Ten Commandments

This series of lectures on the law of the LORD GOD, is an introduction to the beauty of holiness. Holiness is more than God’s sinlessness. His holiness is the pure beauty of his loving being. The essence of God’s law is revealed to us in his holy law. As we will see in our studies, the Lord Jesus summed up the entire law with “love.” This gateway into the understanding of God’s law may enable us to see why that the law of God is “holy, and the commandment holy, and just and good” (Romans 7:12). We experience the law of God with unease, because in our fallen condition it confronts us with our sinfulness and guilt. Paul wrote, in Romans 3:29, that “by the law is the knowledge of sin.” Yet, the law didn’t originally have such a stinging effect on Adam and Eve in Paradise. They experienced God’s law as their delight, as it was written in their hearts and as they understood it as the brilliant reflection of their Maker’s glory. Their joy was unbounded as they walked in the obedience to God’s law, reflecting God’s nature in love to him, to each other, and to his creation. These lectures are an attempt to recapture this original intention of God’s law by expounding each of the Ten Commandments through the eyes of the Lawgiver and his reflection of devotional love. May God bless these lectures to open our minds and hearts by his blessed and indispensable Spirit, for the glories of his Law, and even more, the glory of the Lawgiver.

“And God spake all these words, saying” (Exodus 20:1), and then follows the Ten. No God is greater than the Creator of heaven and earth, and no law is better than the Ten Commandments. Moses reminded the people of Israel of that when, in his parting message, he said, “And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?” (Deuteronomy 4:8). Yet despite this truth of having the best of the laws, God knew the heart of his people. It was necessary to open his commandments to love him, by commanding them never to leave him.

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Rev. A.T. Vergunst is minister of the Gospel in the Reformed Congregation of Carterton, New Zealand.