“NO LOVE COMMANDED IN THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.”
By G. V. Kilgore
A FIRST-DAY ADVENTIST minister, speaking against us once, took the position that the old covenant (the ten commandments, as he claimed) did not command love to God or man. He first said there was no love in the old covenant; but when he was referred to the second commandment, which says God shows mercy unto thousands of them that love him and keep his commandments, he took the above-named position, and said that the love mentioned there was not commanded, but simply spoken of as a result following the obedience of the law. He wanted the law to say plainly, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God,” etc., before he could see that love was commanded there. He also said that hatred was not condemned in the old covenant. I read the second commandment on this point also, and to me it looked very plain that God had condemned hatred. It says that God will visit iniquity upon those that hate him. Although the ten commandments do not say, “Thou shalt love God,” expressed in just this form of words, they most certainly command love the same as if they did. “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments,” 1 John 5:3; and the first commandment cannot be obeyed unless we love God above everything else. Paul says that covetousness is idolatry (Col. 3:5); and idolatry is a violation of the first commandment, although the word idolatry is not found there. As well might a person say that the ten commandments do not forbid idolatry, as to say they do not command love. Covetousness is “an eager desire for gain.”—Webster. Covetousness “is idolatry.”—Paul. A man who is eager for gain loves money or property more than he loves God, and so is a transgressor of the ten-commandments. Therefore, love, supreme love to God, is commanded in the decalogue. The queerest position of any I ever heard, was the one taken by the minister to whom I refer; namely, that the ten commandments alone, without the laws of Moses, were the old covenant. This, however, was not his first position. He first mixed all the laws of the Old Testament together, calling them the old covenant, the yoke of bondage, etc., and declaring that the old covenant had no love in it, and that it did not forbid hatred, malice, or drunkenness. But when such passages as Deut. 6:5; Lev. 19:16-18, were read to him in answer, he took the position that the ten commandments alone were the old covenant. What a reflection would this be on the Author of the decalogue. God spoke ten precepts and added no more; yet he left out such important principles as the love of God! He never thought to tell people to love one another, and not to hate! His neglect had to be made up by Moses! No, indeed; love is commanded in every one of those ten precepts. God never intended to specify in them every duty that man should perform, but simply to give a “perfect law,” whose principles would include every moral obligation, and forbid every sin. And he inspired men and sent his Son to teach those same principles to his people. John says that hatred is murder, which is a violation of the sixth commandment. 1 John 3:15. Christ says anger is a violation of the same. Matt. 5:21, 22. Paul says, “Now the end [object, or design] of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart.” And here he says the law was made for the disobedient; and after naming several kinds of sins which the ten commandments forbid, he says the law forbids “any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine.” 1 Tim. 1:5-10. The very design of those commandments is charity, or love. “Therefore love is the fulfilling of the law;” and of course hatred, malice, envy, and everything contrary to sound doctrine, is condemned by it.