The Ten Commandments

I

You shall have no other gods before me.

II

You shall not make for yourselves an idol, nor any image of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: you shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them, for I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and on the fourth generation of those who hate me, and showing loving kindness to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

III

You shall not take the name of Yahweh your God in vain, for Yahweh will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

IV

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. You shall labor six days, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to Yahweh your God. You shall not do any work in it, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, your man-servant, nor your maid-servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates; for in six days Yahweh made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day; therefore Yahweh blessed the Sabbath day, and made it holy.

V

Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which Yahweh your God gives you.

VI

You shall not murder.

VII

You shall not commit adultery.

VIII

You shall not steal.

IX

You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

X

You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.

The above comes from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible

To most of us in the west laws are an enumeration of do's and donts. However, in Psalms David said he spent much time pondering God's laws. The longest psalm, psalm 119, is about the law. Apparently the Jews called (and still do) the law the Torah. It is a subject of much discussion among the more religious of them. Think of the law not only as a set of do's and donts, but as a guideline on how to live one's life. A young parson called Alan likened it to the signs and beacons on the beach saying "Swim between these beacons". They do not tell you that there is a rip that will carry you off into the sea just to the side of the beacons, or rocks that will cut your feet. If you ignore the beacons and sign and consequently find yourself in trouble the beacons and sign won't jump into the water and save you. That is not what they are there for.

You all know how not murdering (no VI) and not stealing (VIII) will generally predispose toward a more tranquil life-style. Nobody wants the cops banging on their door and carting them off to jail. Obviously, these two commandments are based on solid principles. What about the rest? I'll do one and you can consider the rest. I am sure you will find many good reasons to say they are all based on solid, practical principles.

Take number five, honour your father and mother. Children live in their parents' homes for many years. Honouring their fathers and mothers will make things go smoother, leading to better relationships between all concerned, for many years. Even after the kids leave home the benefits will persist. They will carry on to the grand kids. One of the things I envy the less developed areas in the world for (there are very few things I envy them for) are the supportive extended families missing in the west. The supporting nature of these families are built on healty relationships. One of the most important building blocks of healthy family relationships is that children should honour their fathers and mothers. Now look at the rest of the Ten Commandments in the same way. They are not dead and irrelevant in our day and age.

There are many people who feel that because Jesus paid the price for our sins the Ten Commandments are no longer valid and we don't have to try to keep them anymore. Obviously, some of them are contained in the legal code of most countries, so we are forced to keep them. But some are not.

Does the Bible give us any help on this topic? I'll quote two passages. The two quotes should be seen as one unit.

I John 2:3-6 (RSV)
3 And by this we may be sure that we know him, if we keep his commandments.
4 He who says "I know him" but disobeys his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him;
5 but whoever keeps his word, in him truly love for God is perfected. By this we may be sure that we are in him:
6 he who says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

Now what do we have on how Jesus lived in regards to the Ten Commandments? Let's hear from Jesus himself.

John 15:10 (RSV)
10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love.

That is quite clear: Jesus kept the Father's commandments. Is there anybody who argues that the commandments Jesus was talking about did not include the Ten Commandments? Would Jesus not have said it if one or more of the Ten Commandments was no longer valid or would be invalidated at any time?

Did Jesus have anything to say on the expiry date of any of the Ten Commandments?

Matthew 5:17 (Revised Standard Version)
"Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them.
Matthew 5:18 (Revised Standard Version)
For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.

Again, that's very clear. Whatever Jesus was talking about has no expiry date, to put it mildly. Yes, you say, but does this refer to the Ten Commandments?

Matthew 16:16-19 (Revised Standard Version)
16 Behold, one came to him and said, "Good teacher, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?"
17 He said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but one, that is, God. But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments."
18 He said to him, "Which ones?"
Jesus said, "You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not offer false testimony.
19 Honor your father and mother. And, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Obviously, Jesus here quoted from the Ten Commandments. He omitted the tenth and the first four commandments. He quoted only those commandments that referred to human to human interaction.

Does this mean the others are no longer valid?

Absolutely not. Coveting what belongs to your neighbour (Americans, note the correct spelling) may be encompassed by the injunction to "love your neighbour as yourself." So, the tenth is taken care of.

What about the first four?

Nobody will seriously suggest that Jesus thought having other gods, serving idols (whether it takes the form of kneeling down to an image or other less obvious forms), taking the Lord's name in vain or keeping the sabbath were not important. In fact, they went without saying, and Jesus was not in the habit of stating the obvious. And there is much evidence that they were taken seriously in Jesus' day; Jesus was accused of blaspheming and breaking the sabbath. It's in the Bible. So there was no use in telling people to do what they were already doing.

However, in our day the humanist commandments are more likely to be kept and those specifying our relationship to God are taken less seriously, especially the second (in the form of making the almighty buck the ultimate goal and thereby implicitly worshipping Mammon, the god of material posessions), third and fourth commandments.

In fact, there are some professing Christians who say Jesus' death nullified or changed the fourth commandment.

How strange. Scroll up and compare the fourth to the others. First of all, you will notice that it is the longest. How strange that God should give so much space to a commandment he planned to nullify/change. There is even a reason given for its existence - it commemorates God's rest after the creation. That is to say it reminds us of the creation and the Creator. Once every week.

The apostles changed it, some say. Is there something the apostles changed? I mean something there is no doubt about. Indeed there is. Circumcision as a prerequisite for full membership in the community of God was dropped. It's in the Bible. And not in a few words, either. There was a big song and dance before everybody agreed that circumcision was no longer needed. And circumcision did not even make it to the Ten Commandments. How strange that dropping a minor injunction caused such a well documented stir, but changing/dropping the biggest/longest/most prominent commandment caused nary a ripple and defnitely not a word to be written down about the event. You will really need to be original to explain this one away.

Did Jesus have anything to say about the state of the sabbath after his death? Indeed he did mention the sabbath in relation to an event to take place about 40 years after his death.

Matthew 24:20 (Revised Standard Version)
Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a sabbath.

The above refers to the sack of Jerusalem by the Roman general Titus in 70AD. Obviously Jesus expected the sabbath to be still in place and honoured at that time. That would be strange if his apostles were to abandon it shortly after his death.

Did the apostles keep the sabbath after Jesus' death? Absolutely. How many examples do you want?
Acts 13:14 (Revised Standard Version)
but they passed on from Perga and came to Antioch of Pisid'ia. And on the sabbath day they went into the synagogue and sat down.
Acts 13:44 (Revised Standard Version)
The next sabbath almost the whole city gathered together to hear the word of God.
Acts 16:13 (Revised Standard Version)
and on the sabbath day we went outside the gate to the riverside, where we supposed there was a place of prayer; and we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together.
Acts 18:4 (Revised Standard Version)
And he argued in the synagogue every sabbath, and persuaded Jews and Greeks.
Acts 17:2 (World English Bible)
Paul, as was his custom, went in to them, and for three Sabbath days reasoned with them from the Scriptures,

Now what about the following?

Colossians 2:16 (World English Bible)
Let no man therefore judge you in eating, or in drinking, or with respect to a feast day or a new moon or a Sabbath day,

Colossians was written around 60AD. There is no historical evidence that any weekly sabbath but the seventh day sabbath was kept at that time. Paul was here clearly not referring to the weekly sabbath as, at the time of the writing of Colossians (and indeed in Paul's whole lifetime) there were no disagreements/questions about the sabbath. There were many other religious holidays also called sabbaths. Which specific day/days Paul was referring here to, we do not know. Here we can only agree with Peter:

II Peter 3:14-16 (Revised Standard Version)
14 Therefore, beloved, since you wait for these, be zealous to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace.
15 And count the forbearance of our Lord as salvation. So also our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him,
16 speaking of this as he does in all his letters. There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures.

Now didn't Peter hit the nail right on the head here?

And a final word, from who other but Jesus:

Mark 7:6-8 (Revised Standard Version)
6 And he said to them, "Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, `This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me;
7 in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.'
8 You leave the commandment of God, and hold fast the tradition of men."