The Ten Commandments in Eden.
By Uriah Smith
WERE the ten commandments known to Adam in Eden? and were they transgressed in the sin of eating of the forbidden fruit? We take the ground that they were known, and that the restriction laid upon Adam was so comprehensive that it could not be disregarded without involving the violation of the principles of positively nine of the ten commandments of the decalogue; and that the other, the Sabbath commandment, which was possibly not involved in the transgression, had a specific commandment given for itself, so that we may be sure that all the ten were known and binding. Standing beneath the shadow of that fatal tree of the knowledge of good and evil, of which Adam and Eve were forbidden to eat, and beginning with the last commandment, let us examine them. 1. Eve saw the tree, that it was one "to be desired." Gen. 3:6. She coveted that which did not belong to her. Over the broken tenth commandment she approached the tree. 2. God had said that if they ate they should die. The devil said that they should become as gods. He bore false witness, and they believed it. In so doing they themselves bore false witness against God in their own hearts, and thus broke the ninth commandment. 3. They reached forth the hand and took that which did not belong to them, and in so doing broke that commandment, the eighth, which says, "Thou shalt not steal." 4. They listened to the tempter, entered upon terms of intimacy and friendship with him, gave their allegiance to him instead of to God, and thus formed a connection of the most unlawful kind. To enter into the friendship even of the world, James says is spiritual adultery. Jas. 4:4. How much more intensely so was the union Adam and Eve there entered into with the great enemy of their souls. Thus they broke the seventh commandment. 5. Inasmuch as God had told them that if they ate they should surely die, by transgressing they incurred death. They killed themselves and all their posterity. It was the most wholesale act of murder, the broadest violation of the sixth commandment, ever committed. 6. "Honor thy father and thy mother." Parents are dishonored by children when the children are disobedient to the parents' commands. Adam bore to God the relation of a son. Luke 3:38. In being disobedient to God, he therefore broke the fifth commandment. 7. Passing by the fourth as possibly an exception, so far as the letter is concerned, we come to the third. To take one's name in vain is not only to speak it irreverently, but to hold it in no esteem, to regard it lightly. And thus Adam must have regarded God's name before he could so boldly violate his express command. He thus broke the third commandment. 8. The second commandment forbids the worship of images. It is violated in esteeming the creature more than the Creator. Rom. 1:25. Adam pusillanimously said, "The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat." Gen. 3:12. In the act of yielding to her (though not in his subsequent excuse), Adam idolized his wife, and thus broke the second commandment. 9. As to the first commandment, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," all will admit that when, in the mind of Adam, God's authority went down before that of Satan, Adam took another master before Jehovah, and thus broke the first commandment. 10. And lastly, as to the fourth commandment, the record expressly states that a commandment was given for the Sabbath; for it was sanctified or set apart to a sacred or religious use, which could have been done only by telling Adam and Eve how to use it; and that was law. Thus in the instructions which we know from the record were given to man in Eden, and in the wonderful method God took to test man's loyalty to himself, the whole law was comprehended. Let no one say that there was no law till Sinai. U. S.