The Ten Commandments

Do we follow the 10 commandments as laid down in Exodus 20:1-17, the commandments given to the Jews by God through Moses on Mount Sinai after He had delivered them from slavery in Egypt?

You can find the commandments in two books in the Bible, Exodus and Deuteronomy, the exact places being as follows;

Exodus 20:2-17
Deuteronomy 5:6-21
Exodus 34:11-27.

The account in Exodus 20 is probably the most read and expected as a list of the commandments:

2 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery;
3 Do not have any other gods before me.
4 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me,
6 but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.
7 You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.
8 Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.
9 For six days you shall labour and do all your work.
10 But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns.
11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it.
12 Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
13 You shall not murder.
14 You shall not commit adultery.
15 You shall not steal.
16 You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
17 You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

In its basic form it is a list of what God expected from the Jews and formed ‘part’ of the Law which the Jews lived by. It is taken by many to be split into two sections, the first 4 commandments are directed at the relationship between God and man and the following six between man and man.

GOD and MAN
1. You shall have no other gods before Me.
2. You shall not make for yourself a carved image-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.
3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

MAN and MAN
5. Honour your father and your mother.
6. You shall not murder.
7. You shall not commit adultery.
8. You shall not steal.
9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.
10. You shall not covet your neighbour's house; you shall not covet your neighbour's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbour's.

The commandments are a good foundation for living a good life, they promote peace and a respect for God. However, as the Church are we bound by them?

Context

As with everything in the Bible we must look at the context in which something is given or spoken, when was it said and who was it said to, whether Jew or Christian, so we can then differentiate whether it relates to the law (Jew) or grace (the Church and the Christian).

The commandments were definitely given to the Jews and relate to the Law, I don’t think anyone could deny this, they formed part of their Law and still do today. However, we could say that the scripture in many places in the New Testament still says keep the commandments; Jesus Himself mentions the commandments in the 4 Gospels:

Exodus 20:3 “Do not worship any other gods beside me.”
Matthew 4:10 “You must worship the Lord your God; serve only him.”

Exodus 20:4 “Do not make idols of any kind.”
Luke 16:13 “No one can serve two masters.”

Exodus 20:7 “Do not misuse the name of the LORD your God.”
Matthew 5:34 “But I say, don’t make any vows! If you say, ‘By heaven!’ it is a sacred vow because heaven is God’s throne.”

Exodus 20:8 “Remember to observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.”
Mark 2:27-28 “The Sabbath was made to benefit people and not people to benefit the Sabbath. And I, the Son of Man, am master even of the Sabbath!”

Exodus 20:12 “Honor your father and mother.”
Matthew 10:37 “If you love your father or mother more than you love me, you are not worthy of being mine.”

Exodus 20:13 “Do not murder.”
Matthew 5:22 “If you are angry with someone, you are subject to judgment!”

Exodus 20:14 “Do not commit adultery.”
Matthew 5:28 “Anyone who even looks at a woman with lust in his eye has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

Exodus 20:15 “Do not steal.”
Matthew 5:40 “If you are ordered to court and your shirt is taken from you, give your coat, too.”

Exodus 20:16 “Do not testify falsely against your neighbour.”
Matthew 12:36 “You must give an account on judgment day of every idle word you speak.”

Exodus 20:17 “Do not covet.”
Luke 12:15 “Don’t be greedy for what you don’t have.”

Confirmation

So here we have it must we follow the 10 commandments as laid down in the Old Testament? No. The Gospels are an account of Jesus calling the Jews, not calling a Church. Jesus was going to complete the Law though Himself and so change the legalistic approach of Judaism to a personal relationship which then would save the world.

As we know, this didn’t happen. The Jews crucified Him and God turned to the Gentiles to call out a Church from all the nations of the world. I don’t want this to be a law and grace message so I will try to keep it simple. As Christians we are not asked by God to keep the 10 commandments, if we are then we have already failed, certainly all of us who attend church on a Sunday.

The commandment of ‘remember to observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy’ is not something we can keep as we don’t observe the Sabbath, it means nothing to the Church, only to the Jew. To say our Sabbath is Sunday is wrong, the Sabbath is the Sabbath, the last day of the week when God rested. It is what it is and can’t be transferred or translated into anything else. It is there I believe as a key to the division which is between the Law and Grace, between what was asked of the Jew and not of the Church.

The Sabbath was given for common sense reasons, man cannot work seven days a week and it not affect him. God wants us to be healthy and so created the Sabbath as a day of rest to make sure the Jews didn’t work every hour there was.

We do not live under the law, Christ is in us now but we should heed the warning and advice from God about working too much.

Jesus came to fulfil the law He came to move it from a list of rules to a real relationship, and in the New Testament Jesus gave us a glimpse of what was to come in Matthew 22:34-40.

34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together.
35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:
36 ‘Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?’
37 Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'
38 This is the first and greatest commandment.
39 And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbour as yourself.'
40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.’

It is interesting to note in verse 40 that Jesus says that the Law and the Prophets are based on these two commandments, the Amplified version says;

40 These two commandments sum up and upon them depend all the Law and the Prophets.

They sum up in the same way that the commandments are split, the first 4 commandments relate to the first – ‘love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind’. And the last six relate to the second – ‘love your neighbour as yourself’.

In these two, not new commandments, but original and revealed commandments, the Jews were being prepared for the consummation of the Law.

As Christians we have Christ in us and as such we don’t ‘follow’ any commandments we live them in our hearts and mind, like the new promise the Lord has for the Jews in Hebrews 10:6.

Hebrews 10:16

16. This is the new covenant I will make with my people on that day, says the Lord: I will put my laws in their hearts so they will understand them, and I will write them on their minds so they will obey them.

So to go back to the original question, no, we don’t ‘follow’ the commandments, for two reasons. The first is that they were not given to us, they were designed for the Jews to show sin and not to save them. The inclusion of the Sabbath as a rule to adhere to confirms this.

The second reason is that they are part of the law and to follow the law means you make a mockery of the death of Jesus. Why would you want to follow something we have been freed from? Romans 6:14 says:

14. Sin is no longer your master, for you are no longer subject to the law, which enslaves you to sin. Instead, you are free by God's grace.

If you feel the need to put commandments up on the wall, at least choose the two original ones which the Law was based on and our hearts are in line with.