New City Catechism Question 8
Q: What is the law of God stated in the Ten Commandments?
A: You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below—you shall not bow down to them or worship them. You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God. Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Honor your father and your mother. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not give false testimony. You shall not covet.
Exodus 20:3 and Deuteronomy 5:7
“You shall have no other gods before me.”
As John Yates shares in the catechism material, the Ten Commandments truly are a love gift from God. They truly are a treasure, and as such Christians should commit them to memory, reflect on them, and seek the follow them each and every day. And the reason they are such a treasure is that they are so foundational and critical to every aspect of the Christian life. The Ten Commandments teach us how to relate to God and how to relate to others, and therefore they are the perfect commentary on the Great Commandment: Love God and love others. Therefore the Ten Commandments serve as the basis for Christian ethics; we are given the roadmap for how to live and navigate the Christian life, and to know what is right and what is wrong.
But the Ten Commandments go deeper than a simple primer in Christian ethics; they also point us to the heart of the Christian faith. No one has perfectly kept the commandments as we are required to do so (See New City Catechism Question 7). And even if we claim that we have followed the Ten Commandments perfectly (which is impossible, see Question 13), Jesus shows us in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 that our heart breaks these commandments on a regular basis even if we are keeping them externally. We have all broken God’s law, and we cannot stand before God on our own. The Ten Commandments therefore remind us of our desperate need for someone who has kept God’s law perfectly, who can stand in our place…and point us to the one who has done just that: Jesus Christ, our Lord and our Savior.
So the Ten Commandments are indeed a treasure, and every Christian should know them, memorize them, and obey them. Doing so will only lead to a deeper and more fruitful relationship with our loving creator God. But in addition to the rich spiritual benefits of obedience, the Ten Commandments also provide us with an incredibly practical tool for making life decisions, both big and small. For example if we are faced with a situation where one decision would lead us to lie and be deceitful and the opposite decision would allow us to be completely truthful, then it becomes readily clear which decision is right in God’s eyes. And even if there are seemingly compelling reasons to lie, God does not give us exceptions in Scripture where it would be permissible to break the ninth commandment. So the Ten Commandments help us in our decision making.
The Ten Commandments also help us cut through competing motivations and desires surrounding any given decision and help us to see with clarity a situation that may at first seem murky and clouded. For example when we face a major life decision such as a career change, we may think that our true motivation is to want to provide more for our family, and we move forward in that decision even if there are major roadblocks in the way. But reflecting on the commandments may reveal our true heart motivation is actually covetousness (wanting what someone else has), or perhaps an idolatry of money (placing a desire for wealth above God). So the Ten Commandments not only help us make God honoring decisions more easily, they also help us see our true heart motives so that we can make God honoring decisions with clarity and confidence.
The Ten Commandments truly are a gift from God and a
treasure that every one of us should store away in our hearts. Do we truly see
the Ten Commandments in this way? Do we see them as life giving truths to be
written on our hearts that will strengthen our relationship with God and
others? Or do we see them as bothersome legalistic reminders written on old
stone tablets to be dragged out and consulted every few years? My prayer is
that these commandments would be seared on each of our hearts, and that they
would radically transform every aspect of our lives.
