Coromandel Baptist Church

Sunday 6 September 2009 Exodus 20:12-17, Romans 13:8-14 and Galatians 5:13-18

God's Ten Words (3)

It has been often pointed out that the Ten Commandments can be divided into two broad sections, love for God and love for one's neighbour. In effect, these two are indivisible, as no one can say that he loves God if he hates his brother, and none can say that he loves his brother if he hates God (1 John 4:20-21). We see the depth of our inner hatred of God revealed when we hate the Son of God without cause (e.g. John 15:23-24). He who has truly loved us (because he has fully and truly loved the Father), becomes the object of all human rage and murderous loathing, because hate the One who sent him. The great commandment is to love the Lord with all our heart and soul and mind, but the second is ‘like unto it', i.e. one with it and inseparable from it (Matt. 22:35-40). Today we consider in brief compass those commands which relate to our love for our neighbour and this as the expression of our love for God.

The fifth commandment requires us to honour our parents. This commandment naturally forms the pivot point between the two sets of commandments, since it is in and through our parents we first meet God's authority in our lives and in this way they represent God to us. In particular, fatherhood is designed to reflect the Fatherhood of God, not analogically but ontologically i.e. God is not like our earthly fathers, but they may be like him. The way we regard the Fatherly authority of God will be reflected in the way in which we honour our earthly parents. Dishonour for them reflects our dishonour for God our heavenly Father (hence Rom. 1:30, where ‘haters of God' and ‘disobedient to parents' are clearly linked).

The way in which we bestow honour to our parents varies from stage to stage throughout our lives. As children we are to render loving obedience to our parents, and to treat with them with the respect and love that is suitable to a child. As we grow and mature we become more independent of their care. In decision making and in financial responsibility, we begin to make our own way in the world, and if we are given the gift of marriage, we ‘leave and cleave' in a new family relationship. However, the honour due to our parents does not stop at that point. We are to honour them by caring for their needs when they are no longer able to care for their own needs, and for this purpose we are given the gift of vocation and the ability to earn a wage. Jesus condemned the deceitful greed of the Pharisees in this regard, who ‘ring fenced' their money by declaring it Corban (a Hebrew word describing an offering consecrated to God, so that it became, in effect, the property of the Temple, even if a person kept the use of it indefinitely), so that they would not have to use it to care for their aged parents (Mark 7:9-13 cf. 1 Tim. 5:4).

The next commandments-which prohibit murder, theft, adultery and false witness-all protect the rights and privileges of our neighbour. Jesus' exposition of the commandments (see Matt. 5:18-22, in context) makes it plain that the issue is not simply the act, but the thought, desire and intention behind the act. In this way these commandments not only throw the mantle of God's protection over the matters that lie closest to our identity and relational life, but also show up the inherent sinfulness of the human heart in its devious deception, which would give the appearance of being righteous, but which is full of hidden wickedness (cf. Mark 7:20-23). It is a well observed fact that we are most angry with and critical of others in relation those things of which we find ourselves most guilty in conscience (see, for example, the excessive rage of Judah against Tamar in Gen. 38:24 or David's outraged sense of justice in his conversation with Nathan in 2 Sam. 12:5-7).

The tenth commandment puts its finger not only on the acts that are committed, but chiefly on the inner intentionality of the heart in desiring that which is not ours. In one sense, every transgression of any commandment comes from a covetous spirit. The word ‘covet' is used in parallel with ‘desire' (e.g. Deut. 5:21), indicating that these things are relate to inner motivations and intentions. Significantly, the word translated ‘covet' in Exodus 20:17 also appears in the Genesis narrative in the account of the fall. The woman ‘coveted/desired' the fruit, and all that this promised her (Gen. 3:6). Given that the fall of our first parents related to the knowledge of good and evil, coveting is joined at the hip with the judgements we make about what would be ‘good' or ‘evil' for us. Coveting is the sinful expression of our own determination for all things to be ordered as we would have them be. In this way it is linked to other sinful ways of thought, such as envy, jealousy, and greed. Paul thus says that ‘greed' (i.e. covetousness) amounts to idolatry (Col. 3:5 cf. Eph. 5:5), which means that our transgression of the tenth commandment internally, has in effect led to the transgression of the first two.

As with all the commands, this ‘second tablet' of the Law has an ontological foundation (in that they express the inner life of the Triune God, in whom there is great honour accorded to the Father; the desire to bestow life instead of taking it; the fullness of love which seeks to give rather than to steal; the action of bearing true witness to one another rather than false; and no coveting of the gifts and glory of the other Persons, but the constant action of self giving so that the other may be glorified); a creational expression (in that these laws were built into the creational pattern of life); a sinful perversion (in that all human sinfulness exposes the deceitfulness of our hearts under a cover of self-righteousness); a Christological fulfilment (in that Jesus, as the True Man, fulfilled all the reality and intentionality of the commands); and an eschatological goal (in that the substance of these commands, which is love, will be the sum and substance of life in the age to come). Living in these things (by virtue of our union with Christ) is indeed true life now. But we need to be redeemed into the beauty of them (just as Israel had to be redeemed out of Egypt) so that we might be with God and be of one heart and mind with him in the Ten Words he has spoken.