CHAPTER 19: Of the Law of God
(Parts One through Three)
God gave Adam and Eve laws in Genesis 1:28 while they were in the Garden of Eden, before the Fall. The first was a command to be fruitful and multiply. The second was to take dominion over the creation (not as owners, but as managers over what was God’s.)
God gave another command in Genesis 2:16-17 which included a positive and a negative. The positive was His provision of everything they needed to eat (and that it was good!). The negative was a prohibition not to eat the fruit of one particular tree in the garden. To add teeth to the prohibition, God wrapped the command, not to eat, in a consequential threat. “In the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die!” (v.17)
There was nothing about the fruit of that tree that was poisonous. The issue was not unsafe food. The issue was about how unsafe it is to disobey God!
Adam and Eve broke the law regarding consumption of the prohibited fruit (Genesis 3:6). As a result, though they did not physically die on the day they ate, they began to die. (God graciously allowed them to live, giving them opportunity to repent.) They did die spiritually on that day. All of their posterity died along with them and has been doing so ever since (Romans 5:12). Every time anyone dies, God is reminding us about the penalty for breaking His law.
This law regarding obedience to God was placed in the heart of every man after the fall. It still is.
(Part Two)
God first wrote His Law on the hearts of all mankind (Romans 2:15), and He continues to do so to this day.
Later, God wrote His Law in stone at Mount Sinai in the form of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17).
The Ten Commandments are not different, but expanded.
The first four of the Ten Commandments are about our relationship with God, namely, worshiping God acceptably: (1) There is only one true and living God and He is the only One to worship. (2) We must not worship idols, or use idols to worship the true and living God. (3) We must not take the Lord’s name in vain—which is far more than a prohibition against using God’s name as a swear word. It means we must not worship God in a vain manner, or dare to claim to be His if we are not following Him. (4) Honoring the Sabbath means that in addition to worshiping God every day, we are to set one day in seven aside specifically to worship God.
Why does God begin with these four? Because our relationship with God is the basis of everything else in our lives. We were created to worship God. Those who refuse to worship God worship something else. Who or what are you worshiping—and how?
(Part Three)
The next six of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:12-17) are about our relationships with fellow human beings. (5) Honoring one’s parents is first because it is the only human relationship that every human being has. Everyone has biological parents, regardless of what kind of parents they were, or if one ever even knew one’s parents. (6) The prohibition against murder is a reminder of the sanctity of human life, since humans beings are created in the image of God. Murder is a sin against the One in whose image we are created. (7) The prohibition against adultery is a reminder of the importance of faithfulness in marriage and sexual purity—not to mention that believers are the Bride of Christ. (8) The prohibition against stealing affirms respect for other people’s property, just as we would have others respect ours. (9) The prohibition against bearing false witness, or lying, in any matter is a reminder of the importance of truth. After all, God is not merely truthful, He is truth. (10) The prohibition against coveting zeros in on the fact that sins originate in the heart long before they are acted upon. God not only legislates morality, but even morality in our hearts.
We must begin with our relationship with God, but we must not end there. Being right with God demands that we be right with one another. God’s moral law found in the Ten Commandments covers all the necessary bases. Perfectly.