Exodus 20:1–17

This law covenant is now stated. It was given three times. First by word of mouth here, when God spoke all these words. Then in Exodus 31 Moses received the tables of stone, "written with the finger of God." It was the same finger that later wrote in the sand (John 8). The first tables were broken. The Lord told Moses to cut two more, and on them He again wrote the Ten Commandments (Ex. 34:1). God gave this law to Israel alone, as the opening word shows. The voice of God spoke these words so that the people heard Him speak.

This controls the entire subject. If God has spoken, it would be blasphemy to think He had spoken imperfectly. It would be blasphemy to think He left His words mixed with error, for the skill of man to sift out. Has He spoken so that He cannot be understood? So this great fact of divine authorship completely settles a vast mass of questions which unbelief alone could raise. "God spoke all these words."

This was a very marked change. The One who had just said, "I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself," now wraps Himself "in a thick cloud" and says, "set limits for the people all around." The sweet accents of grace and mercy give way to the "thunders and lightnings" of the fiery mount.

In fact they undertook obedience far from God, in a state in which they could not approach Him in that majesty to which obedience was due. Nevertheless God gave all possible solemnity to the communication of His law... Terror, and the condition of obedience when the people are far from God — such is the character of the law.

The commandments are ten in number. They rest on — or rather flow out of — the relationship God had entered into with His people in redemption: "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery." Look at the commandments together and you will see that the first four relate to God, and the last six to man. That is, they define responsibility towards God and towards man. So our blessed Lord summed them up: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind... You shall love your neighbor as yourself." (Matt. 22:37-39)

But here it came mostly in a form that betrayed the condition of man: not positive commands but negative ones. That was a most humbling proof of man's state. He loved sin so well that God had to forbid it. In the greater part of the ten commandments, in short, it was not "You shall," but "You shall not." That is, it was a prohibition of man's will.

The law has sometimes been called "the transcript of the mind of God." This definition is entirely defective. If we were to call it a transcript of the mind of God as to what man ought to be, we should be nearer the truth. Suppose I take the ten commandments as the transcript of the mind of God. Then I ask: is there nothing in the mind of God except "you shall" and "you shall not"? Is there no grace? No mercy? ... If I want to see what God is, I must look at Christ; for in Him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily. (Col. 2:9) "For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." (John 1:17)

Man is a sinner, and the law was given to make a full demonstration of it... We should grasp clearly that this law cannot give righteousness or life... We are not under that law but under grace. But grace teaches us to live righteously, soberly and godly in this present evil age.

More than that, God has stamped the character of redemption on the law itself in an unmistakable way. "I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery," is His preface to the ten commandments. In fact, only to a redeemed people could He give a law at all.

The ways of God are very precious; God must be true to Himself. God did not command obedience so that they might be redeemed, but because they were redeemed.

There are ten commandments. They are based on — or rather they flow out of — the relationship God had entered into with His people in redemption. Look at the commandments together and you will see that the first four relate to God and the last six to man. That is, they define responsibility towards God and towards man.

The land of Egypt is described in Ex. 20:2 and Deut. 4:6 as a house of slavery. The Egyptians may not have experienced it as such, but the people in whom God was working for blessing found it to be such. The mercy of God brought them out of it. The Exodus was for them an entire change of condition. Instead of Egypt and slavery, God brought them to Himself as His redeemed people.

He claimed their worship as the one and only God, because He had shown Himself their Redeemer. "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before Me." In this action He had made Himself known as God, full of grace and power for captive sinners. If we do not know Him as such, we do not know Him rightly. ... The true God is the One who reveals Himself in redeeming grace and power. So to know God is to know myself a sinner saved by grace.

God gave it to Israel only — the one nation He dealt with in a special way, and the nation in which He was testing man in the flesh. The heading of the ten commandments is "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery." This could apply only to the Israelites.

Before God gives the ten commandments, He makes it abundantly clear that Israel's obedience to law had nothing to do with God's previous grace toward them in delivering them from the slavery of Egypt, just as today obedience to law has no part in the salvation of souls out of the slavery of sin. Yet Israel must not regard these laws as merely abstract principles, but laws of "the Lord your God," indicating another relationship to God on the basis of their obedience. Solemn consideration!

We are His: if Israel was brought out of Egypt, the iron furnace, we are the subjects of a more wonderful and spiritual redemption. For Israel, this was the first argument of the law; for us, it is what above all speaks of His title to us.

Before God gives the ten commandments, He makes it clear that Israel's obedience to law had nothing to do with God's earlier grace toward them in delivering them from the bondage of Egypt. It is the same today: obedience to law has no part in the salvation of souls out from the bondage of sin.

In the first three commandments God demanded that His rights as Creator, and their Redeemer from bondage, should be respected. He alone is God, so they were in the first place to recognize no other "god."

The first commandment plainly affirms the unity of God: it also affirms His exclusive sovereignty.

The first commandment is absolutely basic, "You shall have no other gods before Me." For as soon as another god is introduced, whatever people say about it, it is not merely added as an object alongside of God, but it is always put before God. Some may claim it is only intended as a reminder of God, but this is Satan's deception, for such things will always give a wrong conception of God.

The language of these laws is absolute and allows no argument. It is "You shall" or "you shall not." It makes no room for exceptions. First, no other god may take God's place.

The first commandment struck at the root of idolatry… Egypt had many "other gods": likenesses of things in heaven above, in the earth beneath, and in the waters under the earth, the Sun and the Moon, Osiris and Isis. People also worshipped animals out of superstition — the ox, the dog, the cat, the hawk, the crocodile and others. They did not stop at animals. They even treated the vegetables in their gardens as gods.

The people of Israel, awe-struck by the majesty of God, had heard the solemn words, "You shall have no other gods before Me." They had answered, "All the words that the LORD has spoken we will do." Yet only a few days later they turn aside out of the way and make gods for themselves. Does this surprise us? Is it not too true a picture of those who pass as the people of God in every age?

An idol is not always an actual image worshipped in place of the true God. It is anything we let come between the soul and God as an object of the heart's affections. So even to believers the Apostle can write, "Little children, keep yourselves from idols." … It has been said that an innocent man had no object; he simply had to enjoy God's goodness. A fallen man has many objects which separate the heart from God. But the new man has one Object: "For to me to live is Christ."

People have never chased money more widely in the Christian world than now. How is it with your own soul?… A divided heart is a disloyal one. No one can serve two masters.

"You shall have no other gods before Me." Every act of the lowly Man showed this. He displayed God's thought in that command; God was in all His thoughts.

The language of these laws is absolute and firm. "You shall" or "you shall not." God allows no deviation. First, He allowed no other god to take His place. Nothing may be used even to represent God. No image, no likeness of anything in creation may hold any place of spiritual honour in people's minds. This is idolatry. Even pictures of this kind were forbidden (Num. 33:52).

Second, they were not to try to have an image or material representation of any unseen power. God is "in heaven above," and He forbids anything claiming to be an image of Him. Many other powers exist, both invisible and visible, and they were to make no representations of these either.

They saw nothing. God did not show Himself to them. He did not take any bodily shape from which they might form an image. He gave them His word, His holy commandments, so plain that a child could understand them... They were called to hear God's voice, not to see His shape — to obey His commandments, not to make an image of Him. Superstition vainly tries to honour God by forming and worshipping an image. Faith, on the other hand, lovingly receives and reverently obeys His holy commandments.

They likely excused their idolatry, as many do today, by saying this was only an image made to represent God, but God forbade any such images (Ex. 20:4). In fact, though such things are claimed to be only representations, very soon the thing itself becomes the god that people worship.

It is useless to say that the objects adored are only images for memory, not idols. The old heathen philosophers used exactly this excuse. They tried to excuse their superstition. They claimed that nobody thought the idols were the gods. The idols were only visible tokens that reminded them of beings above and behind them... The truth is that such visible tokens or signs deny faith. They destroy the very principle and power the Christian is told to walk in. He is called to "walk by faith and not by sight."

Idolatry takes various shapes. So it is not a question of the shape of the thing, but of the thing itself; not the outward form, but the root or principle of it. We read that "covetousness is idolatry," and that a covetous man is an idolater. That is, a man wanting to get more than God has given him is an idolater — actually guilty of Israel's sin when they made the golden calf and worshipped it. Whatever commands the heart is the heart's idol, whatever it may be — money, pleasure, power or anything else.

We cannot help seeing what the second commandment does. It clears away everything that would confuse the issue when our blessed Lord Jesus appeared as "the image of the invisible God" (Col. 1:15). In Him, and in Him alone, we find the true and perfect representation of all that God is.

God is jealous over His glory and will not give it to another. That only underlines the truth that the Son is one with the Father. All images that man might make can only provoke that jealousy. But here is "the image of the invisible God." He is jealous for His Son, "that all men should honour the Son even as they honour the Father."

He is jealous because He cannot bear any rival to have a place in the hearts of those He loves. He must have the whole heart, because He alone is worthy of it, and He alone can fill and satisfy it forever. And if His people turn away from Him and go after idols of their own making, He must leave them to reap the bitter fruit of what they have done.

Nothing is so jealous as true love: it cannot bear rivalry. "Little children, keep yourselves from idols" is a word that is often forgotten and greatly overlooked. Anything that takes the place of Christ in the heart of a Christian is an idol, and ought to be judged and put far from us.

God is jealous about His glory being given to another, but that only underlines that the Son is one with the Father. All images that man might make can only stir up jealousy. But here is "the image of the invisible God." He is jealous for His Son, "that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father."

What we get in Exodus 34 is not sovereign grace bringing a soul to eternal life, but governmental power, and we may see it at work every day around us. For if a man wastes his fortune, or ruins his health by intemperance of any kind, his children suffer for it. This is an invariable principle.

It is always true that our children will suffer because of our disobedience to God. This does not affect the question of eternal salvation. Any one of the children may still call on the Lord and be saved. But their parents' wrongdoing will still mark their lives on earth.

He has Himself assured us that He "visits the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation." But then He adds a most necessary guard, without which the words would be misread: "of those who hate Me." Elsewhere the Lord condemns, in the strongest terms, the proverb Israel had taken up from just such a misreading: "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge" (Ezekiel 18). He not only says but swears that they will have no reason to use such a proverb. The son will not bear the father's iniquity, and the father will not bear the son's.

The question the disciples raised may seem odd to us. But it expressed thoughts that were common among the Jews, based on Exodus 20:5, which speaks of the iniquity of the fathers being visited on the children. The Lord's reply shows that affliction may come with no element of punishment in it. It may come simply so that God's work may be displayed.

Least of all should Israel forget that Jehovah is God armed against sin. He is a jealous God, who visits the fathers' iniquity on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate Him. He shows mercy to thousands of those who love Him and keep His commandments. But how could the sinner appear before God armed with such terrors? Not a word to that effect appeared in the ten words God spoke that day. It was meant to fill the heart of man with terror because of his sins. But it is the goodness of God that leads to repentance; it is faith in our Lord Jesus that gives assurance of salvation.

This is so serious that people's sin would bring suffering on their children. It reaches to the third and fourth generation of those who hate God, those who despise His commandments. On the other hand, His character is such as to show mercy to those who love Him and keep His commandments. So, though God is perfectly holy and righteous, He is not harsh and cruel, but compassionate.

They admit that their fathers ate the sour grapes, but not themselves. But the commandment says something quite different. Those who love God and keep His commandments have in it the definite assurance that God will show them mercy. So they could not fall under the opposite rule of inheriting their father's sins.

The promised blessing is widened still further: "Yes, you shall see your children's children!" So the favour of God will rest on the descendants of His people. This is just what He promised at the giving of the law — showing mercy to thousands of those who love Him and keep His commandments.

Looking at the commandments together, we see that the first four relate to God, and the last six to man. That is, they define responsibility towards God and towards man... So God laid two things on Israel: love to God — perfect love to God, perfect according to their capacity — and love to their neighbour, measured by the standard of self-love.

What a law was this! Who could dare to say that the one absorbing object of his heart and soul is God? — and that his entire strength is devoted to God's pleasure? This law is a perfectly righteous one, but man in the flesh is totally incapable of obeying it. The Lord Jesus is the only one who has done so.

Least of all should Israel forget that the LORD is God armed against sin. He is a jealous God. He visits the fathers' iniquity on the children, to the third and fourth generation of those who hate Him. And He shows mercy to thousands of those who love Him and keep His commandments. But how could the sinner come before a God surrounded by such terrors? How was he to get rid of his sins to stand before Him? Not a word to this effect appeared in the ten words God spoke that day. He said little then, but every word was beyond doubt overwhelming and fatal to the guilty. It was meant to fill man's heart with terror because of his sins. But it is the goodness of God that leads to repentance; it is faith in our Lord Jesus that gives assurance of salvation.

The third requires the hallowing of His Name — that which stands for what He really is as revealed. These three commandments guard the great primary truth on which all others rest, for faith and practice.

In the third place the name of the Lord is safeguarded. Though the LORD Himself was unseen, He had made His Name known. If they used His Name in an unworthy way, they would soon disregard His supreme place among them.

An oath invoking God's name is a most serious matter. Elijah made such an oath to Obadiah, "As the LORD of hosts lives, before whom I stand" (1 Kings 18:15), and he kept that oath. But men will often dare to use God's name when they do not even intend to keep their word. That is completely in vain, and it is gross evil… In fact, the Lord Jesus goes further than the law, by telling us, "Do not take an oath at all" (Matt. 5:33-37). By the time the Lord Jesus came, man had proved so untrustworthy that his promises about the future were worth nothing.

A person may do this seriously or lightly. He may seriously swear by God that he will do a certain thing, and then not do it. People are so irresponsible that this becomes common. Then they use God's name lightly, and they no longer care how offensive their talk is.

To take His name in vain is not only saying it in vulgar oaths. Something else offends God just as much, if not more: tying His name to idols. The Egyptians did this. They gave one or more of the divine attributes to the sun, to the moon, and to each of their idols… Is this not the most offensive part of idolatry — giving the glory of God to another, and His praise to carved images? (See Isa. 42:8.)

All who name the Name of the Lord must depart (or "withdraw") from iniquity. We must not link the Name of the Lord with evil in any form… In a day of confusion it is no longer enough that a person confesses the Lord. We must test his confession. The test is this: do we submit to the authority of the Lord by departing from iniquity? To remain in association with evil and name the Name of the Lord is to connect His Name with evil.

Can anything be emptier, by its very nature, than professing God's name without constantly turning to His word and obeying His will? Even a human law has a penalty when it is broken… Can men who profess the true God forget how solemn an everlasting judgment is — a judgment not for godless deeds only, but for godless words? Can they act as if they were independent of God, as if their tongues or anything else were their own?

Sadly, out of the heart of man, among other evils, comes profanity. The Father's name was always on our Lord's lips, but never in a light way. He taught and practised in absolute perfection that petition, "Hallowed be Your name."… But He could say, "I must perform my vows to you, O God" (Ps. 56:12). What vows they were! — to glorify God about sin; to seek and to save the lost; to lay the eternal foundations of redemption deep, firm and broad; to bring many to glory.

The day was set apart and made holy from the beginning (Gen. 2). Later it came in again. First, in grace to Israel, marked by the stopping of the manna and a double portion to provide for that holy day (Ex. 16). Second, as part of the law of Sinai, woven into every new and special dealing of Jehovah (chap. 20).

If any of the ten commandments rests on God's claim alone, it is the sabbath. A child shows far more of the spirit of obedience when he does his father's will than when he only avoids or hates what his own conscience knows to be wrong. In the same way, the Jew proved his obedience much more by bowing to God's command about the sabbath. If I bow to God's command where my own conscience says nothing apart from His word, it is clear that His authority is dear to me… For this reason the sabbath acted as a test in a way the other nine commandments did not; so it was the special sign between Jehovah and Israel.

The Gentile nations had by this time lost all knowledge of the true God and of His work in creation. Israel alone knew this, and knew that God had rested on the seventh day. In the law God was enforcing His rights as Creator over man. By keeping the sabbath, Israel was to hold His work of creation in constant remembrance.

It was to this redeemed people that the command was given, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy."… That blood had separated them from Egypt and brought them to God in picture. That mighty power had brought them out. These were the ground on which God says, "Therefore the Lord your God commands you to keep the Sabbath day."… The real rest of God can only be known by those who have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.

In itself, it was a real blessing. It was a sweet mercy from the hand of a loving and gracious God, who would relieve the toil and hardship of a sin-stricken earth with the refreshment of one day of rest in seven… "The Sabbath was made for man." Man has never kept it as God meant it to be kept. But that does not take away from the grace that shines in His giving of it.

This is the only Sabbath which God ever celebrated, so far as the inspired record teaches us. After this, we read of God commanding man to keep the Sabbath, and man failing completely to do so. But we never read the words "God rested" again. On the contrary, the word is, "My Father is working until now, and I am working" (John 5:17)… God can have no rest where there is sin.

This is the reason why Christians keep the first day of the week, and not the seventh or sabbath day. Christ's redemption won that rest. The first day, when He rose from the dead, proclaimed it to faith, despite man's guilt and ruin… The Christian therefore has the first day as his own, because it belongs to and witnesses of the finished work of Christ.

"Sabbath" means "rest."… The Lord Jesus could not rest in a world full of sin and suffering… But in Hebrews 4:9 we read: "So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God." The sabbath rest is ahead of us.

Six days are man's working time; so six years of labour are followed by the Sabbatic year. Here we have the perfect period of service...

It is very illuminating that even in these days of man's innocence, God did not intend man to be idle. He was to dress the garden and keep it. Labour would not be irksome.

Once more, in Exodus 20:8-11, we have the fourth commandment about the Sabbath. There the seven days of the week and the seven days of creation stand together. Not one word marks off the two sets of days. We could only claim that one set of days was completely different from the other if clear proof came from other parts of Scripture. It does not.

The Egyptians dedicated each day of the week to one of their gods. Processions and obscene celebrations marked the honour paid to them... After the work of six days the command was imperative to rest on the seventh. It is not a bare permission but a command, and in effect the prohibition of idolatrous feasts. Working six days and resting the seventh cut off all opportunity for the riotous feasts of idolatry.

In itself, it was a real blessing. It was a sweet mercy from the hand of a loving and gracious God. He would relieve the toil and hardship of a sin-stricken earth by the refreshment of one day of rest out of the seven... "The Sabbath was made for man." Man has never kept it as God meant it to be kept. But that does not take away from the grace that shines in the appointment of it. Nor does it strip the Sabbath of its deep meaning as a picture of the eternal rest that remains for the people of God, or as a shadow of what faith now enjoys in the Person and work of a risen Christ.

Moses had set the people to work, with a promise of rest when they had fulfilled their obligations. They were to work their six days, and get their Sabbath when they had finished all their work. But they never finished, so they never got their Sabbath. But Jesus gives the Sabbath to begin with.

The Sabbath marks the creation of the world. It is a rest at the end of six days' labour. That only makes the reason for keeping the first day plainer... The principle of grace is not "do and live," but "live and do." Life begins for us out of death... How fitting that a Christian should keep the day of his Lord's resurrection! He is raised with Christ, and that day is his new beginning — the day he rightly calls "the Lord's day"! How fitting that he keeps it, not because a law commands him, but for the joy and privilege of it!

Christianity is meant to govern every day. I do not like your Sunday Christians... Some of us have work to do. Some of us may know what it is to work early and late... I still say it is a sad thing to be diligent for the world and not for the Lord. We are bound to see that our ordinary daily life is a witness of Christ.

If Scripture said that the Lord created heaven and earth in six days, there would be reasonable ground for the thought. The word of God nowhere says that. What we do find is the creation of heaven and earth in the beginning. But when you come to the six days, it is the making of heaven and earth. So the difference is obvious at once. "Create" (bara), if we are to distinguish the words, points to the power that brings a thing into being; "make" (asah) points to the form it is given.

The main work of those days was to shape the earth and solar system anew. The purpose was to give a suitable home to the man He was about to create.

There is another period of time — the week — of which we know nothing except by the Word of God. From that we learn that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. That is six days of work followed by one of rest. And this is so important that the week, a stretch of toil closing with a day of rest, becomes a divine institution.

The institution of the sabbath rests wholly on the direct authority of the word of God. Other commandments set out plain moral duties. Every man knows it is morally wrong to kill or steal. But no one would ever recognise keeping the sabbath as a duty if God had not clearly commanded it. That is why it carries such immense importance and interest... Only those who loved the Lord and His word would love and honour His sabbath.

The reader can see at a glance the difference between the two passages. In Exodus 20 the command to keep the sabbath rests on creation. In Deuteronomy 5 it rests on redemption, with no reference to creation at all.

The sabbath was a continual reminder of the Creator's completed work. That fact explains its moral character and its perfection. God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good. He had ended His work, and He rested on the seventh day. God's sabbath therefore expresses His complete satisfaction with a perfect scene. Nothing is missing there that could add to the happiness of the creatures He lets enjoy it all in fellowship with Himself.

Because of sin, man never had the thing the sabbath signified. More than that, God Himself could not rest because of sin. So when our blessed Lord was accused of breaking the sabbath, He answered, "My Father is working until now, and I am working" (John 5:17)... The writer of the letter to the Hebrews argues that "there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God."... It is Christ, and Christ only, who can lead us into the rest of God. Believers may have rest of conscience and rest of heart in Him now; but God's own rest waits until we enter that eternal scene where all things are made new.

In Exodus 31:13-17 God emphasises that the Sabbath was a sign between Him and Israel... This was not given to Gentiles, and it is not given to the church in the present age (compare Colossians 2:16-17). The Lord Jesus was in the grave on the Sabbath day, and was raised "the first day of the week"... Yet Scripture makes no law of this at all, for we are not under law but under grace. We should regard the first day of the week as "the Lord's Day," and be glad for the privilege of using it only for the Lord's pleasure, without attaching any legal bondage to it.

The sixth commandment guards human life, and God is the Source of that life. Man cannot give life, and he has no right to take it away, except when he does so as ordained by God.

The murderer does more than wrong a man and injure him to the last degree. He also defaces God's image by killing a man, and God sentences him to die. Murder is an unwarrantable seizing of what belongs to God.

The sixth commandment, "You shall not murder," must be considered from the viewpoint God intends. Israel had already killed many enemies that God had told them to kill. In the land of Canaan God would require them to kill the inhabitants too. God commanded this because the inhabitants were given up to idol worship. In the same way, when justice demands the death of a criminal, it is not murder for the authorities to put him to death. But no individual is free to kill another as he sees fit. Scripture makes a distinction between murder and manslaughter.

The word of God gives no support to the modern humanitarian movement to abolish the death penalty. It puts human ideas in the place of God's original law. In fact, it lifts man above God.

The sixth law, "You shall not kill," finds an echo in everyone's conscience. A man knows this is wrong without being told. Cain, though he had no law, knew he was doing evil in killing his brother, because he lied about it afterward.

The executive law in Israel could go no further than this. It could not deal with the state of the heart, but only with the outward act. Yet the law as expressed on the tablets of stone applied to more than the outward act.

Murder was the first terrible fruit after the fall, springing as it did from envy in the heart. The penalty of murder is the judgment. This, then, is the letter of the law. It dealt with the outward deed, but it did not touch the heart itself. Now He speaks: "I say to you that everyone who is lightly angry with his brother shall be subject to the judgment." The word "lightly" belongs here: it means not outward anger only, but even the faintest feeling of displeasure. … But the words lay the heart bare and show that man cannot stand before God, who judges the heart, in a righteousness of his own.

It is not merely someone who does not love, but the active work of hating. … He is a murderer in principle. … God deals with the heart, and not only with outward things.

The debt of love is the only debt that is legitimate and honourable, good among men and acceptable to the Lord — the debt we should always be paying and can never pay off. Grace alone gives the power, but by it law is fulfilled, and indeed only so. Law kept claiming love but never found it.

Marriage was God's gift to His creatures. He set it up before the Fall — before sin entered the world. He kept it going after the Fall. He held it as something no one may break, even before the law was given (Gen. 12:17; 20:3). He then guarded it by clear commands in the law (Ex. 20:14, 17). The Lord confirmed that it is holy (Matt. 19:3-9), and the New Testament says it is honourable for everyone (Heb. 13:4). Adam must have felt how much temporal enjoyment he had lost through the Fall. But God kept this blessing for him and for his children after him. It was His original gift for the happiness and welfare of people on earth.

"You shall not commit adultery" is the seventh commandment. Adultery corrupts the marriage bond. The command reaches every corruption of that bond, whether the people are married or not. The New Testament does not use the words "You shall not," but it warns against sexual sin just as strongly (Acts 15:29; 1 Thess. 4:3-4). Homosexuality is worse still — a most flagrant corruption of the bond of marriage (Rom. 1:26-27).

In the Old Testament, adultery means being unfaithful to your husband or wife to satisfy lust. God dealt with it very severely. According to the law of Sinai this sin had to be punished with death (Lev. 20:10; Deut. 22:22-24). The law was first of all God's set of rules for the outward, public life of His people on earth. So it punished only the finished act, even though the tenth commandment also forbade wanting your neighbour's wife... However, the mere outward keeping of this and all the other commandments could not justify him before God.

Here the Lord points to the human heart and shows that adultery has its source there. This is not a "spiritualising of the law," as is sometimes said. He says for the first time what every honest Israelite had to learn by experience. Anyone who tried to keep the command "You shall not commit adultery" found inside himself the very lusts that lead to the acts God forbids. And he had no strength to beat them. The lusts were even stirred up by the commandment: "I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, 'You shall not covet'" (Rom. 7:7-11).

Anything in our life, our habits, or our service that puts a soul in danger of giving in to these feelings must go. We should never spare it. We should leave it, whatever it costs. There must be the cutting off of everything hurtful to the soul... Cutting off a hand or an eye pictures a heart that judges itself honestly. It does not excuse itself by saying the sin was never carried out. It gives up whatever led towards the sin.

In the acts listed here, people show how constantly they break the second half of the law — the commands about how we treat other people (Matt. 22:39; Mark 12:31). Love is the fulfilling of the law; it thinks no evil, and does no harm. So loving your neighbour keeps you from breaking each of these commands against harming him. Paul sums up all these commands in one. He writes to the church at Rome: "For the commandments, 'You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,' and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: 'You shall love your neighbour as yourself'" (Rom. 13:9).

Adultery, or idolatry — "with their idols they have committed adultery" (Ezek. 23:37) — is the sin God charged Israel with long ago, because she was His wife (Jer. 3:14; Isa. 54:1). For this He divorced her. But in His purpose and grace, the LORD will bring Israel back into that blessed relationship. She will never lose it again.

This is not just a statement giving marriage dignity. It is a command. It calls us to live out the relationship well and to keep it free from every trace of impurity. We are told to honour it, not in one way or another, but "in all things." So it is not a badge of respectability that people get simply by being married. It is a serious charge to married believers: use the relationship in a way that pleases the Lord in every detail.

"Flee from sexual immorality." Here we are not told to fight, but to keep far away, as Joseph ran from Potiphar's wife. Other sins may not involve the body in this way, but this is sin against one's own body. And besides our bodies being members of Christ, we are now told, "your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you."

The third approves marriage and makes it holy. The fourth has to do with things, not persons — the goods of others, which it protects from anyone who would rob them.

From our Lord Jesus we know the moral summary and essence of the law — love for God, and love for man. But here it was given mostly in a way that exposed the condition of man. It came not as positive commands but as negative ones, a deeply humbling proof of what man was. He loved sin so much that God had to forbid it. In most of the ten commandments, in short, it was not "You shall," but "You shall not." That is, it banned man's will. He was a sinner, and nothing else.

The eighth commandment enforces the rights of personal property. The people of Israel shared life together to some degree. In the New Testament we read of a short period of Christian sharing, when many sold property and the believers in Jerusalem had everything in common. Even then the rights of private property stood. Peter said to Ananias, "While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal?" (Acts 5:4). Yes, it belonged to Ananias, and no one had the right to grab it away from him.

The commandments mean far more than their bare letter. To keep the commandment not to steal, you must not agree to the loss or ruin of anything that belongs to your neighbour. It must be cared for, guarded, and kept for him.

A man who puts cardboard into shoes and sells them as leather is unworthy of the name of Christian. He is not even an honest man. Someone may say, "It is the custom of the trade." How does that change anything for a person who wants to walk in the fear of God and keep a good conscience? ... The Word of God, not the custom of the trade, must govern a Christian's conscience.

For an employee to take small things from where he works is no less than stealing. Many do this without thinking. A believer must take care never to take anything that does not belong to him.

The law forbids the sin of theft. Now compare that with the appeal of the gospel, which carries the same command: "Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need" (Eph. 4:28). Here shines a ray of the light of divine love. Giving has taken the place of stealing. The thief by nature has become generous by grace. The gospel appeal holds far more than the demand not to steal. It expects the person it addresses to be like God — a giver.

The question for our souls is this: if robbing a fellow man is condemned in this way, how can the sin of robbing God be met? How can those who are already sinners make restitution to Him? It is impossible... But we read in the Psalms of One who said, "What I did not steal must I now restore?" (Psalm 69:4). He was the trespass offering as well as the sin and burnt offerings. He has therefore made full and adequate restitution — we can say this, if we believe — for all our trespasses. There is not a single wrong that could be charged against us which He, in His wonderful grace and mercy, has not repaired.

The ninth commandment safeguards truth against man's sinful tendency to twist it into outright lying. A man may lie about almost anything, but what is specially prohibited is his tendency to lie at his neighbour's expense. The devil, we know, is the father of lies, but since man fell under his influence he has become a very apt pupil in that direction. In this world lies have become one of the most powerful forces of evil. Killing and stealing are two of the commonest and worst forms of violence. Adultery and lying are two of the commonest and worst forms of corruption. All four destroy human happiness.

This commandment, by forbidding false witness, condemns deceit of every kind. Deceit is always the fallback of weakness where God is not before the soul. Its place in the order seems meant to remind the creature that he needs God. Walk with Him, and you will keep the holiness of truth.

Untrue testimony by one man against another is destructive. The law of Sinai forbade the Israelite to bear false witness against his neighbour (Ex. 20:16). Scripture also says a false witness will not go unpunished (Prov. 19:5, 9), but will perish (Prov. 21:28). He was a menace to the nation. Scripture pictures him as "a maul and a sword and a sharp arrow" (Prov. 25:18), because lying testimony bore its victim down by sheer force, cut through the very vitals, and wounded even from a distance.

To bear false witness is cruel and gross evil, but this commandment was coldly disregarded by too many Israelites. Jezebel deliberately bribed wicked men to falsely accuse Naboth to have him put to death (1 Kings 21:8-13). Even the chief priests of Israel sought false witnesses to testify against the Lord Jesus, the Son of God (Mark 14:55-59). How refreshing is the contrast in what people said of John the Baptist: "Everything that John said about this man was true" (John 10:41).

Then we find further care taken about witnesses, confirmed by the great law of just retribution. Suppose a witness gave testimony he knew was false, and so of course malicious. The punishment his charge would have brought, had it been true, fell on the man who raised the evil report.

Here we may see how God hates false witness. And keep this in mind: though we are not under law but under grace, false witness is no less hateful to God. Surely the more fully we enter into the grace in which we stand, the more we will hate false witness, slander, and evil speaking in every shape and form.

"Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another." The word "lying," or "falsehood," here means everything that has the character and nature of falsehood. It is abstract: what has this quality, not merely the act of lying. This is worth remembering. In practice it searches many of us who would never be drawn into telling an outright lie. A look, a gesture, one's manner, vague speech, evasion, compliments, and many other things can fall under this sense of lying.

In the tenth, then, God made a law not only against evil things but against the desire for evil things. That is what makes it so death-dealing for an awakened conscience. In keeping with this, the Lord Jesus moved the weight of the law against both murder and adultery. He moved it from the act to the desire and impulse that prompts the act. He did this when He gave His Sermon on the Mount, reported in Matthew 5.

To covet is to crave something that another person has. You may never steal from him, yet the craving for what he owns is itself sin.

The real aim of giving the law was to bring to light what was in His people's hearts. That is why the commandment takes the form of a prohibition. Why else would it say, You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not covet — unless the tendency to all these forms of sin was in them?

It is a sin that is never satisfied. It grows by what it feeds on. It leads to all sorts of other sins. It is the one sin of the heart that the ten commandments forbid outright — a hidden, secret sin that comes out of the heart. It leads to injustice and oppression, and to turning away from the faith. God hates it. It shuts people out of the kingdom of God, and it ranks with sins like theft, idolatry, and adultery. Yet this sin is so deceitful that few see how dangerous and awful it is. The world hardly counts it a sin at all. So a worldly Christian finds it hard to see that coveting what belongs to someone else is as bad before God as theft or drunkenness.

Covetousness involves no dishonesty. It is not even hard or sharp dealing. It is no more than the desire for more — the very spring of modern effort, the motive of bettering oneself, recommended to everyone from the mechanic to the millionaire. So the creature becomes the object, not God. That is why covetousness is called idolatry. It is man looking down, not up in dependence on God.

He does not say that he would have had no coveting. He says only that he had not known it. The craving was there, but he was in the dark about it. Then the law, like a lamp from God, shone into the dark rooms of his heart and showed the evil that was there. It is like a man in a dark room. Dust and mess may be all around him, but the darkness hides it. Let the sunbeams shine in, and he sees it at once. Do the sunbeams create the dust? Surely not. The dust is there, and they only detect and reveal it.

We cannot get rid of this covetous attitude unless the Lord Jesus works in our hearts by new birth. He makes us willing to judge our motives and to seek to live by wholehearted faith. Then, instead of envying others, we shall know how to "rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep" with no thought of ourselves. We shall be glad when others are blessed, even when we go without. That will not be because the law commands us not to covet, but because the grace of God is working in our hearts.