Yahweh, the Fountain of Life, says, “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13). And Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire” (Matthew 5:21–22).

It might seem like it should go without saying, but it can’t: murder is evil. Murder is contrary to the blessed reality of life. Ultimately, murder is sin, which means it violates one’s relationship with the Triune God of love. Murder is the unlawful opposition to the life and good of a person who is made in God’s image. When we murder, we exalt ourselves above God’s law, we take matters into our own hands as judges of life and death. And—whether we’re talking about self-harm, suicide, hatred, abuse (verbal, emotional, or physical), bitterness, vengefulness, or outright homicide—when we murder, we pit ourselves against God, against his goodness and life as reflected in his human creation. We may not be able to harm God, but we can strike out against him by harming humanity, whether in our hearts, in our imaginations, by our words, or by our hands.

Jesus said that the devil was a murderer from the beginning (John 8:44). The devil has committed murder, not by forcibly causing our physical hearts to stop beating, but by tempting us to commit spiritual suicide, to sever our relationship with the God of life. When the devil won humanity to his side in warring against God (Genesis 3), humanity shortly became murderous like him. In Genesis 4, as soon as there was such a thing as a brother, Cain murdered him in a self-centered, jealous rage—over liturgical offerings! Even the “very religious” are perfectly capable of murder, which Jesus exposes when he calls the religious leaders of his day sons of the devil, the father of all murderers (John 8:44), because they opposed Jesus, the God of life incarnate.

Even though we were dead set against him and his ways, God did not return evil for evil, but remained faithful to his nature as the God of life and love. “The Lord of life, unable himself to die, contrived to do it” (George Herbert). God took upon himself our humanity in order to renew it as created in his image, to honor and serve the life and good of others. Jesus came and “brothered” us, so that we might have abundant life. He permitted himself to be murdered by his brothers in order to forgive those who have set themselves against him, and to restore our life with God that was lost through our spiritual suicide. Jesus defeated the father of murder, the devil, by giving his own life to grant us eternal life. And he has reanimated us by his own Spirit in such a way that we have in us fountains of life welling up to overflowing as we look to preserve and promote the true life and good of humanity in his name, especially in the ministry of reconciliation.

How have you broken the sixth commandment? Are you surprised to discover that you or others have murderous impulses? Are there ways in which, through faith in Jesus Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit, you have been surprised to discover yourself newly keeping the sixth commandment? How is the ministry of reconciliation a keeping of the sixth commandment? Some would say we live in a “culture of death”—what do you think this means, and do you agree? How can a Christian treat murderers? Is it possible to seriously and strenuously oppose others without opposing them murderously in our hearts? If so, what would that look like? Are there instances when the taking of a human life is lawful according to God? Is it “murder” to take a non-human life? (Read the Westminster Larger Catechism 135 and 136 for further reflection…)

Please feel free to use this in your personal or public Worship.

~

Holy Lord, fearing you is the foundation of wisdom. We have been fools to fear anything or anyone else. You have told us not to be afraid, unless it is the fear of you. We have neglected this comfort, ignored your command, and disdained your majesty. We crucified you, just to be able to fear anything but you. “But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.” Teach us your great works and grant to us your Spirit of wisdom, so that we may know how to live with you, free of all worldly fears, to the glory of your holy and awesome name. Amen.

“Honor your father and your mother, as Yahweh your God commanded you, that your days may be long, and that it may go well with you in the land that Yahweh your God is giving you.” (Deuteronomy 5:16)

Consider the remarkable fact that the majority of the Ten Commandments govern relationships between human beings. Our religion is not just found in cultic rituals, but in our response to the personal God, which is often worked out in our relationships with one another as beings created in his image. When asked which was the greatest commandment, Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.” He couldn’t resist following it up immediately with, “And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-39). For this God, the Triune God, these commandments go perfectly well together. To love God with all your being must include and cause love for those made in his image.

In the Fifth Commandment we are told to honor our parents. By extension, the Scriptures say that we are to honor all those in authority over us, whether political rulers (1 Peter 2:17), masters (1 Peter 2:18), elders in the church (1 Thessalonians 5:12-13)—or those who are simply older than we are (Leviticus 19:32). Authority is meant to reflect something good about God and our relationship to him. Parents, naturally and especially, reflect the image of God in their authority in our lives. God has made them to be, instrumentally, the earthly source of our lives in many ways, and we are dependent upon them in ways that reflect our dependence upon God himself. Parents are meant to care for us in our weakness, provide for our basic needs, seek our happiness, teach us wisdom for life, help us to grow to maturity, discipline us for our good, and shower us with love, affection, and gifts. Parents remind us that we are not self-made people. Without parents we would quickly wither and die.

The appropriate response to God is to honor our parents, which includes things like showing gratitude and reverence, remaining teachable, submitting to them in obedience, speaking well of them, finding respectful ways of correcting them as needed, and supporting them as they grow older (1 Timothy 5:4). We are so to honor our parents (and other authority figures in our lives) even if they are not worthy of such honor (1 Peter 2:18), because we are to honor them for the Lord’s sake, as our response to God. This commandment includes the promise of the reward of the inheritance of God’s people, because a key to living in God’s inheritance is our ability to live together in love, a major aspect of this being our humble submission to one another. Broken families don’t make for long, happy lives together. Sadly, because of our sin, our family relationships are often characterized by brokenness that doesn’t reflect God’s love.

The incarnate Son of God himself was content to honor his earthly mother and adoptive father, and all God-ordained authorities, as the outworking of his relationship to his heavenly Father. “He to whom angels were subject was subject to his parents” (Thomas Watson). So Jesus, the perfect Son, inherited everything. And he shares his inheritance—his eternal life with God in the New Heavens and New Earth—with us. He makes our relationships new in the family of God.

In what ways have your parents made sacrifices for you? Has anyone given you more than your parents have given you? How can you honor them, even if they weren’t the world’s greatest parents? Have you considered the significance of the fact that even little children are addressed by this commandment as part of God’s people (see Ephesians 6:1-3; Colossians 3:20), capable of responding to the Lord through their relationship with their parents? Who should be the greater servants of the other, parents or children, and why? Do you dwell on the ways people in authority (parents, civic leaders, employers, church leaders) don’t deserve your honor, to find reasons why you might be excused from honoring them? How do you think or feel about God’s institution of human authority, in general?

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to Yahweh your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days Yahweh made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore Yahweh blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” (Exodus 20:8–11)

In the second giving of the Decalogue, found in Deuteronomy 5, the Fourth Commandment is the same, but the reason or motive given for the Commandment is different: “You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and Yahweh your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore Yahweh your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day” (v. 15). So God’s completed, successful work in creation (Exodus 20) and redemption (Deuteronomy 5) are cited as reasons for keeping the Sabbath holy. In the Gospel of Jesus Christ, redemption means a new creation, and the Day of the Lord, the Day of his Resurrection, the first day of the week in the new creation is the day we keep holy by resting in and celebrating God’s glorious work.

Work is good. It was always a part of God’s plan for humanity, created in his image to join him in his own work in the world, even before the ruination brought about by our sin. And it continues to be a part of God’s good plan for everyone. But it is also hard, and God is no slavedriver. He has arranged for rhythms of dedicated worship, respite, and jubilation to mark the regular passing of time, universally and perpetually. The weekly and annual calendar of his people has always been punctuated by days of rest and festivals. No one should consider himself “grounded” on the Sabbath, but should see it as an invitation to find relief and joy, ultimately in relationship with God by his gracious love. It is a day “to celebrate God as Creator, Redeemer, and Consummator” (Charles Jacob).

What’s more, in the Fourth Commandment we are directed to grant relief and joy to all those under our charge and in reach of our care—even to the animals! This means we are still called to participate in God’s merciful, new-creation restoration of justice and shalom. In Christ we are renewed in God’s image to join him in his work in the world and in communion with him through what he has made.

Do you work six days a week? How do you view your work in light of your relationship with God? Are you a workaholic? How can ceasing your own work and closing down your business be an occasion for resting and trusting in God? Do you view worship on the Lord’s Day to be restrictive, or freeing and playful? Have you ever meditated on the significance of the Fourth Commandment for those under your charge and in reach of your care—your children, employees, and those in acute need of rest and relief (“sojourners” like immigrants or the homeless)? How can granting relief and joy in the name of Christ be a participation in God’s work?

“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.” (Exodus 20:7)

It’s common to think that this simply means one should never exclaim using the words “God,” “Jesus,” or “Christ.” (In fact, God tells us to prayerfully exclaim in such a way when he gives us Psalm 22—”My God, my God!”—which Jesus himself shouted from the cross.) It is perhaps glaringly obvious that one should not use the divine name profanely. But the commandment is about something much more significant than being a little more careful with your language.

The very purpose of a name is to communicate, to relate, to be identified and known by others. When you introduce yourself and disclose your name to others, you are opening yourself up to them for a relationship. This is why God has disclosed his personal name to us. Yahweh wants to be known as he truly is. Remarkably, it is given to sinners to relate to Yahweh with such intimacy, such familiarity, as to use his actual name and not just a title. Even more wondrously, he has made himself known by a human name. Jesus is the personal name of God in the flesh, God introducing himself to the whole world for relationship.

The Triune (relational!) God places his name upon us in our baptism (Matthew 28:19). Now we bear or carry his name, his identity, with us wherever we go as his representatives, making him known in the world. (That’s what it means to “take the name of Yahweh…”) So we should make him known as he truly is. This is a commandment about the mission of God’s people. We should call upon his name for salvation, praise his name with thanksgiving, pray that his name would be known and loved, and proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ to others as God has sent us forth to do. We should “go out for the sake of the name” (3 John 7). We should honestly and accurately represent what it looks like for sinners to have relationships with God through faith in Jesus Christ.

But it’s easy to misrepresent God, to commit great sins “in his name,” and lead others away from the true knowledge of God. False teachers abound. Even Christians who really do know Yahweh can easily portray him to others wrongly in their assertions and actions. Even then, in his gracious love, Jesus is not ashamed to be associated with us. He has borne the bad rap we have given him, and through association with himself he has granted us to bear an identity in God’s sight that we never deserved. He may be the Misunderstood One, but he is still able to make himself known in his great love, even to and through sinners like us!

Are you interested in making God known to others, in honestly and accurately representing what it looks like for a sinner to have a relationship with him through faith in Jesus? In what ways might you unknowingly have misrepresented God’s revelation of himself? Have you ever used God’s name (or your association with him or his church) for your own selfish advantage? What might that look like? Do you suppose that if people know you are a Christian they ought to respect you more? Do you think that condemning people for saying “Oh my God!” truly communicates the Gospel, truly represents Jesus? Can you think of a time when you’ve spoken flippantly or contemptuously of God or his church? Can you think of a time when you’ve spoken as well of God as he actually deserves?

“You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or 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. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I, Yahweh, your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.” (Exodus 20:4-6)

The First Commandment forbids idolatry, the worship of any other gods than Yahweh—false gods. The Second Commandment forbids “the worship of the true God in a false way” (Alec Motyer). It refers to our “projecting” onto Yahweh by representing him with images drawn from creation that make sense to us, that don’t offend our sensibilities, that seem relatively manageable. Aaron led the Israelites in doing this very thing when Moses lingered on Mount Sinai (Exodus 32:1-8). They fashioned the golden calf with a graving tool, proclaimed it to be the God who had brought them up out of Egypt, and held a feast to Yahweh, making sacrifices before the statue. They didn’t call it some other god. They said, “This is Yahweh; this is what Yahweh is like.” They imported their own ideas of potency (the calf) and splendor (the gold) into their worship of Yahweh.

But God says our assumptions about him drawn from the world by our own senses and our own judgment will always be wrong. God’s thoughts and ways are higher than ours (Isaiah 55:8-9). We would never anticipate his moves. We would never guess what he is really like. We cannot conceive of him or imagine him for ourselves, because our imaginations are shaped by our own sin, which is opposed to knowing and worshiping him as he truly is. If we are going to be in a relationship with Yahweh, we must learn about him from him. We must know him and worship him according to his own revelation. We must come to him on his terms, and not just according to our own whims and sentiments.

Jesus is the fullest revelation of God for our relationship (Hebrews 1:1-3). He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life—the only way to know and worship Yahweh (John 14:6-7; Acts 4:12). To keep the Second Commandment means coming to God through faith in Jesus. Only Jesus has truly known and worshiped God, and he shares his own relationship with God with us. God is jealous that you know him as he truly is: a God who has made himself known in Jesus Christ to be a God of justice and steadfast love. He’s better than you imagined!

When was the last time you broke the Second Commandment? What are some common examples of ways you and others in our culture break it? How can you recognize when you might be breaking it? Would you ever have guessed God was Triune (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit)? Would you ever have guessed that God would forgive you and make you his beloved child? What are some ways in which God has revealed himself to be better than you imagined? What do you do with parts of God’s revelation that are difficult for you, parts that don’t make sense or that offend your sensibilities?

Please feel free to use this in your personal or public Worship.

~

Creator God, you have given us everything we have, including our very selves. Yet we have refused to receive what we have as gifts, because we have rejected you as the Giver. We have been ungrateful. We have boasted as if we were self-made and self-sufficient. We have hoarded our wealth, not believing in your future generosity. We have gratified ourselves and consumed as much as we can without sharing. We have withheld ourselves from you and others, because we do not delight in giving like you do. But you live forever as Giver, Gift, and Given, and you have even given yourself to us. In your mercy, forgive us. In your grace, fill us with your Gift-life. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

“I am Yahweh your God… You shall have no other gods before my face” (Exodus 20:2-3).

This commandment is the one. It is foundational to the whole Decalogue (“Ten Words”). If you truly kept this commandment, you would have kept all the rest. If you broke any of the other commandments, fundamentally you would have broken this one first. If Yahweh—and Yahweh alone—were truly your God, then you would love him, exalt him, follow him, listen to him, believe him, and obey all his words. This corresponds with Christ’s summary commandment, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30; cf. Deuteronomy 6:5). If you were doing that in the first place, you would never sin in any way.

Yahweh says, “I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me” (Isaiah 46:9; cf. 45:5, 18, 22). Objectively speaking, there is only one true God: Yahweh, the Triune God of love, the God known in Jesus Christ. The Father is the only God; the Son is the only God; the Holy Spirit is the only God; the One Being in Three Persons is the only God. Anything else that goes by the designation “god” is false, counterfeit, and cannot possibly be anything like Yahweh, the real God. He has no rivals but in our imaginations.

The claim of this commandment is comprehensive: you belong to Yahweh, and your whole life is meant to be lived in response to him and unto him, on his terms. He alone will be the source of your life, your truth, your identity, your security, your glory. He alone is to be worshiped. Idolatry is a personal offense against Yahweh, telling him that he is not your God, that you prefer some other god-that-is-no-god to him.

When you parade and flaunt false gods before Yahweh’s face it provokes him, because he loves you. And, because he loves you, he will be your God, even though you haven’t kept this commandment. The one true God in the flesh—Jesus Christ—has perfectly kept this commandment (and therefore all commandments!) on our behalf, and has suffered to forgive our transgression of this commandment. Jesus has given us his Spirit to fulfill the promise: “I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules… and you shall be my people, and I will be your God” (Ezekiel 36:27–28). Thank Yahweh, that he is God and there is no other!

What does it say about Yahweh, that this is his first commandment? Does it mean he is self-absorbed and has an unhealthy need for your adoration? How does knowing God as Triune address that last question? What objections do unbelievers raise against this commandment? How is this commandment good? Why is this commandment the key to all the others? Can you describe each commandment with reference to this first one? How is this commandment foundational to the ones about our relationships with other people, when God isn’t explicitly mentioned in most of those? When you think of the Ten Commandments in general, do you primarily think of this first one as representative, or do you tend to give priority of attention to other commandments? John Calvin called the human heart “an idol factory”—what are some common idols in our society? What are some idols your heart cranks out? What do you do when you realize you have had other gods before Yahweh’s face? Are there ways in which you have begun to keep this commandment through faith in Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit?

“God spoke all these words, saying, ‘I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery'” (Exodus 20:1-2).

The “Ten Words” (Exodus 34:28) or Ten Commandments are worth knowing by heart and keeping, because of the God who spoke them. These are not just “wise rules for good living.” They are God’s words to his people. This is reason enough to listen and obey. And this is the only good reason to listen and obey. The most important thing about these words is that they come from this God. That’s why a transgression of any single one of them is a transgression of the whole lot: because it is a personal offense against the God who spoke them all (see James 2:10-11).

This God has not left us to our imaginations when it comes to his identity. He has revealed himself to us, and this “preface” refers us to who he is and to our relationship with him as the foundation of our keeping his words. He is Yahweh, “the LORD,” the God who has made covenant promises, even by this early point in the Scriptures. He is not just the God, the only true God—he is “your God,” the God who has committed and given himself to his people for personal relationship. He has not only promised salvation by grace (Exodus 6:6), he has accomplished it through wonders and judgments that have revealed his character, righteousness, faithfulness, and power to save. He is a God who sets his people free from their self-inflicted slavery, because he loves them. For the original hearers of these words this meant deliverance from Egyptian slavery, the great paradigm for salvation until the coming of the Messiah. Now, this same God has set us free from slavery to sin through the gracious salvation that is found in Jesus Christ (John 8:34-36).

Keeping the words of this God is always a response to his gracious salvation; it is never an attempt to secure his favor. Only those who already know this God truly and personally to be their Savior can even begin to keep his words as he intended. Apart from a relationship with him by his grace—ultimately revealed through Jesus—any attempt to keep his words will be vanity, hypocrisy, a mockery of his words.

Why did God speak these words to his people? In what ways do you reject his words (licentiousness)? In what ways do you abuse his words (legalism)? What are some reasons you might try to keep God’s words? What resources do you look to in order to try to keep God’s words? Do you live as if God’s merely having spoken these words is reason enough to keep them? Why or why not? Why and how did Jesus keep all God’s words? What significance does that have for you? Why is it “vanity, hypocrisy, a mockery of his words” to try to keep his words apart from knowing him as your Savior? (Why isn’t it just “a well-intentioned impossibility”?)

These two lines of the Lord’s Prayer really are one petition, each line informing the meaning of the other, rather than being two consecutive petitions. The concern of the one who prays as Jesus teaches is not mainly to be spared from evil done to us by others. When we ask God to deliver us from evil, we’re asking him to save us from our own participation in evil, from our own self-centered desires (James 1:14), from our own proclivity to succumb to temptation, and from the self-deception that infects our hearts. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). You cannot trust your own heart to withstand temptation. If you think you can, it is because you, being a sinner, have deceived yourself. “Let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12). We need to be delivered from ourselves.

It is true that the second line in this petition can be translated, “deliver us from the Evil One,” that is, from the devil. But the Evil One cannot truly harm us except by tempting us to sin, appealing to our own desires, enticing us to commit spiritual suicide. The real evil from which we need deliverance is when we make ourselves willing subjects of the devil’s domain and accomplices in his war against God. “Whoever implores the assistance of God to overcome temptations acknowledges that, unless God deliver him, he will be constantly falling” (John Calvin). Thus far in the Lord’s Prayer we have already confessed our need for God’s forgiveness of our sins. So it shouldn’t be hard to confess that, apart from God’s intervention, we continue to be “inclined toward all evil” (Heidelberg Catechism #60), and to confess our need for God to “lead us not into temptation.”

This is the kind of leading we really need. Often we pray for God’s “direction, guidance, leading” through life. Our true need is for God to lead us in such a way that, whatever circumstances we face, we would know them as opportunities for relationship with God (even if they are difficult tests or trials) rather than hindrances to that relationship (temptations that culminate in sin). James uses the same language (Greek: peirasmos/peirazo) to talk about both tests or trials that result in spiritual good (James 1:2, 12) and evil temptations that result in sin and death (vv. 13-14), because the same circumstances can result in either. The good result depends not on us or on our circumstances, but on God’s intervention in our hearts by his Spirit. The one who prays this petition asks God to enable him to love God more than he loves the alternative—sin—into which he has a tendency to drift. “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it; prone to leave the God I love. Here’s my heart, O take and seal it…” (“Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing”). If God is with us as our Savior, leading us into deeper relationship with himself, keeping our attention on Jesus, making our hearts responsive to him by his Spirit, then wherever we find ourselves, we will be delivered from evil. And that means delivered into glorious communion in the life of the Triune God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen!

Biblically, what is the opposite of temptation/sin/evil? What are some common temptations for you, that you’re aware of? To what temptations might you be blind, self-deceived? Do you believe that you cannot trust your own heart to withstand temptation to sin? How do you feel about the idea that you deceive yourself? How do you pray against self-deception? How often do you find yourself praying for your circumstances to change, versus praying for God to keep you close to himself through any circumstances? What does it mean that “Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil” (Matthew 4:1)? How does that Gospel truth help us in our temptations? How does Jesus’ instruction to pray this way relate to several biblical commands to “flee” such things as “sexual immorality” (1 Corinthians 6:18), “idolatry” (1 Corinthians 10:14), the “desire to be rich” (1 Timothy 6:9-11), and “youthful passions” (2 Timothy 2:22)?