What is God’s intended purpose for the Ten Commandments? Read to the end of this installment to see what I think is the answer, which will serve as a surprise to most of us.
NO OTHER GODS
God says, “Have no other gods before me.” No problem, I say. I think I can sort of skip this one and get on to the list of behaviors.
Wait. Let me not write this off so quickly. I should ponder on it. Is there anything in my life that causes me to say no to God? Has something become more important to me than God Himself? Before you judge, let me challenge you with a short list. Any of these you have taken as a higher authority when making decisions for your life? Science? Reason? Humanism? Money? Family? Reputation? Ambition? Security? Food? Self?
NO GRAVEN IMAGE
Don’t make one. Don’t bow down to one. Don’t serve one. Again, no problem for me. I’m broadly evangelical, after all. So I don’t have any graven images, right?
Uhm . . . Netflix? Baseball? Fog and lights? Piano? iPad? Money? Do I serve any of these, or make a decision based on them, or rely on them for what only God can do?
NAME IN VAIN
This is one of the most neglected commands in our society. In our culture, we begin prayers that are not prayers at all. “Oh, God.” . . . “Yes? You are speaking to Me?” “God bless you.” . . . “For sneezing?” “Dear Jesus!” . . . “You were startled. Did you call on my name?” “I swear.” . . . “Let your yes be yes.”
Those godless hypocrites! But not me. I never lead a worship song while thinking of something else. I never choose a song based on its emotional effect or theme, but neglect to actually mean the words I am singing. I never pray in front of people, hoping to gain their respect for my great spirituality. Well, I might have done one or more of those things just about every time. Oops!
THE SABBATH PRINCIPLE
Remember the Sabbath. Set it apart. Do all your work in six days. Give the seventh to the LORD your God. Don’t let your family work, or your appliances (servants), or your guests. Because God made everything in six days, and He rested on the seventh. He blessed that day. He set it apart.
Do I trust the LORD enough to sacrifice one day a week for Him? IN order to do all that I want to do in my lifetime, do I burn the candle at both ends? Am I willing to turn off the creative impulse as an offering to God? More than that, do I recognize that God made this rest for me, as a gift for my own good? Do I tithe my time, my talent, and my treasure? Am I truly unavailable during vacation? Do I allow family time to be interrupted, because I am thinking more of pleasing people than I am of serving my family?
HONOR FATHER AND MOTHER
Showing them respect while you are growing up. Heed their wisdom when they give you advice. Provide for them and care for them in their old age. This is the first commandment with a promise: that it will go well for you and you will live long on the earth.
At last, I find one that I know is not a problem for me! I have always been a good boy. Never cursed my mom or dad. And yet . . . When I came to Christ, and they didn’t respond to the Gospel, did I do everything in love and respect? As they were older, did I provide for them? Was I available for them? Was I ever distracted? Did I continue to be a taker and not a giver? Have I spent much of my life trying to prove that I have better ideas than they had?
MURDER
Do not commit murder. Why not? God says it is because "God made man in his own image.” Did you catch WHY a person is to be killed for murdering a human? It’s because people are made in the image of God. They are different from animals. So human blood requires a reckoning.
But hold on. Jesus addressed the attitude behind the act, and raised the standard for murder. If anyone hates his brother, he has committed murder in his heart. Hating someone means that my own agenda is more important than that of another person. I am opposing, not just a person, but someone who is made in God’s image. This is an act of false worship, to disrespect the work of God.
ADULTERY
Jesus said that the intent was from the beginning, God made one man and one woman, and made them one flesh. That means that polygamy is going to be clarified as wrong. It also means that homosexual acts are outside of God’s intention. So I am not to have premarital sex, and I am not to have an affair.
But Jesus raised the bar on this command, as well. He said that anyone who lusts after a woman has already committed adultery with her in his heart. So an unfaithful heart, before or after getting married, is, in effect, breaking this commandment.
STEAL
Do not steal. Finally, one that is so straightforward, I can know that I have not robbed a bank or stolen a car. I’m good.
Except for other ways of stealing. Like making copies of music or movies without paying royalties. Or taking the credit for something that was actually someone else’s. Plagiarizing words, or even an idea. Misreporting details on my income tax reporting. Man, I am in some big trouble.
FALSE WITNESS
Do not lie. That’s part of the command. But, as you know, there are plenty of “little white lies” that are a part of our lives. We tell a story from our own perspective, with ourselves as the well-intentioned hero of our own story.
Even so, this command is not just about lying. It is about not bearing false witness. Is there something I have commented on that I was not actually a witness to? I listened to hearsay, and I spread it. That was false witness. What’s more, what if I was told to bring a message to someone. If I bring someone else’s message to that person, and that person pushes back, how will I respond? I often back off and put some distance between myself and my message. I have become a “false” witness. The standard is that ANYTHING i would say to someone is true. It is what I have witnessed, and it is something I have not even hinted at to someone else. Jesus said to let your “Yes” be yes, and you “No” be no. Anything beyond this comes from the evil one. If I have to swear, “This time I mean it,” that only goes to show that I regularly have not told the truth. It’s all the devil’s favorite sport: the false witness game.
COVET
And we get to the final command: The one that is least-confessed, yet most often broken: covetousness. Solomon was right when he said that everything done under the sun, every motivation for work, stems from a person’s envy of his neighbor.
And sure enough, I want what belongs to others. I hear a song or see a book and feel a pinge of jealousy. I see the new car my neighbor drives, and I want his income, or his standards. I “kill and destroy” when I don’t get what my neighbor has. I want his wife to admire me and feel discontent with her husband. It might all be internal, but I oppose my neighbor when I envy what he has. But what is more important: what my neighbor has, or the soul of my neighbor? I am filled with covetousness. The command should have sensitized me to the needs of my neighbor, but instead it stirs up competitiveness. Oh, wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of sin and death? Thanks be to God through Christ Jesus our Lord! For in Him, all was put to death, so that I can receive His life for mine!
YOUR ENCOUNTER
What actually was the purpose for the Ten Commandments? Surprise: It was NOT to give us a standard by which we could assure ourselves that we were right with God! Instead, Jesus made it clear that the Commandments are intended to bring us all under conviction, so that we know our need for innocent blood to call out the grace of God and set us right before Him. If we get it wrong, then we mistakenly think ourselves to be self-righteous, and we completely miss the point.
Jesus met a rich young man who asked Him what good thing he should do to inherit eternal life. It was right for the young man to be concerned about eternal life, but he was badly mistaken to think that “a good thing” could get him there. In his mind, he was one good deed short of his inheritance. Jesus reminded him of the commandments, and said he’d be in good shape if he kept them all. The man should have understood the impossible standard, but instead he answered that he had kept all of those commandments since his youth! Seriously!
The man had a standard of righteousness that is common today. If the “good things” I do outweigh the “bad things,” then I am in good standing with God and have somehow earned eternal life. The man imagined himself to have more positive points than negative. Jesus was trying to paint a different picture for the man. You have NO “positive” points! At best, if you avoid all sin, you score a zero, not a positive number. Congratulations! You went 24 hours without one sin! You did not fall farther short of the glory of God today! But every sin is a negative number. You must score a plus-100 to earn eternal life, but you actually have no way to EVER gain a single positive point! You only accrue “falling short” points. That’s what sin means; falling short, missing the mark. You can NEVER score a positive point, as if you are GAINING on God’s perfection; you can only fall short of perfection. Don’t you get it, young man?
I think about this moment of teaching, and I am convicted. If you count the standards of Jesus for each of the commandments, I doubt that I actually survive more than five minutes without falling short in some area. Consciously, I am trying to be righteous, but somewhere under the surface, I am self-serving, proud and idolizing myself. I am a mess, drowning in a sea of grace, if I understand it properly.
Okay, said Jesus. If you want to be perfect (because that’s the standard), then just do one more thing: Sell everything you have, give it to the poor, and then come and follow Me. Completely die to yourself in the area of your greatest idol, and that’s how you know that you have died to yourself. The man walked away, sad, because he was not willing to make such a sacrifice. This was not “one” good thing; it was dying to self! Jesus let him go, and then told His disciples that it was impossible for rich people to enter the kingdom of heaven. More difficult than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. Impossible. For man. But with God, all things are possible.
Today, confess your sin and claim the blood of Jesus, which is “for the forgiveness of sin.” It is not the blood of bulls or goats, but the perfect blood of a spotless lamb, which is able to bring us into right standing with God. Talk about it with someone. Confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. Then write about it in your journal.