John Stott Ministries For Biblical Preaching and Scholarship
Stott By Topic
The Ten Commandments The summary statement of His standards, which God revealed to his people, was the Ten Commandments. They are still in force. Even though the Old Testament ceremonial law is now obsolete (its sacrifices, dietary regulations, etc.), and its civil law (both statutes and sanctions) is not necessarily appropriate for nations today, yet its moral law stands. It is not just the law of Moses, but the law of God. What Jesus did in the Sermon on the Mount was not to repeal the moral law, but to interpret it.
[“Christian Basics,” (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1969) p. 91]
First Commandment: No Other Gods The introduction to the Ten Commandments is God’s statement: ‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery’ (Exodus 20:2). The first commandment follows naturally. It is because God redeemed Israel, rescuing them from their bondage and claiming them as his own by the covenant he made with them at Sinai (Exodus 19: 3-6), that they are forbidden to worship other gods and required to worship him alone. God’s demand for our exclusive worship is due not only to the fact that he is our God by redemption and covenant . . . but to the fact that he is the only God. . . . And the worship he demands is not just that we say prayers and sing hymns in church. These things are not pleasing to God in and of themselves, but only if what we express in words for an hour in church is a distillation of the continuous and comprehensive homage of our hearts. We are called to put God first always and in everything. In the Book of Revelation we are given a glimpse of heaven. Central to the vision is God’s throne, the symbol of his sovereign rule, and everything else is related to it (Revelation 4 – 7). We are called to anticipate on earth the God- centred life of heaven.
[“Christian Basics,” (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1969) pp. 93, 94]
Second Commandment: No Idols First, instead of worshipping God ‘in truth’ (praising him for who he has revealed himself to be), idolaters have a false idea of him, for they make a foolish attempt to represent the Creator in the form of one of his own creatures (cf. Acts 17:24-31; Romans 1:21-25). Idolatrous images are mental before they are metal, and every untrue, unworthy concept of God is an idol. [“Christian Basics,” (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1969) p. 94]
—–
Instead of worshipping God ‘in spirit’ (recognizing that he is spirit himself and asks for spiritual worship), idolaters become preoccupied with external, visible and tangible objects. Even the worship of the people of Israel had a constant tendency to degenerate into formalism and even blatant hypocrisy. The seventh and eighth century prophets were scathing in their denunciation of Israel’s empty religion, and Jesus applied their criticism to the Pharisees of his own day: ‘Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: “These people honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me”‘ (Isaiah 29:13; Mark 7:6). So whatever outward forms we may use in Christian worship (liturgies, processions, drama, ritual, kneeling or raising our arms), we need to ensure that they escape the charge of idolatry by passing the double test of being ‘in spirit and in truth’.
[“Christian Basics,” (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1969) pp. 94, 95]
—– In the second commandment God goes on to describe himself as ‘a jealous God’. There is no need to be disturbed by this. Jealousy is a resentment of rivals, and whether it is good or evil depends on whether the rival has any right to be there. Since God is unique, and there is no other, he has the right to ask that we worship him alone.
A comment is also needed on the portrayal of God as ‘punishing the children for the sin of the fathers’ for several generations. It is made clear later in the Bible that God holds each of us responsible for our own sins (e.g. Ezekiel 18:1-4). Nevertheless, there is abiding and solemn truth in what the commandment says. Because of the social nature of evil, God’s judgment of it cannot be confined to those who commit it. Children often suffer the consequences of their parents’ sins. These may be transmitted physically (by inherited disease), socially (in the poverty caused by drunkenness or gambling), psychologically (by the tensions and conflicts of an unhappy home) and morally (in habits learned from a bad example).
[“Christian Basics,” (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1969) p. 96]
Third Commandment: No Misusing of God’s Name There are several ways in which it is possible to ‘misuse’ God’s name and so break this commandment.
The first and obvious one relates to the use of bad language. The ‘name’ of God can refer to the words by which he has made himself known (‘Lord’, ‘God’, ‘Almighty’, ‘Christ’, ‘Jesus’ etc.), and to ‘take his name in vain’, as the King James version translates it, includes using any of them as an expletive. To do this may not be blasphemy, in the sense of expressing deliberate contempt for God, but only a thoughtless bravado. Nevertheless, to use God’s name as a swear word is an evident symptom of disrespect for him, and is incompatible with a desire to worship him. All of us may think it wise from time to time to examine, and if necessary revise, our vocabulary. If we want to be really consistent, we will probably cut out even those corruptions of God’s name, which are no longer recognized as such, like ‘gosh’ and ‘gee’, which are actually euphemisms for God and Jesus.
[“Christian Basics,” (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1969) p. 96]
—– God’s name can be misused when we make promises or take oaths. To swear something ‘by Almighty God’ and then break our promise is to ‘swear falsely’; it betrays a serious lack of regard for God’s name. Because of this some of Jesus’ contemporaries became preoccupied with the right formulae to use when taking oaths. They seem to have argued that, although one must keep oaths taken in God’s name, it did not matter so much if they swore ‘by heaven’ or by something else. Jesus rejected this distinction, pointing out that heaven is God’s throne and earth his footstool, so that even these expressions contained an implicit reference to God. More than that, he urged his followers not to swear at all. Oaths are not necessary for honest people who are known to keep their promises. A simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ is enough (Matthew 5:33-37).
[“Christian Basics,” (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1969) pp. 96, 97]
—– God’s name is more than a word; it is he himself as he has been revealed. We misuse his name, therefore, when our behaviour is incompatible with who he is. If we love God, we shall want to ‘honour’ his name by living in a way which is consistent with it; we misuse it when we contradict it.
[“Christian Basics,” (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1969) p. 97]
Fourth Commandment: Keep the Sabbath Day Holy The pattern of six days’ work and one day’s rest goes right back to the beginning of creation (Genesis 2:2,3). Hence the command to ‘remember’ the sabbath day. God made us human beings in such a way that we need to observe this rhythm. Attempts to change it by lengthening the working week to nine or ten days (e.g. by the French revolutionaries in the eighteenth century and the Russian revolutionaries in the twentieth) did not work; in each case the state reverted to God’s law. Christians cannot of course force people to go to church, and would not wish to use legislation for this purpose. But we are anxious that the law will protect people from being obliged to work on Sundays (e.g. by an indiscriminate permission for spectator sports and open shops).
[“Christian Basics,” (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1969) p. 97]
—– God intended the sabbath for worship as well as rest. It was to be ‘holy to the Lord’ or (in Christian terms) ‘the Lord’s Day’. Christians will want to take the fullest possible advantage of this divine provision. Our Sundays are a greatly under-appreciated means of grace. We should use their hours wisely and profitably — for church-going and fellowship with other Christians, for an extra period of Bible study, for some Christian reading, for spending time with our family, for visiting an elderly or handicapped relative, and/or for some form of Christian service (Sunday School teaching for example, or the neglected blessing of letter writing).
[“Christian Basics,” (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1969) p. 97]
The Scribes and Pharisees spoiled God’s good law by encrusting it with minute regulations, in order to specify in detail what was permitted and what was prohibited on the sabbath. Jesus deliberately broke some of these rules, because they belonged to human tradition, not Scripture. For example, he encouraged his disciples when they were hungry to pick and eat some ears of corn, which the scribes said was equivalent to reaping and was therefore forbidden on the sabbath. This led Jesus to lay down the fundamental principle that ‘the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath’ (Mark 2:23-28). So he was not a ‘sabbatarian’, enforcing an absolute prohibition of all activity on the sabbath. He certainly accepted the biblical principle of one day’s rest and worship each week, and so should we. But he made it clear that certain kinds of work could and should be done on the sabbath, without breaching this principle — for example, works of religion (the priests in the temple — Matthew 12:5), works of mercy (healing the sick — Matthew 12: 9,10) and works of necessity (lifting a sheep out of a pit into which it has fallen — Matthew 12:11). It is legitimate to apply this teaching to the work of clergy, doctors and farmers today.
[“Christian Basics,” (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1969) pp. 98, 99]
Fifth Commandment: Honour Your Father and Your Mother Some commentators suggest that, whereas the first four commandments relate to our duty to God, and concern his being, worship, name and day, the fifth commandment introduces our duty to our neighbour, as it concerns honouring our parents. It seems to me more appropriate, however, to regard it as belonging to our duty to God. This is partly because five commandments are then attributed to each duty, but mostly because our parents, at least while we are minors, stand in the place of God and mediate his authority to us. Certainly Paul understands the honouring of our parents to require ‘obedience’, and calls this both right and pleasing to Christ. At the same time, he adds that, if children have a duty to their parents, parents also have a duty to their children. They must neither ‘exasperate’ nor ’embitter’ them, but rather ‘bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord’ (Ephesians 6:4; Colossians 3:21). The reciprocal nature of these duties places a firm check on the behaviour of parents.
[“Christian Basics,” (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1969) p. 99]
—– The scope of this commandment goes beyond our parents to all our so-called ‘elders and betters’, including our teachers, pastors and employers, and those in authority over us. Unfashionable as this teaching is today, the Bible is clear that God loves order, not anarchy, and that he has established certain authority structures (especially the family and the state) which he expects his people to acknowledge. At the same time, when God delegates his authority to human beings and institutions, they have no liberty to use it to justify tyranny. Authority is never absolute. If, therefore, the human person or structure should abuse its God-given authority in defiance of God, our duty is not to submit, but to resist. As the apostles put it, ‘we must obey God rather than men!’ (Acts 5: 29).
[“Christian Basics,” (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1969) pp. 99, 100]
—– Some people are offended by Jesus’ words that unless we ‘hate’ our parents and other relatives, we cannot be his disciples (Luke 14: 26). It is a good example both of the dramatic way in which he taught and of the Hebrew habit of expressing a comparison by a contrast. We certainly must not interpret him literally. How could he tell us one moment to love our enemies and the next to hate our parents? The clue is found in the parallel passage in Matthew’s gospel, where Jesus states that anyone who loves his parents more than he loves him (Jesus) is not worthy of him (Matthew 10:37).
[“Christian Basics,” (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1969) p. 100]
—– As life expectancy rises in some parts of the world, and the average age of the population rises proportionately, there tends also to be an increasing number of old and infirm people who are neglected and even forgotten by their own children. It is a shocking phenomenon largely confined to the West. In Africa and Asia the extended family always finds room for the elderly. I think Paul should have the last word on this matter: ‘If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever’ (1 Timothy 5:8).
[“Christian Basics,” (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1969) p. 100]
Sixth Commandment: You Shall Not Murder The familiar Revised Standard Version of this commandment is ‘thou shalt not kill’. Some people understand it as an absolute prohibition of taking life, including animal life. But this view is untenable, since the same law contained an elaborate sacrificial system which required the slaying and offering of animals. Others explain it as an absolute prohibition of the taking of human life, and on that ground are abolitionists (of capital punishment) and pacifists. This too is an inadmissible interpretation of the sixth commandment (although some Christians hold these positions on other grounds), since the same law provided for capital punishment in extreme cases and also authorized a ‘holy war’ against the Canaanites. Other English versions are right, therefore, to translate the commandment ‘you shall not commit murder’. What it forbids is the unauthorized taking of human life. One of the worst sins, which was repeatedly condemned in the Old Testament was ‘the sheddiing of innocent blood’. For Scripture insisted on the sanctity not so much of life in general as of human life, because it is the life of human beings made in the image of God. To murder was therefore an offence against God the Creator as well as against one of his special creatures. Jesus went further and applied the prohibition beyond our deeds to our words and even our thoughts. It is possible to commit murder, he taught, by unjustified anger and insult (Matthew 5:21, 22). This is the radical standard of the kingdom of God.
The sanctity of human life was the basis on which capital punishment was sanctioned in the Old Testament. ‘Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God has God made man’ (Genesis 9:6). Capital punishment, according to the Bible, far from cheapening human life (by requiring the murderer’s death), demonstrates its unique value (by demanding an exact equivalent to the death of the victim). This does not mean that capital punishment must be administered in every case of murder, for God himself protected the first murderer Cain from it (Genesis 4:13-15). I personally believe that the state should retain the authority to take life or ‘bear the sword’ (Romans 13:4), as a witness to what murderers deserve, but that in many (even most) cases, when there are any mitigating circumstances, the sentence should be commuted to life imprisonment.
The same principle of the sanctity of human life is at stake in situations which threaten the human embryo. Because the embryo is at the very least a human being in the making, its life should be generally inviolable. Most Christion opinion is ‘pro-life’ rather than ‘pro-choice’. It regards the destruction of the embryo by abortion as a form of murder, except that for a very few carefully defined exceptions, and believes that experimentation on human embryos should be banned by law.
War is another issue which involves the question of human life. Throughout the Christian centuries opinion has been divided between pacifists (who believe that Jesus’ teaching and example prohibit all resistance to evil)
and defenders of ‘the just war’ theory (who believe that war may be permissible as the lesser of two evils if several conditions are fulfilled). They justify war as a last resort only, however, and do not believe that the use of weapons of indiscriminate destruction (nuclear, chemical or bacterial) could ever be justified.
[“Christian Basics,” (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1969) pp. 101, 102]
Seventh Commandment: You Shall Not Commit Adultery Christians refuse to accept that our sexual urges are too powerful to be controlled. To concede this would be to demean human beings to the level of animals. It is part of our Christian witness to insist that whenever we are tempted, however fiercely, God always provides ‘a way out’ so that we ‘can stand up under it’ (1 Corinthians 10:13), that sexual self-control is possible, that we must ‘flee from sexual immorality’, and that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in us, that we are no longer our own, because we have been bought with a price, and that we must therefore honour God with our body (1 Corinthians 6: 18 – 20).
[“Christian Basics,” (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1969) p. 103]
Eighth Commandment: You Shall Not Steal The prohibition of theft presupposes the right to hold private property and to have it protected. An ordered and secure society depends on the recognition of a clear distinction between what is ours and what is yours. To blur that difference is always anti-social. This does not of course mean that we have absolute rights over our possessions, since on the one hand we hold them in stewardship from God and on the other we are invited to share them with the needy. But it does mean that we must recognize other people’s property rights and not interfere with them….
To forbid stealing is also to encourage people to earn their own living, so that they will be in a position to support themselves and their family, and indeed the poor as well. Paul gives this remarkable instruction to a convert who was previously dishonest: ‘he who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need’ (Ephesians 4:28). From a thief to a worker to a benefactor: only the gospel could effect such a transformation!
[“Christian Basics,” (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1969) p. 104]
Ninth Commandment: You Shall Not Give False Testimony Against Your Neighbour Perjury is an extremely heinous offence… False witness can be borne in the context of the home, the work-place or the wider community, in the form of slander or malicious gossip. The prohibition of false witness carries with it the complementary responsibility to be a true witness. Truth matters to all the followers of Jesus Christ, for he claimed to be himself the truth and said he had come to bear witness to the truth. Lies and subterfuge should be abhorrent to us. [“Christian Basics,” (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1969) p. 105]
Tenth Commandment: You Shall Not Covet Covetousness is to theft what anger is to murder and lust to adultery. It is the disposition which may later erupt into sinful, even criminal, action… ‘Covetousness is idolatry’, Paul wrote in Ephesians 5:5. This makes it a sin against God as well as against human beings. It is to desire something (or someone) so much more than we desire God that we allow it to usurp his rightful place. But covetousness is also selfishness. Indeed, this commandment speaks directly to the greed of the consumer society and its cynical unconcern for the world’s poor and hungry people. The opposite to covetousness is contentment.
[“Christian Basics,” (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1969) p. 106]
Discussion
No comments for “Ten Commandments”