God himself spoke all these words aloud at Sinai, and the commandments that follow are his own direct utterance. He spoke them with awful majesty in thunder, lightning, cloud, fire and trumpet, while the people trembled at a distance and begged Moses to speak for them. The law thus given is a transcript of his holy, just and good character, eternal and unchangeable as his throne, divided into two tables requiring supreme love to God in the first four and love to neighbor as self in the last six. At its center stands the Sabbath memorial that in six days he made heaven, earth and sea and rested, blessed and hallowed the seventh day. Those tables will be the standard in judgment deciding life or death, yet Christ kept every precept in human nature and through his blood and mediation pardons, writes the law in the heart, and brings blessing, peace and fitness for heaven to all who obey from the heart.
Speaker and Proclamation at Sinai
And God spake all these words, saying, means that God himself spoke aloud with his own voice at Sinai, and the commandments that follow are his direct spoken words. He spoke them to Israel encamped before Mount Sinai in the third month after coming out of Egypt, after Moses laid his covenant offer before the elders and all the people answered that they would do all the Lord had spoken. Those words are the ten commandments, the law of his kingdom and an expression of the character of the Sovereign of the universe, proclaimed with awful solemnity so that all mankind might clearly understand the whole duty of man. The first four place God above all else and define duty to him, including keeping the seventh-day Sabbath holy, and because they are God's own plain declaration of his authority they are not to be settled by human argument, so that turning aside from them brings condemnation. They are his instruction given through Moses to be obeyed, and Christ Jesus is the Teacher who gave these directions on the mount.
The Speaker from Sinai was Christ the Redeemer, Israel's divine leader veiled in cloud and pillar, speaking in union with the Father, for both Father and Son were present on the holy mount. He proclaimed the Ten Commandments with his own voice, repeating the commandments already given in Eden, after bringing his people out of Egypt that they might keep the Eden law. The awful grandeur, power, and glory with which he spoke, with solemn majesty, displayed his majesty and authority as Ruler of the world and the sacredness and importance of the law. He spoke in this way to impress the people with the sacredness of his law and the importance of obeying it, and the law he gave is the faith once delivered to the saints. The Sabbath command stood at the center of the commandments thus proclaimed by the Father and Christ, showing its importance, and God promised to take delivered Israel as his chosen people if they kept his Sabbath, making it a lasting sign between himself and them that he was their God.
He then wrote the law with his own finger on tables of stone, two tablets kept in the ark as lasting record, so it would not be forgotten or corrupted or mixed with human tradition. Unlike the rest of Scripture expressed through human words, the Decalogue is of wholly divine composition, a clear and complete revelation of his will and transcript of his character, perfectly revealing his will concerning his people so none need mistake it. He spoke audibly to all the people amid overwhelming glory and angelic presence and wrote on stone instead of trusting their short, forgetful memory, to remove all possibility of mingling tradition with his holy precepts or confusing his requirements with human practices. Its principles had been given after Adam's fall and were known to Noah and Abraham, and the commandments with the detailed judgments and statutes given through Moses expressed and guarded those same moral principles, making duties clear and drawing erring man prone to transgress back to obedience.
God spoke directly instead of trusting men or even angels to teach, leaving the people without excuse after they failed his proving following deliverance by Moses and division of the Red Sea and murmured with confused ideas of his law from witnessing idolatry. These are the words of the living God, living words that carry greater force and value than the precepts and teachings of men, including the customs, maxims, and traditions handed down through the rabbis and upheld by scribes and Pharisees. Making human tradition all-essential and regarding it as of more authority than these commandments hinders spiritual education, holds back advancement in knowledge, and prevents becoming efficient workers for God, while Christ defended the great precepts against traditions that displaced their authority and his words are to be chosen over teachings that mingle sophistry with Scripture. The words are plain Thou shalt and Thou shalt not commands, plain and distinct with no uncertainty beclouding them, plainly defining the divine rule of conduct so people need not mistake how to live and so everyone may understand what he told them. This spoken law from the highest and grandest court is the highest education that can be given to man, taught by God himself, learned by truly sanctified souls living the Word through obedience to all his commandments, requiring perfect service to the Creator with mental faculties and affections and duty to fellow men. His speaking from Sinai was a first speaking of truth, followed afterward by a second speaking by his Son, in which Jesus Christ as living representation makes known the grand truth that power belongs to God.
Setting and Manner of Giving
God spoke these words in the third month after the coming out of Egypt, after Israel had encamped before Mount Sinai during the wilderness wandering. Moses had laid God's covenant offer before the elders, and all the people had answered that they would do all the Lord had spoken, and then God Himself spoke His law to them encamped before the mount. The words then spoken are the Ten Commandments, the law of God's kingdom and rule of the Lord God, ruler of all nations, proclaimed so that all mankind might clearly understand the requirements of God covering the whole duty of man. This public giving before all the people showed God's special honor for Israel despite their errors and rebellion, and the law thus delivered with great grandeur became the basis of their solemn covenant to obey all that God commanded without compromise.
Israel needed this direct speaking because four hundred years of slavery and servitude in Egypt had corrupted them with idolatry. Their understanding had been confused, they had lost much knowledge of God and His law, and they had mingled its precepts with heathen customs and traditions from witnessing idolatry. God brought them out to obey His laws and keep the Eden law, and lifted them to a knowledge of Himself that they had never had.
The proclamation came with awful solemnity, grandeur, power, glory, and majesty, amid overwhelming angelic presence. There were thunders and lightnings, thick cloud and darkness and tempest, trumpet waxing loud and louder like a voice rolling down the mountain, fire and smoke, His glory as a devouring fire on the summit, the earth trembling and the quaking mountain seeming to move from its foundation. This display above the warring elements showed the sacredness, importance, exalted character, and permanence of the law, and made known His majesty and authority as Ruler of the world to impress the people with profound veneration for its Author as Creator of heaven and earth. His voice uttering the law was God's great mirror and great rule of right, revealing to the people their true condition, the offensive character of sin, and their own guilt before a pure and holy God, with awful power their quaking frames could barely bear so their hearts failed with fear.
The people were overwhelmed with terror, shrank from the mountain in fear and awe, removed and stood afar off, fell on their faces, and cried to Moses to speak with them instead lest they die if God spoke to them. They were kept at a distance from the mountain while God came to prove them, that His fear might be before their faces that they sin not. They little understood pardon, justification by faith, and access to God only through a mediator, having in great measure lost knowledge of God and of the only way to approach Him, lost nearly all sense of what constitutes sin and righteousness, and only dimly understanding pardon through the promised Messiah whom their offerings typified, not understanding that Christ was their appointed mediator without whom they would have been consumed.
Because minds impaired by slavery were not ready to grasp the full reach of the engraved precepts, God gave additional judgments, statutes, minute laws, and precepts privately to Moses to explain, guard, and apply the ten. These definite judgments and statutes spoken by God in the mount simplified the principles of the Ten Commandments and stated them in definite form regarding duty to one another and to the stranger, regarding duty to God, neighbor, and stranger, so the people need not err. They were distinct from the Ten Commandments and did not replace them, but guarded their sacredness and led erring man prone to transgress back to strict obedience of the moral law. Without obedience to the principles those specific directions would not have been needed.
Before hearing, Israel was bidden to prepare and to wash and cleanse their clothing, showing that reverence for God's holy law includes outward cleanliness and order in person, clothing, home, and premises. The law's principles cannot be written in the heart while a person persists in disorder, carelessness, and filth, and clean suitable clothing for Sabbath worship honors the Sabbath and God's house. God used the mountain as His own temple rather than a human-made building, and His presence made it sacred so neither man nor beast could touch it on penalty of death, teaching that everything connected with God must be regarded with greatest reverence. He led them to Sinai in isolation with nothing to attract the senses or divert the mind, among lofty mountains showing their nothingness and immovable rocks showing the power of the divine will, teaching human insignificance, purity, and reverence, so His word would ever be clear and distinct.
Earlier Origin and Enduring Authority
The law proclaimed in these words did not begin at Sinai and was not new there, for its principles had governed angels before humanity existed and were spoken to Adam and Eve in Eden, given again after the Fall, preserved by Noah, and observed by Abraham. What God spoke when He came down on the mount was a repetition of the commandments already given in Eden, including the Eden Sabbath, delivered anew in solemn glory so a people confused by Egyptian servitude could understand their requirements. Israel had been brought out of Egypt precisely that they might keep that Eden law, and Christ their Redeemer was the one who spoke it from Sinai. Sacrifices were added later not as part of that moral law but to teach repentance and trust in the promised Redeemer.
The ten precepts thus spoken with awful grandeur will endure forever, for they are eternal, immutable and unchangeable as God's throne and character, a standard of right conduct that cannot be changed. They can never be repealed while heaven and earth remain, and they cannot be set aside, trimmed down to nine-tenths, or abolished by Christ's death, which instead confirms them. Like links of a chain, if one is broken the chain is of no value, so violation of one makes a person a commandment-breaker, and perfect obedience is required for admission to heaven. The words written on stone signify the permanence of the precepts, including the Sabbath command to keep the seventh day holy, which is not displaced by instituting first-day observance and is not optional.
Israel was entrusted with the law as depositaries, but it was not confined to them nor given only to them, for it was to be handed down to all people, later generations, and every nation, tongue and age. These laws make known the principles of God's government in heaven and on earth and to people of every nation and language. They lie at the foundation of all right laws, for all enlightened civil, national and family law and government had its origin in those ten words of the Almighty, which those who frame laws for the nation should understand.
These words stand at the beginning of written revelation, which began in the time of Moses after twenty-five hundred years of human history with no written revelation, when those taught of God handed down knowledge from father to son. They open a sixteen-hundred-year work of embodying inspired revelations in an inspired book running from Moses, the historian of creation and the law, to John, the recorder of the most sublime truths of the gospel. The commandments and the circumstances of their giving were recounted with statutes and precepts to a new wilderness generation, because many had been children when the law was given and others had been born in the wilderness, reminding them that obedience brought blessings while disregard brought curses. The ten precepts pointing out human duty were placed in the ark of God's testament, the sacred chest whose stone tablets were kept in the sacred ark, and as Jerusalem faced destruction for the sins of Israel and Judah righteous people hid the ark in a cave where it was never restored and remained undisturbed.
The law so given is to be believed just as it reads, clearly set forth just as given, and vindicated by heart obedience and strong arguments. Everyone professing to keep God's commandments should diligently study it with earnest desire to know truth and prayer for opened understanding, even when opposed to past belief, for its true significance repays careful study and once its light is seen rejection brings responsibility. It should be taught to children for generations, printed in plain letters in a prominent place and kept prominently before the world, because hardly one in a thousand knows what it says about the Sabbath, and had it been obeyed the wickedness now seen would never have existed. Its words, holy, just, good and perfect as God's pledged word sounding down the line to the present time, should be printed on cards and hung on house walls where pictures now hang, so eyes falling on them arrest attention and impress heart and mind, with money now spent on photographs and multitudinous idols better used in self-denial to feed the poor, clothe the naked, and buy pamphlets and books to enlighten souls in darkness.
Character Transcript and Twofold Division
The law spoken in Exodus 20:1 is a transcript and expression of God's own character and of the principles of Christ's kingdom, holy and just and good, perfect and pure and ennobling. It is a clear and complete revelation of His will, declaring His authority and holiness and justice and righteousness, and it preserves His moral image in those who obey it. Acting unjustly, advancing falsehood, or corrupting business dealing contradicts that will and misrepresents that character. Those who strictly obey it honor God by teaching it to others.
The ten are arranged in two tables, with the first four defining duty to the Maker and the last six defining duty to fellow human beings. The first table requires undivided devotion and places God above all else, including keeping the seventh-day Sabbath holy, while the second sets out obligations to neighbor. Together they contain the whole duty of man: supreme love to God with all heart and soul and mind and strength, and love to neighbor as self. Faithfulness to God produces faithfulness to neighbor, for neither part can be kept while the other is broken, and the gospel sanctifies by driving out self-love.
The opening words declare the Speaker as the Lord who brought His people out of Egypt out of the house of bondage, the only true and living God and Creator of heaven and earth. They command that no other gods be put before Him, and forbid making any graven image or likeness of anything in heaven above or earth beneath or water under the earth to represent God or to be worshiped in His place. Worship of images made by human hands obscures His power and glory, denies creation in His image, and opens the way to unrestrained evil. The first four therefore require undivided love and delight in Him alone, putting away whatever separates the soul from Him and whatever would share His supreme place.
As God's great mirror and great rule of right, the voice uttering the law reveals true condition, exposes the offensive character of sin, calls sin by its right name, convicts of guilt, and makes sin known. It condemns wickedness and unrighteousness and exposes every departure from heaven's plain principles and every glossed-over iniquity, calling the sinner to bow in humility and contrition and to come to Christ to be cleansed by His atoning blood through repentance and faith. Christ, who spoke the law at Sinai, afterward unfolded the same law on the mount of beatitudes and in answering the lawyer and the young ruler, showing its full reach to intents and secret thoughts and desires, summing the second table in neighbor love, and restoring its light against cold human traditions that obscure it. That law, including the binding Sabbath, belongs with His personal teachings and reveals His mission, and it must not be rejected or treated with contempt. Keeping its first four commandments makes people one with Christ, whose life given as ransom to free them from sin shows the value of each person.
Sabbath Memorial and Rival Day
In the bosom of the Decalogue the fourth commandment declares who the living God is, the Creator who made the world in six days and rested on the seventh, and gives the seventh day to the world as the memorial of His creative work. After making heaven, earth, sea and all in them in six days, He rested on the seventh day, was refreshed, and blessed and hallowed and sanctified it, and that blessing has never been removed. The commandments God Himself spoke declare His authority and set out human duty, with the first four placing God above all else and defining duty to Him, including keeping the seventh-day Sabbath holy. The law identifies the day to be observed, the day on which God finished creation and rested and was refreshed and which He gave to the world and to His people, so that breaking it is breaking God's law.
The Sabbath command stood at the center of the commandments, showing its importance, and God delivered Israel from Egyptian bondage so they could serve Him and obey His requirements, promising to take them as His chosen people if they kept His Sabbath. It is a perpetual covenant sign and lasting sign between Himself and them throughout generations forever that He is their God and that He sanctifies them as their Creator. It is the golden clasp that unites man to God in supreme obedience and reverence and unites man to his fellow man, with reverencing the Sabbath leading to keeping the first three commandments toward God while the last six show duty to fellow man. Keeping the Sabbath among all God's commandments means obedience to all His commandments, for all ten must be obeyed together and cannot be trimmed down to suit ideas or convenience, and breaking the Sabbath breaks that law. The Sabbath of the commandments is the great test question for this time, to be proclaimed with power, with precious promises to those who keep His Sabbath from polluting it and abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom to those who keep all the words, dividing those who receive life from breakers who will meet the reward of their works.
No one of these commandments may be set aside and replaced by observance of a day that bears no sanctity, and the law spoken with awful grandeur will endure forever and is not displaced by instituting first-day observance. The Sunday Sabbath is a child of the papacy set forth to be observed as the Lord's Sabbath, bearing no stamp of divine approval, and the change from the seventh-day Sabbath to Sunday is attributed to an antichristian power, not to God. Accepting the papal claim to have changed God's times and laws led the Protestant world into apostasy and the nations into Babylon's influence, for finite people cannot improve or revise the righteous moral code without claiming God's authority. To frame a human law for a spurious Sabbath exalting the first day of the week and compel obedience insults God, profanes His holy day, assumes divine authority and usurps His divine prerogatives as Ruler of the world and Monarch of the universe, and to obey that human law compels transgression of the laws of Jehovah and brings dealing by Jehovah.
The chapter is suited for frequent reading on the Sabbath, repeating the commandments already given in Eden, and reading the commandments there should lead to Exodus 31, which explains the Sabbath commandment and its significance. Keeping it distinguishes obedience to God from honoring a power opposed to Him, while turning from the commandments is denying Christ and stepping from beneath the bloodstained banner of Jesus Christ to stand under the black banner of the prince of darkness. The law's truth began as a small light and grew in strength as people searched Scripture, and those who refuse to heed it, seeking especially to set aside the Sabbath commandment, are accountable as though they had heard it and will need to answer for disobedience in the last day.
Judgment Standard and Saving Grace
The tables of stone are hidden until the judgment sets and the books are opened, when they will be presented before the world as the standard of righteousness. Their principles will decide the destiny of every soul and determine the sentence of life or of death. The terms of salvation are obedience to the perfect law, and none will find excuse for sin when its plain precepts are made manifest. Condemnation falls on those who knowingly reject them and lead others to transgress, for transgressors will then fully recognize their guilt. The proclamation from Sinai thus stands to witness against the world, retaining its authority as God's standard of character.
Obedience to God's perfect law is prerequisite of salvation and entrance to heaven and the city. Perfect obedience in spirit and letter is required, for the law is the only standard of character and the test all bought by Christ must meet. Breaking any commandment is sin, violation brings transgression with death as its penalty, and punishment surely follows. A person cannot be saved while refusing to keep what God spoke, including the Sabbath, which must be believed just as it reads and obeyed once duty is shown. Clear instruction is to be given from principle and not mere compulsion, with earnest search, prayer for opened understanding, and willingness to grasp every ray of light even against past belief.
Christ kept every commandment while sharing human nature, proving obedience possible and vindicating God's justice in requiring it. His life perfectly fulfills every precept and corresponds to the standard of righteousness, showing righteousness means living God's law as He lived it. Deprived of His mediation as the appointed mediator, sinners in their lost condition, guilt, and dim sense of pardon would have been consumed, for access to God comes only through Him whom the offerings typified. As the Sinai Lawgiver who passed over the ground where Adam fell and bore the test Adam failed, He vindicated in humiliation and death His right to pardon transgression and sin. Faith in Jesus makes His perfection count for the repentant and obedient, pardoning sin, justifying, cleansing glossed-over iniquity, enabling sharing of the divine nature, and writing under the new covenant the Eden law of love in the heart.
The law was written by Jehovah's finger on two tables of stone, placed in the sacred chest and ark of the covenant and of the testimony as a lasting record pointing out human duty. Israel's prosperity or adversity depended on obeying or transgressing what was so kept. That record is kept in the ark in the most holy place in heaven, where Jesus entered in 1844 after finishing His work in the holy place. Families are called to give attention to its commandments and obey them, being responsible once they see the light if they reject it.
A definite penalty is annexed to the law, the wages of sin is death, and God's retributive justice never fails. Persistent refusal to obey brings judgment, yet judgment is intended in mercy to awaken transgressors to sin and peril, for God is patient but His claims will ultimately be vindicated. Israel was meant to be set apart from surrounding wicked nations with obedience as its life, but becoming lax, breaking the Sabbath and other commandments, hindered its purpose, brought displeasure, punishment, and captivity, even while manna and cloud and fire showed God's presence. The same sacred binding law reveals supreme authority over earthly rulers and cities. Making that law void is the crime that fills the measure of iniquity of the United States, the greatest and most favored nation, shielded by Providence, refuge for the oppressed, taught pure faith and given great light and unrivaled mercies, whose guilt is proportioned to rejected light with a fearful record standing in heaven. Belonging to latter-day unions that rob neighbors makes keeping it impossible.
God Himself as Monarch of the universe spoke the Decalogue amid awful grandeur, laying binding claims and solemn injunctions changeless and eternal as His throne upon the human family. Those words are to be clearly and distinctly set forth just as given, repeated by gospel ministers and those baptized with the Holy Spirit before large congregations, urging their claims upon rulers and subjects of earthly nations and pressing obedience. Hearing them places every person in harmony either with the Lord or with the great rebel. They prove hearers, make sinners tremble, awaken many to duty, and prove in experience that the law converts the soul. Only holy men who are strict observers honor God by teaching that holy law which is part of Himself, and care of the flock and last message is not to be entrusted to those weakened and perverted by cherished errors such as perfectionism and spiritualism that brought reproach. The moral law so taught teaches and enforces true conversion and lived sanctification in which self does not seek supremacy.
Daily Obedience and Worldwide Witness
The words spoken introduce commandments to be obeyed in daily life and not merely professed, for doing them is the clearest sermon about their authority, and obedience is personal duty whose neglect is sin. Their keeping requires purity, supreme love for God and love for neighbor as self, with obedience from the heart rather than mere agreement or teaching. In business and every line of work, including those in responsible positions, their principles must govern conduct, requiring equity in judgment, just dealing, truthfulness, tender compassion and disinterested love that leads those within influence toward Christ. Acting unjustly, advancing falsehood, sharp scheming, oppression, unjust dealing, and using God's cause to justify robbery or suffering contradict the divine will, misrepresent the divine character, dishonor God, cause others to stumble, weaken witness and turn people from truth. Obedience in spirit and in letter, visible in conduct and business under both the first four and the last six, preserves the moral image of God in people and keeps each person in touch with the Creator.
As law for the household on earth the words govern parents and children with strict obedience allowing no sinless departure. Parents are to train children according to the principles of the Word, combining faith and works, keeping the way of the Lord, making straight paths, doing everything in home and school decently and in order, with firm loving discipline, order and neatness, so that holiness pervades the home and brings angels into the home circle. The clear commands of what must and must not be done model parental requirements to be obeyed and train respect for divine commandments, including honoring father and mother and not indulging desires without parental counsel. Children are to be taught diligently when rising and sitting, going out and coming in, and to meditate on the solemn covenant heard aloud, for neglect of this teaching makes drunkards and criminals, fills jails with theft, robbery and murder, while keeping protects homes from vice, purifies the obedient, and is worth any cost. Meditating on the law and seeking its wonders leads to understanding the mystery of godliness, and to love God and keep the commandments is the whole duty of man.
The laws given from Sinai include laws of chastity and strict regard for purity in manners, guarding physicians against looseness, carelessness about chastity and liberties with women, so that all who live by them and truly converted physicians who obey them may be safely trusted and fit for medical work. Their principles are laws for life and health, and had they been obeyed the curse of disease filling the world would not exist. The same authority extends to the laws governing the body written on nerves, muscles and fibers, so that needless violation of those established laws is sin as truly as breaking a precept, ignorance does not excuse those who have received light, and those knowingly disregarding bodily laws are slow to obey the moral law. Restraint in eating and drinking tests whether one is governed by principle or appetite, while temperance, cleanliness, chastity, order and simple dress honor the law and support health, and intemperance, indulged appetite, lust, impurity, disorder, filth and needless expenditure of vitality violate it. Before listening Israel was required to wash clothes, showing the holiness of the law calls for outward cleanliness and order in person and household.
With the faith of Jesus the law is present truth and the third angel's message, a central life-giving testing question to be clearly presented everywhere with power and not displaced by disputes over minor matters. It is to be vindicated by heart and mind obedience and by strong arguments, represented sensibly and worthily rather than cheaply and faultily, with the commandments printed in plain letters in a prominent place, since hardly one in a thousand in Washington knew what they say about the Sabbath and had they been obeyed present wickedness would never have existed. The God of heaven proclaimed the law with His own voice from Sinai so men would realize its importance, though Satan labors to undermine confidence in it, and it lies at the foundation of all right laws which framers of national laws should understand, with the nation's capital to have the full rays of present testing truth. After first sending a message of warning God will come to punish transgressors lightly regarding it, and health reform is given to reveal the sinfulness of breaking the laws established in human being by indulging depraved appetites and lustful passions, fitting a people for the Lord's coming as one branch of the work connected with the third angel's message as closely as hand with body.
Obedience to all the commandments spoken and engraved by God expresses His character and brings safety, healthy spiritual experience, blessing, health, happiness, peace, prosperity, moral fitness for heaven, and a hedge marking His peculiar treasure and His city, while glorifying His name. The plain precepts were given as a code for the people's good and remain the great moral standard of righteousness in heaven and earth and the foundation of laws of nations, families, enlightened civil law and all righteous good laws, regulating conduct, restraining wrongdoing for society's good and safety. Disregarding or openly violating them brings sin, hinders work for God, withholds rich heavenly blessing when flagrant violations go unrebuked, and leads not to freedom or happiness but to transgression, disease, misery, drunkenness, poverty, crime and ruin, for freedom in Christ is freedom through obeying. Their principles are to be held firmly as solid as rock allowing no yielding to opinion, unlike questions of diet such as eating butter where those loving and serving God may follow conviction without disturbance or disunion, and minor differences must not divide believers or become a barrier. Written in mind and heart with supreme wisdom and authority as spirit and life, they require obeying God rather than men when rulers conflict, so that love for them conforms to every good law of the land yet refuses war opposed to every principle of faith and violating conscience.
Loyalty to the holy words may require moral courage in the face of opposition and contempt. Turning from moral duty to avoid reproach violates the duties set out in the ten. Following the divine requirements means wearing the yoke prepared by God rather than heavy yokes made by the world. The ten holy precepts are the standard instead of the fashion of the age, the yoke to be obeyed, while yokes not in conformity with them are Satan's and heavy.
God himself spoke all these words aloud at Sinai, and the commandments that follow are his own direct utterance. He spoke them with awful majesty in thunder, lightning, cloud, fire and trumpet, while the people trembled at a distance and begged Moses to speak for them. The law thus given is a transcript of his holy, just and good character, eternal and unchangeable as his throne, divided into two tables requiring supreme love to God in the first four and love to neighbor as self in the last six. At its center stands the Sabbath memorial that in six days he made heaven, earth and sea and rested, blessed and hallowed the seventh day. Those tables will be the standard in judgment deciding life or death, yet Christ kept every precept in human nature and through his blood and mediation pardons, writes the law in the heart, and brings blessing, peace and fitness for heaven to all who obey from the heart.
Speaker and Proclamation at Sinai
And God spake all these words, saying, means that God himself spoke aloud with his own voice at Sinai, and the commandments that follow are his direct spoken words. He spoke them to Israel encamped before Mount Sinai in the third month after coming out of Egypt, after Moses laid his covenant offer before the elders and all the people answered that they would do all the Lord had spoken. Those words are the ten commandments, the law of his kingdom and an expression of the character of the Sovereign of the universe, proclaimed with awful solemnity so that all mankind might clearly understand the whole duty of man. The first four place God above all else and define duty to him, including keeping the seventh-day Sabbath holy, and because they are God's own plain declaration of his authority they are not to be settled by human argument, so that turning aside from them brings condemnation. They are his instruction given through Moses to be obeyed, and Christ Jesus is the Teacher who gave these directions on the mount.
The Speaker from Sinai was Christ the Redeemer, Israel's divine leader veiled in cloud and pillar, speaking in union with the Father, for both Father and Son were present on the holy mount. He proclaimed the Ten Commandments with his own voice, repeating the commandments already given in Eden, after bringing his people out of Egypt that they might keep the Eden law. The awful grandeur, power, and glory with which he spoke, with solemn majesty, displayed his majesty and authority as Ruler of the world and the sacredness and importance of the law. He spoke in this way to impress the people with the sacredness of his law and the importance of obeying it, and the law he gave is the faith once delivered to the saints. The Sabbath command stood at the center of the commandments thus proclaimed by the Father and Christ, showing its importance, and God promised to take delivered Israel as his chosen people if they kept his Sabbath, making it a lasting sign between himself and them that he was their God.
He then wrote the law with his own finger on tables of stone, two tablets kept in the ark as lasting record, so it would not be forgotten or corrupted or mixed with human tradition. Unlike the rest of Scripture expressed through human words, the Decalogue is of wholly divine composition, a clear and complete revelation of his will and transcript of his character, perfectly revealing his will concerning his people so none need mistake it. He spoke audibly to all the people amid overwhelming glory and angelic presence and wrote on stone instead of trusting their short, forgetful memory, to remove all possibility of mingling tradition with his holy precepts or confusing his requirements with human practices. Its principles had been given after Adam's fall and were known to Noah and Abraham, and the commandments with the detailed judgments and statutes given through Moses expressed and guarded those same moral principles, making duties clear and drawing erring man prone to transgress back to obedience.
God spoke directly instead of trusting men or even angels to teach, leaving the people without excuse after they failed his proving following deliverance by Moses and division of the Red Sea and murmured with confused ideas of his law from witnessing idolatry. These are the words of the living God, living words that carry greater force and value than the precepts and teachings of men, including the customs, maxims, and traditions handed down through the rabbis and upheld by scribes and Pharisees. Making human tradition all-essential and regarding it as of more authority than these commandments hinders spiritual education, holds back advancement in knowledge, and prevents becoming efficient workers for God, while Christ defended the great precepts against traditions that displaced their authority and his words are to be chosen over teachings that mingle sophistry with Scripture. The words are plain Thou shalt and Thou shalt not commands, plain and distinct with no uncertainty beclouding them, plainly defining the divine rule of conduct so people need not mistake how to live and so everyone may understand what he told them. This spoken law from the highest and grandest court is the highest education that can be given to man, taught by God himself, learned by truly sanctified souls living the Word through obedience to all his commandments, requiring perfect service to the Creator with mental faculties and affections and duty to fellow men. His speaking from Sinai was a first speaking of truth, followed afterward by a second speaking by his Son, in which Jesus Christ as living representation makes known the grand truth that power belongs to God.
Setting and Manner of Giving
God spoke these words in the third month after the coming out of Egypt, after Israel had encamped before Mount Sinai during the wilderness wandering. Moses had laid God's covenant offer before the elders, and all the people had answered that they would do all the Lord had spoken, and then God Himself spoke His law to them encamped before the mount. The words then spoken are the Ten Commandments, the law of God's kingdom and rule of the Lord God, ruler of all nations, proclaimed so that all mankind might clearly understand the requirements of God covering the whole duty of man. This public giving before all the people showed God's special honor for Israel despite their errors and rebellion, and the law thus delivered with great grandeur became the basis of their solemn covenant to obey all that God commanded without compromise.
Israel needed this direct speaking because four hundred years of slavery and servitude in Egypt had corrupted them with idolatry. Their understanding had been confused, they had lost much knowledge of God and His law, and they had mingled its precepts with heathen customs and traditions from witnessing idolatry. God brought them out to obey His laws and keep the Eden law, and lifted them to a knowledge of Himself that they had never had.
The proclamation came with awful solemnity, grandeur, power, glory, and majesty, amid overwhelming angelic presence. There were thunders and lightnings, thick cloud and darkness and tempest, trumpet waxing loud and louder like a voice rolling down the mountain, fire and smoke, His glory as a devouring fire on the summit, the earth trembling and the quaking mountain seeming to move from its foundation. This display above the warring elements showed the sacredness, importance, exalted character, and permanence of the law, and made known His majesty and authority as Ruler of the world to impress the people with profound veneration for its Author as Creator of heaven and earth. His voice uttering the law was God's great mirror and great rule of right, revealing to the people their true condition, the offensive character of sin, and their own guilt before a pure and holy God, with awful power their quaking frames could barely bear so their hearts failed with fear.
The people were overwhelmed with terror, shrank from the mountain in fear and awe, removed and stood afar off, fell on their faces, and cried to Moses to speak with them instead lest they die if God spoke to them. They were kept at a distance from the mountain while God came to prove them, that His fear might be before their faces that they sin not. They little understood pardon, justification by faith, and access to God only through a mediator, having in great measure lost knowledge of God and of the only way to approach Him, lost nearly all sense of what constitutes sin and righteousness, and only dimly understanding pardon through the promised Messiah whom their offerings typified, not understanding that Christ was their appointed mediator without whom they would have been consumed.
Because minds impaired by slavery were not ready to grasp the full reach of the engraved precepts, God gave additional judgments, statutes, minute laws, and precepts privately to Moses to explain, guard, and apply the ten. These definite judgments and statutes spoken by God in the mount simplified the principles of the Ten Commandments and stated them in definite form regarding duty to one another and to the stranger, regarding duty to God, neighbor, and stranger, so the people need not err. They were distinct from the Ten Commandments and did not replace them, but guarded their sacredness and led erring man prone to transgress back to strict obedience of the moral law. Without obedience to the principles those specific directions would not have been needed.
Before hearing, Israel was bidden to prepare and to wash and cleanse their clothing, showing that reverence for God's holy law includes outward cleanliness and order in person, clothing, home, and premises. The law's principles cannot be written in the heart while a person persists in disorder, carelessness, and filth, and clean suitable clothing for Sabbath worship honors the Sabbath and God's house. God used the mountain as His own temple rather than a human-made building, and His presence made it sacred so neither man nor beast could touch it on penalty of death, teaching that everything connected with God must be regarded with greatest reverence. He led them to Sinai in isolation with nothing to attract the senses or divert the mind, among lofty mountains showing their nothingness and immovable rocks showing the power of the divine will, teaching human insignificance, purity, and reverence, so His word would ever be clear and distinct.
Earlier Origin and Enduring Authority
The law proclaimed in these words did not begin at Sinai and was not new there, for its principles had governed angels before humanity existed and were spoken to Adam and Eve in Eden, given again after the Fall, preserved by Noah, and observed by Abraham. What God spoke when He came down on the mount was a repetition of the commandments already given in Eden, including the Eden Sabbath, delivered anew in solemn glory so a people confused by Egyptian servitude could understand their requirements. Israel had been brought out of Egypt precisely that they might keep that Eden law, and Christ their Redeemer was the one who spoke it from Sinai. Sacrifices were added later not as part of that moral law but to teach repentance and trust in the promised Redeemer.
The ten precepts thus spoken with awful grandeur will endure forever, for they are eternal, immutable and unchangeable as God's throne and character, a standard of right conduct that cannot be changed. They can never be repealed while heaven and earth remain, and they cannot be set aside, trimmed down to nine-tenths, or abolished by Christ's death, which instead confirms them. Like links of a chain, if one is broken the chain is of no value, so violation of one makes a person a commandment-breaker, and perfect obedience is required for admission to heaven. The words written on stone signify the permanence of the precepts, including the Sabbath command to keep the seventh day holy, which is not displaced by instituting first-day observance and is not optional.
Israel was entrusted with the law as depositaries, but it was not confined to them nor given only to them, for it was to be handed down to all people, later generations, and every nation, tongue and age. These laws make known the principles of God's government in heaven and on earth and to people of every nation and language. They lie at the foundation of all right laws, for all enlightened civil, national and family law and government had its origin in those ten words of the Almighty, which those who frame laws for the nation should understand.
These words stand at the beginning of written revelation, which began in the time of Moses after twenty-five hundred years of human history with no written revelation, when those taught of God handed down knowledge from father to son. They open a sixteen-hundred-year work of embodying inspired revelations in an inspired book running from Moses, the historian of creation and the law, to John, the recorder of the most sublime truths of the gospel. The commandments and the circumstances of their giving were recounted with statutes and precepts to a new wilderness generation, because many had been children when the law was given and others had been born in the wilderness, reminding them that obedience brought blessings while disregard brought curses. The ten precepts pointing out human duty were placed in the ark of God's testament, the sacred chest whose stone tablets were kept in the sacred ark, and as Jerusalem faced destruction for the sins of Israel and Judah righteous people hid the ark in a cave where it was never restored and remained undisturbed.
The law so given is to be believed just as it reads, clearly set forth just as given, and vindicated by heart obedience and strong arguments. Everyone professing to keep God's commandments should diligently study it with earnest desire to know truth and prayer for opened understanding, even when opposed to past belief, for its true significance repays careful study and once its light is seen rejection brings responsibility. It should be taught to children for generations, printed in plain letters in a prominent place and kept prominently before the world, because hardly one in a thousand knows what it says about the Sabbath, and had it been obeyed the wickedness now seen would never have existed. Its words, holy, just, good and perfect as God's pledged word sounding down the line to the present time, should be printed on cards and hung on house walls where pictures now hang, so eyes falling on them arrest attention and impress heart and mind, with money now spent on photographs and multitudinous idols better used in self-denial to feed the poor, clothe the naked, and buy pamphlets and books to enlighten souls in darkness.
Character Transcript and Twofold Division
The law spoken in Exodus 20:1 is a transcript and expression of God's own character and of the principles of Christ's kingdom, holy and just and good, perfect and pure and ennobling. It is a clear and complete revelation of His will, declaring His authority and holiness and justice and righteousness, and it preserves His moral image in those who obey it. Acting unjustly, advancing falsehood, or corrupting business dealing contradicts that will and misrepresents that character. Those who strictly obey it honor God by teaching it to others.
The ten are arranged in two tables, with the first four defining duty to the Maker and the last six defining duty to fellow human beings. The first table requires undivided devotion and places God above all else, including keeping the seventh-day Sabbath holy, while the second sets out obligations to neighbor. Together they contain the whole duty of man: supreme love to God with all heart and soul and mind and strength, and love to neighbor as self. Faithfulness to God produces faithfulness to neighbor, for neither part can be kept while the other is broken, and the gospel sanctifies by driving out self-love.
The opening words declare the Speaker as the Lord who brought His people out of Egypt out of the house of bondage, the only true and living God and Creator of heaven and earth. They command that no other gods be put before Him, and forbid making any graven image or likeness of anything in heaven above or earth beneath or water under the earth to represent God or to be worshiped in His place. Worship of images made by human hands obscures His power and glory, denies creation in His image, and opens the way to unrestrained evil. The first four therefore require undivided love and delight in Him alone, putting away whatever separates the soul from Him and whatever would share His supreme place.
As God's great mirror and great rule of right, the voice uttering the law reveals true condition, exposes the offensive character of sin, calls sin by its right name, convicts of guilt, and makes sin known. It condemns wickedness and unrighteousness and exposes every departure from heaven's plain principles and every glossed-over iniquity, calling the sinner to bow in humility and contrition and to come to Christ to be cleansed by His atoning blood through repentance and faith. Christ, who spoke the law at Sinai, afterward unfolded the same law on the mount of beatitudes and in answering the lawyer and the young ruler, showing its full reach to intents and secret thoughts and desires, summing the second table in neighbor love, and restoring its light against cold human traditions that obscure it. That law, including the binding Sabbath, belongs with His personal teachings and reveals His mission, and it must not be rejected or treated with contempt. Keeping its first four commandments makes people one with Christ, whose life given as ransom to free them from sin shows the value of each person.
Sabbath Memorial and Rival Day
In the bosom of the Decalogue the fourth commandment declares who the living God is, the Creator who made the world in six days and rested on the seventh, and gives the seventh day to the world as the memorial of His creative work. After making heaven, earth, sea and all in them in six days, He rested on the seventh day, was refreshed, and blessed and hallowed and sanctified it, and that blessing has never been removed. The commandments God Himself spoke declare His authority and set out human duty, with the first four placing God above all else and defining duty to Him, including keeping the seventh-day Sabbath holy. The law identifies the day to be observed, the day on which God finished creation and rested and was refreshed and which He gave to the world and to His people, so that breaking it is breaking God's law.
The Sabbath command stood at the center of the commandments, showing its importance, and God delivered Israel from Egyptian bondage so they could serve Him and obey His requirements, promising to take them as His chosen people if they kept His Sabbath. It is a perpetual covenant sign and lasting sign between Himself and them throughout generations forever that He is their God and that He sanctifies them as their Creator. It is the golden clasp that unites man to God in supreme obedience and reverence and unites man to his fellow man, with reverencing the Sabbath leading to keeping the first three commandments toward God while the last six show duty to fellow man. Keeping the Sabbath among all God's commandments means obedience to all His commandments, for all ten must be obeyed together and cannot be trimmed down to suit ideas or convenience, and breaking the Sabbath breaks that law. The Sabbath of the commandments is the great test question for this time, to be proclaimed with power, with precious promises to those who keep His Sabbath from polluting it and abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom to those who keep all the words, dividing those who receive life from breakers who will meet the reward of their works.
No one of these commandments may be set aside and replaced by observance of a day that bears no sanctity, and the law spoken with awful grandeur will endure forever and is not displaced by instituting first-day observance. The Sunday Sabbath is a child of the papacy set forth to be observed as the Lord's Sabbath, bearing no stamp of divine approval, and the change from the seventh-day Sabbath to Sunday is attributed to an antichristian power, not to God. Accepting the papal claim to have changed God's times and laws led the Protestant world into apostasy and the nations into Babylon's influence, for finite people cannot improve or revise the righteous moral code without claiming God's authority. To frame a human law for a spurious Sabbath exalting the first day of the week and compel obedience insults God, profanes His holy day, assumes divine authority and usurps His divine prerogatives as Ruler of the world and Monarch of the universe, and to obey that human law compels transgression of the laws of Jehovah and brings dealing by Jehovah.
The chapter is suited for frequent reading on the Sabbath, repeating the commandments already given in Eden, and reading the commandments there should lead to Exodus 31, which explains the Sabbath commandment and its significance. Keeping it distinguishes obedience to God from honoring a power opposed to Him, while turning from the commandments is denying Christ and stepping from beneath the bloodstained banner of Jesus Christ to stand under the black banner of the prince of darkness. The law's truth began as a small light and grew in strength as people searched Scripture, and those who refuse to heed it, seeking especially to set aside the Sabbath commandment, are accountable as though they had heard it and will need to answer for disobedience in the last day.
Judgment Standard and Saving Grace
The tables of stone are hidden until the judgment sets and the books are opened, when they will be presented before the world as the standard of righteousness. Their principles will decide the destiny of every soul and determine the sentence of life or of death. The terms of salvation are obedience to the perfect law, and none will find excuse for sin when its plain precepts are made manifest. Condemnation falls on those who knowingly reject them and lead others to transgress, for transgressors will then fully recognize their guilt. The proclamation from Sinai thus stands to witness against the world, retaining its authority as God's standard of character.
Obedience to God's perfect law is prerequisite of salvation and entrance to heaven and the city. Perfect obedience in spirit and letter is required, for the law is the only standard of character and the test all bought by Christ must meet. Breaking any commandment is sin, violation brings transgression with death as its penalty, and punishment surely follows. A person cannot be saved while refusing to keep what God spoke, including the Sabbath, which must be believed just as it reads and obeyed once duty is shown. Clear instruction is to be given from principle and not mere compulsion, with earnest search, prayer for opened understanding, and willingness to grasp every ray of light even against past belief.
Christ kept every commandment while sharing human nature, proving obedience possible and vindicating God's justice in requiring it. His life perfectly fulfills every precept and corresponds to the standard of righteousness, showing righteousness means living God's law as He lived it. Deprived of His mediation as the appointed mediator, sinners in their lost condition, guilt, and dim sense of pardon would have been consumed, for access to God comes only through Him whom the offerings typified. As the Sinai Lawgiver who passed over the ground where Adam fell and bore the test Adam failed, He vindicated in humiliation and death His right to pardon transgression and sin. Faith in Jesus makes His perfection count for the repentant and obedient, pardoning sin, justifying, cleansing glossed-over iniquity, enabling sharing of the divine nature, and writing under the new covenant the Eden law of love in the heart.
The law was written by Jehovah's finger on two tables of stone, placed in the sacred chest and ark of the covenant and of the testimony as a lasting record pointing out human duty. Israel's prosperity or adversity depended on obeying or transgressing what was so kept. That record is kept in the ark in the most holy place in heaven, where Jesus entered in 1844 after finishing His work in the holy place. Families are called to give attention to its commandments and obey them, being responsible once they see the light if they reject it.
A definite penalty is annexed to the law, the wages of sin is death, and God's retributive justice never fails. Persistent refusal to obey brings judgment, yet judgment is intended in mercy to awaken transgressors to sin and peril, for God is patient but His claims will ultimately be vindicated. Israel was meant to be set apart from surrounding wicked nations with obedience as its life, but becoming lax, breaking the Sabbath and other commandments, hindered its purpose, brought displeasure, punishment, and captivity, even while manna and cloud and fire showed God's presence. The same sacred binding law reveals supreme authority over earthly rulers and cities. Making that law void is the crime that fills the measure of iniquity of the United States, the greatest and most favored nation, shielded by Providence, refuge for the oppressed, taught pure faith and given great light and unrivaled mercies, whose guilt is proportioned to rejected light with a fearful record standing in heaven. Belonging to latter-day unions that rob neighbors makes keeping it impossible.
God Himself as Monarch of the universe spoke the Decalogue amid awful grandeur, laying binding claims and solemn injunctions changeless and eternal as His throne upon the human family. Those words are to be clearly and distinctly set forth just as given, repeated by gospel ministers and those baptized with the Holy Spirit before large congregations, urging their claims upon rulers and subjects of earthly nations and pressing obedience. Hearing them places every person in harmony either with the Lord or with the great rebel. They prove hearers, make sinners tremble, awaken many to duty, and prove in experience that the law converts the soul. Only holy men who are strict observers honor God by teaching that holy law which is part of Himself, and care of the flock and last message is not to be entrusted to those weakened and perverted by cherished errors such as perfectionism and spiritualism that brought reproach. The moral law so taught teaches and enforces true conversion and lived sanctification in which self does not seek supremacy.
Daily Obedience and Worldwide Witness
The words spoken introduce commandments to be obeyed in daily life and not merely professed, for doing them is the clearest sermon about their authority, and obedience is personal duty whose neglect is sin. Their keeping requires purity, supreme love for God and love for neighbor as self, with obedience from the heart rather than mere agreement or teaching. In business and every line of work, including those in responsible positions, their principles must govern conduct, requiring equity in judgment, just dealing, truthfulness, tender compassion and disinterested love that leads those within influence toward Christ. Acting unjustly, advancing falsehood, sharp scheming, oppression, unjust dealing, and using God's cause to justify robbery or suffering contradict the divine will, misrepresent the divine character, dishonor God, cause others to stumble, weaken witness and turn people from truth. Obedience in spirit and in letter, visible in conduct and business under both the first four and the last six, preserves the moral image of God in people and keeps each person in touch with the Creator.
As law for the household on earth the words govern parents and children with strict obedience allowing no sinless departure. Parents are to train children according to the principles of the Word, combining faith and works, keeping the way of the Lord, making straight paths, doing everything in home and school decently and in order, with firm loving discipline, order and neatness, so that holiness pervades the home and brings angels into the home circle. The clear commands of what must and must not be done model parental requirements to be obeyed and train respect for divine commandments, including honoring father and mother and not indulging desires without parental counsel. Children are to be taught diligently when rising and sitting, going out and coming in, and to meditate on the solemn covenant heard aloud, for neglect of this teaching makes drunkards and criminals, fills jails with theft, robbery and murder, while keeping protects homes from vice, purifies the obedient, and is worth any cost. Meditating on the law and seeking its wonders leads to understanding the mystery of godliness, and to love God and keep the commandments is the whole duty of man.
The laws given from Sinai include laws of chastity and strict regard for purity in manners, guarding physicians against looseness, carelessness about chastity and liberties with women, so that all who live by them and truly converted physicians who obey them may be safely trusted and fit for medical work. Their principles are laws for life and health, and had they been obeyed the curse of disease filling the world would not exist. The same authority extends to the laws governing the body written on nerves, muscles and fibers, so that needless violation of those established laws is sin as truly as breaking a precept, ignorance does not excuse those who have received light, and those knowingly disregarding bodily laws are slow to obey the moral law. Restraint in eating and drinking tests whether one is governed by principle or appetite, while temperance, cleanliness, chastity, order and simple dress honor the law and support health, and intemperance, indulged appetite, lust, impurity, disorder, filth and needless expenditure of vitality violate it. Before listening Israel was required to wash clothes, showing the holiness of the law calls for outward cleanliness and order in person and household.
With the faith of Jesus the law is present truth and the third angel's message, a central life-giving testing question to be clearly presented everywhere with power and not displaced by disputes over minor matters. It is to be vindicated by heart and mind obedience and by strong arguments, represented sensibly and worthily rather than cheaply and faultily, with the commandments printed in plain letters in a prominent place, since hardly one in a thousand in Washington knew what they say about the Sabbath and had they been obeyed present wickedness would never have existed. The God of heaven proclaimed the law with His own voice from Sinai so men would realize its importance, though Satan labors to undermine confidence in it, and it lies at the foundation of all right laws which framers of national laws should understand, with the nation's capital to have the full rays of present testing truth. After first sending a message of warning God will come to punish transgressors lightly regarding it, and health reform is given to reveal the sinfulness of breaking the laws established in human being by indulging depraved appetites and lustful passions, fitting a people for the Lord's coming as one branch of the work connected with the third angel's message as closely as hand with body.
Obedience to all the commandments spoken and engraved by God expresses His character and brings safety, healthy spiritual experience, blessing, health, happiness, peace, prosperity, moral fitness for heaven, and a hedge marking His peculiar treasure and His city, while glorifying His name. The plain precepts were given as a code for the people's good and remain the great moral standard of righteousness in heaven and earth and the foundation of laws of nations, families, enlightened civil law and all righteous good laws, regulating conduct, restraining wrongdoing for society's good and safety. Disregarding or openly violating them brings sin, hinders work for God, withholds rich heavenly blessing when flagrant violations go unrebuked, and leads not to freedom or happiness but to transgression, disease, misery, drunkenness, poverty, crime and ruin, for freedom in Christ is freedom through obeying. Their principles are to be held firmly as solid as rock allowing no yielding to opinion, unlike questions of diet such as eating butter where those loving and serving God may follow conviction without disturbance or disunion, and minor differences must not divide believers or become a barrier. Written in mind and heart with supreme wisdom and authority as spirit and life, they require obeying God rather than men when rulers conflict, so that love for them conforms to every good law of the land yet refuses war opposed to every principle of faith and violating conscience.
Loyalty to the holy words may require moral courage in the face of opposition and contempt. Turning from moral duty to avoid reproach violates the duties set out in the ten. Following the divine requirements means wearing the yoke prepared by God rather than heavy yokes made by the world. The ten holy precepts are the standard instead of the fashion of the age, the yoke to be obeyed, while yokes not in conformity with them are Satan's and heavy.