Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour forbids giving false testimony against another person, as the ninth commandment of the moral law on the second table defining duty to fellow human beings by the principle of loving the neighbour as oneself. It forbids lying, falsehood, deceit, defrauding a neighbour, and perjury, including lying under oath, and it protects trust and the security of property and society. It forbids every deliberate attempt to deceive, not only by false words but by misleading looks, gestures, exaggerations, hints, insinuations and selectively presented facts, and it forbids injuring reputation by misrepresentation, evil suspicion, slander and tale-bearing or by withholding truth when silence would cause harm. It requires an inviolable and exact regard for truth in every statement affecting another's character, with speech guarded, truthful and considerate under the law of love toward God and neighbour.
Meaning and Basic Scope
The command forbids giving false testimony against another person or neighbor. It is the ninth commandment in the moral law spoken at Mount Sinai. It stands on the second table among the last six commandments that define duty to fellow human beings and to one another. Those six precepts show in brief the principle of loving one's neighbor as oneself, and belong to the Decalogue in Exodus 20:1-17 spoken and proclaimed by God at Sinai to govern mankind, given to every person to be understood and obeyed.
In its Thou shalt not form it shows authoritative prohibition that parents are to echo calmly, decidedly, and firmly in saying No and meaning it. Parents standing in the place of God are thereby given plain directions for training children, refusing destructive and disorderly handling of things in the home, quenching undesirable habits when they first appear, and disciplining children to be neat, cleanly, and orderly, because there is order in heaven and God requires every family to be disciplined to orderly ways. It gives a plainly defined rule of conduct leaving no excuse for mistakes in how to act, including the duty not to give false testimony against a neighbor. Its light as one of the ten precepts pointing out duty makes people responsible if they reject it when seen.
It forbids lying, falsehood, deceit, defrauding a neighbor, and perjury. It protects trust and the security of property, as part of the restraint against dishonesty, coveting, and defrauding. When it is treated as no longer binding people are encouraged to disregard other moral restraints, lying becomes so common that people feel no shame about it, and property and society become unsafe and lawless. Its principles apply to the whole life of those who acknowledge the commandments as binding, so commandment keepers are to live by this precept as well as the other nine, while perjury committed under the cloak of Christianity shows the moral law remains binding.
It forbids every deliberate attempt to deceive a neighbor, not only false words but misleading looks, gestures, expressions, exaggerations, hints, insinuations, and selectively presented facts. It also forbids harming reputation through misrepresentation, evil suspicion, slander, or tale-bearing, and intentionally withholding truth when that may injure others. It forbids false testimony including lying under oath, for one who testifies falsely is answerable to God who sees the heart and knows the exact truth. A Christian may rightly testify under oath when required by law, appealing to God as witness that the testimony is true.
It forbids false testimony and perjury in the strict sense, as when soldiers for money repeated the priests' fabricated claim about Christ's body despite knowing it was false. They sold their integrity by deceiving the people with that lie. It forbids bearing false witness in general, including lying, which is incompatible with Christian character. It belongs to the law proclaimed at Mount Sinai, whose transgression by priests and rulers is described without specifying false witness as one of their offenses.
Sinai Giving and History
It belongs to the instruction given to Moses on the mount in Exodus 19-24, to be obeyed and studied and presented now just as verily as by Israel then, with all contention ceasing and hearts softened in brotherly love, guarding against injustice and guiding dealings with one another, given by Christ Himself who taught both on Sinai and in human flesh. It was spoken with God's own voice as Sovereign and by Christ the Redeemer at Sinai after deliverance from Egypt despite Pharaoh's opposition, so that the people might keep it. Its proclamation in awful grandeur with power and glory reveals God's majesty and authority as Ruler of the world, shows its sacredness, importance and permanence, presses obedience, and belongs to the faith once delivered to the saints. The law already existed and was not new, and its public speaking amid awe-inspiring display of power showed its sacred exalted character, while Israel was entrusted to preserve and hand it down.
It was spoken by Jehovah from Sinai's summit above thunder, lightning, waxing trumpet tones, cloud, tempest, thick darkness and glory as devouring fire, when Israel entered covenant as a peculiar treasure and holy nation united with a holy God. As God's great mirror revealing man's true condition and great rule of right, showing sin's offensiveness and personal guilt before a pure holy God, it overwhelmed hearers with terror so they stood afar and entreated Moses to speak lest they die, while even Moses feared and quaked, and Moses later recapitulated it before all the people by God's command. It was spoken by God Himself and written by His own hand and finger on two tables of stone delivered to Moses and preserved in the ark, so it is of divine not human composition, unlike the rest of the Bible where God-given truths are expressed in human language as a union of the divine and the human. It was spoken by Jehovah Himself, by Christ Himself, after descending on Sinai wrapped in a cloud of glory, and engraved on stone tablets with His own finger, and the same clear ringing voice later commanded the cleansing of the temple.
Before speaking it God directed Moses to sanctify the people for two days and have them wash their clothes, not from mere liking for clean clothing but to impress them with divine purity and show care for physical as well as moral well-being. It was given with manifestations of divine power and glory to show its sacredness, importance and permanence for all ages, amid thunder and lightning, fire, trumpet voice, earthquake and smoke, with man and beast forbidden on penalty of death to touch the mount. Christ was the appointed mediator without whom the people would have been consumed, and all communion in its giving between heaven and the fallen race was through Him. It was given to Israel during the wilderness wandering when they were led to Sinai and proclaimed amid awful grandeur, with thunderings, lightnings, trumpet sound, smoking mountain and thick cloud that made the people remove and stand afar off, while the people feared and trembled and asked Moses to receive and speak God's words, spoken distinctly with solemn impressiveness and requiring perfect obedience.
Its principles existed before creation and governed angels, and Satan fell by transgressing them. God rehearsed them unwritten to Adam and Eve suited to holy beings, unchanged after the fall, with additional precepts and sacrifices added for fallen man to show death as disobedience's penalty and teach humility, repentance and trust through the promised Redeemer, making Christ's death necessary to preserve the law's honor. The law was taught by Adam, preserved by Noah saved in the ark for right-doing, handed through faithful generations including Abraham who kept God's charge, commandments, statutes and laws, until continual transgression called for the Flood. It was given in Eden as the rule of life, transgressed by Adam, lost sight of in bondage, and proclaimed anew from Sinai after deliverance, God Himself standing on Sinai in awful grandeur with an audible voice when the morning stars sang together.
It is God's holiness and goodness made known, immutable under His unchangeable government, which Satan since rebellion has sought to nullify by declaring abrogated. The law already existed and was not new at Sinai, entrusted to Israel to preserve and hand down, but many had lost knowledge of it in Egyptian bondage and mixed its precepts with heathen customs, had little understanding of pardon through Christ or access through a mediator, and the entire history of the Hebrews as depositaries was written for admonition. The minds of the people, blinded and debased by slavery, could not comprehend it as given, so God called Moses into the mount to give additional precepts, followed by further directions on how to treat one another. Daily-life precepts given through Moses guarded and explained it, and additional precepts were given to explain and enforce its far-reaching principles that people did not fully understand.
Its principles were clarified and guarded by the judgments, statutes and laws Moses wrote from God's mouth in the mount, giving minute directions about duty to one another and the stranger in simplified definite form so people need not err. If its principle had been obeyed there would have been no need of those specific directions. The principles of the ten precepts were amplified by specific directions and additional precepts to guard their sacredness, explain and apply them more fully, and enforce their obligations so none would err; practicing the principles would have made those directions unnecessary. It was given in majesty and unapproachable glory so that transgression shows open contempt of the Lawgiver and death is the penalty; because of continual disobedience penalties not good for the transgressor were annexed so he shall not live in rebellion, but the statutes and judgments guarding it are good for the obedient and they shall live in them.
It was spoken by Christ at Sinai, who understood its full scope and far-reaching claims and revealed the law in its true character as holy, just, good and the enduring standard of righteousness, not a cold code of commands and human traditions. It is part of the law given at Sinai and placed in the sacred ark representing God's authority; God sent prosperity or adversity according to whether it was obeyed or transgressed. It is one of the ten written by the finger of Jehovah on the two tables kept in the ark in the heavenly most holy place, whose door Jesus opened in 1844 after shutting the door of the holy place. It was first given in Eden, entrusted to Israel brought out of Egypt and separated from the world as depositaries to hand it down and make known to every nation the principles of God's government in heaven and on earth.
It forms the hedge around God's vineyard distinguishing His church as His peculiar treasure, was to be meditated on and kept as part of Israel's covenant, but the people failed while Moses was away, losing faith and giving way to jealousy and envy. Israel solemnly covenanted to obey the holy law spoken at Sinai and placed prosperity dependent on obedience; that generation broke commandments beyond the Sabbath and faced punishment. The Hebrews were transgressing the recently given law in grandeur as they rushed into shameful errors, beginning to recognize its sacredness as they grieved over transgressions and felt the horror of sin. It belongs to the covenant law spoken to Israel at Sinai whose terms the people promised to obey; its far-reaching principles are not appreciated when attention is given to temporal matters and worldly words, customs and maxims cloud understanding of eternal realities.
The ten precepts formed the foundation of Israel's national law, and the laws illustrating them were also part of the condition for fulfilling God's promises to Israel; obeying it with the other commandments was to help Israel exemplify true righteousness before the nations and serve as a model for God's church. The books were intended to vindicate and magnify it and Jeremiah urged the people to honor it as their covenant relationship and declaration of God's will for the nation. It is part of the counsel given at Sinai, written on stone and preserved in the ark, that families and all believers in God's word are expected to obey. It was given to ancient Israel to keep God in remembrance and show obligation to obey and honor the Creator; because Israel would not obey but forgot God, ceremonies and ordinances were given to stir their minds to those obligations, and had they loved to keep the commandments the multitude of ceremonies would not have been required.
The priests and rulers transgressed the Sinai law including this verse by unfair transactions, extortion, robbery and unholy traffic in the outer courts, though false witness is not specified as one of their offenses. The commandments were given in a setting revealing God's majesty and the sacredness of His law, and they should be kept in plain sight in every home. It belongs to the law first given in Eden expressing God's character and written by God on stone so His will and governmental principles would remain clear, which His people were called to make known to every nation.
Nature and Permanence of Law
The command belongs to a law that points to duty toward God and toward one another, joining faithfulness to God with truthfulness to neighbor, for no one false to God can be true to neighbor, and supreme love for God leads to loving the neighbor as self. It is broken by pride lifting itself to vanity, making a god of self, and by self-love, and it is kept when the gospel sanctifies the soul and expels self-love. The commandments including this verse express the character of the Sovereign of the universe and are a transcript of it, proclaimed so all mankind could understand God's requirements, and together they cover the whole duty of humanity. They were given as a sacred trust to Israel for the whole world in ten brief comprehensive precepts guiding duties to God and to one another and applying love to life, setting out what is just and merciful, preserving integrity, bringing harmony with divinity, and bringing blessing, safety and healthy spiritual experience in obedience while calling to account.
It is a transcript of God's character and reveals His will and His eternal unchangeable character and requirements, and understanding it requires heart and mind brought into harmony with God. It is to be taught to children as wise just rules for all dealings without deviation, for its commands plainly state what must and must not be done and training children to obey trains respect for authority. It was first given in Eden, entrusted to a people called to make known to every nation, kindred and tongue the principles of His government in heaven and on earth, spoken amid thunder and lightning with terrible majesty so the word would ever be clear and distinct, written on stone by the finger of God, with obedience meaning life and disobedience meaning death. It expresses God's character and reveals God as He is, belonging to the Lord's law which is perfect and converts the soul, so that to know God as made known in it is the science of all goodness and truth and righteousness, and every expression of His character revealed in it must be obeyed. Obeying God's law helps form character in harmony with His character.
It expresses God's character and will, defines righteousness and sin, acts as a mirror revealing defects of character and showing what sin is, and remains the standard by which all are judged. Disobedience is not trifling, mere profession by lip and voice is worthless unless character harmonizes with the law, only doers will enter the kingdom while workers of iniquity will be told to depart though they prophesy, cast out devils and do wonderful works under Satan's inspiration, and hearing and doing builds on rock that stands against rain, floods and winds while hearing and not doing builds on sand with great fall. Transgression requires repentance, obedience reflects a changed heart and steady moral principle, abiding in Christ brings life into harmony with the law, and its commandments can be kept through grace. As part of the ten it expresses God's will and is a transcript of His character holding words of truth and righteousness that will be the power of God's people, its principles are to be set before all in simple plain language to enlighten understanding of God's motives in urging obedience, and fear and love of God lead to cheerful hearty obedience promoting His glory and securing man's highest good and harmony with heaven.
The ten are like links of a chain where one broken link makes the chain of no value, so to violate this commandment makes a person a breaker guilty of all, and together they demand implicit obedience, can never be repealed while heaven and earth remain, and are the origin of all enlightened law. It is part of God's binding, eternal, moral, immutable, permanent and unchangeable law that has not been abolished or altered in any detail, cannot be improved or discarded by human beings, leaves no excuse for mistakes, and must be obeyed fully at any cost. Attempts to alter it are presumptuous tampering and apostasy, its sanctity is to be respected, no humanly devised rule is a safer substitute, its claims are to be clearly taught, and it will be the standard at the final judgment. It belongs to God's enduring law that is the standard for human conduct and must not be set aside, obedience is presented as a condition of salvation, Christ's death shows the law could not be abolished, and its requirements are to be studied and obeyed with lives bearing witness to them.
The commandments including this verse are immutable, unchangeable, eternal and perfect, the standard of character for the judgment, and the law could not be changed, which is why Christ died. The Spirit awakens conscience and understanding to bring the commandments to remembrance with messengers from heaven beside those who hold forth the Word of life, the commandment must be taught decidedly yet cautiously so as not to arouse prejudice by presenting truth by degrees as hearers can bear, and when efforts compel transgression believers must stand firm and refuse even under persecution. It is part of God's unchangeable ten-commandment law, distinct from the rites, ceremonies and sacrificial offerings of the Mosaic dispensation that prefigured the Son's death and ceased to bind after type met antitype in Christ, and it remains binding under the gospel for Gentile as well as Jew, with Paul after his change still keeping it in spirit and letter. The law already existed and was not new at Sinai, entrusted to Israel to preserve and hand down, and as moral law written on stone and rock it is sacred, enduring, eternal, unchangeable and obligatory for all until the end of time, while the laws of sacrifices and offerings ceased at Christ's death but the ten did not die with Him. To claim the ten died with Christ turns even the crucifixion and resurrection on the third day to Satan's advantage against salvation, its command against false witness is not optional or limited to one age, writing on solid rock signifies unchangeable precepts, and statutes and judgments further define its principles of duty to others so people may live justly separate from idolatrous nations.
Paul continued to keep it in letter and spirit after becoming Christian, unlike the temporary ceremonial laws and sacrifices that were types ceasing when Christ fulfilled them. It is part of God's law that perfectly reveals His will and the principles of His government for every nation and tongue, and as the perfect standard of righteousness in the judgment it leaves no excuse for sin, with obedience tied to receiving life or death as a prerequisite of salvation. It is one of God's ten authoritative commandments revealing His righteousness and serving as the rule of judgment, letting people compare character with its requirements to see need for repentance and reform, while those setting its precepts aside and teaching transgression are condemned by it, with words revealed plainly to all inhabitants of the earth. It is part of God's holy, solemn, vital, binding law that shows His justice and denunciation of sin, and to teach people to regard it as a dead letter and keep its requirements out of sight makes the Bible of no effect and denies Christ while professing to accept Christ and the Bible. It is part of God's law that is the foundation of His government in heaven and on earth, whose principles remain binding.
As Jehovah's law from Sinai it is everlasting and inexorable as God's character, a rule regulating conduct and restricting wrongdoing under penalty, the foundation of enlightened civil law and supreme power, and the good of society, safety of man and progress of reform depend on respecting it rather than lowering it to a debased standard. To the inebriate both God's law and man's law are meaningless because benumbed senses cannot comprehend the language of Sinai. It is the supreme higher law put in mind and heart as spirit and life with power to bring into subjection and enforce obedience, taken by those taught by truth and led by good conscience as the only authority to acknowledge, so that those who love the commandments conform to every good law of the land yet obey God rather than men when rulers require what conflicts with God's law, even to refusing war and army service that would be continual violation of conscience governed by worldly policy and public opinion rather than God's written commands. Civil laws must be obeyed unless they conflict with God's law, and he who has God's law in the heart will sooner disobey all men than deviate in the least from the commandment.
It restrains conduct that would undermine trust and expose a neighbor's possessions to fraud or violence, helping protect property and social peace. It is part of the law that lies at the foundation of all right, civilized national, domestic and family laws, which lawmakers and those framing national laws should understand. Setting aside God's law would remove restraint on wrongdoing. It remains binding and its correct application exposes perjury and other crimes carried on under the cloak of Christianity. It contains sacred principles of morality, justice, reverence for God and respect for man made in God's image, plainly stated in Israel's wilderness journeyings to be read and understood as a lesson now. It belongs to requirements rulers and nations are responsible to obey, respecting it would prevent much societal distress and misery, and obedience is not bondage but freedom in Christ with people standing free because they obey.
The prohibitions of the Ten Commandments are safeguards for human happiness rather than mere restrictions, with the command against false witness protecting from harm caused by transgression, and received in Christ the law works purity of character and joy while obedience places people within its protection and reveals God's goodness and immutable righteousness. The Father's law was given in great love to order conduct and restrict men to what increases real happiness in this life, and carried out daily it ennobles and sanctifies heart and mind, gives moral fitness through Christ for holy angels, guards from sin, regulates virtues fitting subjects for heaven, while its letter shows how to please God and its spirit points to Christ as atoning sacrifice through whose merits its requirements can be fulfilled. In it God has given all people the principles of His character in wise, just and good laws enacted by the Father whose heart is love, to be brought into practical life and especially to rule institutions as guidance for men, women and children in all transactions, to be taught to children and to form the standard of all dealing with one another from which there can be no sinless swerving. It binds those in authority and those who submit alike with not one rule for directors and another for inferiors, requiring unselfishness, self-denial and vital connection with God, while oppression and manmade laws will be judged.
Its precepts apply to all mankind and give detailed instruction for human duties, and like the others it is based on love and governs conduct toward fellow human beings. The law is God's standard of obedience revealing whole human duty, its principles are embraced in specific rules for social and religious life given to Moses, and it provides a standard for forming character stating what people must and must not do to remain loyal, summed up in love for God and neighbor and in loving neighbor as oneself. It is included in the moral law by which people are to compare their character and to which they are to become obedient. The ten precepts with the Word of God are the only safe guide, foundation to build on, rule to live by, and standard by which all will be judged, doctrine without them is unsafe, reading them profits nothing unless truth is brought into the soul-temple, the commandment reaches the heart where sin originates, and doers rendering obedience will have abundant entrance into the mansions prepared. These principles came from God as transcript of His character, are valued because they came from Him, can never be changed to meet man fallen, require firm standing on It is written without turning right or left, and the man not making them life practice works on the enemy's side, with transgression thought small weighed not by finite scales but by God's righteousness.
The Ten make known the Father's will that God requires people to obey, religious profession or impressive works do not replace obedience, and those practicing lawlessness are rejected. Its commands cannot be selectively kept, truly keeping the Sabbath means not disregarding any other precept, it carries no greater authority than the fourth commandment, accepting nine while questioning the fourth is without authority, and God holds every person responsible for observing every precept. General transgression and ministers' disloyalty in setting aside any precept do not excuse disobedience. The commandments are linked and cannot be separated, and opposition to the law is directed at getting rid of the Sabbath commandment, not specifically at the prohibition against false witness. It belongs to God's perfect unchanging law demanding entire continuous obedience to every commandment, its requirements contrast with the heavy yokes Satan makes, God's people are duty-bound to obey it, and love to neighbor as self is part of that obedience.
It is not a separate small precept to be belittled and ignored but part of a divine whole with the first four and last six bound in unity under love to God and love to neighbor, by those two principles character is tested as obedient or disobedient, and those principles are immutable as eternal as God's throne. Keeping it with supreme love to God pours out God's goodness in love and compassion to fellow men as faith working by love purifying the soul, meaning far more than acknowledgment of truth, ceremonious worship or sacrifices and requiring whole service of God, with great reward even in this life in a non-condemning conscience and a heart at peace with God, while self-love and self-exaltation are unacceptable. The ten are the standard of character and the covenant with the Maker in life, death, resurrection and eternity, this verse belongs to the second great principle of loving neighbor as self, loyalty in obeying it in spirit and letter reveals covenant relation to world, angels and men, obedience is impossible without loving God supremely first, and the present test is transgression or loyalty with harvest according to seed sown. The Ten form a protective hedge around God's people, obedience guards from results of transgression and brings health, happiness, peace and joy, and familiarity with God's word enables the character God requires.
Like every divine Thou shalt not, it contains or implies a promise that obedience brings blessing while disobedience brings danger and unhappiness, and God's laws draw people closer to Him and lead from evil to good, but He does not force obedience. It is part of the holy law from the beginning and at Sinai whose keeping expresses love for God and neighbor, as shown by Christ's summing of loving the Lord God with all heart, soul, strength and mind and loving neighbor as self, and with the other commandments it gives a principle of righteousness as the rule of action, with doing this giving eternal life. It belongs to the words God spoke from Sinai that are conditions of life, and obedience gives fallen people free access again to the tree of life forfeited through disobedience. It is part of the holy law spoken by God from Sinai which is part of Himself, honored by strict observers who teach it, and God will have holy men carry truth and will not entrust His flock to men weakened by cherished former errors such as perfectionism and spiritualism that reproached truth.
It is part of the law spoken at Sinai whose sacredness the people began to recognize as they grieved, and as proclaimed from Sinai in Exodus 20 it must be studied by every professed keeper and obeyed in truth and righteousness with every other command, learned as highest education, taught by parents to children and children's children for its sacred enduring character, and held binding with no excuse, while its principles stand to witness in judgment and decide every soul's destiny. It is part of the sacred law God proclaimed, wrote with His own finger on stone to preserve from forgetting or corruption, and urged for public study and obedience, to be vindicated by heart, mind and argument and set in plain prominent letters so people know what the Bible says, with obedience preventing the world's wickedness. It is to be clearly set forth just as given and preached to large congregations as at the foot of Sinai, urging its changeless eternal claims upon rulers and subjects, with repetition impressing many, making sinners tremble and awakening duty, for the law is perfect converting the soul, and by obedience or disobedience all work in harmony either with the Lord or with the great rebel.
The law proclaimed from Sinai carries authority every person must acknowledge, its principles expose sin and call for obedience to God's truth, disregarding its plain precepts including this verse is sin as a personal duty, and persistent disregard brings divine judgment to awaken transgressors to sin and peril. Disregard can discourage others who recognize its sacred claims or turn potential believers away, allowing flagrant violations without rebuke hinders God's work and keeps people from heaven's blessing. Sin is sin and must be called by its right name with no glossing over iniquity, to disobey after caution while claiming to do heaven's will departs from heaven's principles to the brink of ruin, and such must come to Jesus in humility whose blood cleanses all sin. It is part of the plain principles of heaven in God's Word proclaimed as law from Sinai's mount, carrying truth's weight under which every soul must bow humbly contrite, with departure while claiming heaven's will leaving feet on ruin's brink and needing cleansing by Christ's blood.
It is part of the Ten Commandments whose authority exceeds human precepts, customs, traditions, maxims and precepts handed down for generations, which must not be made all-essential above it, and whose principles are to be upheld so differences of opinion do not become a barrier between believers. Christ upheld it as truth in purity distinct from human maxims, it belongs to the complete standard calling for truthfulness to neighbor that no human message may weaken or replace, and it sets out holy requirements plain and sufficient to guide conduct and distinguish truth from error. The commandments are laws governing God's kingdom bringing order when obeyed and confusion when disobeyed, and loyalty to them is part of loyalty to God's holy law despite opposition and contempt. The law reveals God's majesty and authority as Ruler of the world making obedience important, willing obedience is a sign of relationship with the heavenly Father, and those upholding the law proclaimed by God from Sinai must represent it sensibly and carefully, not cheaply or faultily.
Jehovah engraved the ten on stone so all earth's inhabitants might understand His eternal unchangeable character, obeying all He has given gives experimental knowledge of God, and only as heart and mind harmonize with God are its requirements understood. The ten are given for instruction in righteousness and are a transcript of God's character, to obey them is life with no excuse for transgression, Christ came to represent the Father's character as the example, and to claim to be God's child while misrepresenting Christ by disorderly self-willed behavior transgresses Jehovah's law. It is one of the ten moral precepts forming God's standard of righteousness, Christ's life and character corresponded to that standard, and righteousness means living God's law as Christ lived it. It is part of God's holy law contained in the ark in heaven as a symbol of His presence, given in Eden at creation, proclaimed on Sinai and written with God's finger on stone, and with the other commandments it is the basis of the third angel's message with the faith of Jesus as present truth to be proclaimed everywhere with distinctness and power, including the Sabbath as God's memorial of creation.
It is included in the law proclaimed at Sinai that requires obedience and has a definite penalty for transgression. Reverence for the Sabbath leads to keeping it together with the first three commandments and all God's commandments, and the Sabbath as covenant sign is the golden clasp uniting man to God in supreme obedience and uniting man to fellow man in duty. The same requirement still binds those who profess to be God's peculiar treasure, and if they obeyed what is specified in God's word no special testimonies to awaken them to duty would be needed, for consciences are blunted because light has been set aside. It belongs to the law whose requirements people may know yet choose to transgress, reading and understanding the commandments can impress hearts and minds and influence for good, for it remains God's pledged word to all on earth. It is one of the Ten people have treated lightly, God sends warning before punishing lawbreakers, and people may violate it when they turn from known duty and what they know is right to avoid reproach, shame or difficulty.
It is a barricade protecting in the fight against principalities, powers, rulers of darkness and spiritual wickedness in high places, doing it gives life, and it teaches and enforces sanctification requiring a conversion both preached and lived where self does not seek supremacy. It is one of God's restrictions expressed as Thou shalt not, to be understood and obeyed as God's voice, the fashion of the age is not the standard but conformity to it is, and yokes not conforming to it are made by Satan and heavy. God requires perfect obedience to it, by keeping it people reveal love for the Supreme Ruler and purify themselves even as He is pure, and it stands as part of every provision made against sin.
Christ Salvation and Judgment
Like every precept it gives rules for conduct, condemns unrighteousness, and is fulfilled in Christ's perfect life, while the law exposes sin and Christ pardons the repentant believer, so that through faith the believer seeks obedience with Christ's perfection covering transgression. Jesus' words that He did not come to destroy the law affirm it as part of the written stone-tablet law from the mountain, belonging to the law Christ died to vindicate with claims still binding on transgressors, as one of the sacred precepts proclaimed by Christ at Sinai and unfolded in His mount of beatitudes teaching. Christ kept the commandments while possessing human nature, proving people can obey God's law and vindicating God's justice in requiring obedience, and those who accept Christ and partake of the divine nature are enabled to follow His example and obey every precept, with Christ representing perfect obedience to the eternal law proclaimed at Sinai. It is part of the law Christ gave at Sinai whose claims Christ has not lessened, its commands remain binding and grace does not permit transgression, and Christ gave His life to atone for violations and enable obedience so that through His merits God can justify the believing sinner.
It is one of the ten precepts of the holy, just, and good law given by the same Jesus who veiled in the cloudy pillar led Israel and speaks just as truly now, not one to be broken without disloyalty and none to be improved by finite wisdom. The standard of character in the Sinai commands is not lowered in the gospel, for the same Saviour gives the same requirements as terms of eternal life. Its principles were explained by Christ as principles to be carried out and exemplified in practical life. The law spoken at Sinai reveals defects of character and makes sin recognizable, its claims are binding, not a yoke to be set aside, and transgression calls for repentance with pardon through Christ's blood. The law says to every transgressor, Thou shalt surely die, but every repentant soul turning to the Saviour shall be saved because Christ died, while whoever breaks one of the least commandments and by word, action or interpretation lessens its sacred claims shall be called least and have no place in heaven, and whoever does and teaches them shall be called great.
It sets out terms of salvation, for the commandments are ten promises to the obedient, obedience is the condition of eternal life and brings peace, prosperity, blessings, life and prolonged days, while transgression is sin bringing harm, curses and death. Keeping it in earthly life fashions character in harmony with God's ideal in His sinless Son, makes partakers of the divine nature escaping corruption through lust, frees character from spot and wrinkle, reveals God's character to unbelievers, and qualifies and prepares the redeemed to enter the gates into the city and eat of the tree of life for the healing of the nations. It answers whether one can be saved without obedience, reveals God's will, must be believed just as it reads and done as directed, and must be searched with earnest prayer for opened understanding and willingness to grasp every ray even against past belief, because doing His commandments gives right to the tree of life and entrance through the gates into the city. It is one of the commandments Jesus named when explaining keeping the commandments and entering into life, which the ruler claimed to have kept with the others listed.
It is one of the commandments Jesus named to the rich young ruler who asked what good thing to do to have eternal life and enter life, placed alongside the prohibitions of murder, adultery and theft and the commands to honor father and mother and love the neighbor as self, which the young man claimed to have kept from his youth, yet his failure to love his neighbor as himself meant he had not truly kept the last six commandments. Jesus quoted it to the rich young man with four others of the last six and the command to love neighbor as self, and the young man thought he had kept them, but outward keeping is not enough, for supreme love of riches shuts eyes to fellow men's wants, and not loving neighbor as self fails the last six while love of possessions above God also fails the first four on duty to God. It is one of the last six requiring love to neighbor to be kept for eternal life, and the lawyer had not kept it and was convicted by Christ's searching words yet instead of confessing tried to excuse it, made it out too difficult, and sought to parry conviction and vindicate himself before the people, knowing he had not kept it among the last six and, rather than confess failure, trying to excuse himself by arguing it was difficult to fulfill. The ten holy precepts are the laws of Christ's kingdom presenting the standard to be reached, all are to be tried by them for no one is his own to do as he pleases, having been bought with a price, God is jealous of His law and tests everyone on obedience, and though sin's penalty is death Christ bore it and secured the present probationary period so none need perish but have everlasting life.
The whole world will be judged by this law, which reaches intents of the heart and demands purity in secret thoughts, desires and dispositions, requiring supreme love to God and love to neighbor as self without which the highest profession is hypocrisy, while God claims perfect obedience, keeping the whole law yet offending in one point makes one guilty of all, and the least deviation by neglect or willful transgression is sin exposing the sinner to God's wrath. Eternal welfare depends on properly understanding the law, deep conviction of its holy character, and ready obedience, since people must be convicted of sin before feeling need of Christ, for by the law is knowledge of sin, and trampling the law rejects the only means defining sin, which is Satan's work to lessen the estimate of sin's grievous character. It serves as a schoolmaster to bring people to Christ, is kept through Christ's merits by the helpless soul hanging upon Him in harmony with heaven even when truth brings division from family and neighbors, and abiding in Christ brings life into harmony with it. As spoken from Sinai it requires nothing short of spiritual perfection, no claim to sanctification is valid while giving no heed to it or evading it, and such excuses prove sanctification spurious and mere self-righteousness by a humanly imagined law, yet of himself man has no perfection to meet it, but through Christ's infinite sacrifice and the merits of His blood provision is made to become a partaker of the divine nature, an overcomer, perfect in union with Christ.
Mere profession of godliness by lip and voice is worthless unless character harmonizes with it, and only doers will enter the kingdom, building on rock that withstands rain, floods and winds, while hearers who work iniquity build on sand with great fall, though they prophesy, cast out devils and do wonderful works under Satan's inspiration. Keeping it with the whole law is an unchangeable, eternal condition of eternal life for people living today, and neglect brings conviction by the Holy Spirit and leaves a person weighed in the sanctuary balances and found wanting, self-condemned for failing to love neighbor as self. It is included in the obedience to the entire law that will be the test for the whole world, the professed Christian world is violating it, and messengers are sent to enlighten the world that the commandments are not kept, though ministers see the force of truth yet refuse because obedience involves a cross. It is one of the commandments Christ Himself proclaimed from Sinai that remains binding, to profess belief in Christ while violating it is transgression and sin that must be plainly shown with a certain trumpet sound, and proclaiming obedience with the Sabbath question as the great test for this time belongs to giving the third angel's message with power, not in a tame, indefinite, voiceless manner.
Its specific command must not be led to be disregarded, those who lead others away from God's truth and those who follow them are both guilty before God, and to violate it while professing belief in Christ is transgression and sin which the third angel's message trumpet-shows to God's people and the world. Transgression makes people commandment-breakers under judgments symbolized by lightnings, voices, thunderings and earthquake, while wholehearted obedience marks commandment-keepers wearing God's seal, glorifying God and receiving eternal life, a difference between obedient and disobedient seen by men and angels.
Love Neighbor and Character
The command to be true rather than false to the neighbor is broken by pride lifting itself unto vanity, making a god of self, and by self-love, and it is kept when the gospel sanctifies the soul and expels self-love. When God has His rightful place on the throne of the heart it will be performed as directed, because love to God comprehends love for those formed in His image. The two great principles of love to God and love to man spring from one root and cannot be separated, so the first cannot be kept while this is broken, nor this kept while the first is broken.
It belongs to God's holy law whose principles are to be honored in daily life and written on the heart, with outward observance alone, even of the Sabbath, not saving. Being true to God means being true to neighbor, so faithfulness includes truthfulness toward others. It must be obeyed like the first four showing duty to God, and breaking any commandment is incompatible with being in favor with God. Obedience to it is impossible without first loving God supremely, and the present test is transgression or loyalty, disobedience or obedience, to it with the others, with harvest according to seed sown. Loyalty in obeying it in spirit and letter reveals covenant relation to the world, to angels, and to men.
Everyone who obeys the first four will obey it, and obeying it manifests tender pitying love toward everyone for whom Christ died and consecration to be a missionary laborer together with God. All with Christ's Spirit are missionaries deriving zeal and energy from Christ as the Chief Missionary. It defines the duty of those who love God, and keeping it evidences that God's love dwells within. It requires an inviolable and exact regard for truth in every declaration by which another's character may be affected, with the tongue, kept very little under human control, bridled by strong conscientious principles under the law of love toward God and neighbor.
It requires walking uprightly, working righteousness, speaking truth in the heart, not backbiting with the tongue, doing no evil to a neighbor and taking up no reproach against a neighbor. Keeping belongs to loving God supremely, loving neighbor as self, and keeping Christ's new commandment to love as He loved, making believers one and perfect in one. Breaking it as part of the last six, along with breaking the first four, is living in transgression that leaves the Lord able to do very little for a person. It condemns selfishness and stands against evil thinking and evil speaking. It requires unselfish heart and character, sincere love, kindness, gentleness, forbearance, tender guarding of others' interests as shown in Christ's life, doing to others as one would be done by, with kind words and actions honoring God, and failure in this breaks it and makes profession of service untrue.
It commands loving one's neighbor as oneself, not simply loving those who think and believe exactly as one does, as illustrated by the good Samaritan. It is carried out by those obeying the first four with whole soul in supreme love to God and becoming one with Christ who gave His life as ransom to free all from sin, with the value of man estimated at the price paid. It is one of the ten on which character is to be built with Bible in hand in prayer for forgiveness for letting imagination fasten on fanciful unreal subjects away from Christ's lessons, choosing Christ's words when sophistry is mingled with Scripture so as to make no mistakes. The last six are not less important to practical godliness than the first four on duty to God. Jesus showed their importance by teaching good works, mercy, benevolence, and that a tree is known by its fruits, and He defended the great precepts given at Sinai against human traditions and petty rules.
Those who serve God perform both loving God supremely in the first four and loving neighbor as self in the last six, and keeping them is the test by which all who will be saints in heaven must first be saints on earth in connection with the human family. It is included among the last six requiring love for neighbor, so obedience means doing good for others, not merely professing faith in them. Its principles apply to the whole life of those who acknowledge the commandments as binding, and commandment keepers are to live by this precept as well as the other nine, forbidding lying and deceit toward neighbor. It must be obeyed in faith and works and lived out, not merely professed. Obeying it with the rest separates God's people from the ungodly, purifies them, gives a standpoint on the world and religion different from pleasure-loving professors who shun the cross, and guides parents in restraining children and commanding their households.
Love for God is shown by making these sacred principles the rule of daily life and being willing to suffer any inconvenience rather than break one, which is more pleasing than professions or praise. Unwavering obedience to every jot and tittle is essential for personal and others' happiness and individual and national safety, while the transgressor sees no beauty in the law and calls it bondage. Keeping it with supreme love to God pours out God's goodness in love and compassion to fellow men as faith working by love that purifies the soul, meaning far more than acknowledgment of truth, ceremonious worship, or sacrifices and requiring whole service of God. In keeping it there is great reward even in this life with a non-condemning conscience and a heart at peace with God, while self-love and self-exaltation are unacceptable. It is not a separate small precept to be belittled but part of a divine whole bound in unity under love to God and love to neighbor, by which character is tested, immutable as God's throne.
It calls for disciplined self-control and faithful duty toward others, including seeking to be a blessing to those around and helping one another as comprised in loving neighbor as self. Keeping comes slowly as the Bible is made the constant rule of life and as love to God fills the heart to copy Christ's self-denying life, becoming part of the very being in the short probation. Keeping it arouses true Christian zeal working for those needing help in imitation of Christ's self-denying disinterested benevolence, not living for self but blessing the needy, visiting the fatherless and widows, helping with food and clothing, and speaking kindly, counseling, warning and entreating to reach hearts. Zeal without kindly deeds is spurious, while tenderness in relieving want opens the way for truth, and those who live this will reflect His character as the light and joy and glory of heaven.
Obedience to it must be revealed in life work with all business done according to the commandments. The commandments are life giving restraining influence to restore the moral image of God, and professing belief in Jesus while passing over sins offensive to God and commending evil works breaks this obedience. They are to be practiced in every line of work, including by people in responsible positions. It requires old-time reverence and obedience; obedience sanctifies humanity, manifests the foundation of faith, enforces all God's precepts, holds back skepticism, lays individual responsibility on every person, and requires truthfulness in God's sight meaning a just, pure, true course of action, so reform in the churches means reinstating this standard of practical godliness.
Its principles cannot be rightly represented by those who profess loyalty to God's law while neglecting its command to love neighbors as themselves. Claiming to keep God's commandments while being envious, jealous, fault-finding, uncourteous, unkind, cruel, and unforgiving transgresses these commandments. Loving self and hating brethren breaks them, for the Lord requires loving neighbor as self and loving one another as Christ loved. Neglecting it produces oppression of fellow people, lifting the soul unto vanity, glorying in self and exalting self above brethren.
It forbids living a lie while assenting to the Ten Commandments in theory and even teaching them. It requires cherishing its pure principles and obeying from the heart because they are loved, including purity and loving God supremely and neighbor as self. Holding a wrong course to please self and cherishing lust takes away strength and confidence and leaves a preacher unable to work efficiently for God. Truth must enter mind and heart and its pure principles be cherished and obeyed from the heart out of love, with surrender of every habit and sin that shuts out Jesus and with light searching every dark corner of the soul. It is kept by being pure and by loving God supremely and neighbor as self; one who constantly lives a lie breaks it, truth loses its vitalizing power in him, sin strengthens, and he has no strength, confidence, or efficiency as an agent for the Master.
Keeping it requires character transformation and a new heart through conscious loving communion with God so that deep holy principles of truth, righteousness and mercy become part of character and are more clearly discerned. Then scheming ends, advantage-seeking ends, talents are used for God's glory not self, time is priced as God's time, and love is proved tangibly by aiding others with sympathy and ministering to them. Unfaithfulness to God makes a person untrue to neighbor; such a course is hateful and despised by God, every action is marked and measured in heaven's books, making the doer an unsafe person who has transgressed the last six. It together with the first four marks unselfish fidelity and pure devotion in using entrusted talents for God's glory rather than selfish purposes. The careless, indolent and selfish who seek their own exaltation above God's honor do not keep it and cannot be rewarded as the faithfully zealous, for each life is accurately recorded and rewarded according to works. In faithful doing with the first four it is what following right principle means, not misleading human ideas of principle but obedience to divine commands for guidance; in such obedience believers eat Christ's flesh and drink His blood, appropriating all embraced in Calvary's atonement. It is part of the law of God and the law of love that is a yoke of service binding people to God's will.
False Speech and Slander
The command forbids spreading hearsay and scandal, misrepresenting others, and making good appear evil or evil appear good in order to harm them. Such conduct serves Satan as accuser of the brethren even when the person claims to be serving God or to be sanctified. Treating the commandment as no longer in force removes its restraint and leaves the offender without fear of condemnation.
It condemns more than formal false testimony in court, including slander and uncharitable, careless, or exaggerated speech about a neighbor, including God's workers. False witness can arise from envy, suspicion, or fanciful impressions, and repetition can make unjust accusations seem true even to the speaker. Words both reveal the heart and shape it, while planting doubt and distrust in others and causing lasting harm, so guarded, truthful, considerate speech is required.
It forbids saying what is not true, misleading and deceiving others about oneself, and making excuses to cover wrongs. Breaking it shows disobedience and a character needing entire transformation, and excuses for lying will not stand, for every refuge of lies will soon be swept away and those who cling to lies will be swept away with it. With stealing and coveting it stands in God's law as the great standard of character by which all must be judged in the last day.
Lying, defrauding, and dishonest dealings are forbidden by God's law. Casting its restraint aside encourages disobedience so that people disregard others' rights, defraud and seize property, leave property unsafe, lose peace, and leave society ruled by violence.
Bearing false witness includes misstating a neighbor's words or harming his influence, even unintentionally. When false or injurious statements have been spread they must be withdrawn from those who heard them. It forbids making false statements about others, mistaking their words, placing them in a false light, and going out repeating circulated false reports, even toward those thought unsound on the law and righteousness by faith.
Keeping it requires humility, fairness, the Spirit of Christ, keeping God's commandments, supreme love to God and love to neighbor, and refusing to let Satan control the powers, while those who have the truth can afford to be fair and must not receive words of finite man as the voice of God. Breaking it in discussion sows seeds yielding a harvest enduring to eternity while young workers watch, and shows a spirit not of Christ but from another source. False statements about another person violate God's holy law and expose the contradiction between claims of holiness and obedience to God's standard.
It forbids bearing false witness against another, including gossip, false accusations, and injurious reports about reputation that damage influence, sow discord among friends, and harm reputation and position. Belittling another is condemned as self-exaltation. Those who spread such reports will answer to God for their words.
It forbids selfish fault-finding, envy, evil surmising, malice, watching outward to question the character of better others, climbing on the judgment-seat to pronounce sentence, and turning eyes outward instead of inward to scan and criticize self. Keeping it means emptying the heart of self, envy, evil surmising and malice, taking heed to self, and doing the appointed work of self-reform, so that no root of bitterness springing up troubles and defiles the church.
The command forbids gossip, tattling, talebearing, and false witness, and it also condemns careless, idle, and foolish speech that does no good to speaker or hearer as subject to God's judgment; instead speech should build others up and gossip or foolish talk must not shape a Christian life. It is broken by feeding on improper private communications, looking for faults, indulging evil thinking and evil speaking until one person's testimony becomes another's, and by vivid imagination inventing things with no foundation in truth such as extreme accusations of selfishness. Those who bear false witness in this way are recorded as false accusers, have their power of principle neutralized, render sacred truth of no effect for themselves, lose spirituality, and place themselves in darkness marked by bitterness in words, manner, and feeling.
It forbids perjury of spirit that turns truth into falsehood, good into evil and innocence into crime. Jealousy twists defects into accusations, while gossip and selective claims presented as facts condemn one who cannot clear himself. It is transgressed by twisting truth, misrepresenting others, repeating accusations and condemnation, and by speech shaped by the tempter, when truth and righteousness are cast aside.
It is violated by magnifying others' faults, speaking against them and despising them, making the offender accountable to God; instead Christ's example of seeking their salvation should be followed. It forbids hasty, unadvised, critical and faultfinding words that accuse men God is teaching and leading, leavening minds with distrust, suspicion, questioning and doubt, undermining faith in God's instrumentalities, closing hearts to divine influence and fostering self-esteem. Persisting destroys right influence over workers, removes rest in spirit, weakens brethren's confidence, contradicts profession of allegiance to God's law and teaching on practical godliness, and repeats the rebellion of Korah, Dathan and Abiram.
It forbids falsifying, evil speaking, accusing and causing discord among brethren. The Holy Spirit never leads to these, because the Holy Spirit does not lead one way into truth and another way out of truth. Any conviction leading to falsifying is contrary to the Word and untrustworthy beside the earlier conviction when truth was believed, and those who bear false witness have failed to place body, soul, and spirit under the control of the Holy Spirit and have fallen into temptation and a snare and into foolish and hurtful lusts, misled on the very eve of the great day of God.
It forbids making false accusations and spreading misrepresentations, including statements presented as honest that have no foundation, pervert facts, affirm false assertions, or repeat critical distorted reports presenting matters only as the speaker views them. Such testimony is recorded in heaven as a lie. This includes criticizing every move others make, such as claiming money given to support God's work is wasted or misrepresenting dealings over wages and rent and claims about rent and the owner's conduct, and God will judge those who persist in such false, slanderous talk about wages, rent, money for God's work and every move of others.
It forbids falsely accusing a neighbor, such as falsely attributing words, actions or eating habits to someone. Wrongly claiming that Daniells or Prescott spread a damaging report about Sister White and Brother Magan is false witness and does them great injustice. Falsely describing the Cooranbong land as poor soil when it was suited for fruit and vegetables and would yield resources if well worked was bearing false witness against it.
It forbids blaming others falsely for wrongs arising from one's own poor judgment, casting suspicion on their motives and assigning blame without cause so their good work appears contemptible. It requires instead avoiding severe speech and unfair judgment of a brother and correcting one's own faults rather than shifting blame, with the law written on the heart in dealings with others as Christ's followers obey the last six precepts.
It forbids spreading false reports that damage the reputation of God's servants and falsely accusing fellow workers of sins; such hypocrites will be judged by deeds, their own testimony at judgment clearing the accused. Such false witness creates dissension, damages influence, spreads false impressions and sympathy, endangers souls, and must be recognized with every effort to present facts as they are.
It forbids false statements and surmisings such as charging God's messenger with being influenced by W. C. White, A. T. Jones and E. J. Waggoner. Keeping it requires being divested of prejudice with Christ's Spirit, spiritual discernment and reasoning from cause to effect. Breaking it comes when another spirit brings delusion and loss of confidence as Satan works to make the testimonies of the Spirit of none effect by leading minds to see things in a perverted light so they can be more readily deceived.
It forbids deceptive statements about others that misrepresent their words and distort their character or motives, misleading people and violating respect for God and those who serve Him. Exaggerating and speaking falsely transgresses even when the speaker does not mean wrong, and profession of keeping the commandments does not excuse it. Accusing fellow believers is bearing false witness against Christ in the person of His children.
The command forbids bearing false witness within the church and requires church discipline for members who do so and for those who love and make lies; such false witness is lying, divisive conduct that tears members apart and harms their souls. The command against false witness is relevant to slanderous words directed against those who defend God's law proclaimed by Jesus at Sinai.
It applies to those who reject God's law whose hardened consciences treat false testimony, equivocation and deception as acceptable to achieve aims, as the Jews did in rejecting Christ. Greater light does not soften those choosing darkness but may make them more hostile in deception against commandment keepers. It shows that bearing false witness includes deriding truth and accusing those who bring it when love of the world sets a person against God, turning God-given abilities against His work and cause.
Giving others a false picture of God is false witness against Him, as when gloom, complaints and mistrust make God and the Christian life appear joyless, uncaring or harmful, or suggest that God is displeased when His children are happy. Christians should reflect Christ truthfully instead.
Honesty in Work and Business
The commandment must guide every line of work, including judgment exercised by those in positions of responsibility. It requires truth and fairness toward others, for oppression and unjust treatment dishonor God and can become stumbling blocks that bring people to ruin. Those entrusted with sacred responsibilities must judge fairly and act with truthful, pure, tender, and compassionate hearts, so that human flaws do not dishonor God or mislead others.
It belongs to the one standard of the Ten that governs people in every position as superiors, inferiors, equals, masters, and servants, as duty all must obey, and those entrusted with responsibility must set a faithful example. It binds those in authority and those who submit alike, with not one rule for directors and another for inferiors. It requires unselfishness, self-denial, obedience with a perfect heart, and vital connection with God, which brings blessing and the tenderness and love of Christ, while oppression, selfish representations, and manmade laws will be judged by God. It is a rule for the guidance of all, men, women, and children, in all their transactions, to be taught to children and to form the standard of all dealing with one another, from which there can be no sinless swerving.
Exodus 20:1-17 gives the principles by which people must conduct their dealings, including business transactions. Those principles must not be replaced with false claims of truth and righteousness to justify dishonest practices, oppression, or injustice. Doing so misrepresents God's character, and God does not approve or vindicate such conduct, accepts no such transactions, and gives them no prosperity. Presenting falsehood as truth in business dealings, such as false propositions used to justify unjust transactions, violates the principles of the commandments.
The commandment forbids lying, falsehood, dishonest practices, injustice, oppression, and wickedness against a neighbor, including in business transactions and work done for God. It restrains conduct that would otherwise undermine trust and expose a neighbor's possessions to fraud or violence, so that respect for God's law helps protect property and social peace. It condemns dealing unjustly and assuming false propositions to be truth and righteousness and then working everything to carry them out. It forbids double dealing, forming confederacies to cloak a wrong, every shade of deception, coercion to rule or ruin, taking advantage of those under authority, and robbing members of God's family of individuality or rights even when pleading advancement of God's cause or financial interest for the cause. God will never be in league with dishonest practices and will vindicate not a single touch of injustice.
It requires dealing with others on the principles of the Ten Commandments, with truth, equity in judgment, love for neighbor, fine keen clear perceptions of equity, and a tender pure true compassionate heart like Christ's. It calls for watching, praying, and working with the eye single to the glory of God, with a pure heart and clean hands, loving God supremely and neighbor as self without letting business crowd out love. Its law exposes sin and calls people to reject dishonest, unjust actions rather than claim divine authority for them. Otherwise the cause of truth bears the imperfections of the human mold, God is dishonored, and stumbling blocks lay souls to ruin.
It forbids all falsehood and deception against neighbors, especially in business trade. It is broken by claiming to be a man of one's word while acting falsehoods, advantaging self to a neighbor's disadvantage, withholding the word of truth that would put the neighbor on guard against cheating himself, offering low sums for an article known to be worth more and then extolling its greater value once possessed, and piling falsehood upon falsehood for years in untruthful and dishonest trading. It forbids false representations in business, including lies spoken or acted out to deceive others, whether against fellow believers or people outside the faith. Such dishonesty violates God's command and damages the credibility of religion, business interests must not displace obedience to God, and taking advantage of others for personal gain is deliberate rejection of this plain command.
Unfaithfulness to God makes a person untrue to neighbor, such a course is hateful and despised by God, and every action is marked, measured, and stands in the books of heaven, making the doer an unsafe person who has transgressed the last six commandments. It forbids dishonest dealing and sharp, scheming, worldly-policy plans carried into practice and followed for nearly a lifetime. Disobedience greatly dishonors God and leaves defilement to be cleansed away. Keeping it requires transformation of character and a new heart through conscious loving communion with God, so that the deep holy principles of truth, righteousness, and mercy become part of character and are more clearly discerned. Then the first scheming purpose is strangled before it breathes, advantage-seeking ends, talents are used to God's glory not self-advantage, time is priced as God's time, and love is proved tangibly by aiding others with sympathy, ministering to them, and cooperating with Christ in helping fellow men who will be met in the judgment. It also requires purification, self-examination, and thorough searching of heart before God who sees every corner of the human heart, with wrongs righted and restitution made not only in word but in deed.
The desire to gain wealth becomes sinful when people violate the last six commandments in pursuing it, including exhausting themselves and neglecting obligations to others. The desire to accumulate property is not sinful unless in seeking it men and women forget God, transgress these precepts, and place themselves where it is impossible to glorify God in body and spirit which are His. Hurrying to be rich by overtaxing energy and violating the laws of being leaves them unable to render perfect service to God and puts them on a course of sin, and property obtained in that way is gained at immense sacrifice.
It forbids undermining an institution by disparaging its plans or management, finding fault, questioning how it treats workers, making insinuations to turn workers against it, and flattering workers that they deserve more responsible positions. It forbids tampering with help secured and depended upon by another institution by demeriting its plans, finding fault with its management, questioning the course pursued toward wanted workers, flattering their vanity, and telling them they are not advanced as rapidly as they should be in order to secure them. Manipulating workers through flattery and insinuations and undermining the plans or management of those directing an institution violates the command against bearing false witness against a neighbor.
It forbids presenting a false reason as a blind to separate workers from their work, calling such fraud inexcusable sin in the sight of God not to be glossed over. It requires dealing with one another as brethren fairly and openly as daylight, with no secret conniving to steal away helpers or to draw them to another place. The commandments are the standard in all manner of dealing with one another, and no circumstance or condition excuses doing even the least injustice to brother or neighbor.
It requires honest, just dealing with fellow workers in money matters, meaning that those responsible for creating debts on an institution should take up a large part in raising means to pay them and not leave the burden resting altogether on those establishing the work anew in more favorable surroundings. Those responsible for creating the College debts should acknowledge their responsibility and help raise the money to pay them, for sharing that burden is in harmony with this commandment. It places the physician's conduct and daily business under its principles, rejecting dishonest and oppressive dealings that deprive people of just rights. God's work is to be done by its ten precepts, which stand against oppressive dealings.
Daily Life and Application
The command guards the rights of the neighbor as one of the last six precepts defining duty to fellow men, and it is broken by increasing the number of children when reason shows that physical and mental weakness must be their inheritance, for this increases degeneracy, sinks society lower, and thus injures the neighbor. God who thus guards the neighbor's rights cares still more for the closer and more sacred relation of parent and child, and He will call parents to account for putting reason behind passion and transmitting physical, mental, and moral deficiencies that leave children diseased in body and mind all their lives. Such parents enslave reason to passion and leave their children in poverty without care, training, and education, while God cares for children born diseased to suffer all their lives.
The law of Exodus 20:1-17 requires supreme love to God and love to neighbor as self, and applied to the wrongs done to the colored race through slavery it requires the nation to make restitution and requires everyone to make special efforts to undo its continuing effects, even those who did not actively enforce slavery. The command against bearing false witness in Exodus 20:12-17 places truthfulness toward neighbor among the duties of the last six, and obedience to those commandments also requires spouses to honor one another's personal rights and duties rather than use Scripture to justify tyranny or disregard of marital obligations.
The commandment is God's law for His household here below and a rule for parents and children to be strictly obeyed with no sinless swerving, requiring parents to train children in the principles of God's Word and to keep the way of the Lord with faith and works combined and everything in home and school life done decently and in order. Kept in the home it causes holiness to pervade the home, brings angels into the home circle, purges all commonness and cheapness, and fills parents and children with holy joy. The commandments plainly state what must and must not be done, and teaching children to obey clear instructions trains them to respect those commandments.
Parents must teach the ten holy precepts diligently to children when rising up and sitting down, when going out and coming in, in the house and by the way, when lying down and rising up, binding them as a sign and writing them on house posts and gates. Neglect of that teaching makes drunkards and fills jails and prisons, while obedience would end thefts, robberies, murders, and prevailing crime and wickedness. Every commandment remains obligatory with none to be spared as nonessential, and walking in all the ways commanded brings life, well-being, and prolonged days in the promised possession, while disobedience brings death; to love God and keep His commandments is the whole duty of man. Parents must teach children to obey and reverence the law and follow the Word of the Lord rather than ministers who say the commandments are not obligatory.
In short the ten mean duty to love God supremely and neighbor as self, and God commanded Israel to keep the words of the law on a ribbon of blue in the border of garments as a reminder of that duty. The Jews bound portions of the law on foreheads and wrists and broadened their phylacteries and added words to show exalted devotion and sanctity and to command respect, while their works were directly contrary to the law, without mercy and love of God, humility, integrity, and purity of life. They deceived themselves that the promises to Abraham gave them eternal blessings, while the works of scribes, Pharisees, priests, and elders were directly contrary to that law despite outward appearance.
The commandment is immutable, unchangeable, and eternal, and the reason Christ died is because the law could not be changed; the Spirit awakens conscience and understanding to bring the commandments to remembrance, with messengers from heaven close beside those who hold forth the Word of life. It must be taught in a decided manner but cautiously so as not to arouse prejudice, presenting truth by degrees as hearers can bear it. When efforts are brought to compel transgression, believers must stand firm and refuse to violate it even under persecution. Bearing false witness includes children testifying to a lie, and parents who listen to their children instead of teachers who report wrongdoing, or who side with them in wrongdoing, help them continue and spread deception.
The command belongs to the last six specifying duties to one another, and professed commandment-keepers who spend God's time and money on needless display fail to love neighbor as self and break those last six. Advocating God's holy binding law while yielding to strong lower passions, walking into temptation, and keeping questionable society gives enemies of truth occasion to reproach faith and brings perplexity and discouragement upon those just beginning to see light upon the fourth precept. Such conduct by a watchman upon the walls of Zion leaves a blot never fully effaced in human estimation, stands as a very aggravating crime with a fearful record in heaven, and brings fearful retribution unless met with humbled heart, sincere repentance, and a life of repentance.
Professing to honor the holy law spoken at Sinai while remaining filthy and disorderly contradicts its demands, for the law cannot be written on the heart of those careless about cleanliness in person, clothing, or homes. Israel had to cleanse clothing before hearing the law. The command is part of the direction given to the church when delivered from Egypt and part of the laws given from Sinai to be held in highest regard. Highest regard for these laws and living by them keeps physicians from becoming loose in manners and careless in regard to the laws of chastity, especially in treating women, so that all who live by the Sinai laws may be safely trusted, especially as physicians to women.
Physicians must learn the lesson of loving neighbor as self taught by the last six commandments in the school of Christ from the Chief of physicians, and receiving an earthly diploma as a competent physician does not show that it has been learned. Breaking this commandment is sin, and violating the laws governing the body is also sin against the Creator, because both break God's law; the law and the laws of the body share divine origin and character, the laws of nature being as truly divine as the Decalogue and written on every nerve, muscle, and fiber. Obedience to God's law is necessary for health, truth, and happiness, and those who disregard God's physical laws may also be unwilling to obey the principles spoken from Sinai.
Obedience to the principles of all ten would have prevented the curse of disease now flooding the world, and continual breaking of nature's laws is continual breaking of God's law governing man's existence. Taking any course that needlessly spends vitality or clouds the intellect sins against God and does not glorify Him in body and spirit, which are His, and remaining ignorant of the laws of being or lessening mental and physical vigor through perverted habits, indulgence of appetite, depraved appetite and lustful passions, and intemperance violates the law. Light on health reform now shines clearly so ignorance is no excuse, and all are bound by sacred obligation to heed it and walk in it with all powers of body and mind to live a perfect life to the glory of God; to make natural law plain and urge obedience to it is a work accompanying the third angel's message as closely as hand to body, to fit a people for the coming of the Lord, after warning is first sent before punishment for lightly regarding the law.
The command requires perfect service to the Creator and faithful duty to fellow men, which calls for clear mental and moral powers guided by intellect to right action, and the healthful action of those faculties depends on physical health, so keeping it requires working in harmony with natural law and practicing temperance in all things. Suffering, feebleness, and premature death are not God's creation or appointed lot but come from wrong habits and violation of law, and violating God's laws including those governing the body is sin. While under the power of sinful, health-destroying, brain-weakening habits men and women cannot appreciate sacred truth.
The command applies beyond deliberate lies to falsely blaming health reform for harm caused by ignorance or by practices working against it, and to blaming God and His providence for illness caused by one's own choices in eating, drinking, and dressing instead of studying His Word and recognizing effects of habits. It forbids bearing false witness against health reform by ignorantly following a course of eating that works against it and then blaming health reform. It requires investigating habits of diet and studying from cause to effect, not neglecting or abusing the body so it is unfit to render due service to God, and caring for the body by providing relishable and strengthening food as one of the first duties of the householder, putting sufficient necessary food ahead of expensive clothing and furniture, since such neglect has caused the death of useful workers.
Unadvised speech and actions can violate God's law and furnish arguments against the truth, so passion must be restrained. People may violate the Ten when they turn from known duty to avoid reproach, and deception and fraud for ill-gotten gains are wickedness God's patience will not forever bear, with persistent disobedience bringing punishment; violating the sacred law spoken at Sinai is heinous sin God regards with horror, and seeing its sacredness brings trembling at transgression and sore weeping in repentance. Obeying the commandments given to every man means not giving up truth for pride of honor and bondage of worldly honor, refusing the temptation of the highest position and advance in Freemasonry because that step ruins the soul.
Belonging to trades unions and labor combinations makes keeping the command impossible, for it means disregarding the entire Decalogue whose obedience is to be the test for the whole world. Pledging to serve union interests supports what deprives neighbors of freedom of action and robs the poorer classes of advantages justly belonging to them in buying and selling, violating love to God with the whole being and love to neighbor as self. The command also applies to claims about land: settlers' laziness in leaving it uncultivated bears false witness against it by making it seem unproductive, though proper cultivation would make it yield. It is part of God's sacred law proclaimed at Mount Sinai which His people are to obey.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour forbids giving false testimony against another person, as the ninth commandment of the moral law on the second table defining duty to fellow human beings by the principle of loving the neighbour as oneself. It forbids lying, falsehood, deceit, defrauding a neighbour, and perjury, including lying under oath, and it protects trust and the security of property and society. It forbids every deliberate attempt to deceive, not only by false words but by misleading looks, gestures, exaggerations, hints, insinuations and selectively presented facts, and it forbids injuring reputation by misrepresentation, evil suspicion, slander and tale-bearing or by withholding truth when silence would cause harm. It requires an inviolable and exact regard for truth in every statement affecting another's character, with speech guarded, truthful and considerate under the law of love toward God and neighbour.
Meaning and Basic Scope
The command forbids giving false testimony against another person or neighbor. It is the ninth commandment in the moral law spoken at Mount Sinai. It stands on the second table among the last six commandments that define duty to fellow human beings and to one another. Those six precepts show in brief the principle of loving one's neighbor as oneself, and belong to the Decalogue in Exodus 20:1-17 spoken and proclaimed by God at Sinai to govern mankind, given to every person to be understood and obeyed.
In its Thou shalt not form it shows authoritative prohibition that parents are to echo calmly, decidedly, and firmly in saying No and meaning it. Parents standing in the place of God are thereby given plain directions for training children, refusing destructive and disorderly handling of things in the home, quenching undesirable habits when they first appear, and disciplining children to be neat, cleanly, and orderly, because there is order in heaven and God requires every family to be disciplined to orderly ways. It gives a plainly defined rule of conduct leaving no excuse for mistakes in how to act, including the duty not to give false testimony against a neighbor. Its light as one of the ten precepts pointing out duty makes people responsible if they reject it when seen.
It forbids lying, falsehood, deceit, defrauding a neighbor, and perjury. It protects trust and the security of property, as part of the restraint against dishonesty, coveting, and defrauding. When it is treated as no longer binding people are encouraged to disregard other moral restraints, lying becomes so common that people feel no shame about it, and property and society become unsafe and lawless. Its principles apply to the whole life of those who acknowledge the commandments as binding, so commandment keepers are to live by this precept as well as the other nine, while perjury committed under the cloak of Christianity shows the moral law remains binding.
It forbids every deliberate attempt to deceive a neighbor, not only false words but misleading looks, gestures, expressions, exaggerations, hints, insinuations, and selectively presented facts. It also forbids harming reputation through misrepresentation, evil suspicion, slander, or tale-bearing, and intentionally withholding truth when that may injure others. It forbids false testimony including lying under oath, for one who testifies falsely is answerable to God who sees the heart and knows the exact truth. A Christian may rightly testify under oath when required by law, appealing to God as witness that the testimony is true.
It forbids false testimony and perjury in the strict sense, as when soldiers for money repeated the priests' fabricated claim about Christ's body despite knowing it was false. They sold their integrity by deceiving the people with that lie. It forbids bearing false witness in general, including lying, which is incompatible with Christian character. It belongs to the law proclaimed at Mount Sinai, whose transgression by priests and rulers is described without specifying false witness as one of their offenses.
Sinai Giving and History
It belongs to the instruction given to Moses on the mount in Exodus 19-24, to be obeyed and studied and presented now just as verily as by Israel then, with all contention ceasing and hearts softened in brotherly love, guarding against injustice and guiding dealings with one another, given by Christ Himself who taught both on Sinai and in human flesh.
It was spoken with God's own voice as Sovereign and by Christ the Redeemer at Sinai after deliverance from Egypt despite Pharaoh's opposition, so that the people might keep it.
Its proclamation in awful grandeur with power and glory reveals God's majesty and authority as Ruler of the world, shows its sacredness, importance and permanence, presses obedience, and belongs to the faith once delivered to the saints.
The law already existed and was not new, and its public speaking amid awe-inspiring display of power showed its sacred exalted character, while Israel was entrusted to preserve and hand it down.
It was spoken by Jehovah from Sinai's summit above thunder, lightning, waxing trumpet tones, cloud, tempest, thick darkness and glory as devouring fire, when Israel entered covenant as a peculiar treasure and holy nation united with a holy God.
As God's great mirror revealing man's true condition and great rule of right, showing sin's offensiveness and personal guilt before a pure holy God, it overwhelmed hearers with terror so they stood afar and entreated Moses to speak lest they die, while even Moses feared and quaked, and Moses later recapitulated it before all the people by God's command.
It was spoken by God Himself and written by His own hand and finger on two tables of stone delivered to Moses and preserved in the ark, so it is of divine not human composition, unlike the rest of the Bible where God-given truths are expressed in human language as a union of the divine and the human.
It was spoken by Jehovah Himself, by Christ Himself, after descending on Sinai wrapped in a cloud of glory, and engraved on stone tablets with His own finger, and the same clear ringing voice later commanded the cleansing of the temple.
Before speaking it God directed Moses to sanctify the people for two days and have them wash their clothes, not from mere liking for clean clothing but to impress them with divine purity and show care for physical as well as moral well-being.
It was given with manifestations of divine power and glory to show its sacredness, importance and permanence for all ages, amid thunder and lightning, fire, trumpet voice, earthquake and smoke, with man and beast forbidden on penalty of death to touch the mount.
Christ was the appointed mediator without whom the people would have been consumed, and all communion in its giving between heaven and the fallen race was through Him.
It was given to Israel during the wilderness wandering when they were led to Sinai and proclaimed amid awful grandeur, with thunderings, lightnings, trumpet sound, smoking mountain and thick cloud that made the people remove and stand afar off, while the people feared and trembled and asked Moses to receive and speak God's words, spoken distinctly with solemn impressiveness and requiring perfect obedience.
Its principles existed before creation and governed angels, and Satan fell by transgressing them.
God rehearsed them unwritten to Adam and Eve suited to holy beings, unchanged after the fall, with additional precepts and sacrifices added for fallen man to show death as disobedience's penalty and teach humility, repentance and trust through the promised Redeemer, making Christ's death necessary to preserve the law's honor.
The law was taught by Adam, preserved by Noah saved in the ark for right-doing, handed through faithful generations including Abraham who kept God's charge, commandments, statutes and laws, until continual transgression called for the Flood.
It was given in Eden as the rule of life, transgressed by Adam, lost sight of in bondage, and proclaimed anew from Sinai after deliverance, God Himself standing on Sinai in awful grandeur with an audible voice when the morning stars sang together.
It is God's holiness and goodness made known, immutable under His unchangeable government, which Satan since rebellion has sought to nullify by declaring abrogated.
The law already existed and was not new at Sinai, entrusted to Israel to preserve and hand down, but many had lost knowledge of it in Egyptian bondage and mixed its precepts with heathen customs, had little understanding of pardon through Christ or access through a mediator, and the entire history of the Hebrews as depositaries was written for admonition.
The minds of the people, blinded and debased by slavery, could not comprehend it as given, so God called Moses into the mount to give additional precepts, followed by further directions on how to treat one another.
Daily-life precepts given through Moses guarded and explained it, and additional precepts were given to explain and enforce its far-reaching principles that people did not fully understand.
Its principles were clarified and guarded by the judgments, statutes and laws Moses wrote from God's mouth in the mount, giving minute directions about duty to one another and the stranger in simplified definite form so people need not err.
If its principle had been obeyed there would have been no need of those specific directions.
The principles of the ten precepts were amplified by specific directions and additional precepts to guard their sacredness, explain and apply them more fully, and enforce their obligations so none would err; practicing the principles would have made those directions unnecessary.
It was given in majesty and unapproachable glory so that transgression shows open contempt of the Lawgiver and death is the penalty; because of continual disobedience penalties not good for the transgressor were annexed so he shall not live in rebellion, but the statutes and judgments guarding it are good for the obedient and they shall live in them.
It was spoken by Christ at Sinai, who understood its full scope and far-reaching claims and revealed the law in its true character as holy, just, good and the enduring standard of righteousness, not a cold code of commands and human traditions.
It is part of the law given at Sinai and placed in the sacred ark representing God's authority; God sent prosperity or adversity according to whether it was obeyed or transgressed.
It is one of the ten written by the finger of Jehovah on the two tables kept in the ark in the heavenly most holy place, whose door Jesus opened in 1844 after shutting the door of the holy place.
It was first given in Eden, entrusted to Israel brought out of Egypt and separated from the world as depositaries to hand it down and make known to every nation the principles of God's government in heaven and on earth.
It forms the hedge around God's vineyard distinguishing His church as His peculiar treasure, was to be meditated on and kept as part of Israel's covenant, but the people failed while Moses was away, losing faith and giving way to jealousy and envy.
Israel solemnly covenanted to obey the holy law spoken at Sinai and placed prosperity dependent on obedience; that generation broke commandments beyond the Sabbath and faced punishment.
The Hebrews were transgressing the recently given law in grandeur as they rushed into shameful errors, beginning to recognize its sacredness as they grieved over transgressions and felt the horror of sin.
It belongs to the covenant law spoken to Israel at Sinai whose terms the people promised to obey; its far-reaching principles are not appreciated when attention is given to temporal matters and worldly words, customs and maxims cloud understanding of eternal realities.
The ten precepts formed the foundation of Israel's national law, and the laws illustrating them were also part of the condition for fulfilling God's promises to Israel; obeying it with the other commandments was to help Israel exemplify true righteousness before the nations and serve as a model for God's church.
The books were intended to vindicate and magnify it and Jeremiah urged the people to honor it as their covenant relationship and declaration of God's will for the nation.
It is part of the counsel given at Sinai, written on stone and preserved in the ark, that families and all believers in God's word are expected to obey.
It was given to ancient Israel to keep God in remembrance and show obligation to obey and honor the Creator; because Israel would not obey but forgot God, ceremonies and ordinances were given to stir their minds to those obligations, and had they loved to keep the commandments the multitude of ceremonies would not have been required.
The priests and rulers transgressed the Sinai law including this verse by unfair transactions, extortion, robbery and unholy traffic in the outer courts, though false witness is not specified as one of their offenses.
The commandments were given in a setting revealing God's majesty and the sacredness of His law, and they should be kept in plain sight in every home.
It belongs to the law first given in Eden expressing God's character and written by God on stone so His will and governmental principles would remain clear, which His people were called to make known to every nation.
Nature and Permanence of Law
The command belongs to a law that points to duty toward God and toward one another, joining faithfulness to God with truthfulness to neighbor, for no one false to God can be true to neighbor, and supreme love for God leads to loving the neighbor as self. It is broken by pride lifting itself to vanity, making a god of self, and by self-love, and it is kept when the gospel sanctifies the soul and expels self-love. The commandments including this verse express the character of the Sovereign of the universe and are a transcript of it, proclaimed so all mankind could understand God's requirements, and together they cover the whole duty of humanity. They were given as a sacred trust to Israel for the whole world in ten brief comprehensive precepts guiding duties to God and to one another and applying love to life, setting out what is just and merciful, preserving integrity, bringing harmony with divinity, and bringing blessing, safety and healthy spiritual experience in obedience while calling to account.
It is a transcript of God's character and reveals His will and His eternal unchangeable character and requirements, and understanding it requires heart and mind brought into harmony with God. It is to be taught to children as wise just rules for all dealings without deviation, for its commands plainly state what must and must not be done and training children to obey trains respect for authority. It was first given in Eden, entrusted to a people called to make known to every nation, kindred and tongue the principles of His government in heaven and on earth, spoken amid thunder and lightning with terrible majesty so the word would ever be clear and distinct, written on stone by the finger of God, with obedience meaning life and disobedience meaning death. It expresses God's character and reveals God as He is, belonging to the Lord's law which is perfect and converts the soul, so that to know God as made known in it is the science of all goodness and truth and righteousness, and every expression of His character revealed in it must be obeyed. Obeying God's law helps form character in harmony with His character.
It expresses God's character and will, defines righteousness and sin, acts as a mirror revealing defects of character and showing what sin is, and remains the standard by which all are judged. Disobedience is not trifling, mere profession by lip and voice is worthless unless character harmonizes with the law, only doers will enter the kingdom while workers of iniquity will be told to depart though they prophesy, cast out devils and do wonderful works under Satan's inspiration, and hearing and doing builds on rock that stands against rain, floods and winds while hearing and not doing builds on sand with great fall. Transgression requires repentance, obedience reflects a changed heart and steady moral principle, abiding in Christ brings life into harmony with the law, and its commandments can be kept through grace. As part of the ten it expresses God's will and is a transcript of His character holding words of truth and righteousness that will be the power of God's people, its principles are to be set before all in simple plain language to enlighten understanding of God's motives in urging obedience, and fear and love of God lead to cheerful hearty obedience promoting His glory and securing man's highest good and harmony with heaven.
The ten are like links of a chain where one broken link makes the chain of no value, so to violate this commandment makes a person a breaker guilty of all, and together they demand implicit obedience, can never be repealed while heaven and earth remain, and are the origin of all enlightened law. It is part of God's binding, eternal, moral, immutable, permanent and unchangeable law that has not been abolished or altered in any detail, cannot be improved or discarded by human beings, leaves no excuse for mistakes, and must be obeyed fully at any cost. Attempts to alter it are presumptuous tampering and apostasy, its sanctity is to be respected, no humanly devised rule is a safer substitute, its claims are to be clearly taught, and it will be the standard at the final judgment. It belongs to God's enduring law that is the standard for human conduct and must not be set aside, obedience is presented as a condition of salvation, Christ's death shows the law could not be abolished, and its requirements are to be studied and obeyed with lives bearing witness to them.
The commandments including this verse are immutable, unchangeable, eternal and perfect, the standard of character for the judgment, and the law could not be changed, which is why Christ died. The Spirit awakens conscience and understanding to bring the commandments to remembrance with messengers from heaven beside those who hold forth the Word of life, the commandment must be taught decidedly yet cautiously so as not to arouse prejudice by presenting truth by degrees as hearers can bear, and when efforts compel transgression believers must stand firm and refuse even under persecution. It is part of God's unchangeable ten-commandment law, distinct from the rites, ceremonies and sacrificial offerings of the Mosaic dispensation that prefigured the Son's death and ceased to bind after type met antitype in Christ, and it remains binding under the gospel for Gentile as well as Jew, with Paul after his change still keeping it in spirit and letter. The law already existed and was not new at Sinai, entrusted to Israel to preserve and hand down, and as moral law written on stone and rock it is sacred, enduring, eternal, unchangeable and obligatory for all until the end of time, while the laws of sacrifices and offerings ceased at Christ's death but the ten did not die with Him. To claim the ten died with Christ turns even the crucifixion and resurrection on the third day to Satan's advantage against salvation, its command against false witness is not optional or limited to one age, writing on solid rock signifies unchangeable precepts, and statutes and judgments further define its principles of duty to others so people may live justly separate from idolatrous nations.
Paul continued to keep it in letter and spirit after becoming Christian, unlike the temporary ceremonial laws and sacrifices that were types ceasing when Christ fulfilled them. It is part of God's law that perfectly reveals His will and the principles of His government for every nation and tongue, and as the perfect standard of righteousness in the judgment it leaves no excuse for sin, with obedience tied to receiving life or death as a prerequisite of salvation. It is one of God's ten authoritative commandments revealing His righteousness and serving as the rule of judgment, letting people compare character with its requirements to see need for repentance and reform, while those setting its precepts aside and teaching transgression are condemned by it, with words revealed plainly to all inhabitants of the earth. It is part of God's holy, solemn, vital, binding law that shows His justice and denunciation of sin, and to teach people to regard it as a dead letter and keep its requirements out of sight makes the Bible of no effect and denies Christ while professing to accept Christ and the Bible. It is part of God's law that is the foundation of His government in heaven and on earth, whose principles remain binding.
As Jehovah's law from Sinai it is everlasting and inexorable as God's character, a rule regulating conduct and restricting wrongdoing under penalty, the foundation of enlightened civil law and supreme power, and the good of society, safety of man and progress of reform depend on respecting it rather than lowering it to a debased standard. To the inebriate both God's law and man's law are meaningless because benumbed senses cannot comprehend the language of Sinai. It is the supreme higher law put in mind and heart as spirit and life with power to bring into subjection and enforce obedience, taken by those taught by truth and led by good conscience as the only authority to acknowledge, so that those who love the commandments conform to every good law of the land yet obey God rather than men when rulers require what conflicts with God's law, even to refusing war and army service that would be continual violation of conscience governed by worldly policy and public opinion rather than God's written commands. Civil laws must be obeyed unless they conflict with God's law, and he who has God's law in the heart will sooner disobey all men than deviate in the least from the commandment.
It restrains conduct that would undermine trust and expose a neighbor's possessions to fraud or violence, helping protect property and social peace. It is part of the law that lies at the foundation of all right, civilized national, domestic and family laws, which lawmakers and those framing national laws should understand. Setting aside God's law would remove restraint on wrongdoing. It remains binding and its correct application exposes perjury and other crimes carried on under the cloak of Christianity. It contains sacred principles of morality, justice, reverence for God and respect for man made in God's image, plainly stated in Israel's wilderness journeyings to be read and understood as a lesson now. It belongs to requirements rulers and nations are responsible to obey, respecting it would prevent much societal distress and misery, and obedience is not bondage but freedom in Christ with people standing free because they obey.
The prohibitions of the Ten Commandments are safeguards for human happiness rather than mere restrictions, with the command against false witness protecting from harm caused by transgression, and received in Christ the law works purity of character and joy while obedience places people within its protection and reveals God's goodness and immutable righteousness. The Father's law was given in great love to order conduct and restrict men to what increases real happiness in this life, and carried out daily it ennobles and sanctifies heart and mind, gives moral fitness through Christ for holy angels, guards from sin, regulates virtues fitting subjects for heaven, while its letter shows how to please God and its spirit points to Christ as atoning sacrifice through whose merits its requirements can be fulfilled. In it God has given all people the principles of His character in wise, just and good laws enacted by the Father whose heart is love, to be brought into practical life and especially to rule institutions as guidance for men, women and children in all transactions, to be taught to children and to form the standard of all dealing with one another from which there can be no sinless swerving. It binds those in authority and those who submit alike with not one rule for directors and another for inferiors, requiring unselfishness, self-denial and vital connection with God, while oppression and manmade laws will be judged.
Its precepts apply to all mankind and give detailed instruction for human duties, and like the others it is based on love and governs conduct toward fellow human beings. The law is God's standard of obedience revealing whole human duty, its principles are embraced in specific rules for social and religious life given to Moses, and it provides a standard for forming character stating what people must and must not do to remain loyal, summed up in love for God and neighbor and in loving neighbor as oneself. It is included in the moral law by which people are to compare their character and to which they are to become obedient. The ten precepts with the Word of God are the only safe guide, foundation to build on, rule to live by, and standard by which all will be judged, doctrine without them is unsafe, reading them profits nothing unless truth is brought into the soul-temple, the commandment reaches the heart where sin originates, and doers rendering obedience will have abundant entrance into the mansions prepared. These principles came from God as transcript of His character, are valued because they came from Him, can never be changed to meet man fallen, require firm standing on It is written without turning right or left, and the man not making them life practice works on the enemy's side, with transgression thought small weighed not by finite scales but by God's righteousness.
The Ten make known the Father's will that God requires people to obey, religious profession or impressive works do not replace obedience, and those practicing lawlessness are rejected. Its commands cannot be selectively kept, truly keeping the Sabbath means not disregarding any other precept, it carries no greater authority than the fourth commandment, accepting nine while questioning the fourth is without authority, and God holds every person responsible for observing every precept. General transgression and ministers' disloyalty in setting aside any precept do not excuse disobedience. The commandments are linked and cannot be separated, and opposition to the law is directed at getting rid of the Sabbath commandment, not specifically at the prohibition against false witness. It belongs to God's perfect unchanging law demanding entire continuous obedience to every commandment, its requirements contrast with the heavy yokes Satan makes, God's people are duty-bound to obey it, and love to neighbor as self is part of that obedience.
It is not a separate small precept to be belittled and ignored but part of a divine whole with the first four and last six bound in unity under love to God and love to neighbor, by those two principles character is tested as obedient or disobedient, and those principles are immutable as eternal as God's throne. Keeping it with supreme love to God pours out God's goodness in love and compassion to fellow men as faith working by love purifying the soul, meaning far more than acknowledgment of truth, ceremonious worship or sacrifices and requiring whole service of God, with great reward even in this life in a non-condemning conscience and a heart at peace with God, while self-love and self-exaltation are unacceptable. The ten are the standard of character and the covenant with the Maker in life, death, resurrection and eternity, this verse belongs to the second great principle of loving neighbor as self, loyalty in obeying it in spirit and letter reveals covenant relation to world, angels and men, obedience is impossible without loving God supremely first, and the present test is transgression or loyalty with harvest according to seed sown. The Ten form a protective hedge around God's people, obedience guards from results of transgression and brings health, happiness, peace and joy, and familiarity with God's word enables the character God requires.
Like every divine Thou shalt not, it contains or implies a promise that obedience brings blessing while disobedience brings danger and unhappiness, and God's laws draw people closer to Him and lead from evil to good, but He does not force obedience. It is part of the holy law from the beginning and at Sinai whose keeping expresses love for God and neighbor, as shown by Christ's summing of loving the Lord God with all heart, soul, strength and mind and loving neighbor as self, and with the other commandments it gives a principle of righteousness as the rule of action, with doing this giving eternal life. It belongs to the words God spoke from Sinai that are conditions of life, and obedience gives fallen people free access again to the tree of life forfeited through disobedience. It is part of the holy law spoken by God from Sinai which is part of Himself, honored by strict observers who teach it, and God will have holy men carry truth and will not entrust His flock to men weakened by cherished former errors such as perfectionism and spiritualism that reproached truth.
It is part of the law spoken at Sinai whose sacredness the people began to recognize as they grieved, and as proclaimed from Sinai in Exodus 20 it must be studied by every professed keeper and obeyed in truth and righteousness with every other command, learned as highest education, taught by parents to children and children's children for its sacred enduring character, and held binding with no excuse, while its principles stand to witness in judgment and decide every soul's destiny. It is part of the sacred law God proclaimed, wrote with His own finger on stone to preserve from forgetting or corruption, and urged for public study and obedience, to be vindicated by heart, mind and argument and set in plain prominent letters so people know what the Bible says, with obedience preventing the world's wickedness. It is to be clearly set forth just as given and preached to large congregations as at the foot of Sinai, urging its changeless eternal claims upon rulers and subjects, with repetition impressing many, making sinners tremble and awakening duty, for the law is perfect converting the soul, and by obedience or disobedience all work in harmony either with the Lord or with the great rebel.
The law proclaimed from Sinai carries authority every person must acknowledge, its principles expose sin and call for obedience to God's truth, disregarding its plain precepts including this verse is sin as a personal duty, and persistent disregard brings divine judgment to awaken transgressors to sin and peril. Disregard can discourage others who recognize its sacred claims or turn potential believers away, allowing flagrant violations without rebuke hinders God's work and keeps people from heaven's blessing. Sin is sin and must be called by its right name with no glossing over iniquity, to disobey after caution while claiming to do heaven's will departs from heaven's principles to the brink of ruin, and such must come to Jesus in humility whose blood cleanses all sin. It is part of the plain principles of heaven in God's Word proclaimed as law from Sinai's mount, carrying truth's weight under which every soul must bow humbly contrite, with departure while claiming heaven's will leaving feet on ruin's brink and needing cleansing by Christ's blood.
It is part of the Ten Commandments whose authority exceeds human precepts, customs, traditions, maxims and precepts handed down for generations, which must not be made all-essential above it, and whose principles are to be upheld so differences of opinion do not become a barrier between believers. Christ upheld it as truth in purity distinct from human maxims, it belongs to the complete standard calling for truthfulness to neighbor that no human message may weaken or replace, and it sets out holy requirements plain and sufficient to guide conduct and distinguish truth from error. The commandments are laws governing God's kingdom bringing order when obeyed and confusion when disobeyed, and loyalty to them is part of loyalty to God's holy law despite opposition and contempt. The law reveals God's majesty and authority as Ruler of the world making obedience important, willing obedience is a sign of relationship with the heavenly Father, and those upholding the law proclaimed by God from Sinai must represent it sensibly and carefully, not cheaply or faultily.
Jehovah engraved the ten on stone so all earth's inhabitants might understand His eternal unchangeable character, obeying all He has given gives experimental knowledge of God, and only as heart and mind harmonize with God are its requirements understood. The ten are given for instruction in righteousness and are a transcript of God's character, to obey them is life with no excuse for transgression, Christ came to represent the Father's character as the example, and to claim to be God's child while misrepresenting Christ by disorderly self-willed behavior transgresses Jehovah's law. It is one of the ten moral precepts forming God's standard of righteousness, Christ's life and character corresponded to that standard, and righteousness means living God's law as Christ lived it. It is part of God's holy law contained in the ark in heaven as a symbol of His presence, given in Eden at creation, proclaimed on Sinai and written with God's finger on stone, and with the other commandments it is the basis of the third angel's message with the faith of Jesus as present truth to be proclaimed everywhere with distinctness and power, including the Sabbath as God's memorial of creation.
It is included in the law proclaimed at Sinai that requires obedience and has a definite penalty for transgression. Reverence for the Sabbath leads to keeping it together with the first three commandments and all God's commandments, and the Sabbath as covenant sign is the golden clasp uniting man to God in supreme obedience and uniting man to fellow man in duty. The same requirement still binds those who profess to be God's peculiar treasure, and if they obeyed what is specified in God's word no special testimonies to awaken them to duty would be needed, for consciences are blunted because light has been set aside. It belongs to the law whose requirements people may know yet choose to transgress, reading and understanding the commandments can impress hearts and minds and influence for good, for it remains God's pledged word to all on earth. It is one of the Ten people have treated lightly, God sends warning before punishing lawbreakers, and people may violate it when they turn from known duty and what they know is right to avoid reproach, shame or difficulty.
It is a barricade protecting in the fight against principalities, powers, rulers of darkness and spiritual wickedness in high places, doing it gives life, and it teaches and enforces sanctification requiring a conversion both preached and lived where self does not seek supremacy. It is one of God's restrictions expressed as Thou shalt not, to be understood and obeyed as God's voice, the fashion of the age is not the standard but conformity to it is, and yokes not conforming to it are made by Satan and heavy. God requires perfect obedience to it, by keeping it people reveal love for the Supreme Ruler and purify themselves even as He is pure, and it stands as part of every provision made against sin.
Christ Salvation and Judgment
Like every precept it gives rules for conduct, condemns unrighteousness, and is fulfilled in Christ's perfect life, while the law exposes sin and Christ pardons the repentant believer, so that through faith the believer seeks obedience with Christ's perfection covering transgression. Jesus' words that He did not come to destroy the law affirm it as part of the written stone-tablet law from the mountain, belonging to the law Christ died to vindicate with claims still binding on transgressors, as one of the sacred precepts proclaimed by Christ at Sinai and unfolded in His mount of beatitudes teaching. Christ kept the commandments while possessing human nature, proving people can obey God's law and vindicating God's justice in requiring obedience, and those who accept Christ and partake of the divine nature are enabled to follow His example and obey every precept, with Christ representing perfect obedience to the eternal law proclaimed at Sinai. It is part of the law Christ gave at Sinai whose claims Christ has not lessened, its commands remain binding and grace does not permit transgression, and Christ gave His life to atone for violations and enable obedience so that through His merits God can justify the believing sinner.
It is one of the ten precepts of the holy, just, and good law given by the same Jesus who veiled in the cloudy pillar led Israel and speaks just as truly now, not one to be broken without disloyalty and none to be improved by finite wisdom. The standard of character in the Sinai commands is not lowered in the gospel, for the same Saviour gives the same requirements as terms of eternal life. Its principles were explained by Christ as principles to be carried out and exemplified in practical life. The law spoken at Sinai reveals defects of character and makes sin recognizable, its claims are binding, not a yoke to be set aside, and transgression calls for repentance with pardon through Christ's blood. The law says to every transgressor, Thou shalt surely die, but every repentant soul turning to the Saviour shall be saved because Christ died, while whoever breaks one of the least commandments and by word, action or interpretation lessens its sacred claims shall be called least and have no place in heaven, and whoever does and teaches them shall be called great.
It sets out terms of salvation, for the commandments are ten promises to the obedient, obedience is the condition of eternal life and brings peace, prosperity, blessings, life and prolonged days, while transgression is sin bringing harm, curses and death. Keeping it in earthly life fashions character in harmony with God's ideal in His sinless Son, makes partakers of the divine nature escaping corruption through lust, frees character from spot and wrinkle, reveals God's character to unbelievers, and qualifies and prepares the redeemed to enter the gates into the city and eat of the tree of life for the healing of the nations. It answers whether one can be saved without obedience, reveals God's will, must be believed just as it reads and done as directed, and must be searched with earnest prayer for opened understanding and willingness to grasp every ray even against past belief, because doing His commandments gives right to the tree of life and entrance through the gates into the city. It is one of the commandments Jesus named when explaining keeping the commandments and entering into life, which the ruler claimed to have kept with the others listed.
It is one of the commandments Jesus named to the rich young ruler who asked what good thing to do to have eternal life and enter life, placed alongside the prohibitions of murder, adultery and theft and the commands to honor father and mother and love the neighbor as self, which the young man claimed to have kept from his youth, yet his failure to love his neighbor as himself meant he had not truly kept the last six commandments. Jesus quoted it to the rich young man with four others of the last six and the command to love neighbor as self, and the young man thought he had kept them, but outward keeping is not enough, for supreme love of riches shuts eyes to fellow men's wants, and not loving neighbor as self fails the last six while love of possessions above God also fails the first four on duty to God. It is one of the last six requiring love to neighbor to be kept for eternal life, and the lawyer had not kept it and was convicted by Christ's searching words yet instead of confessing tried to excuse it, made it out too difficult, and sought to parry conviction and vindicate himself before the people, knowing he had not kept it among the last six and, rather than confess failure, trying to excuse himself by arguing it was difficult to fulfill. The ten holy precepts are the laws of Christ's kingdom presenting the standard to be reached, all are to be tried by them for no one is his own to do as he pleases, having been bought with a price, God is jealous of His law and tests everyone on obedience, and though sin's penalty is death Christ bore it and secured the present probationary period so none need perish but have everlasting life.
The whole world will be judged by this law, which reaches intents of the heart and demands purity in secret thoughts, desires and dispositions, requiring supreme love to God and love to neighbor as self without which the highest profession is hypocrisy, while God claims perfect obedience, keeping the whole law yet offending in one point makes one guilty of all, and the least deviation by neglect or willful transgression is sin exposing the sinner to God's wrath. Eternal welfare depends on properly understanding the law, deep conviction of its holy character, and ready obedience, since people must be convicted of sin before feeling need of Christ, for by the law is knowledge of sin, and trampling the law rejects the only means defining sin, which is Satan's work to lessen the estimate of sin's grievous character. It serves as a schoolmaster to bring people to Christ, is kept through Christ's merits by the helpless soul hanging upon Him in harmony with heaven even when truth brings division from family and neighbors, and abiding in Christ brings life into harmony with it. As spoken from Sinai it requires nothing short of spiritual perfection, no claim to sanctification is valid while giving no heed to it or evading it, and such excuses prove sanctification spurious and mere self-righteousness by a humanly imagined law, yet of himself man has no perfection to meet it, but through Christ's infinite sacrifice and the merits of His blood provision is made to become a partaker of the divine nature, an overcomer, perfect in union with Christ.
Mere profession of godliness by lip and voice is worthless unless character harmonizes with it, and only doers will enter the kingdom, building on rock that withstands rain, floods and winds, while hearers who work iniquity build on sand with great fall, though they prophesy, cast out devils and do wonderful works under Satan's inspiration. Keeping it with the whole law is an unchangeable, eternal condition of eternal life for people living today, and neglect brings conviction by the Holy Spirit and leaves a person weighed in the sanctuary balances and found wanting, self-condemned for failing to love neighbor as self. It is included in the obedience to the entire law that will be the test for the whole world, the professed Christian world is violating it, and messengers are sent to enlighten the world that the commandments are not kept, though ministers see the force of truth yet refuse because obedience involves a cross. It is one of the commandments Christ Himself proclaimed from Sinai that remains binding, to profess belief in Christ while violating it is transgression and sin that must be plainly shown with a certain trumpet sound, and proclaiming obedience with the Sabbath question as the great test for this time belongs to giving the third angel's message with power, not in a tame, indefinite, voiceless manner.
Its specific command must not be led to be disregarded, those who lead others away from God's truth and those who follow them are both guilty before God, and to violate it while professing belief in Christ is transgression and sin which the third angel's message trumpet-shows to God's people and the world. Transgression makes people commandment-breakers under judgments symbolized by lightnings, voices, thunderings and earthquake, while wholehearted obedience marks commandment-keepers wearing God's seal, glorifying God and receiving eternal life, a difference between obedient and disobedient seen by men and angels.
Love Neighbor and Character
The command to be true rather than false to the neighbor is broken by pride lifting itself unto vanity, making a god of self, and by self-love, and it is kept when the gospel sanctifies the soul and expels self-love. When God has His rightful place on the throne of the heart it will be performed as directed, because love to God comprehends love for those formed in His image. The two great principles of love to God and love to man spring from one root and cannot be separated, so the first cannot be kept while this is broken, nor this kept while the first is broken.
It belongs to God's holy law whose principles are to be honored in daily life and written on the heart, with outward observance alone, even of the Sabbath, not saving. Being true to God means being true to neighbor, so faithfulness includes truthfulness toward others. It must be obeyed like the first four showing duty to God, and breaking any commandment is incompatible with being in favor with God. Obedience to it is impossible without first loving God supremely, and the present test is transgression or loyalty, disobedience or obedience, to it with the others, with harvest according to seed sown. Loyalty in obeying it in spirit and letter reveals covenant relation to the world, to angels, and to men.
Everyone who obeys the first four will obey it, and obeying it manifests tender pitying love toward everyone for whom Christ died and consecration to be a missionary laborer together with God. All with Christ's Spirit are missionaries deriving zeal and energy from Christ as the Chief Missionary. It defines the duty of those who love God, and keeping it evidences that God's love dwells within. It requires an inviolable and exact regard for truth in every declaration by which another's character may be affected, with the tongue, kept very little under human control, bridled by strong conscientious principles under the law of love toward God and neighbor.
It requires walking uprightly, working righteousness, speaking truth in the heart, not backbiting with the tongue, doing no evil to a neighbor and taking up no reproach against a neighbor. Keeping belongs to loving God supremely, loving neighbor as self, and keeping Christ's new commandment to love as He loved, making believers one and perfect in one. Breaking it as part of the last six, along with breaking the first four, is living in transgression that leaves the Lord able to do very little for a person. It condemns selfishness and stands against evil thinking and evil speaking. It requires unselfish heart and character, sincere love, kindness, gentleness, forbearance, tender guarding of others' interests as shown in Christ's life, doing to others as one would be done by, with kind words and actions honoring God, and failure in this breaks it and makes profession of service untrue.
It commands loving one's neighbor as oneself, not simply loving those who think and believe exactly as one does, as illustrated by the good Samaritan. It is carried out by those obeying the first four with whole soul in supreme love to God and becoming one with Christ who gave His life as ransom to free all from sin, with the value of man estimated at the price paid. It is one of the ten on which character is to be built with Bible in hand in prayer for forgiveness for letting imagination fasten on fanciful unreal subjects away from Christ's lessons, choosing Christ's words when sophistry is mingled with Scripture so as to make no mistakes. The last six are not less important to practical godliness than the first four on duty to God. Jesus showed their importance by teaching good works, mercy, benevolence, and that a tree is known by its fruits, and He defended the great precepts given at Sinai against human traditions and petty rules.
Those who serve God perform both loving God supremely in the first four and loving neighbor as self in the last six, and keeping them is the test by which all who will be saints in heaven must first be saints on earth in connection with the human family. It is included among the last six requiring love for neighbor, so obedience means doing good for others, not merely professing faith in them. Its principles apply to the whole life of those who acknowledge the commandments as binding, and commandment keepers are to live by this precept as well as the other nine, forbidding lying and deceit toward neighbor. It must be obeyed in faith and works and lived out, not merely professed. Obeying it with the rest separates God's people from the ungodly, purifies them, gives a standpoint on the world and religion different from pleasure-loving professors who shun the cross, and guides parents in restraining children and commanding their households.
Love for God is shown by making these sacred principles the rule of daily life and being willing to suffer any inconvenience rather than break one, which is more pleasing than professions or praise. Unwavering obedience to every jot and tittle is essential for personal and others' happiness and individual and national safety, while the transgressor sees no beauty in the law and calls it bondage. Keeping it with supreme love to God pours out God's goodness in love and compassion to fellow men as faith working by love that purifies the soul, meaning far more than acknowledgment of truth, ceremonious worship, or sacrifices and requiring whole service of God. In keeping it there is great reward even in this life with a non-condemning conscience and a heart at peace with God, while self-love and self-exaltation are unacceptable. It is not a separate small precept to be belittled but part of a divine whole bound in unity under love to God and love to neighbor, by which character is tested, immutable as God's throne.
It calls for disciplined self-control and faithful duty toward others, including seeking to be a blessing to those around and helping one another as comprised in loving neighbor as self. Keeping comes slowly as the Bible is made the constant rule of life and as love to God fills the heart to copy Christ's self-denying life, becoming part of the very being in the short probation. Keeping it arouses true Christian zeal working for those needing help in imitation of Christ's self-denying disinterested benevolence, not living for self but blessing the needy, visiting the fatherless and widows, helping with food and clothing, and speaking kindly, counseling, warning and entreating to reach hearts. Zeal without kindly deeds is spurious, while tenderness in relieving want opens the way for truth, and those who live this will reflect His character as the light and joy and glory of heaven.
Obedience to it must be revealed in life work with all business done according to the commandments. The commandments are life giving restraining influence to restore the moral image of God, and professing belief in Jesus while passing over sins offensive to God and commending evil works breaks this obedience. They are to be practiced in every line of work, including by people in responsible positions. It requires old-time reverence and obedience; obedience sanctifies humanity, manifests the foundation of faith, enforces all God's precepts, holds back skepticism, lays individual responsibility on every person, and requires truthfulness in God's sight meaning a just, pure, true course of action, so reform in the churches means reinstating this standard of practical godliness.
Its principles cannot be rightly represented by those who profess loyalty to God's law while neglecting its command to love neighbors as themselves. Claiming to keep God's commandments while being envious, jealous, fault-finding, uncourteous, unkind, cruel, and unforgiving transgresses these commandments. Loving self and hating brethren breaks them, for the Lord requires loving neighbor as self and loving one another as Christ loved. Neglecting it produces oppression of fellow people, lifting the soul unto vanity, glorying in self and exalting self above brethren.
It forbids living a lie while assenting to the Ten Commandments in theory and even teaching them. It requires cherishing its pure principles and obeying from the heart because they are loved, including purity and loving God supremely and neighbor as self. Holding a wrong course to please self and cherishing lust takes away strength and confidence and leaves a preacher unable to work efficiently for God. Truth must enter mind and heart and its pure principles be cherished and obeyed from the heart out of love, with surrender of every habit and sin that shuts out Jesus and with light searching every dark corner of the soul. It is kept by being pure and by loving God supremely and neighbor as self; one who constantly lives a lie breaks it, truth loses its vitalizing power in him, sin strengthens, and he has no strength, confidence, or efficiency as an agent for the Master.
Keeping it requires character transformation and a new heart through conscious loving communion with God so that deep holy principles of truth, righteousness and mercy become part of character and are more clearly discerned. Then scheming ends, advantage-seeking ends, talents are used for God's glory not self, time is priced as God's time, and love is proved tangibly by aiding others with sympathy and ministering to them. Unfaithfulness to God makes a person untrue to neighbor; such a course is hateful and despised by God, every action is marked and measured in heaven's books, making the doer an unsafe person who has transgressed the last six. It together with the first four marks unselfish fidelity and pure devotion in using entrusted talents for God's glory rather than selfish purposes. The careless, indolent and selfish who seek their own exaltation above God's honor do not keep it and cannot be rewarded as the faithfully zealous, for each life is accurately recorded and rewarded according to works. In faithful doing with the first four it is what following right principle means, not misleading human ideas of principle but obedience to divine commands for guidance; in such obedience believers eat Christ's flesh and drink His blood, appropriating all embraced in Calvary's atonement. It is part of the law of God and the law of love that is a yoke of service binding people to God's will.
False Speech and Slander
The command forbids spreading hearsay and scandal, misrepresenting others, and making good appear evil or evil appear good in order to harm them. Such conduct serves Satan as accuser of the brethren even when the person claims to be serving God or to be sanctified. Treating the commandment as no longer in force removes its restraint and leaves the offender without fear of condemnation.
It condemns more than formal false testimony in court, including slander and uncharitable, careless, or exaggerated speech about a neighbor, including God's workers. False witness can arise from envy, suspicion, or fanciful impressions, and repetition can make unjust accusations seem true even to the speaker. Words both reveal the heart and shape it, while planting doubt and distrust in others and causing lasting harm, so guarded, truthful, considerate speech is required.
It forbids saying what is not true, misleading and deceiving others about oneself, and making excuses to cover wrongs. Breaking it shows disobedience and a character needing entire transformation, and excuses for lying will not stand, for every refuge of lies will soon be swept away and those who cling to lies will be swept away with it. With stealing and coveting it stands in God's law as the great standard of character by which all must be judged in the last day.
Lying, defrauding, and dishonest dealings are forbidden by God's law. Casting its restraint aside encourages disobedience so that people disregard others' rights, defraud and seize property, leave property unsafe, lose peace, and leave society ruled by violence.
Bearing false witness includes misstating a neighbor's words or harming his influence, even unintentionally. When false or injurious statements have been spread they must be withdrawn from those who heard them. It forbids making false statements about others, mistaking their words, placing them in a false light, and going out repeating circulated false reports, even toward those thought unsound on the law and righteousness by faith.
Keeping it requires humility, fairness, the Spirit of Christ, keeping God's commandments, supreme love to God and love to neighbor, and refusing to let Satan control the powers, while those who have the truth can afford to be fair and must not receive words of finite man as the voice of God. Breaking it in discussion sows seeds yielding a harvest enduring to eternity while young workers watch, and shows a spirit not of Christ but from another source. False statements about another person violate God's holy law and expose the contradiction between claims of holiness and obedience to God's standard.
It forbids bearing false witness against another, including gossip, false accusations, and injurious reports about reputation that damage influence, sow discord among friends, and harm reputation and position. Belittling another is condemned as self-exaltation. Those who spread such reports will answer to God for their words.
It forbids selfish fault-finding, envy, evil surmising, malice, watching outward to question the character of better others, climbing on the judgment-seat to pronounce sentence, and turning eyes outward instead of inward to scan and criticize self. Keeping it means emptying the heart of self, envy, evil surmising and malice, taking heed to self, and doing the appointed work of self-reform, so that no root of bitterness springing up troubles and defiles the church.
The command forbids gossip, tattling, talebearing, and false witness, and it also condemns careless, idle, and foolish speech that does no good to speaker or hearer as subject to God's judgment; instead speech should build others up and gossip or foolish talk must not shape a Christian life. It is broken by feeding on improper private communications, looking for faults, indulging evil thinking and evil speaking until one person's testimony becomes another's, and by vivid imagination inventing things with no foundation in truth such as extreme accusations of selfishness. Those who bear false witness in this way are recorded as false accusers, have their power of principle neutralized, render sacred truth of no effect for themselves, lose spirituality, and place themselves in darkness marked by bitterness in words, manner, and feeling.
It forbids perjury of spirit that turns truth into falsehood, good into evil and innocence into crime. Jealousy twists defects into accusations, while gossip and selective claims presented as facts condemn one who cannot clear himself. It is transgressed by twisting truth, misrepresenting others, repeating accusations and condemnation, and by speech shaped by the tempter, when truth and righteousness are cast aside.
It is violated by magnifying others' faults, speaking against them and despising them, making the offender accountable to God; instead Christ's example of seeking their salvation should be followed. It forbids hasty, unadvised, critical and faultfinding words that accuse men God is teaching and leading, leavening minds with distrust, suspicion, questioning and doubt, undermining faith in God's instrumentalities, closing hearts to divine influence and fostering self-esteem. Persisting destroys right influence over workers, removes rest in spirit, weakens brethren's confidence, contradicts profession of allegiance to God's law and teaching on practical godliness, and repeats the rebellion of Korah, Dathan and Abiram.
It forbids falsifying, evil speaking, accusing and causing discord among brethren. The Holy Spirit never leads to these, because the Holy Spirit does not lead one way into truth and another way out of truth. Any conviction leading to falsifying is contrary to the Word and untrustworthy beside the earlier conviction when truth was believed, and those who bear false witness have failed to place body, soul, and spirit under the control of the Holy Spirit and have fallen into temptation and a snare and into foolish and hurtful lusts, misled on the very eve of the great day of God.
It forbids making false accusations and spreading misrepresentations, including statements presented as honest that have no foundation, pervert facts, affirm false assertions, or repeat critical distorted reports presenting matters only as the speaker views them. Such testimony is recorded in heaven as a lie. This includes criticizing every move others make, such as claiming money given to support God's work is wasted or misrepresenting dealings over wages and rent and claims about rent and the owner's conduct, and God will judge those who persist in such false, slanderous talk about wages, rent, money for God's work and every move of others.
It forbids falsely accusing a neighbor, such as falsely attributing words, actions or eating habits to someone. Wrongly claiming that Daniells or Prescott spread a damaging report about Sister White and Brother Magan is false witness and does them great injustice. Falsely describing the Cooranbong land as poor soil when it was suited for fruit and vegetables and would yield resources if well worked was bearing false witness against it.
It forbids blaming others falsely for wrongs arising from one's own poor judgment, casting suspicion on their motives and assigning blame without cause so their good work appears contemptible. It requires instead avoiding severe speech and unfair judgment of a brother and correcting one's own faults rather than shifting blame, with the law written on the heart in dealings with others as Christ's followers obey the last six precepts.
It forbids spreading false reports that damage the reputation of God's servants and falsely accusing fellow workers of sins; such hypocrites will be judged by deeds, their own testimony at judgment clearing the accused. Such false witness creates dissension, damages influence, spreads false impressions and sympathy, endangers souls, and must be recognized with every effort to present facts as they are.
It forbids false statements and surmisings such as charging God's messenger with being influenced by W. C. White, A. T. Jones and E. J. Waggoner. Keeping it requires being divested of prejudice with Christ's Spirit, spiritual discernment and reasoning from cause to effect. Breaking it comes when another spirit brings delusion and loss of confidence as Satan works to make the testimonies of the Spirit of none effect by leading minds to see things in a perverted light so they can be more readily deceived.
It forbids deceptive statements about others that misrepresent their words and distort their character or motives, misleading people and violating respect for God and those who serve Him. Exaggerating and speaking falsely transgresses even when the speaker does not mean wrong, and profession of keeping the commandments does not excuse it. Accusing fellow believers is bearing false witness against Christ in the person of His children.
The command forbids bearing false witness within the church and requires church discipline for members who do so and for those who love and make lies; such false witness is lying, divisive conduct that tears members apart and harms their souls. The command against false witness is relevant to slanderous words directed against those who defend God's law proclaimed by Jesus at Sinai.
It applies to those who reject God's law whose hardened consciences treat false testimony, equivocation and deception as acceptable to achieve aims, as the Jews did in rejecting Christ. Greater light does not soften those choosing darkness but may make them more hostile in deception against commandment keepers. It shows that bearing false witness includes deriding truth and accusing those who bring it when love of the world sets a person against God, turning God-given abilities against His work and cause.
Giving others a false picture of God is false witness against Him, as when gloom, complaints and mistrust make God and the Christian life appear joyless, uncaring or harmful, or suggest that God is displeased when His children are happy. Christians should reflect Christ truthfully instead.
Honesty in Work and Business
The commandment must guide every line of work, including judgment exercised by those in positions of responsibility. It requires truth and fairness toward others, for oppression and unjust treatment dishonor God and can become stumbling blocks that bring people to ruin. Those entrusted with sacred responsibilities must judge fairly and act with truthful, pure, tender, and compassionate hearts, so that human flaws do not dishonor God or mislead others.
It belongs to the one standard of the Ten that governs people in every position as superiors, inferiors, equals, masters, and servants, as duty all must obey, and those entrusted with responsibility must set a faithful example. It binds those in authority and those who submit alike, with not one rule for directors and another for inferiors. It requires unselfishness, self-denial, obedience with a perfect heart, and vital connection with God, which brings blessing and the tenderness and love of Christ, while oppression, selfish representations, and manmade laws will be judged by God. It is a rule for the guidance of all, men, women, and children, in all their transactions, to be taught to children and to form the standard of all dealing with one another, from which there can be no sinless swerving.
Exodus 20:1-17 gives the principles by which people must conduct their dealings, including business transactions. Those principles must not be replaced with false claims of truth and righteousness to justify dishonest practices, oppression, or injustice. Doing so misrepresents God's character, and God does not approve or vindicate such conduct, accepts no such transactions, and gives them no prosperity. Presenting falsehood as truth in business dealings, such as false propositions used to justify unjust transactions, violates the principles of the commandments.
The commandment forbids lying, falsehood, dishonest practices, injustice, oppression, and wickedness against a neighbor, including in business transactions and work done for God. It restrains conduct that would otherwise undermine trust and expose a neighbor's possessions to fraud or violence, so that respect for God's law helps protect property and social peace. It condemns dealing unjustly and assuming false propositions to be truth and righteousness and then working everything to carry them out. It forbids double dealing, forming confederacies to cloak a wrong, every shade of deception, coercion to rule or ruin, taking advantage of those under authority, and robbing members of God's family of individuality or rights even when pleading advancement of God's cause or financial interest for the cause. God will never be in league with dishonest practices and will vindicate not a single touch of injustice.
It requires dealing with others on the principles of the Ten Commandments, with truth, equity in judgment, love for neighbor, fine keen clear perceptions of equity, and a tender pure true compassionate heart like Christ's. It calls for watching, praying, and working with the eye single to the glory of God, with a pure heart and clean hands, loving God supremely and neighbor as self without letting business crowd out love. Its law exposes sin and calls people to reject dishonest, unjust actions rather than claim divine authority for them. Otherwise the cause of truth bears the imperfections of the human mold, God is dishonored, and stumbling blocks lay souls to ruin.
It forbids all falsehood and deception against neighbors, especially in business trade. It is broken by claiming to be a man of one's word while acting falsehoods, advantaging self to a neighbor's disadvantage, withholding the word of truth that would put the neighbor on guard against cheating himself, offering low sums for an article known to be worth more and then extolling its greater value once possessed, and piling falsehood upon falsehood for years in untruthful and dishonest trading. It forbids false representations in business, including lies spoken or acted out to deceive others, whether against fellow believers or people outside the faith. Such dishonesty violates God's command and damages the credibility of religion, business interests must not displace obedience to God, and taking advantage of others for personal gain is deliberate rejection of this plain command.
Unfaithfulness to God makes a person untrue to neighbor, such a course is hateful and despised by God, and every action is marked, measured, and stands in the books of heaven, making the doer an unsafe person who has transgressed the last six commandments. It forbids dishonest dealing and sharp, scheming, worldly-policy plans carried into practice and followed for nearly a lifetime. Disobedience greatly dishonors God and leaves defilement to be cleansed away. Keeping it requires transformation of character and a new heart through conscious loving communion with God, so that the deep holy principles of truth, righteousness, and mercy become part of character and are more clearly discerned. Then the first scheming purpose is strangled before it breathes, advantage-seeking ends, talents are used to God's glory not self-advantage, time is priced as God's time, and love is proved tangibly by aiding others with sympathy, ministering to them, and cooperating with Christ in helping fellow men who will be met in the judgment. It also requires purification, self-examination, and thorough searching of heart before God who sees every corner of the human heart, with wrongs righted and restitution made not only in word but in deed.
The desire to gain wealth becomes sinful when people violate the last six commandments in pursuing it, including exhausting themselves and neglecting obligations to others. The desire to accumulate property is not sinful unless in seeking it men and women forget God, transgress these precepts, and place themselves where it is impossible to glorify God in body and spirit which are His. Hurrying to be rich by overtaxing energy and violating the laws of being leaves them unable to render perfect service to God and puts them on a course of sin, and property obtained in that way is gained at immense sacrifice.
It forbids undermining an institution by disparaging its plans or management, finding fault, questioning how it treats workers, making insinuations to turn workers against it, and flattering workers that they deserve more responsible positions. It forbids tampering with help secured and depended upon by another institution by demeriting its plans, finding fault with its management, questioning the course pursued toward wanted workers, flattering their vanity, and telling them they are not advanced as rapidly as they should be in order to secure them. Manipulating workers through flattery and insinuations and undermining the plans or management of those directing an institution violates the command against bearing false witness against a neighbor.
It forbids presenting a false reason as a blind to separate workers from their work, calling such fraud inexcusable sin in the sight of God not to be glossed over. It requires dealing with one another as brethren fairly and openly as daylight, with no secret conniving to steal away helpers or to draw them to another place. The commandments are the standard in all manner of dealing with one another, and no circumstance or condition excuses doing even the least injustice to brother or neighbor.
It requires honest, just dealing with fellow workers in money matters, meaning that those responsible for creating debts on an institution should take up a large part in raising means to pay them and not leave the burden resting altogether on those establishing the work anew in more favorable surroundings. Those responsible for creating the College debts should acknowledge their responsibility and help raise the money to pay them, for sharing that burden is in harmony with this commandment. It places the physician's conduct and daily business under its principles, rejecting dishonest and oppressive dealings that deprive people of just rights. God's work is to be done by its ten precepts, which stand against oppressive dealings.
Daily Life and Application
The command guards the rights of the neighbor as one of the last six precepts defining duty to fellow men, and it is broken by increasing the number of children when reason shows that physical and mental weakness must be their inheritance, for this increases degeneracy, sinks society lower, and thus injures the neighbor. God who thus guards the neighbor's rights cares still more for the closer and more sacred relation of parent and child, and He will call parents to account for putting reason behind passion and transmitting physical, mental, and moral deficiencies that leave children diseased in body and mind all their lives. Such parents enslave reason to passion and leave their children in poverty without care, training, and education, while God cares for children born diseased to suffer all their lives.
The law of Exodus 20:1-17 requires supreme love to God and love to neighbor as self, and applied to the wrongs done to the colored race through slavery it requires the nation to make restitution and requires everyone to make special efforts to undo its continuing effects, even those who did not actively enforce slavery. The command against bearing false witness in Exodus 20:12-17 places truthfulness toward neighbor among the duties of the last six, and obedience to those commandments also requires spouses to honor one another's personal rights and duties rather than use Scripture to justify tyranny or disregard of marital obligations.
The commandment is God's law for His household here below and a rule for parents and children to be strictly obeyed with no sinless swerving, requiring parents to train children in the principles of God's Word and to keep the way of the Lord with faith and works combined and everything in home and school life done decently and in order. Kept in the home it causes holiness to pervade the home, brings angels into the home circle, purges all commonness and cheapness, and fills parents and children with holy joy. The commandments plainly state what must and must not be done, and teaching children to obey clear instructions trains them to respect those commandments.
Parents must teach the ten holy precepts diligently to children when rising up and sitting down, when going out and coming in, in the house and by the way, when lying down and rising up, binding them as a sign and writing them on house posts and gates. Neglect of that teaching makes drunkards and fills jails and prisons, while obedience would end thefts, robberies, murders, and prevailing crime and wickedness. Every commandment remains obligatory with none to be spared as nonessential, and walking in all the ways commanded brings life, well-being, and prolonged days in the promised possession, while disobedience brings death; to love God and keep His commandments is the whole duty of man. Parents must teach children to obey and reverence the law and follow the Word of the Lord rather than ministers who say the commandments are not obligatory.
In short the ten mean duty to love God supremely and neighbor as self, and God commanded Israel to keep the words of the law on a ribbon of blue in the border of garments as a reminder of that duty. The Jews bound portions of the law on foreheads and wrists and broadened their phylacteries and added words to show exalted devotion and sanctity and to command respect, while their works were directly contrary to the law, without mercy and love of God, humility, integrity, and purity of life. They deceived themselves that the promises to Abraham gave them eternal blessings, while the works of scribes, Pharisees, priests, and elders were directly contrary to that law despite outward appearance.
The commandment is immutable, unchangeable, and eternal, and the reason Christ died is because the law could not be changed; the Spirit awakens conscience and understanding to bring the commandments to remembrance, with messengers from heaven close beside those who hold forth the Word of life. It must be taught in a decided manner but cautiously so as not to arouse prejudice, presenting truth by degrees as hearers can bear it. When efforts are brought to compel transgression, believers must stand firm and refuse to violate it even under persecution. Bearing false witness includes children testifying to a lie, and parents who listen to their children instead of teachers who report wrongdoing, or who side with them in wrongdoing, help them continue and spread deception.
The command belongs to the last six specifying duties to one another, and professed commandment-keepers who spend God's time and money on needless display fail to love neighbor as self and break those last six. Advocating God's holy binding law while yielding to strong lower passions, walking into temptation, and keeping questionable society gives enemies of truth occasion to reproach faith and brings perplexity and discouragement upon those just beginning to see light upon the fourth precept. Such conduct by a watchman upon the walls of Zion leaves a blot never fully effaced in human estimation, stands as a very aggravating crime with a fearful record in heaven, and brings fearful retribution unless met with humbled heart, sincere repentance, and a life of repentance.
Professing to honor the holy law spoken at Sinai while remaining filthy and disorderly contradicts its demands, for the law cannot be written on the heart of those careless about cleanliness in person, clothing, or homes. Israel had to cleanse clothing before hearing the law. The command is part of the direction given to the church when delivered from Egypt and part of the laws given from Sinai to be held in highest regard. Highest regard for these laws and living by them keeps physicians from becoming loose in manners and careless in regard to the laws of chastity, especially in treating women, so that all who live by the Sinai laws may be safely trusted, especially as physicians to women.
Physicians must learn the lesson of loving neighbor as self taught by the last six commandments in the school of Christ from the Chief of physicians, and receiving an earthly diploma as a competent physician does not show that it has been learned. Breaking this commandment is sin, and violating the laws governing the body is also sin against the Creator, because both break God's law; the law and the laws of the body share divine origin and character, the laws of nature being as truly divine as the Decalogue and written on every nerve, muscle, and fiber. Obedience to God's law is necessary for health, truth, and happiness, and those who disregard God's physical laws may also be unwilling to obey the principles spoken from Sinai.
Obedience to the principles of all ten would have prevented the curse of disease now flooding the world, and continual breaking of nature's laws is continual breaking of God's law governing man's existence. Taking any course that needlessly spends vitality or clouds the intellect sins against God and does not glorify Him in body and spirit, which are His, and remaining ignorant of the laws of being or lessening mental and physical vigor through perverted habits, indulgence of appetite, depraved appetite and lustful passions, and intemperance violates the law. Light on health reform now shines clearly so ignorance is no excuse, and all are bound by sacred obligation to heed it and walk in it with all powers of body and mind to live a perfect life to the glory of God; to make natural law plain and urge obedience to it is a work accompanying the third angel's message as closely as hand to body, to fit a people for the coming of the Lord, after warning is first sent before punishment for lightly regarding the law.
The command requires perfect service to the Creator and faithful duty to fellow men, which calls for clear mental and moral powers guided by intellect to right action, and the healthful action of those faculties depends on physical health, so keeping it requires working in harmony with natural law and practicing temperance in all things. Suffering, feebleness, and premature death are not God's creation or appointed lot but come from wrong habits and violation of law, and violating God's laws including those governing the body is sin. While under the power of sinful, health-destroying, brain-weakening habits men and women cannot appreciate sacred truth.
The command applies beyond deliberate lies to falsely blaming health reform for harm caused by ignorance or by practices working against it, and to blaming God and His providence for illness caused by one's own choices in eating, drinking, and dressing instead of studying His Word and recognizing effects of habits. It forbids bearing false witness against health reform by ignorantly following a course of eating that works against it and then blaming health reform. It requires investigating habits of diet and studying from cause to effect, not neglecting or abusing the body so it is unfit to render due service to God, and caring for the body by providing relishable and strengthening food as one of the first duties of the householder, putting sufficient necessary food ahead of expensive clothing and furniture, since such neglect has caused the death of useful workers.
Unadvised speech and actions can violate God's law and furnish arguments against the truth, so passion must be restrained. People may violate the Ten when they turn from known duty to avoid reproach, and deception and fraud for ill-gotten gains are wickedness God's patience will not forever bear, with persistent disobedience bringing punishment; violating the sacred law spoken at Sinai is heinous sin God regards with horror, and seeing its sacredness brings trembling at transgression and sore weeping in repentance. Obeying the commandments given to every man means not giving up truth for pride of honor and bondage of worldly honor, refusing the temptation of the highest position and advance in Freemasonry because that step ruins the soul.
Belonging to trades unions and labor combinations makes keeping the command impossible, for it means disregarding the entire Decalogue whose obedience is to be the test for the whole world. Pledging to serve union interests supports what deprives neighbors of freedom of action and robs the poorer classes of advantages justly belonging to them in buying and selling, violating love to God with the whole being and love to neighbor as self. The command also applies to claims about land: settlers' laziness in leaving it uncultivated bears false witness against it by making it seem unproductive, though proper cultivation would make it yield. It is part of God's sacred law proclaimed at Mount Sinai which His people are to obey.