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The First Commandment

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 2, 1916

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 93, No. 11.

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The First Commandment

By Milton C. Wilcox

The Law of God — No. 6

The First Commandment

MILTON C. WILCOX
“I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”
The first part of the above-quoted scripture should be regarded as a preface or preamble to the whole law. It is not in itself a commandment nor a prohibition, a statute nor a precept. It is the statement of a great fact, and in it is implied a mighty appeal to the gratitude due for favors bestowed. This statement revealed to Israel the Giver of the law.
The Hebrews had been slaves in sore bondage in Egypt for more than two centuries. God in his great goodness, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, had humbled the pride of Egypt in the dust, had demonstrated that their multitude of gods, representative of power and cruelty, of pride and lust, were vanity. The plagues of frogs and lice and flies and murrain visited upon Egypt were symbolical of the degrading filthiness and debasement of her worship. The plague of the darkness which might be felt was symbolical of the moral darkness in which the Daughter of the Nile groped spiritually.
Yet wanting as Egypt was in all that was uplifting and enlightening, Pharaoh, surrounded with Oriental royal splendor, could say in his stubborn pride, to the demand of the great God of the universe through his prophet Moses, “Who is Jehovah, that I should hearken unto his voice to let Israel go? I know not Jehovah, and moreover I will not let Israel go.” Ex. 5:2.
Little did Pharaoh know of the power he was defying. Jehovah is not an Egyptian god, he reasoned, therefore why should I obey him? But wherein the gods of Egypt or their devotees dealt proudly, Jehovah “was above them.” Ex. 18:11.
There was creative power in God’s redemption from Egypt. “For ask now of the days that are past, which were before thee, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and from the one end of heaven unto the other, whether there hath been any such thing as this great thing is, or hath been heard like it. Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou hast heard, and live? Or hath God assayed to go and take him a nation from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, according to all that Jehovah your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? Unto thee it was showed, that thou mightest know that Jehovah he is God; there is none else besides him.” Deut. 4:32-35.
God’s redemptive work in bringing the Israelites out of Egypt was a mighty manifestation of infinite and creative power. This God is the only God. This God, Jehovah, the covenant God, remembers his promise and delivers his people. This God is the Giver of the law.
It is equally applicable to every soul on earth; for Egypt is a symbol, a type of the darkness of this world from which the Lord Jesus Christ bought them by his infinite sacrifice. That love ought to appeal to sinners in the darkness of Egypt. That love ought to appeal to every Christian redeemed from the bondage of great Egypt’s sin.
The law by every argument and evidence is for all. “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.” “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”
The words are addressed to the individual soul, and to the nation and to the mass, only as the aggregate is composed of the units. Every moral command of God addresses the individual heart. He may not hide behind the mass. He cannot average his righteousness with his church or nation.
Man’s primal responsibility is to God. Before God’s judgment seat he must stand; for “each one of us shall give account of himself to God.” Rom. 14:12. He may not hide behind some worse transgressor. He will not be excused because some one else ignorantly or knowingly committed the same sin.Naked and open will be their stand, alone with God.
Is it not well, therefore, to stand alone with God now? Is it not well to pray him to shut out all other voices that we may listen to his alone, and not say as did sin-loving Israel to Moses, “Speak thou with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us”? Ex. 20:19. Better the response of the sincere, youthful Samuel, “Speak; for thy servant heareth.”
“Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” This word does not deal with image making and image worship. That is covered by another precept. The word “gods” does not necessarily refer to false gods. The term is applied to the judges. See Ex. 22:8, 28; 21:6, margin of the A. R. V. See also Ps. 82:6: “I said, Ye are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High.” Jesus recognized this when he said, “He called them gods, unto whom the word of God came.” John 10:35.
The first precept of the ten recognizes that there may be other authorities to whom recognition and obedience are due. Many of the kings of earth, like Alexander, counted themselves divine. Antiochus Epiphanes set himself forth as the “god manifest in the flesh.” Obedience in various and many things was due to these rulers. It is an inspired injunction. “Honor the king.” 1 Peter 2:17.
But God is first. This the commandment makes emphatic. Duty to him transcends all other duty. Above all obligations to emperors or kings or the state; above all church canons, creeds, councils, conferences; above all the demands of our fellow man, general, individual, political, religious, social, stands preeminently our duty to God. We may render to Cæsar—other gods—that which belongs to Cæsar, but we cannot render to Cæsar the things of God.
The loyal young Hebrews were but obeying the first commandment when they nobly answered Nebuchadnezzar, “We have no need to answer thee in this matter. Be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods.” Dan. 3:16-18.
It was in obedience to the first commandment that the apostles answered the highest religious body of their nation, “We must obey God rather than men.” Acts 5:29. And for loyalty to the Creator and Redeemer many noble souls have witnessed with their life-blood.
God’s children in these last days will be sorely tested by the same great principle. Sometimes it will come in the form of persecution. Sometimes to mammon and Mars, to pleasure and lust, the best energies of soul and body will be rendered in disobedience to God. The great thought of the Christian must ever be that though “there are gods many, and lords many; yet to us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we unto him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him.” 1 Cor. 8:6. And through him the prohibition of Sinai becomes an enabling act, Thou shalt have no other gods before Jehovah. He shall be first in everything.
Mountain View, Cal.