upon the cross. John reports: When Jesus saw his mother there, (at the cross) and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, "Dear woman, here is your son," and to the disciple, "Here is your mother." From that time on this disciple took her into his home. Jn19v26and27.

    In this instance Jesus was providing for the emotional and spiritual needs of his mother. I daresay some other of her sons would have looked after Mary - but Jesus knew she would be happiest in the home of the apostle John.

    This is an aspect of honouring parents it is easy to overlook. I continued to attend the Grace Baptist church my father pastored after he retired because I believed that this is where he would be happiest. He relied on me for transport and I took him to the church where his friends were. It was a wise decision. Even when my father was humiliated by Parkinson's Disease the people of his old church continued to respect him and show him affection.

(f) You shall not murder.

Once again the Old Testament does not make it absolutely clear what an unlawful killing is. There is in fact a lot of killing in the Old Testament. No one is condemned for killing in battle. Many crimes were punishable by death. A person could be stoned for adultery, idolatry, cursing parents, blasphemy, witchcraft, kidnapping and murder.

In Britain today certain killings are considered justified: in war, in self-defence or to defend others from death or out of necessity like, for example, when conjoined twins are separated even though this involves the death of one of them.

Unlawful homicides are those that cannot be justified as above. They include killing for personal gain, for pleasure or out of hatred, malice, jealousy and envy. King David unlawfully arranged the death of Uriah the Hittite to cover up his adultery with Bathsheba. Queen Jezebel arranged for Naboth to be stoned to death because her husband Ahab coveted the Jezreelite's vineyard.

It seems to me that in most of Europe there is much convenience killing. The majority of abortions take place for the convenience of the mother. In the future many of the old, frail and senile might be killed off out of convenience. After all if unborn babies can be terminated for no better reason than this why shouldn't those whose care eats up valuable resources suffer the same fate?

In his Sermon on the Mount Jesus equates broken relationships with murder. If we get angry and fall out with our brother it results in a kind of death. I knew a woman who although she lived in the same village as her mother and father had nothing to do with them. She never spoke to them. She never even attended their funerals. Today, whereas she carefully tends the grave of her grandmother, she leaves the grave of her parents untended. As far as this lady is concerned her parents died long before their funerals.

We need to be very careful not to sever our ties with people - to cut them off and to ignore their existence. According to Jesus this is a kind of unjustified homicide.

(g) You shall not commit adultery.

Certain kinds of sexual behaviour were not banned, for example, promiscuity, prostitution and polygamy. However, once married, a husband and wife were forbidden from having sexual intercourse with anybody else. Indeed, adultery was punishable by death. I think it likely that in the early history of Israel if an unmarried man had intercourse with an unmarried woman this was all it took to become married. I think this is what Naomi intended when she told Ruth to go down at night to the threshing floor and lay beside Boaz. Ruth said to Boaz, when he awoke, "I am your servant Ruth. Spread the corner of your garment over me, since you are a kinsman-redeemer." Ru3v9. She was inviting Boaz to take her to bed and make her his wife! See also exposition on Ruth3.

In our day and age punishing adultery by stoning seems somewhat extreme. The punishment was so harsh because stable marriages are vital for the social cohesion of society. The family was and is the best arrangement for bringing up children to be an asset to the community.

The situation hasn't changed. When a couple marry they still vow to remain faithful to one another until death intervenes. Fidelity is the corner stone of marriage. When a husband or wife commit adultery it is a kind of betrayal and it will damage their relationship. It leads to the breakdown of many marriages, to one parent families and disfunctional children.

(h) You shall not steal.

The eighth commandment forbids taking by force or stealth the property or possessions that belong to another. If people were allowed to take whatever they wanted there would be no incentive to honest toil. It would result in a free for all in which the strongest would grab the most. We see this on a limited scale when a riot or natural catastrophe results in the breakdown of law and order and widespread looting occurs.

We may pride ourselves on not stealing but not many people are entirely blameless in this respect. Many people think they are entirely justified to steal from the state. If they can avoid paying VAT or custom's dues they will. For example, many Christians will pay cash to have a job done cheaply knowing that the tradesman is not going to declare it for VAT. This just means honest folk pay more tax.

It is possible to steal without illegally taking anything tangible. Many employees steal time from their employer. Instead of concentrating and working hard for the number of hours they are paid for, employees waste time chattering, looking out of the window, day dreaming, sending emails, accessing internet sites and the like. Indolent workers affect the productivity of their business and the financial well being of those who do work conscientiously.

(i) You shall not give false testimony against your neighbour.

This probably referred to giving false testimony at someone's trial. Many cases at the time were decided on the evidence of witnesses. Witnesses could be bribed which was probably the case at the trial of Jesus before the Sanhedrin. The chief priests searched around for false witnesses to testify against Jesus.

There is no doubt at all that bearing false witness is a serious problem at a variety of different levels. People of all sorts have their prospects damaged and their reputation ruined by misinformation. Here are a few examples:

  • Someone who dislikes you spreads malicious gossip.

  • A child who has it in for a teacher falsely accuses him of abuse.

  • A woman whose advances are rejected can accuse a man of attempted rape. This happened in the life of that good young man Joseph when he was a slave in Egypt. The wife of his owner, Potiphar, tried to seduce Joseph. When he refused to go to bed with her she accused him of rape. Joseph was thrown into prison.

  • Doctors in a hospital can close ranks to vilify a whistleblower who has drawn the attention of the press to malpractices.

  • A newspaper proprietor with a political agenda can mount a smear campaign against the leader of the party he opposes.

  • A ruling party like the Nazis in Germany can misrepresent an entire people with horrific consequences.

Christians need to be very careful that they do not misrepresent the facts. Some are inclined to gild the lily when reporting on their church, mission or charity. It is possible to exaggerate need in order to drum up support for a Christian charity set up to help the disadvantaged. I can remember using for teaching purposes a piece of propaganda from a Christian charity that described a poor teenager leaving his village in NE Brazil and walking to Sao Paulo where he ended up destitute in a shanty town. It gave a false picture of what was happening. I was able to point out to my Geography class the improbability of the tale the charity told. It also annoyed me that Christians should play fast and loose with the truth.

(j) You shall not covet.

This is rather a strange command. It is not easy to define covetousness or to prove that someone is covetous.

I sometimes tell my friend KB that he is lucky to have such a good wife. He usually responds: "Now, now JR - thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife." But I don't! I admire his wife and I am genuinely pleased he has been blessed with such a helpmeet.

Does idly wishing count as covetousness? I idly wish I could play cricket like Gary Sobers once did. I don't think there is anything very wrong about idly wishing.

I think covetousness occurs when our desire for what our neighbour has affects our relationship with him - or her. At worst it can lead us to take bad actions against our neighbour.

I am not a very covetous person. However, I might covet a preacher's ability, success and popularity. This would probably lead to a lack of warmth in my relationship with the preacher. It might also affect what I said about him. I would be inclined to damn him with faint praise - he was too anecdotal, inclined to play to the gallery, too long and unrealistic in his expectations. I am getting perilously close to breaking the ninth commandment about bearing false witness.

That is the problem with covetousness - it leads us to break the other commandments. The greatest crime ever committed was the outcome of covetousness. Jesus was delivered up by the Jewish leaders for crucifixion out of envy - they coveted his popular appeal and influence.

ANY COMMENTS FOR JOHN REED: E-mail jfmreed@talktalk.net

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