Jesus & the Ten Commandments
*The following post was originally written as a meditation for our Confession of Sin during Lord’s Day worship.
Confession of Sin
Acknowledging our guilt; resting in His grace.
Jesus & the Ten Commandments:
35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:35-40)
Over the past few weeks we have reflected on the first four of the Ten Commandments. Before we transition to the final six commandments, I want to pause and consider an important aspect of the commandments as a whole.
Many people do not know that the Ten Commandments are comprised of two parts:
The first four commandments (1-4) deal with man’s relationship to God.
The final six commandments (5-10) deal with man’s relationship to his fellow man.
This is important for us to notice because it is very common for Christians today to have been wrongly taught that the Ten Commandments are more or less no longer an important part of what it means to be a Christ-follower. However, when Jesus was asked which commandment was most important, he said something many of us are readily familiar with but perhaps have never fully understood.
Jesus said that the greatest commandment is :
for man to love God, and
for man to love his fellow man.
In other words, Jesus replied by saying,
‘Well, if you really want to live out the obedience that God desires, you should start by keeping commandments 1-4 (love God), and then follow that up by keeping commandments 5-10 (love your fellow man).’
It is important for us to see that Jesus’ response to the question of which commandment is most important was in no way a replacement of the Ten Commandments, or a lessening of their force. On the contrary, when Jesus answered the question, he very intentionally provided a response that clearly affirmed the entirety of the Ten Commandments.
If you are in Christ, you no longer stand condemned by your failure to keep the Law. The gospel teaches us that Jesus Christ has kept the Law perfectly in our place.
Nevertheless, true believers desire to walk in a manner pleasing to their heavenly Father. This means that they endeavor by faith to love God, and to love their fellow man, just as both our Savior and the Ten Commandments teach us to.
Let us turn our hearts humbly to the Lord now in prayer, recognizing his perfect standard of love, admitting our many failures to keep it, and resting in his abundant grace not only to forgive us, but to renew and empower us toward sanctification.
We invite you to privately confess your sins before the Lord now. — (A TIME OF SILENT CONFESSION)
Assurance of God’s Forgiveness
37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. (John 6:37-39)