p. 9 | Short Sermons on the Ten Commandments

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · May 23, 1907

Short Sermons on the Ten Commandments

By W. A. McCUTCHEN

The Sixth Commandment

W. A. McCUTCHEN

“Thou shalt not kill.” Ex. 20:13. It would seem that there is little to be said about this commandment. It is brief, its language plain and unambiguous, and its meaning obvious. It is simply a command against man’s taking the life of his fellow man. And this command finds its basis in the natural rights of man.

The ten commandments, of which this is one, are recognized throughout Christendom as the moral law. A moral law, or command, in contradistinction to positive law, is one whose principles are right within themselves, independent of any exterior or surrounding circumstances, and not dependent upon special enactment and promulgation for its force or rightfulness as is the case with positive law. The command against killing is right, and the act of taking a man’s life is wrong, because the one whose life is taken has as much right to live as has the one taking it; and in the taking of it the slayer would be depriving the slain of his natural right—the right to live. It would be just as great a wrong or injustice to the one killed to have his life taken without a command against it as to have it done in the face of the prohibition, though the degree of sin might not attach to the slayer that would after he is forbidden by command to do it, and is made aware in this way of the wrong of it. Understand, the wrong would be there just the same, but the one doing it might not see it in the absence of the command against it. Since sin has entered this world, men do not always look far enough into the principles that should govern their lives to see and recognize their neighbors’ rights; hence the giving of the law. Since the beclouding and darkening of the human mind by the entrance of sin, man needs light; hence David says, “The entrance of thy words giveth light,” and Solomon declares, “The law is light.” When the patriots of 1776 declared among the “inalienable rights” of man, that of life, they were only stating what had always been true, and had been recognized in this command long antedating the declaration of these noble men.

And now as showing the far-reaching nature of God’s law, the scope and breadth of this command, and what it is to be a violator of it, take the Lord’s definition of murder as given through John: “Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.” 1 John 3:15. From this we see that the overt act of actually taking the life is not required to transgress this command and be a murderer. Hatred is the spirit that is back of murder; it is that which, cherished and carried out to its full promptings, leads up to and results in murder. Hence when hatred toward another is in the heart (where all sin starts with the individual), the man is in God’s sight a murderer; for he has that spirit which will eventuate in actual murder if not checked or eradicated.

This divine comment upon, and interpretation of, the sixth commandment, illustrates, as stated above, the nature of God’s law, and shows how broad its commands are. People are sometimes wont to characterize the religion of God’s people of old, based upon the ten commandments, as “narrow” and “mere legalism,”—a strictly legal religion with no breadth nor spirituality in it. Whatever may be said of people’s “religion” because of their failure to measure up to the standard set for them and supposed to govern them, this certainly can not be said of God’s law; it was and is full of spirituality, holiness, and significance, without which it would be of little value to any one. “Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.” “For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin,” says Paul. Rom. 7:12, 14. And it is this deeply spiritual significance of the law that we are dealing with in these studies, and that concerns us. We do not wish to take just a surface view of God’s law as a system of ethics and pharisaical legalism, but wish to get down to the vital spirituality of it; because they who worship God acceptably must worship him “in spirit and in truth.” This command, with its divine interpretation and application, begins to give us an insight into this feature of God’s law.

Because so much emphasis is here placed upon the spirituality of the law and the fact of its having deep “spiritual significance,” we must not get the idea for a moment that that invalidates or dispenses with the letter of the law.

The spirit of a thing may be higher or deeper than appears on the surface in the mere letter, but never contrary to it. We may have the letter of a thing without the spirit, but not the spirit without the letter. “The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul.” -Ps. 19:7. May our conversion be deepened by it, and in harmony with it.

Keene, Tex.