Ten Words

With the tenth and final commandment, “You shall not covet,” God completes his design for human flourishing by securing the secret of enjoying the life he has given: contentment.

With the ninth commandment, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor,” God continues to reveal his design for human flourishing by securing the foundation of true justice: the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

With the eighth commandment, “You shall not steal,” God continues to reveal his design for human flourishing by securing the healthy sustaining of human life: the use of our gifts and abilities to supply our needs, glorify God, and provide for those in need. God establishes here the foundation of moral economic practice: the protection of private property.

With the seventh commandment, “You shall not commit adultery,” God continues to reveal his structure for human society by securing his design for the furtherance of human life: the protection of the marriage covenant. The gift of sex was given by God specifically to be enjoyed in the marital relationship, and there is must be kept, cherished, practiced, and protected for human beings to be both created and raised in healthy and beneficial ways.

With the sixth commandment, “You shall not murder,” God continues to reveal his will for human society with the critical protection of innocent human life. Only when we understand the true value of human life will we treat it with the care it deserves: protecting it, cherishing it, and helping it to flourish.

With the fifth commandment, “Honor your father and mother,” we begin the second table of the Law, which governs our relationships to others—or more specifically, our relationship to the gift of life. The beginning of God’s will in this regard is that we honor all those in whom God has entrusted rightful authority. Unless we show appropriate honor to these individuals, human society will never flourish as he desires.  The chief example of this is the honoring of our parents.

In this final commandment of the first table of the Law, we have perhaps the most controversial of all Ten Commandments: the Sabbath Commandment. Why was God so intent on his people not working on the seventh day of the week, and what, if anything does it mean for us today? The answer is powerful.

The third commandment of this first table of the Law regulates all of our language or mention of God. As such, it seeks to regulate our verbal testimony about God. The name of God should create a profound sense of awe, and it should never be used—nor should God be referenced in any way—with anything that is beneath him. The way we speak about God is one of the central ways we communicate to others about him.  As we speak of him only in ways that are fitting for his holiness and righteousness, we encourage others to seek him, believing by our example that he truly is a righteous, loving, and almighty God. 

With the second of the four commandments in this first table of the Law (which governs our relationship to God), we are instructed in the proper worship of God, and we are faced with the timeless threat to man’s true relationship to God: the danger of idolatry. At first, this may seem an easy commandment by which to live, but our tendency toward idolatry is more pernicious than we might think. We are deeply challenged to purify our worship of God of all things idolatrous, keeping ourselves as his bride, solely for him.

As we consider the first table of the Law (which regulates our relationship to God), we begin with the First Commandment: “You shall have no other gods before me.” Here God begins his description of our relationship with him by emphasizing both its exclusivity and its enthronement. He must be our God—our source of protection, direction, and provision—and he must be that God exclusively.  In this way, God utilizes marital imagery for the relationship, binding us to him as his cherished bride.  Fullness of life and peace begins by embracing this relationship.

In the entire history of the world there have been only ten words written by the very finger of God. These “ten words,” as the Scriptures refer to them (or ten statements in reality) are the Ten Commandments. What is it that sets these ten statements apart, and are they as important for mankind today as they were when they were first given some 3,300 years ago?This podcast is brought to you by Vineland Road, the resource ministry of the Christian Reformed Church of Saint Joseph, Michigan.