Some portions of Scripture are weightier. They deserve more attention than others. “All Scripture is inspired by God,” said the apostle Paul, “and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness” (II Timothy 3:16). But some portions stand out above others in importance. Jesus assured the scribes and Pharisees of this. Matthew 23:23, He said, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin (you’re so concerned about obeying God’s commands about what you are to give at the temple that you tithe even the spices in your cupboard), and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.” See, all God’s commands are important, none should be neglected, but there are minors and there are majors in the word of God.

I’d like to begin a series of lessons on one of the those weighty, especially important sections of Scripture. You find it in Exodus 20, and it’s repeated in Deuteronomy 5. You could call it a summary of God’s code of ethics. We know it better as the Ten Commandments.

There are several indications of…

The utmost importance of these commandments.

1. One is, they form, as far as we know, the only discourse God ever audibly spoke from heaven directly to a multitude of people (cf. Exodus 20:22).

There has never been an occasion like it, as far as I know. After God had led Israel out of Egypt and out of their slavery, with many mighty miracles, through the dry wilderness to Mt. Sinai, He had Moses tell the people that the God who just delivered them from Egypt and has been taking care of them, wants to make a covenant with them, wants to make a deal with them that is, in which He will care for them has His treasured people of all the peoples of the earth and they will follow what He commands of them. And the people said, “Yes, we want to make a covenant with God and we will do all that He tells us.” So God had Moses prepare the people for a meeting with God. Moses was given a couple days to have the people get cleaned up physically and spiritually as best they could. And boundaries were set all around the mountain so that no one might come up to try to catch a glimpse of God.

On the morning of the third day, the Lord came down on the top of Mt. Sinai in blazing fire. The whole mountain was quaking violently under His presence and was enveloped in thick smoke. Lightning was flashing in the sky. Claps of thunder and the blast of a supernatural trumpet filled the air. The people who were camped just a little distance away were absolutely terrified at the evident power and holiness of the God who’d come to meet with them. Though trembling they followed Moses up to the foot of the mountain.

Then God audibly spoke to the whole nation. He first introduced Himself. He said, “I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. [Telling them, “I’m the One responsible for all those mighty plagues that came on Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, the manna that covers the ground around your camp every morning, water from the rock, all these amazing things you experienced.” He is the One who has freed them and provided and protected them. He is the One they owe everything to.]  You shall have no other gods besides Me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image…” And so on and so forth. He spoke directly to them the Ten Commandments, until they couldn’t take it anymore. They told Moses they felt they were actually about to die, they were so overwhelmed and afraid in His presence, hearing His voice like that. So they asked to not have to experience that anymore, that Moses be their mediator and that he would bring them anything else God wants to say. So all the other commands of the Law were communicated to them through Moses. But those Ten Commandments, God spoke to them directly.

2. Another indication of their importance is that God Himself engraved the Ten Commandments on stone tablets. He did that twice actually because Moses shattered the first set of tablets on some rocks in a fit of anger when the people quickly turned back to idolatry.
3. Another indication of their significance – The stone tablets were kept in the most sacred place on earth, inside the ark of the covenant in the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle (Deuteronomy 10:5). The other instructions and testimonies of God were written down by Moses on a scroll and put beside the ark, but not inside it like the Ten Commandments (Deuteronomy 32:24-26).
4. One other thing about their significance, these ten commands summarize most of what God required of the Israelite people. The entire law that God gave them actually contains 613 commands, but most of those 613 commands are really just elaborating on the Ten Commandments in greater detail. The Ten Commandments are most of the Law in compressed form.

The Ten Commandments can be easily outlined into 2 parts.

The first 4 commands have to do with responsibilities toward God specifically (no other gods besides Him, no images even to represent God, no vain use of His name, and observance of the Sabbath day).

The remaining 6 have to do with responsibilities toward other people specifically. (Honoring parents, no murder or adultery or stealing or bearing false witness, no coveting anything that belongs to your neighbor, which is the internal problem that can lead to violating the other commands).

Now the fourth command, the Sabbath command, can also be seen as a bridge or a transition between the commands, on how to relate to God and the ones on how to relate to other people. Because the Sabbath was not just a day to honor God, it was also a way of loving others, because it was allowing your servants and your family to have a day of rest to just enjoy God and one another.

And I believe how to relate to God comes first before how we relate to others because those are the most important ethics. What did Jesus say is the first and most important commandment? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. The second is love your neighbor as yourself. It seems to me, a lot of people do not realize that. If you were to ask most people to describe what makes a good man or a good woman, what kind of things would they say? They say things like, “Well, it means you’re considerate of other people, you’re kind, you’re a trustworthy person, you’re helpful to others.” But really those are secondary, they overlook the fact that the most important ethics are how you relate to the God who made you and has given you every good thing you’ve ever enjoyed. Our attitude toward God is primary. So I think that’s why that comes first.

Now I’d like to clarify what is not the reason these commands are important to us as Christians.

It is not because we are under the Law that God gave the Israelite people there in the wilderness of Sinai.

When you find commands of God in the Bible, you need to take note of who the command was directed to, so you know if it applies to you or not. For instance, God commanded Noah to build a giant ship. It’s important to notice that was directed at Noah and not you. It’s probably not what God wants you spending your time on. God commanded the prophet Hosea to go marry a prostitute. Boys that was to Hosea, that’s not the kind of woman you should be looking for.

The Ten Commandments are part of a Law God gave specifically to the Israelite people, later to be known as the Jewish people. It was part of a covenant agreement God made with that particular nation of people. Many of those 613 commands of that Law appear to have been for temporary purposes. They were because of conditions in ancient times and to help keep the Israel people separate from the pagan nations around them and to foreshadow things that Jesus would later fulfill. The Law was not binding on people of other nations, unless they chose to join the Israelite people and be circumcised and enter the covenant the Jews had with God. So there were certain things that were sinful for an Israelite to do, because it would violate their Law with God, but were not sinful for a Gentile to do. Such as to eat pork, or to work on Saturday, or not celebrate Passover, or several other things; a Gentile would do those things without sinning.

However, many of the commands of the Law are ethics that are universally and forever applicable, to everyone everywhere all the time, such as thou shall not murder or steal or commit adultery and so forth. For a Gentile to do those things would be sin, not because they are under the Law of the Jews, but because God has built into the heart and conscience of every human being an understanding that those things are wrong. Gentiles sin when they do those things because they are violating that basic understanding of right and wrong God has written on their hearts. Paul speaks of that in Romans 2:14-15.

Now, in a relationship with the Lord Jesus, no believer, whether Gentile or Jew, is under the Jewish Law. There are a whole bunch of NT passages on that point, because it was a major matter of contention in the first century churches. Acts 15, you read about a big conference meeting the early church had in Jerusalem to discuss this very issue of whether circumcision and keeping the Law of Moses is necessary for a relationship with God. The letter of Galatians, Paul wrote to deal with that issue. Parts of Ephesians and Colossians and Hebrews are also about that same issue. So over and over we’re reassured that in Christ we are free from the Law, and under our one and only new master, Christ Himself.

Let’s look at just one of the many Scriptures that deal with the matter for time’s sake – Romans 7:1-6. “Or do you not know, brothers —for I am speaking to those who know the law [So he’s speaking to Jews] —that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? 2 For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. 3 Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.

His point is the law is binding on a person until death enters the equation. Once death enters the equation, one is released from the law and can be joined to another.

4 Likewise, my brothers [I think he means primarily “my Jewish brothers,” you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. 5 For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear food for death. 6 But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.”

So it appears to me from this passage and others that Jews outside of Christ are under the Law. The Law is binding on a person as long as he lives, verse one said. And that I believe is why the Jewish people have been under a curse ever since Christ came, over the last 2000 years. From the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 A.D, to the holocaust by the Nazis of the last century, and all the terrible oppression they’ve been through throughout the centuries in between, it’s because they’re under the Law and the curse of the Law for disobedience. Deuteronomy 28:15ff, “But if you will not obey the voice of the LORD your God or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you.” And then it describes much that has been happening to them.

But when a Jew realizes who Jesus is, gives his life to Jesus, comes into relationship with Jesus, then the death that Jesus endured for him is credited to him, he is counted as dead and thus free from the Law. And now, he is joined to his new Master, the Lord Jesus, and the Spirit of the Lord has come to live in him. And that presence of Jesus is the only one He’s obligated to obey. So unless Christ indicates to him that in his particular circumstances, for whatever reason, he should still abstain from certain foods or not work on Saturday or do some of the other Jewish particulars, he doesn’t have to do those things. He’s free to just serve Jesus in whatever ways Jesus would have him serve.

So later in Romans, Paul speaks on this particular issue. In the church at Rome, you had Christians from a Jewish background and you had Christians from a Gentile background. And for Christians from a Jewish background, Saturday had always been a day you set aside from work for rest and worship. For the Gentiles they had always worked on Saturday their whole life and they didn’t quit doing that just because they became believers. In Romans 14:5-6, Paul’s dealing with that and he says, “One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. [that is, convinced that it’s what the Lord wants you doing] The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God.” And he goes on and explains, we’re all serving our master Jesus and we all need to do what we believe Jesus is having us do. We don’t judge each other about what each believe Jesus is having us do if our hearts are all truly trying to obey the Lord Jesus. We’re free from the law, we’re under the Lord Jesus.

So that’s the “not why the Ten Commandments are important to us.” It’s not because we’re under the Law God gave the Jews. But they’re still important to us because…

Jesus has reinstated and commanded 9 of the 10, and the one He hasn’t commanded, the 7th day Sabbath observance, still contains very wise principles that Christ would have us implement in our lives.

Nine of the ten are those timeless universally applicable ethics. They’re about what it means to love God and your neighbor in practical terms in any culture, nation, time or place.

And while the Lord has not told us we must set aside the 7th day of the week for rest and worship, He still wants His people to observe the basic principles of the Sabbath, which I believe are way too often neglected by Christians today. Wouldn’t you agree, the Lord would have us regularly set aside time to just get to know and enjoy Him and one another. And we ought to give our employees and families the same opportunity. There are principles of the Sabbath Jesus would have us learn and implement. And I’m looking forward to exploring that more.

So studying these 10 commandments are going to help us learn the will and wisdom of Christ for our lives.

Another reason this code of ethics is important to know and live by is…

Their purpose is quite the opposite of restricting our personal freedom and preventing us from enjoying life too much.

But many think, “Ugh, the ten commandments, I hate that stuff. Just a bunch of rules and things you can’t do. They’re just enslaving and restricting. Why didn’t God save time, instead of giving us all these instructions in the Bible, just say “Don’t have fun, period,” or “No happiness”?

That’s what Satan has wanted men and women to believe about God’s commands and guidance from the beginning. He has always wanted mankind to believe that God is keeping good things from us. He said to Eve in the beginning, in essence, “Has God really forbidden you this delicious fruit? Oh my! What a shame! You realize don’t you, Eve, that He knows if you ever tasted from this tree, you’d be like Him in wisdom. God just wants to keep you from the best life you could have. Eve, true freedom means freedom from confining restrictions like these.”

But think about something. God brought the people of Israel out of slavery. If He wanted them enslaved, oppressed, unhappy, why didn’t He just leave them in Egypt? What God had just done for them, and what He’s done for us on the cross, should assure us the purpose of these commands are not to re-enslave, oppress, or keep us from happy living. These are rather how we live life to the fullest.

If you have kids, I suspect you have laid down some laws for them like I did for mine. Like “Don’t eat anything that you pick up off the ground.” Or, I even had to tell one of them, “Don’t eat stuff you find stuck to the underside of a church pew. Don’t eat it!” Now, are we wanting our children to starve? Do we want to keep them from good food? Is that why we lay down those laws? No. We want them to not get sick and gross people out. You’ve probably told your kids, “Don’t harass your siblings. Don’t poke or throw things at or spit on or hit each other.” Do you want to rob your kids of the freedom to express themselves? No. You want a family environment where all feel safe and loved, enjoy peace, and can learn to deal with disagreements in a better way. You want what’s best for them.

God is a Father. We are His children. Jesus is the good shepherd. We are His sheep. The Lord knows how this world He made works. He knows how relationships work. He knows what makes for the best life.

Over and over, especially in the book of Deuteronomy, God assured Israel that their greatest good was His intention behind all the commands He gave them. Repeatedly you read things like, “You shall walk in all the way that the LORD your God has commanded you, that it may go well with you and with your children, and that you may live long in the land the Lord is giving you (Deuteronomy 5:29,33). And if you’re careful to walk in all the commands of God, the other nations will look at you and say, “There is a wise and understanding people. We should structure our society and conduct our lives like they do, because what they do works. Look at how they’re thriving.” (Deuteronomy 4:6).

Let me end here with a little paragraph from Isaiah 48. It really expresses the heart behind His commands and why we really want to know them deeply and live out God’s ethics in our lives. Isaiah 48:17-19, “Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “I am the Lord your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go. Oh that you had paid attention to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river and your righteousness like the waves of the sea; your offspring would have been like the sand, and your descendants like its grains; their name would never be cut off or destroyed from before me.”

So why do you want to pay careful attention to God’s commandments, really know them and live them? The Lord says because I’m teaching you how to profit. I’m teaching you how to truly gain in a way you won’t lose it. I’m teaching you the way you would want to go if you were smart enough to want it. I’m teaching you righteousness, the path of peace, shalom, total wellbeing. There’s nothing better you could do for yourself, your children and future generations than to learn and walk in My commandments.

-James Williams