Encore Post: Etched in stone, framed as a print in calligraphy, the Ten Commandments appear in many places throughout the Western world. As the foundation of the English and French legal systems, they still define the basic moral framework of our society, even though they have been under attack for the last fifty years.
Like the two great commandments, the Ten Commandments sum up all of God’s law, spelling out in a bit of detail what it means to love God and neighbor. Yet they are not quite what we would expect from commandments. First, the original Hebrew calls them the Ten Words, not commands. In fact, Judaism counts “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the Land of Egypt..” (Exodus 20:2) as the First Word. Second, God does not number them, so Judaism, Lutherans and Catholics, Protestants and Eastern Orthodox all number them differently. Third, most of the verbs have a simple future sense to them. In short, the Commandments explain how God wants his people to live.
In the Small Catechism, Martin Luther divides the commandments into two tables. The first table is about the way God’s people should relate to God. The second table is about the way they should relate to their neighbors. He also looks not only at what each command forbids, but also what it implies we should do.
While for Christians all three uses of the law apply, the primary use that they focus on is the third use. As God’s children, we love God because he freed us from slavery to sin and want to do his will.
See Also: The Law of God is Good and Wise | Fence, Mirror and Guide Book
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