Although the law of God is summed up in two great commandments, there is no division in it. "The Lord our God is one Lord," (Deuteronomy 6:4) and His law is one law. Just as there is one life, one mind controlling the two hands of the body with their ten fingers, so the ten commandments into which the two great commandments of the law are divided all together form one word, namely, love: "For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself." (Galatians 5:14) "Love works no ill to his neighbor: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law." (Romans 13:10)
Jesus named supreme and undivided love to God as the first and great commandment, and: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," (Matthew 22:39) as the second, like unto it. The Apostle James does not make any invidious dissent when he called this second commandment "the royal law." (James 2:8)
On the contrary, it was to show that the second is equal to the first, being of the same nature. There is no ground in Scripture for the common supposition that "the second table," so-called, pertains only to our duty to man, while the first pertains to our duty to God. It is all the same God, and the last six commandments show our duty to God as clearly as do the first four. Whatever we do, we are to do as unto the Lord. "And whatsoever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men." (Colossians 3:23)
When Joseph was tempted to violate the seventh commandment, He said, "How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?" (Genesis 39:9)
And when David, had been guilty of both murder and adultery, he said to God, "Against You, You only have I sinned, and done this evil in your sight." (Psalm 51:4)
Nothing but a sense of responsibility to God, and love for Him, can keep us in right relationship to our fellow-men. The first and great commandment is, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind." (Luke 10:27)
This includes the whole being, and all our powers and faculties. Therefore it evidently includes love to our neighbor. That is to say, after loving God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind, we can have no love aside from this, wherewith to love our neighbor. Therefore love to our neighbor is part of our love to God, and is proof of it; "For he that loves not his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God who he has not seen?" (1 John 4:18)
Let us now take a hasty glance at the commandments comprised in this week's lesson.
Fifth Commandment
"Honor your father and your mother: that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God gives you." (Exodus 20:12)
This commandment makes it plain to us that the law pertains to eternity. When God spoke this law He was bringing Israel out of Egypt, in fulfillment of His covenant with Abraham, into the land which He had promised him. Now the promise to Abraham was that he should inherit the world through the righteousness of faith, (Romans 4:13; For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith) and he looked not for an earthly, but for a heavenly country. "But now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for He has prepared for them a city." (Hebrews 11:16)
Therefore we know that the land referred to in this commandment is the "new earth, wherein dwells righteousness." (2 Peter 3:13)
This commandment, like each one of the others, is "exceeding broad." (Psalm 119:96)
It includes every act of life. It does not mean merely that little children should be obedient to their parents, but it speaks to old men and youths as well, telling each one not to do a dishonorable thing, but so to act that honor will be reflected on his father and mother, even though they be dead. This fifth commandment, therefore, is equivalent to Christ's words to the young enquirer about the way to eternal life: "If you will enter into life, keep the commandments." (Matthew 19:17)
Sixth Commandment
"You shall not kill." (Exodus 20:13)
Here again we have a commandment that touches every act of life. God is our life, and God is love, and "Love works no ill to his neighbor." (Romans 13:10)
The commandment is therefore not negative, but positive. It teaches us that we should lose no opportunity to do good to our fellow-men. "As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith." (Galatians 6:10)
It teaches us also that we must regard our own life as a sacred gift from God, in fact, as a part of God's own life, and must therefore sacredly guard it. A man has no more right to kill himself than he has to kill his neighbor; and to do anything contrary to the principle of life is to sin against God,--to crucify the Son of God afresh.
Thus this commandment teaches temperance in eating and drinking, and the doing of everything to the glory of God. "Whether therefore you eat, or drink, or whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God." (1 Corinthians 10:31)
Seventh Commandment
"You shall not commit adultery." (Exodus 20:14)
Whoever is faithful to God cannot be faithless to any creature; so the secret of keeping this commandment is loyalty to God. He makes a covenant with His people, as a husband to them: "Behold, the days come, says the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they broke, although I was a husband unto them, says the Lord." (Jeremiah 31:31-32)
And Paul says that the body of sin, to which we were united, being dead, we are married to another, even to Him that is raised from the dead, that we might bring forth fruit unto God. "Wherefore, my brethren, you also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that you should be married to another, even to Him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God." (Romans 7:4)
Friendship with the world is enmity against God; and they who are friends of the world are adulteresses. "You adulteresses, know you not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God." (James 4:4 [RV])
Eighth Commandment
"You shall not steal." (Exodus 20:15)
The Word of God says to all of us: "You are not your own." (1 Corinthians 6:19)
We have been purchased with the life of Christ, and belong wholly to Him. Our life is not our own; none of the things that we possess are our own; all belong to God. When David fled from Saul, and came to the priest, he said to him, "What is under your hand? Give me five loaves of bread in my hand." (1 Samuel 21:3)
We are simply God's stewards; that which we are accustomed to call our own is merely under our hand, for us to take care of it for the Master, and use it in His service. If therefore we use strength and money for our own selfish gratification, we are guilty of embezzlement--of theft.
Is it not evident that whoever looks upon things in this light can never rob his fellow-men? The fear, that is, the love of God, is the one thing that keeps men from evil.
Ninth Commandment
"You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor." (Exodus 20:16)
It is not necessary with this commandment either, to enter into subtle niceties, such as the Rabbis set forth, as to what does or does not constitute a violation of it. "You are my witnesses, says the Lord." (Isaiah 43:10) "He that believes on the Son of God has the witness in himself;" (John 5:10) for believing Christ is receiving Him, (John 1:12; But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name) and thus receiving God. Our sole business in life is to show forth the virtues of Him who has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light. "But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people; that you should show forth the praises of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light." (1 Peter 2:9)
We are in this world as representatives of God; for in the beginning God placed man on this earth as ruler for Him, to reveal Him to his fellow-men, and especially to the lower orders of creation. A man is a complete man only when God wholly controls him, and his body is but an instrument for the manifestation of the life of God.
He who denies the Lord, refusing to allow His life to control his body, misrepresents Him, and he is moreover a false witness against all human kind, and consequently emphatically a violator of the ninth commandment, in that while professing to be a man, he gives a false representation of what a true man is.
Christ is the Truth; and whoever continually confesses Christ in his flesh, cannot be false to any man. It must be remembered that no one who disbelieves the promises of God is a keeper of this commandment. "He that believes not God has made Him a liar; because he has not believed the record that God gave of His Son." (1 John 5:10)
God's record is that in Christ we have the life that cleanses and saves from all sin. Whoever does not believe this, or does not accept it, which is the same thing, charges God with lying; but God cannot lie, and therefore whoever charges God with lying is himself a liar. Of what use is it to profess to be truthful to our fellow-men, when we are bearing false witness against God? An evil speaker shall not be established in the earth, (Psalm 140:11) but: "The lip of truth shall be established for ever." (Proverbs 12:10)
Therefore, "Believe in the Lord your God, so shall you be established." (2 Chronicles 20:20)
Tenth Commandment
"You shall not covet your neighbor's house, you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is your neighbor's." (Exodus 20:17)
This is the last commandment, completing the circle of the law, which ends where it begins, for: "covetousness is idolatry." (Colossians 3:5) "A covetous man ... is an idolater," (Ephesians 5:5) because his longing for earthly possessions shows that he does not trust wholly in God. He is trusting "in uncertain riches, [instead of] in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy." (1 Timothy 6:17)
The tenth commandment embraces the whole, and indicates, more than any other, that: "the law is spiritual." (Romans 7:14)
The Apostle Paul said, "I had not known sin but by the law; for I had not known lust, except the law had said, You shall not covet." (Romans 7:7)
So whoever keeps this one commandment is sure to keep the whole law. It may truly be said, therefore, that the whole law is summed up in the words, "You shall not covet." (Exodus 20:17)
The one who really keeps this can say to God, "Whom have I in heaven but You? and there is none on earth that I desire beside You." (Psalm 73:25)
Such a one loves God with such supreme, all-absorbing love that there is no room for any other love. This love to God is but the working of His "everlasting love" (Jeremiah 31:3) that draws us to Him, and makes us one with Him. "This is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not grievous."
We are not made members of the Royal Family by keeping the law; but, being by the love of the Great King made members of His family, we as a matter of course keep the Royal Law.--Present Truth, July 3, 1902--Exodus 20:12-17
E.J. Waggoner