Aids for Bible Readers by Walter Quincy Scott, D. D.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 12, 1908

Aids for Bible Readers

By Walter Quincy Scott, D. D.

Historical quotations and extracts from various writers which may assist the thoughtful student of the Scriptures.

Notes on the Decalogue

THE fundamental idea of the decalogue is the decision in human history of the truth that God is the only deliverer of man. The decalogue is essentially Messianic. Its actual and only possible fulfilment is in Christ.

That God is man's only deliverer is a spiritual idea which becomes historically the fundamental principle of a new organization of a people, not by their expression of the idea in the form of public opinion, but through the instrumentality of a great leader. Such an idea develops the grandest courage of the soul, and we may therefore clearly imagine with what eager energy Moses pressed forward to the sea, and halted there for that final decision which should for the first time make every man, woman, and child of Israel an eye-witness of the final separating act of the invisible God's deliverance—an act which put them into a condition needing and ready to receive organic legislation, and which determined the fact that Moses should be the legislator.

The decalogue was designed to be an independent and complete spiritual code, the basis of all the legislation of the new commonwealth. It was immediately needed as a legal expression of the new and true religion and the central standard of the national faith. And it was so framed that while it accomplished the chief purpose of expressing the universal and permanent truths of the relations

between God and man, it should also by defining the relations of man with man supply the basis of all forms of moral law, founding morality upon religious obligation.

For these reasons the decalogue was given by itself, first of all, under circumstances that make it absolutely clear that this code differs distinctly from all subsequent and consequent Mosaic legislation. These circumstances are: that it was delivered first and separately; that its delivery was accompanied by miraculous signs of God's presence; that it was designated as “the law;” that it was spoken by Jehovah himself; that it was called “the testimony,” because it was God's own witness to the truth constituting the true religion; that it was called “the words of the covenant,” to signify its unchanging nature as expressing right relations between God and man; that it was placed in the ark of the covenant as expressing the sum of man's duties to God and God's purpose to fulfil every jot and tittle thereof. . . .

Consider now that the first five commandments express God's relations with man, emphasizing man's duties toward God.

The first commandment declares the reality of God's being, and man's obligation to recognize him as the only true God. It is the divine protest against the very existence of all false gods.

The second commandment relates to the worship of the true God by forbidding polytheism—sensual worship of any kind. And the reason annexed sets forth the personal nearness, the holiness and the love of God, in the contrast between his just punishment of sin and his mercy and love. Note “upon the third and upon the fourth generation of them that hate me” and “loving-kindness unto a thousand generations of them that love me and keep my commandments.”

This is one of the most wonderful expressions of the love of God to be found in the entire Bible. Compare Ex. 34: 7; Num. 14: 18ff, and the words of Jesus, John 14: 21.

Thus the first two commandments not only set aside all corruptions of idolatry, but show that all forms of idolatry spring from the alienation of the heart from the true God, and that God who reveals himself as the deliverer of man can be truly worshiped only by the heart of man—his love in response to the love of God.

The third and fourth commandments correspond respectively to the first and second. For as the first sets aside all idols, the third requires that God alone is to be worshiped by the holy and reverent use of his name—of anything whereby God maketh himself known; and as the second forbids all idolatrous worships, the fourth requires the keeping of the Sabbath (the definite time of rest from all worldly occupations) in order to commune with God in public and private worship and in obedience to his commands. And the fourth commandment is grounded upon God's example in creation, from which he rested to enter into communion with man, that man, might enter into communion with him. . . .

The fifth commandment enjoins honor to parents—filial duties. The ground of the obligation is that parents are God's earthly representatives. No form of law can supersede the control in all respects which parents in the nature of the case must exercise over their children. All the wants and even the lives of children depend upon their parents. In every form of government and society the parents stand toward their children in God's stead. It is a natural and moral union beyond the control or reach of any human power that may seek to violate it. As God ordains the union, he will thus be honored in his representatives, and filial duty is made the natural basis of piety.

Thus the last command of the first table completes the circle of truths respecting the duties of man toward God by showing the closest connection between the soul and God, for the parents produce the lives of their children, and, as it were, secondarily create them. And so if it was fitting that God should introduce these commands by describing himself as the God who brought men out of the land of their bondage, it was equally fitting that he should close this table by promising to lead his obedient children into the new land of liberty.

Observe that these last two commands of the first table have reference to the deeds of public worship and of home life, just as the preceding commands cover the domain of thought, motive, and speech.

But this last command of the first table which describes the manifestation of piety toward God in the duties of the family, is in closest connection with the second group of commandments defining the duties between man and his neighbor. Men learn in the family how to treat their neighbors. And if the first table of the law may be summed up in the one word “piety,” the second table may be summed up in the one word “probity;” the one table pointing out right relations with God as the only true basis for the other table pointing out right relations with man. For it is logically and actually impossible for morality to exist except as the outcome of religion.

Note that the first commandment of the second table (the sixth) is, Thou shalt not kill. This law protects human life, and has forbidding reference to all acts that even injure a fellow man's life.

Notice next the logical sequence of the second commandment of this table (the seventh), which forbids adultery. This law protects the institution of marriage, and forbids all acts which injure the partner of one's life.

Note the logical sequence of the third commandment of this table (the eighth), which forbids stealing. This law protects property, and forbids all acts which injure or take away the means of sustaining and cultivating one's life. These three commands cover all outward deeds of such a description that the hand may be regarded as their symbol. They forbid criminality in act.

In sequence the next commandment (the ninth) forbids false witness—all injury to the good name or to the rights of one's fellow man. It condemns criminality in word, the misuse of the tongue among men.

The last commandment of this table (the fifth), which is also the last of the decalogue, forbids covetousness, specifying with emphasis the objects of covetousness from the greatest (house, or wife, Deut. 5: 21—generic) to the least (anything). It condemns wrongdoing even in desires or thoughts. For covetousness is a state of the heart—a condition of thought. . . .

Finally, note the clear and broad distinction between the decalogue as a spiritual code of the universal and permanent principles of religion and morality, and the local and temporary legislation of Judaism associated with this code. Does it not betray sheer superficiality, if nothing worse, to say that the decalogue is not binding upon all men? For these commands are moral principles of universal and permanent validity. Not one of them is ceremonial in any respect whatever. They were not made true nor even discovered by Mosaic legislation; nor can any legislation or civilization whatsoever change their nature one jot or tittle.

Who will be so foolish as to say that Christianity abolished the prohibition of murder, of adultery, of theft, of falsehood, of covetousness; or abolished the reality of God's being, the love of the heart in his worship, the reverence due to his name, the devotion of time to communion with God, and filial duty to parents? Who can deny that Christ and his apostles continually quoted these commands and repeated their injunctions? Who does not know that Moses himself summed up the two tables of the law in the twofold obligation of love to God and love to man (Deut. 6: 4, 5; 10: 12, 18, 19; Lev. 19: 17, 18), and that Christ quoted this summary of Moses as the perfect law of his own kingdom? Matt. 22: 37-40.

By what warrant, then, either of authority or of logic, can any one say that even if nine of the commandments are moral principles, and therefore permanently and universally valid, one of them (the fourth) is not a moral law? that it is only ceremonial, only Jewish, only local and temporary? For the fourth commandment does not contain one word concerning any ceremony, and is so closely joined with all the rest that no man can logically take it out and say that the moral code is complete. For it is grounded directly upon the relations between God the Creator and man his creature with whom God enters into communion; and it makes its great appeal to the laws which God has ordained in creation, including the nature of man himself.—Walter Quincy Scott, D. D., in The Bible Record for February, 1908.