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The Ten Commandments

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Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · May 11, 1915

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 42, No. 19.

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The Ten Commandments

By Adolphus Smith

The Ultimate Application of the Two Great Commandments
By ADOLPHUS SMITH
The law of God to all created beings in all the worlds is tersely given in the words of Christ, by whom all were created, and in whom they live. See Matt. 22:36-40.
The Ten Commandments spoken by God from Mount Sinai, and written with His own finger in tables of stone, to indicate their imperishable character, were not a new law, but a drawing out and an ultimate application of existing law to local conditions. They have ever been universally binding upon sentient beings.
The fourth commandment was at Sinai drawn out of the first great commandment and of supreme love to God, which it permeates eternally, and of which it forms an integral part. This law of God was the basis of the covenant with Abraham. See Gen. 17:1-8; and 26:1-5. The same law was also the basis of the covenant made with Israel at Sinai four hundred thirty years after. See Ex. 19:5-8.
This covenant differed from the Abrahamic covenant in that by it the birth of a new nation was effected (see Deut. 7:6-9), of which, in the new earth, Abraham will be a subject. It did not at all affect the Abrahamic covenant.
The ceremonial law given at Sinai was remedial to the transgressions of the basic law of Ten Commandments. See Gal. 3:19. The nation of Israel is perpetuated under the new covenant (Heb. 8:8-13), the law of God, as in the old covenant, being its legal basis.
The difference in the two covenants was in the character of the people, and in the administration. “Sin is the transgression of the law.” 1 John 3:4. There can be no sin outside the pale of the moral law; therefore the law was binding from the beginning. “For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.” Rom. 5:13.
This may be better understood by the following paraphrase: “Even before God had spoken the law from Sinai, its transgression was in the world, else sin could not have been imputed to man.”