What did Jesus say about the Ten Commandments?

There are several points in connection with the giving of the law which demand distinct and especial attention. The first is the nature of the law itself. The commandments are ten in number, and they are based upon, or rather flow out from, the relationship into which God had entered with His people in redemption. "I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." Looking at the commandments together it will be seen that the first four relate to God, and the last six to man; i.e. they define responsibility towards God and towards man. Hence they were summed up by our blessed Lord, in answer to the question, Which is the great commandment in the law? as follows: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." (Matt. 22:35-40; see Deut. 10:12; and Lev. 19:18.) Love to God — perfect love to God, perfect according to their capacity — and love to their neighbour, according to the standard of self-love, were thus enjoined upon Israel.

The Lord's answer astonished all who heard it. Evidently it was quite new to them, even to the Pharisees, who had never been able to silence the Sadducees like this. Hearing it, the Pharisees came together, and one of them put to the Lord his question about the law, raising a point that they had doubtless often discussed amongst themselves. He was thinking of the ten Commandments in Exodus 20, but the Lord turned him to Deuteronomy 6:5, and added Leviticus 19:18. The demand of the law is summed up in one word — love. First, love to God; second, love to one's neighbour. When Paul tells us, "Love is the fulfilling of the law" (Rom. 13:10), he is only stating in other words what Jesus said here (verse 40).

In the tenth , then, God legislated against not only evil things but against the desire for evil things, and this makes it so death-dealing for the awakened conscience. It was in keeping with this that the Lord Jesus removed the weight of the law against both murder and adultery from the act to the desire and impulse that prompts the act, when He gave His Sermon on the Mount, reported in Matthew 5. Hence also the warning against covetousness, which the Lord uttered, in Luke 12; and the statement of the Apostle Paul, "Mortify therefore … covetousness, which is idolatry" (Col. 3:5).

When the rich young ruler approached the Lord with his question as to eternal life, Jesus tested him with five out of the ten commandments. He did not cite the first four, dealing with what is due to God, nor did He mention the tenth. The young man could say he had kept the five that the Lord mentioned. No doubt he had, if only the prohibited acts were in question. Had he been tested on the basis of the tenth, he would have been hopelessly condemned.

In the portion that follows we enter upon a most important subject. If there was this new kind of blessedness, so foreign to the thoughts of Israel after the flesh, what was the relation of the law to Christ's doctrine and the new state of things about to be introduced? Did not the law come from God through Moses? If Christ brought in that which was so unexpected, even by the disciples, what would be the bearing of this truth upon that which they had previously received through God's inspired servants, and for which they had His own authority? Weaken the authority of the law, and it is clear that you destroy the foundation on which the gospel rests; for the law was of God as certainly as the gospel. Hence came in a most weighty question, especially for an Israelite: what was the bearing of the doctrine of Christ, respecting the kingdom of heaven, upon the precepts of the law? The Lord opens this subject (vers. 17-48) with these words: "Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets." They might have thought so from the fact of His having introduced something not mentioned in either; but "Think not," He says, "that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil." I take this word "fulfil" in its largest sense. In His own person the Lord fulfilled the law and the prophets, in His own ways, in righteous subjection and obedience. His life here below exhibited its beauty for the first time without flaw. His death was the most solemn sanction which the law ever could receive, because the curse that it pronounced upon the guilty, the Saviour took upon Himself. There was nothing the Saviour would not undergo, rather than God should have dishonour. But our Lord's words warrant, I think, a further application. There is an expansion of the law, or δικαίωμα (righteous requirement), giving to its moral element the largest scope, so that all which was honouring to God in it should be brought out in its fullest power and extent. The light of heaven was now let fall upon the law, and the law interpreted, not by weak, failing men, but by One who had no reason to evade one jot of its requirements; whose heart, full of love, thought only of the honour and the will of God; whose zeal for His Father's house consumed Him, and who restored that which He took not away. Who but He could expound the law thus — not as the scribes, but in the heavenly light? For the commandment of God is exceeding broad, whether we look at its making an end of all perfection in man, or the sum of it in Christ.

Far from annulling the law, the Lord, on the contrary, illustrated it more brightly than ever, and gave it a spiritual application that man was entirely unprepared for before He came. And this is what the Lord proceeds to do in the wonderful discourse that follows. After having said, "Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled," He adds, "Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven" (vers. 18-20). Our Lord is going to expand the great moral principles of the law into commandments that flow from Himself, and not merely from Moses, and shows that this would be the great thing whereby persons would be tested. It would no longer be a question of the ten words spoken on Sinai merely; but, while recognizing their full value, He was about to open out the mind of God in a way so much deeper than had ever been thought of before that this would henceforth be the great test.

Let one instance suffice out of the seven occasions in that discourse when our Lord said, “I say to you.” “Ye have heard that it was said of them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: but I say to you, That whosoever looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart” (Matt. 5:27-28). Where is there the setting aside of the law? Nay, He upheld it. The law was content to forbid the actual act, the Lord went further, and not only forbad the outward act, but the inward desire.

Then, in carrying out their ceremonials they brushed aside the commandment of God in favour of their own tradition. The Lord not merely asserted this, but proved it by giving an instance of the way in which they set aside the fifth commandment by their rules concerning "Corban;" that is, things devoted to the service of God. Under cover of "Corban" many a Jew divested himself of all his rightful duties towards his poor old parents. And he did the thing with an air of sanctity, for did it not appear more pious to devote things to God rather than to one's parents?

The things that came under "Corban" were not things that God demanded; had it been so His demand must have prevailed. There were things that might be dedicated, if so desired; whereas the obligation to support parents was a distinct command. Pharisaic tradition permitted a man to use a permissive enactment in order to avoid complying with a distinct command. They might try to support their tradition with sophistry which appeared pious, but the Lord charged them with nullifying the Word of God. The written words of Exodus 20:12 were to Jesus "the Word of God." There is no support here for that religious fastidiousness which declines to attach the designation "Word of God" to the written Scriptures.

298 Let us now see what the New Testament directly affords us on the sabbath. Is any hint as to its sacredness to be found? Matthew 12:1 is evidently of great consequence here. The Pharisees complained of the disciples' plucking and rubbing the ears of corn. The Lord's answer is remarkable. It is not to rebuke the Pharisees as He does elsewhere, but to shew that the sabbath and other ceremonial enactments have been set aside for sufficient cause, and that a greater than any obligation of the sabbath was there. Could God say, I am greater than a moral commandment? Would that be a divine way of putting things if it were a question of hating a brother or coveting another man's wife? Such a thought would revolt at once. But that is the Lord's reasoning as to the sabbath. First a rejected Messiah made all common, for another obligatory commandment, the sabbath, gave way under God's own eye. Christ was greater than the temple; and if they knew God's heart, they would not have condemned His disciples. All this proved the Pharisees wrong and unjustifiable. But, besides, the Son of man was Lord of the sabbath. Surely this could not be said of a commandment as to right and wrong! He had a title to dispose of the sabbath, through the dignity of His person and office. Could all this have been said if the Lord were insisting on the maintenance of its authority? He adds that it is lawful to do well on the sabbath. The parallel passage in Mark adds, The sabbath was made for man.

Correspondence has been proceeding in "The Christian" on the intensely important subject of the Law given by Moses, its meaning and use and its value in this day of Grace. We venture to pass on to our readers some thoughts gathered up from the study of the subject. In the Sermon on the Mount the Lord said, "Think not that I am come to destroy but to fulfil. For verily I say to you, Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or tittle shall in no wise pass from the law until all be fulfilled" (Matt. 5:17-18). It had not been kept until He came, but now it was to be more than kept, it was to be fulfilled, and that meant much more than the mere keeping of it in the letter. It meant to fill it out, to show its full and proper character. The law was like a beautiful portrait, the portrait of a perfect man, and there were those who could appreciate its beauties, like the Psalmist who said, "Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law." When Jesus came every feature of it found living expression in Him. He was the original. He filled out every jot and tittle of it, brought out all its beauty and made it instinct with life. Now the anointed eye can look upon His life on earth and see in Him the blessed Man whose delight was in the law of God, and in whose law He meditated day and night. He loved the Lord His God, with all His heart, and His neighbour as Himself, and in His life He showed that "the law is holy, just and good, " done that He could bring in the grace that saves those whom the law could only condemn, but to do that He had to suffer its full penalty, which He did when He suffered for sinners upon the cross.

It has been urged by some that the Lord's words in verses 21, 27, 33, 43, "Ye have heard it said of them of old time… but l say to you, " give a warrant for discarding the Scriptures and substituting for them something up to date. It is a scandalous and immoral procedure. He was shifting the searchlight from the outward actions to the unseen inner nature. One reason for which the law was given was to check and curb the lusts and passions of man, to hold within bounds the evil acts of his fallen nature. This is shown in Paul's first letter to Timothy. "But we know that the law is good if a man use it lawfully: knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for man-slayers" etc. (chap. 1:9, 19). Thus had it been rightly interpreted, but the Lord went deeper and dealt with the hidden desires of the heart, with the nature that lies at the root of every transgression and from which all evil deeds spring, and declared that God required truth in the inward parts. David learned in his great repentance, that more terrible than his deeds was the nature that produced them, and the law taught Saul of Tarsus the same necessary lesson (Romans 7). This did not make void the law, it established its use as a searching, convicting power.

It is a great mistake to apply the Sermon on the Mount in its positive statements to the law of the Ten Commandments, as if it was a spiritualising of them. The Law, as a system, is spoken of, taken up in Matthew 5:17-18, along with the Prophets. Prophecies, ceremonies, and all that is in the Law, were not set aside, or annulled, but fulfilled, the body was of Christ, and no doubt the Lord fulfilled its behests and precepts. It was to be kept till all was fulfilled. For faith, it was fulfilled in Christ, and, as to practical righteousness, is fulfilled in the Christian; Romans 8. But what the Lord goes then through is the contrast of an internal state of heart with Pharisaic outward formal righteousness. Only two of the commandments are mentioned as of the old times, and a subjective state is contrasted with a mere formal fulfilment of the letter. Duties to God are not entered on (never, I think, in Matthew, for God was revealing Himself in a new way). Man was not to think merely of killing - if one hated his brother, was angry even without a cause, God took notice of it; so of adultery. You have thus the state of the heart judged. So, as to alms, and all else, it is a righteousness which exceeds the righteousness of Scribes and Pharisees, as in verse 20. But in no wise a spiritualising of the Law. As I have said myself, eight out of ten commandments are not referred to. Verse 20 is the key to it; compare Matthew 6:2, 16. There, of course, you get positive directions.

25 As to details. It is clear He was not, as Jehovah-Messiah, come to set aside His own law, and His own prophets. He came to fulfil them - not impose on others in continuance, but fulfil them. As I have said, of all the ceremonial part He was the substance and fulfilment. Then as to commandments, personally of course He fulfilled the Law. But even when He says: "But I say," He is not taking up the Law to spiritualise it. In two cases only, He takes up one of the Ten Commandments, murder and adultery, but only as essential parts of His own morality, and given as applying to the state of a man, not his acts, as all through, for this is His subject. And where He seems to change it, yet He fulfils it. Israel was divorced for their sins, yet He returns to God's original institution which was in the Law too, and will own Israel as Ish (man) and Hephzibah (beloved of God) making good God's own institution, when the governmental force of the Law has run its course, from Babylon till He takes His power and Israel has paid the last farthing. And breaking or annulling "one of the least commandments" is the same maintenance of the Law in all its integrity, and "least" is merely fully enforcing it, for if Christ came to fulfil it, he went against it, was going against Jehovah, and the very thing He came for. But the word "least" is merely to answer to "least," for either it gives a measure and he who taught against the least would get in, beyond that not - which is monstrous - or else he who annulled a greater would be less than he, still in the kingdom. But this is not the thought. "Least" echoes "least," and it is maintaining every jot and tittle of the Law, even the smallest, which I fully believe, but to be fulfilled by Christ, not carried on, though many things in it may abide, but it must (genetai) never be set aside, but fulfilled by Christ as God's own word. But to say 'Christ only brought out the true contents of the Law,' is simply ignorance of what Christianity is, for grace and truth came by Him. The Law, as a rule, is what man should be for God - Christianity is what God is for man, and God in Man, and that is our full pattern, and this in general character (not in redemption, and giving up self consequently man's part) - we have in the Sermon on the Mount, far away from Law; chap. 5:44-48. In this, Christ was in life before redemption. But for us the full character is also what He did in redemption; Ephesians 5:1.