The 10 Commandments

Are the 10 Commandments given to Moses and the Israelites at Mount Sinai still required of us today?  There are those that say the standards of the Old Testament (including the Law) are not applicable to us today because once Christ came the Old laws were no longer valid.  There are others that say we are bound by all the laws of the bible.  This can be a daunting discussion but it doesn’t have to be.  Let’s take a look at the law (old and new) and try to come to a conclusion about what is required of us today.

            The question that needs answered is why did God give the law in the first place?  The first purpose was to instruct the Israelites they were to live distinctly apart from the pagan nations around them.  These laws were instructions on how God’s people could learn how to love Him and each other and how to live in obedience to Him.  The law was God’s standard on how He expected His people to live.   Let’s take a look at the Ten Commandments from the Old Testament.

1.    Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

2.    Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:  Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

            While all of the commandments are important to understand and obey the first two are key to all the others.  Why is this important?  I think it speaks for itself that God is the one true God.  The Creator of all there is and Ruler of the universe.  He is eternal, infinite, and unchangeable in his power and perfection. He is all powerful, all knowing, and all present.  Our relationship with God is to put Him above all and not to worship anyone or anything above Him.  He wants and demands that we put nothing above Him.  When the Law as given the world was full of tribes and nations that had many different gods.  Anthropologists estimate that there have been over 18,000 different gods, goddesses, animals, and objects worshipped by humans through history.  People have worshipped gods of the sky, gods of the stars, gods of the weather, gods of the earth, and even gods of the underworld.  The one true God wanted to make it perfectly clear that He is the One True God and that we are to worship none of the so-called deities found in other cultures or religions around the world.  To go along with this, He instructed us that we are not to make any carved idol or representation of a god and used it as an object of worship.  People have throughout time made objects to represent what they believe is god and use it to worship and bow down to.  In essence this carved object would become their god and they would worship it in place of the real thing even believing that it holds the power of that god.  So is this still relevant today in our world?  While we may not have specific objects we use to represent god that we bow down to we do have idols.  An idol is anything we put our trust in that is not God.   An idol today could be a charm or talisman.  It could be money, our job, or our health.  Things we depend on for security and safety.  An idol in our lives could be anything that we have or do that takes precedence in our lives.  Our real and never failing trust and security comes only from one source – God.  Paul in his letter to the Colossians some it up pretty well in Colossians 3:5 – “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.” 

3.    Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

What does it mean to “take someone’s name” in vain?  It means to use someone’s name in a manner that shows a lack of respect.  So many people today misinterpret the meaning of this commandment.  They have a belief that it is when you use the word god before a curse word or when you cry out in pain or when scared and say something like “Oh my god” or “Jesus Christ” when something bothering happens.  While I am not advocating doing either of these, I definitely believe through my study that this is not what the commandment means in terms of using the Lord’s name in vain.  The original Hebrew actually translates to “do not carry” not “do not take”.  So in other words we should not “carry” the Lord’s name in vain.  We shouldn’t put God’s name or approval on something such as war, injustice to others, or violent or harmful actions.  There are other instances in the Old Testament where this is explained in other ways.  In Leviticus 19:12 God says “Do not swear falsely by my name and so profane the name of your God.  I am Lord”. Jeremiah 23:25 says “I have heard what the prophets say who prophesy lies in my name.”  This is just a couple of verses that talk about using the Lord’s name to do things that aren’t right.  So don’t get caught up in the minutia.  Using the Lord’s name in vain is to do or say things that are wrong and attribute them to God.

4.    Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.  Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work:  But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:  For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.

This commandment was meant for the Jewish people and is not really relevant to today’s Christians.  The concept is still valid in today’s world for modern Christians but the commandment itself is not applicable to us today.  The Sabbath is really the only commandment that is not repeated in the New Testament.  Jesus in Mark 2:27 states “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.”  So also we see that in Acts 20:7 the apostles came together on the first day instead of the seventh to commemorate the Lord’s resurrection.  This became the new “Sabbath” which is basically a day set aside for “shavat” which is the Hebrew word for rest.  The purpose of a Sabbath or rest day is to give us a certain day in our week to direct our thoughts and actions toward God and not just a day not to work.  A day to rest from our usual activities and direct ourselves to spiritual thoughts and worship.  So although when Christ was alive he and his disciples observed all Sabbath days and Jewish Festivals, once Christ’s resurrection was complete you no longer see mentioned the fact that Christians observed the Sabbath Day.  We shouldn’t be worrying today about the Sabbath, or day of rest, being the 7th day or the 1st day because as Paul writes to the Colossians in chapter 2:16-17 “So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or Sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ”.

5.    Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.

It was important to God to honor parents, or he wouldn’t have made it a command along with the others.  All of the commands are given to set boundaries for the children or Israel and for us today.  As God has set boundaries for his people, mothers and fathers set boundaries for their children.  This is done out of love to protect us and guide us through life.  An article by Meg Bucher in 2021 in Christianity.com says it this way;

“Honor your father and mother, specifically, means to “prize highly, care for, show respect for, and obey" authority in our lives. When we are young, we rely on our parents for food, care, and comfort. As we grow, the natural rebellion in us pushes against their authority.”

God is the ultimate authority in our lives, however we are subject to other authorities as we live our lives teachers, employers, government, but especially our parents as we mature and even after we have grown to adults and live on our own with our own lives we are still required to respect and honor those who brought us into this world.

6.    You shall not murder.

Pretty straight forward I think but what is murder?  The King James version and others read “kill”.  The Hebrew word in this specific text was “rasah” which means to shatter or slaughter.  Though there are quite a few different views on what this means (since the exact meaning of the Hebrew word is not really clear except in conceptual usage), maybe we look at this command in the New Testament to give us an understanding of the command itself.  Jesus in Matthew 5 tells us that murder begins in the heart (“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.’  But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment.).  To kill unjustly and to be angry unjustly by these words could be considered committing murder and thus breaking the 6th commandment.  You hear a lot of comments on the “Shalt not Murder” commandment like God told the Jews to kill when they took the land he gave them so this is a double standard.  Number one - let’s not put standards on our God.  Number two – the meaning of this commandment was for unjust killings among the children of Israel (which also applies to us since the command is repeated in the New Testament).  God did not take or command the taking of life out of malice but out of justice.  God’s justice may seem harsh to us but he is the God of the universe.  He is Supreme and he will destroy evil and sinful people.  That is not murder.  Remember that the definition of murder is the act of unlawfully killing of another with premeditated malice.  When Jesus talked about anger being related to murder it is because murder starts in the heart before the actual act itself.

7.    You shall not commit adultery.

Now comes the tough one for people to deal with.  Actually, on the surface this seems like a pretty straight forward commandment.  Don’t commit adultery which by definition means do not have sex if you are married to a person who is not your spouse.  This definition though only scratches the surface of sexual sin that we are commanded not to participate in.  Jesus took the idea of adultery to a different level in his teachings.  Matthew 5:27-28 outlines this fact in a whole new way.  “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’  But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”  So it is not just the physical act that brings sin.  Jesus taught that what goes on inside a person’s heart is the beginning of sin.  Later in Matthew Jesus expounded on talking with Peter when he said in verses 18-20 of chapter 15 - “But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man.”

Sexual sin is talked about in many places in the Bible and it really takes this commandment to a very different label.  I feel that although adultery is the main command in the 10 Commandments you need to pay heed to many more verses throughout the bible to get a clear understanding of what is considered wrong in God’s eyes and it is not just adultery.  First we need to give a definition of what sexual immorality is.  Basically this is the engagement of sexual acts outside of marriage but it goes further than that.  In the Old Testament laws were given that were designed to discourage sexual immorality.   In the New Testament the idea of what is immoral is stated pretty well throughout the New Testament.  I think Galatians 5:19-21 lays out pretty well what the components are to sexual immorality that need to be avoided.  Adultery, fornication, lewdness, and uncleanness which encompasses many things.  Paul lays out many of them in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 -  “Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites,  nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortionist will inherit the kingdom of God.”  So I would suggest that you not get stuck on just the adultery thing but take into account everything that sexual immorality encompasses.

8.    You shall not steal.

This is another of the commandments that in my mind is more meaningful than it first seems.  You steal when you take something that doesn’t belong to you.  The first thing we think of with this is property.  But there are many things we shouldn’t take which really means this is an open ended commandment that means we cannot take anything that doesn’t belong to us.  Committing murder takes another’s life, adultery takes another’s spouse, lying or giving false testimony is taking another’s justice away.  So we need to think of this commandment in the broadest possible circumstances.  Of course stealing another’s property is covered in this commandment.  But so is stealing another’s reputation or dignity.  When you Libel, slander or gossip about another is also a form of theft.  If you humiliate someone either publicly or privately you are stealing that person’s dignity.  When we steal trust from an individual we do so thorough deceit.  We lie to get what we want from another no matter what it is.  There are so many different ways we steal from other’s intentionally or unintentionally.  Either way it is stealing.    

9.    You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

Who is your neighbor and what is bearing false witness against them?  Jesus tells us who our neighbor is in Luke 10 with the parable of the good Samaritan.  According to Jesus with this parable he is telling us that everyone is our neighbor whether or not we know them.  In other words, we are not to bear false witness against anyone.  Basically when you bear false witness you are lying to someone or about someone.  This commandment is really saying “thou shalt not lie”.  Now some will take exception to this, however, even though the 9th commandment was based on legal matters such as testifying against someone by accusing them even though they are innocent, I think it goes further than that.  I believe it covers truthfulness in general not just in a court of law.  Gossip and slander of another is bearing false witness against that person.

10. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.

Coveting something or someone is an unhealthy desire to have what others have.  It deals with our inner thoughts and desires and not a specific action.  However, coveting something can and does sometimes lead to much more harmful things such as envy, theft, adultery, and other acts that cause harm or destruction.  To want something is fine but when that desire for something you see someone else has can lead to unhealthy and sinful thoughts and actions.  Be content with what God has given you and don’t concern yourself with what others have.

            I have tried to give a basic understanding of the commandments and have pointed out that even though these laws given to Moses were before the birth of Christ all but one is repeated or explained in the New Testament which is the New Law.  Jesus himself stated In Matthew 5 that He did not come to destroy the Law but to fulfill it.  God’s law is everlasting and although there are differences in the purposes of some of these laws that were given to the Israelites and what is to be our guide Jesus is clear that the old law is still in effect until all is fulfilled.  Jesus taught us everything we need to know about the law.  He echoed all of the old laws in his teaching except the commandment on the Sabbath.  But in his fulfilling the law he has established a new law which coincided and fulfilled the law given by Moses.  After all, each of the 10 Commandments came from God and thus are still valid and enforceable.  We must remember though that Jesus established deeper standards in the law.  Remember that the entire Old Testament pointed to Jesus.  Everything had a purpose and everything recorded pointed to the way to righteousness through Christ.  When Jesus took on human form and walked among us, when He died and was buried, and when He rose from the dead He was the fulfillment of everything that came before including the law.

“The Lord bless you and keep you; The Lord make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.”

Numbers 6:24-26