On the Commandments Themselves

TheologyCatechism
Written By Chris Corbin
 

Q. What is our duty to God?
A. Our duty is to believe and trust in God;

I           To love and obey God and to bring others to know him;
II          To put nothing in the place of God;
III        To show God respect in thought, word, and deed;
IV         And to set aside regular times for worship, prayer, and the study of God's ways. 

Q. What is our duty to our neighbors?
A. Our duty to our neighbors is to love them as ourselves, and to do to other people as we wish them to do to us;

V          To love, honor, and help our parents and family; to honor those in authority, and to meet their just demands;
VI         To show respect for the life God has given us; to work and pray for peace; to bear no malice, prejudice, or hatred in our hearts; and to be kind to all the creatures of God;
VII       To use our bodily desires as God intended;
VIII      To be honest and fair in our dealings; to seek justice, freedom, and the necessities of life for all people; and to use our talents and possessions as ones who must answer for them to God;
IX         To speak the truth, and not to mislead others by our silence;
X          To resist temptations to envy, greed, and jealousy; to rejoice in other people's gifts and graces; and to do our duty for the love of God, who has called us into fellowship with him.

 

The third and fourth questions in the section on the Ten Commandments turn to the commandments themselves. These two questions group the commandments according to the historic understanding of the two tables of the law—a reference to these commandments having been written on tables of stone. The first of these tablets deals with our duty to God while the second deals with our duty to our neighbors. As stated in the article outlining the place of the Ten Commandment in the Christian life, these function as the first stage of exposition of Jesus’ explanation of the first and second greatest commandments: “He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22:37-40).

It is important to note that Jesus offers these in an order of priority and that they come in the priority they do: Here is not some general principle that can serve as the foundation of a non-specific universal human ethic or ground claims that Christianity in its essential character reduces down to some core shared by all other human religions and philosophies. There is no doubt that almost all the major religions of the world share a commitment to showing care and concern for other people, including those who one would not naturally show such affection (at least those that developed after the monumental shifts of what has been termed the “Axial Age” in the middle of the first millennium BC—it is important to note that almost no pre-Axial religions had significant regard for love of neighbor in the sense of “those different from us” at all). However, this neighbor-love in Christianity does not stand on its own as a self-evident principle but rather flows directly out of the first and greatest commandment, which is to love God above all things. As will be shown below, this is the heart of the tension of the universal and particular, with the universal command to love God and love one’s neighbor flowing out of the radical particularity of who this one God is. This particularity of who Christians believe God to be or the fact that our love of neighbor has to be grounded in a more foundational love of God in no way lessens the absolute demand for Christians to love their neighbors, and in many ways it makes the command more radical given Jesus’ demands on such issues as withholding judgment, expansive forgiveness, and non-violence. However, this order of the commandments does require us to understand that ours is an understanding of the world that can never be stripped of its origins outside the world—Christianity simply cannot be reduced to a system of ethics for how we treat others with no concern for the God of the universe. For the Christian, there is no love of neighbor that does not find its grounding in love of God.   

Before going on to the particularity of the God whom we are called to love with our whole hearts, souls, and minds, it is important to note that the ten bullet points in the Catechism are not themselves the Ten Commandments, but rather implications and interpretations of them, since, as the last post indicated, the elegant simplicity of these commandments requires that they always also be interpreted in community and tradition, and the catechism provides for us the jumping off point for our interpretation in our community and our tradition. However, it is probably important to know the actual commandments themselves, and their two versions in the Bible can be found in both Exodus and Deuteronomy:

Then God spoke all these words: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments. You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name. Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.

Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. (Exodus 20:1-17)

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments. You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name. Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you. Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day. Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God commanded you, so that your days may be long and that it may go well with you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. You shall not murder. Neither shall you commit adultery. Neither shall you steal. Neither shall you bear false witness against your neighbor. Neither shall you covet your neighbor’s wife. Neither shall you desire your neighbor’s house, or field, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. (Deuteronomy 5:6-21)

While the Catechism does not include the Ten Commandments themselves, the Book of Common Prayer does include a paraphrase of the above biblical presentations as a litany for use in worship, here immediately preceding the Rite II penitential order:

Hear the commandments of God to his people:
I am the Lord your God who brought you out of bondage.
You shall have no other gods but me.
Amen. Lord have mercy.

You shall not make for yourself any idol.
Amen. Lord have mercy.

You shall not invoke with malice the Name of the Lord your God. 
Amen. Lord have mercy.

Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.
Amen. Lord have mercy.

Honor your father and your mother.
Amen. Lord have mercy.

You shall not commit murder.
Amen. Lord have mercy.

You shall not commit adultery.
Amen. Lord have mercy.

You shall not steal.
Amen. Lord have mercy.

You shall not be a false witness.
Amen. Lord have mercy.

You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor. 
Amen. Lord have mercy.

Finally, note that, in both the biblical formulations and in the Decalogue for use in worship, there is a “prologue” to the commandments, the point where God calls the people to hear the Commandments and where God identifies Godself as both Lord and the one who brought the people out of bondage in Egypt. This prologue is significant and integral enough in the Ten Commandments that the Talmud, or the basis of all codes of law in Rabbinic Judaism, considers it the first commandment. This seemingly inconsequential observation has huge implications and refocuses us on the particularity inherent in the Commandments: These are not universal commands based in universal human experience or reason, but rather are directly linked to the particular experience of salvation by a particular people brought about by a particular God. It frames the command to have no other Gods as not simply about rejecting the notion of many Gods in the abstract such that any generic monotheism will work to instead require allegiance to the particular God of Israel who was active in history to bring slaves out of bondage in Egypt. In turn it means that Christians cannot see God’s saving act in Christ as some discontinuous thing, but rather as the culmination of God’s activity to free God’s people from bondage.

 

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Chris Corbin

The Rev. Dr. Chris Corbin is editor-in-chief for Earth & Altar and is the Missioner for Transition and Leadership for the Episcopal Diocese of South Dakota. His interests include British Romanticism, Anglican theology, ministerial formation, and evangelism. Beyond this, Chris spends far too much time drawing cartoon versions of saints. He likes to think of himself as the Episcopal Church’s Ron Swanson, what with his woodworking and avoiding small talk. He/him. You can check out his book, The Evangelical Party and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Return to the Church of England, or follow him on Twitter @theodramatist.

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