Summary of the Ten Commandments
2023-04-10
Over the past many days, I wrote about each of the Ten Commandments individually. This Decalogue is a gauge to show us our standing before God. On the surface, perhaps they do not look so bad. No killing? Check. No adultery? Check. No stealing? Check. But when Jesus preached His famous sermon on the mount, we find that it is not so easy. Angry at someone without a cause? Lusting after a woman or someone else’s things? The innermost thoughts and motives are all considered. All are condemned.
Now consider our new definitions of the terms for murder and adultery, and that there was capital punishment for those things. Who would stand? It says to “Honour thy father and thy mother,” but then it says later, “And he that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death” (Exodus 21:17). There is a depth to these commandments. The positive commandment also infers its negative counterpart, and the negative infers the positive.
When it says, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me,” but then it says, “And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might” (Deuteronomy 6:5), who has faithfully loved and served God from birth to death and every nanosecond in between? No, we are very far from God. And His wrath is upon us.
For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. (James 2:10)
But then something happened, at the fullness of time, God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, into the world. He kept those Ten Commandments and the whole Law. He showed Himself fully God in the flesh as He healed multitudes, raised the dead, and had compassion on the people. Then, Jesus was arrested and crucified by the religious and political leaders. However, the cross that bore Him was where the wrath due our sin was place on the Son of God. He physically and literally rose from the dead, being seen by many, and ascended to heaven until the time of His return in the future.
These things celebrated on Easter are not fun rituals or nice traditions. They are literal history, and everyone must submit to the amnesty God offers to us in His Son.