Trinity 6
Ex
20:1-17
7/27/25
The Ten Commandments. As the name
indicates, there are of course, ten of them. But what seems so simple turns out
upon closer examination not to be quite so simple. On multiple occasions Scripture say that
there are literally, “ten words” – ten commandments. However, God’s Word never actually numbers
them for us.
And this is where things start to
get more complicated. For while we are
told that there are ten words – or ten commandments in our text – when you
examine it you find that there are far more than ten statements. We know that there have to be ten
commandments in there, so how do you divide up the material?
It turns out that over the course of
history there have actually been three different ways of doing this. In the
western Church – the tradition from which the Lutheran church and the Romand
Catholic church derive – the well founded answer has been to consider the
statements about not making images to be an explanation of the First
Commandment – “You shall have no other gods.”
In turn, the two statements about coveting have been counted as the
Ninth and Tenth Commandments.
On the other hand, the Eastern
Orthodox church has taken the statement about not making images to be the
Second Commandment, and it has combined the statements about coveting into a
single Tenth Commandment. At the time of the Reformation, the Reformed
tradition rejected the western way of numbering the commandments and adopted this
way of numbering them, in part because the Second Commandment then supported
their rejection of art in church like statues.
Finally, the Jewish rabbis have
taken the introduction found in the first two verses to be the First
Commandment. They have considered the statement about making images to be an
explanation of what is then the Second Commandment – “You shall have no other
gods.” And then they have combined the statements about coveting into a single
Tenth Commandment.
While the exact numbering of the Ten
Commandments has caused questions, the Church has always known them to be an
expression of God’s will and ordering of life.
The Ten Commandments are the ultimate expression of God’s Law. This
means that in themselves they are good.
As sinners, they are bad for us because of what they reveal about who we
are. And in Christ, they become something that is good for us as they describe
the life that fulfills God’s will – the life for which we were created.
The Ten Commandments are the first
words that God spoke to Israel after he had descended on Mt Sinai. Yahweh had
rescued the descendants of Abraham from slavery in Egypt. He had sent ten
plagues upon the Egyptians when Pharaoh refused to let Israel go. The last of these was the Passover as God
spared the Israelites, but killed the first born male among the Egyptians.
Yahweh had brought Israel through
the Red Sea on dry ground, but had destroyed the pursuing Egyptians as the
water enveloped and drowned them. Now he
had brought them to Mt Sinai in order to enter into a covenant with Israel. In
the previous chapter he said, “You yourselves have seen what I did to the
Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. Now
therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall
be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is
mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”
The Ten Commandments are Law – they
tell God’s people what they are to do. Yet before we hear any of the
commandments, the very first statement in our text is one of Gospel. Yahweh
says, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of
the house of slavery.” The God who gives the Ten Commandments is the God who has
rescued his people. When they were
helpless he redeemed them – he freed them from slavery.
God is the One who loves his people.
And we learn that his love is an all encompassing one. In our text Yahweh says,
“I the LORD your God am a jealous God.” Normally we don’t think of
“jealous” as being a positive description.
But when Yahweh says that he is a jealous God, he means that he does not
share his people with anyone else. He created them. He redeemed them. He loves them. And he will not permit any
competition for their love and trust.
The Ten Commandments are an expression
of God’s will. They describe how God has ordered his creation – how life is to
work. They describe how we are to live in relation to God and our neighbor. During
Holy Week a Pharisee asked Jesus: “Teacher, which is the great commandment in
the Law?” Christ responded, “‘You shall
love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all
your mind.’ This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like
it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments
depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
Life lived in fellowship with the
holy God is a life that keeps the Ten Commandments. Several weeks ago we heard
the parable of the Good Samaritan. A lawyer approached Jesus and asked, “Teacher,
what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Our Lord replied, “What is
written in the Law? How do you read it?” When the man responded with this same
summary of the First and Second table of the Ten Commandments, our Lord said, “You
have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”
Do this and you will live. And it is
here that the Ten Commandments which are a good thing, become something bad for
us. For rather than showing us a way in
which we can have life with God, they become something that reveals the many
ways that sin is present in our life.
God says, “You shall have no other gods before me.” Certainly, we do not
set up a carved image as an object of worship.
But a “god” is whatever is most important in your life. A “god” is
whatever provides your sense of security and well being. Identify the thing to
which you direct the most time, money, and attention – and you have found your
god.
The commandments sound simple. “You
shall not murder.” But the full meaning of this statement is explained to us by
the Lord Jesus and his apostles. Christ says in our Gospel lesson this morning,
“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder;
and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you
that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to
judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and
whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.” Anger
in the heart breaks the Fifth Commandment.
The commandments sound simple. “You
shall not commit adultery.” But Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount: “You
have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to
you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already
committed adultery with her in his heart.” The Scriptures teach us that the
Sixth Commandment means that sexual intercourse is only to be shared between
husband and wife in marriage. God’s will for sexuality condemns not just the
physical act, but also the lustful intent – a lustful intent at work in every
use of pornography.
Do this and you will live. Yet
rather than offering the way to life with God, the Ten Commandments become the
mirror in which we see our true selves.
We see the sin that is present in us. We are confronted by this sin, and
God’s Word reveals to us that we are unable to escape it. We have been
conceived and born as fallen sinners, and so in thought, word, and deed we sin
in ways that deserve the eternal judgement of the holy God.
Israel could not rescue itself from
slavery in Egypt. Yet God announces at the beginning of our text, “I am the
LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of
slavery.” This action was not deserved by Israel. It was a matter of God’s grace and mercy. For this is the character of God that he has
revealed to us. Again and again we hear
this in the Old Testament. The prophet Joel urges the people, “Return to the
LORD your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and
abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.”
God is gracious and merciful. He
abounds in steadfast love. And so he sent his Son into our world in order to
free us from sin and the death it causes.
The Son of God became man without ceasing to be God. True God and true man he lived in this world
in order to carry out the Father’s saving will. He, the sinless One, kept the
Ten Commandments in thought, word, and deed.
And then God justly condemned our
sin in Christ. Jesus died on the cross as the sacrifice for our sins. He drank
the cup of God’s wrath as he received God’s judgment for us. St. Paul told the Corinthians, “For our sake
he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might
become the righteousness of God.”
God’s judgment against our sin
brought death to Christ. And then on Easter God raised Jesus from the dead.
Death was not the end. Instead, Jesus was the second Adam through whom God has
given us resurrection life. Because of
Christ we already have forgiveness now. Because of Christ, we will share in the
resurrection on the Last Day when Jesus raises us from the dead.
In the incarnation, death, and
resurrection of Jesus Christ the Last Days have begun. The risen and ascended
Lord has poured forth the Spirit who now brings God’s saving work to us. In
Holy Baptism you were born again of water and the Spirit. You are a new creation in Christ. St Paul
told the Ephesians, “For by grace you have been saved through faith.
And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result
of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God
prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
As those who are in Christ, the Ten
Commandments now become something that are good for us as they describe the life
that fulfills God’s will – the life for which we were created. In the Ten Commandments and the explanation
of them provided by Jesus and the apostles we see the life that we want to lead
as we live in Christ through the work of the Spirit. We learn what this life looks like and we
seek to put it into practice.
As we are nourished by the Means of
Grace we seek to fear, love, and trust in God above all things – to love and
trust God more and more. We call upon God’s name in every trouble, even as we
pray, praise, and give thanks to him.
In the Fourth Commandment we learn
to honor, serve and obey, love and cherish our parents and other authorities.
At the same time, as parents we see the vocation – the calling – God has given
to us raise our children in the faith through faithful attendance of the Divine
Service, and devotions during the week with our family.
In the Fifth Commandment we see the
goal of assisting our neighbor in every physical need, even as we resist the
impulse of anger. In the Sixth Commandment we find that sexuality is God’s good
gift for marriage, even as we reject the temptations of the world that want us to
abuse this gift. And in the Eighth Commandment we learn not to share gossip,
but instead to speak well of our neighbor, just as we want our neighbor to do
so for us.
Until Christ returns or we die, we
will still have the flesh – the old Adam – with us. There will be continue to
be time when as we look at the Ten Commandments we instead find that it is
revealing where sin is present in our lives.
When this happens, we repent. We confess this sin and return to our
baptism in faith for there we have the sure promise of God’s forgiveness and
the ongoing source of the Spirit’s work in our life. As Paul says in our
epistle lesson today: “Do you not know that all of us who have been
baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We
were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just
as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too
might walk in newness of life.”
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