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In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we would—I think—ordinarily find this Exodus reading on the Ten Commandments if we were still in the three-year lectionary. We would find that right smack kind of in the middle of Lent, and that makes sense. It seems appropriate for us to study the commandments during a penitential season. So, what’s it doing here in the sixth week of Trinity? Good question, and I don’t really know. But I think perhaps it’s just an opportunity for us to reinforce the commandments as a part of Christian life. So that’s what we’re going to do this morning.
Now we don’t have time. I guess we do have time. I’m just not going to take time to do this full exposition of each commandment. I certainly encourage you to do that at home when you study the Small Catechism. But I do want us to hear them again in a minute, and we’ll make a few comments about them. And then particularly, we want to look at this teaching from our Lord Jesus Christ today about the fifth commandment.
Now I think we need to remember how and why the commandments were given in the first place, and this happens in Exodus or after the Exodus, the deliverance of God’s people out of slavery in Egypt. Although some say actually the Exodus really as an event isn’t complete until this giving of the law, until the givling actually of the tablets themselves, when God confirms His covenant that He’s already made. He confirms this covenant with his people, and that’s in chapter 24 later on.
But for now, we are at Mount Sinai because Yahweh, the Lord, has called Moses up to Him as the Israelites are beginning to work their way toward the Promised Land. And as I said, the Lord wants to reaffirm this covenant with His people so that they will trust Him alone, and they will obey all that He has commanded them to do.
And it will be with the people of Israel alone that God makes this covenant, so that they may walk in His ways, and so that He may dwell with them as their Lord. Now we hear a lot today about having a personal relationship with God. Well, this is pretty personal, and it’s about the way that they are supposed to act in accordance with being the very people of God. It is for their benefit, so they may be sanctified and set apart and be holy. They are, as I said, being set apart from the foreigners and from the pagans and from the unbelievers.
Now, God has some preparatory work that has to be done in this, and He wants Moses as His spokesman, as His intermediary, to instruct the people on what is about to happen. So he tells Moses this: that if the people will obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples. And the people—that is—they shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
So Moses takes this then to the people of Israel, and they say confidently—if not arrogantly—all that the Lord has spoken, we will do. We know how that works out. So Moses goes back to the Lord, and he confirms this vow of the people. So that the Lord then instructs the people to spend the next three days consecrating themselves. For on the third day, the Lord will Himself appear to them on Mount Sinai. But they’re to keep their distance; Sinai’s fenced off, so to speak, so that they don’t come too close and be destroyed.
And then on the third morning, the Lord does descend as fire on Mount Sinai with thunder and lightning and smoke, and with the blast of a trumpet actually heralding His descending. So thus it seems the first time that people were called into his presence to hear him speak not through Moses, but directly to them as his people. And we hear today what the Lord has to say to them that the Lord speaks personally. Personal pronouns: I am the Lord your God. He speaks his own personal name. I am Yahweh, the Lord, just as he did when he revealed himself to Moses from the burning bush.
Your God, not just the God of the entirety of Israel, but every individual. And this is why he brought them out of slavery in Egypt to begin with, because his divine favor was already on them, and they owe their very existence to him. And so, in response to his love and to his grace and mercy, they are to now keep these commandments that he gives them, not just so they may gain favor with him, but so that they may live together in holiness, so they may love him, and they may love one another.
And these are not to be just outward acts, but as a reflection of what is supposed to be in their hearts. And so, after this reminder about his divine care for them, he tells them, “Here’s what I expect you to do.” Now, sometimes it’s easy to forget that the Bible doesn’t actually call these commandments at all. Moses, the author of Exodus, he names them as the words of the Lord because they are spoken directly to the people.
And we also remember they aren’t actually numbered. And maybe you remember from confirmation class that they can be numbered differently between Judaism and Christianity, and even between Christian denominations. We teach there are two parts or two tables, with the first three defining our love and relationship with God, and the rest belonging to this second part or table, instructing us in how we are to love our neighbor.
And we know this to be true because Jesus Himself reaffirms this in Matthew twenty-two and Mark twelve. He is being kind of quizzed by this lawyer about what is the great commandment, and he replies to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment.” And a second is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and prophets.
So, in other words, Jesus is reaffirming what God already demands: that the reciprocal love between God and His people must also be extended between us and our neighbors. As to the physical tablets of the commandments, we don’t know exactly how many were inscribed on each, even though your bulletin says it was five. If you see that picture, but we hear about this in Exodus 24 again when Yahweh calls Moses and Aaron and the elders up to the mountain, and He gives Moses these tablets with the commandments that He has written in His own hand.
And we know what happens with those tablets when Moses descends the mountain and finds them worshiping the golden calf. And so these words are then barely already etched into the stone when they have already broken the first and the greatest commandment. So what are these commandments? You heard Vicar read them, but what do they mean? What is it that we confess about them? Well, we’re going to do something a little different.
So I want you to grab your service book and turn to page 321. Now I know it’s been a day or two since some of you have been in confirmation class, but you recall, I think, how the pastor did this. The pastor would ask you the question and you would respond, and so that’s what we’re going to do this morning. Page 321: What is the first commandment? You shall have no other gods. What does this mean? We fear, love, and trust in God always. What is the second commandment? You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God. What does this mean? What is the third commandment? What does this mean? What is the fourth commandment? What does this mean? What is the fifth commandment? What does this mean? What is the sixth commandment? What does this mean? What is the seventh commandment? What does this mean? What is the eighth commandment? What does this mean? What is the ninth commandment? What does this mean? What is the tenth commandment? What does this mean? What does God say about all these commandments? What does God say about all these commandments? What does this mean? May this be our confession.
Now there are a few things that I want to make note of. Though again, we’re not going to talk about every one of these commandments. Well, we know that the first commandment is first for a reason, because it is the very one that all the others depend on. If we fear and we love or we trust in other things more than God, we break all the other commandments as well. We might note that the third commandment—it was already spoken of when God gave the people manna in the wilderness and He fed them—and He said that they were to work and to gather every day except the Sabbath day, because it was a Sabbath to the Lord.
I think it’s also important to note that this is one of the bases for our confession of six-day creation—not just Scripture, but this reiteration of it. For it mirrors God’s example of rest on the seventh day, and He’s even sure to remind us in this very description of the commandment. Maybe one more note: the fourth commandment is the only one that actually comes with a promise—that in keeping this commandment, it may go well with us, as Saint Paul says in Ephesians 6.
And in this, parents and other authorities are God’s representatives on earth. And so this brings us to the fifth commandment, which our Lord Jesus teaches about this morning: “You shall not murder.” And that seems pretty clear, I think, to most of us. And it seems like that’s an easy one to obey. I assume that none of us here today have murdered anyone—at least, not in this very strict sense of the law. Even our explanation seems clear. When I asked what does this mean, we answered, “We should fear and love God, so we not hurt or harm our neighbor in his body, but help and support him in every physical need.”
And that sounds very corporal, like the fifth commandment might only have to do with the things that we do with our hands. Except that there’s more to it than that, as Jesus shows us. Because it turns out that Jesus doesn’t like it when we’re mad. He doesn’t like it when we’re angry, especially he does not like it in the context of our relationship with our fellow Christians. And so he has been preaching to this crowd and this part of what we now call the Sermon on the Mount.
And apparently the Pharisees are there lurking about because they’re always there. And we know that the Pharisees considered themselves to be especially righteous, the most righteous of the righteous. And no one’s righteousness can exceed the righteousness that the Pharisees cannot. Scribes are there too, and they’re the very ones who interpret the Scripture. So who would dare question their authority, their discernment, their knowledge? Jesus, of course, is the one who will.
And so now he takes aim at their version of the law because he says this: “You have heard that it was said.” He’s talking about what the Pharisees say. He’s not quoting Scripture because if he was, he would say it is written or it is prophesied. Now he uses this phrase, “You have heard it said again and again,” as he takes apart the Pharisees and the scribes’ self-righteous interpretation of the commandment here about murder.
Just as he will later in Matthew about adultery, the sixth commandment, and about false witness, the eighth commandment. I mean, we have to believe, we have to think that the original meaning of the commandments was pretty clear when Moses gave them. But now their interpretation of the commandments, and though the law has been made up for their own benefit, because I mean, after all, as for the fifth commandment, who among them had killed a man? And so it isn’t really hard to claim righteousness under their interpretation.
But remember about that human nature—that nature to sin—and anger is one of the sins that I don’t know. Sometimes I think maybe we don’t think about, we don’t repent of because well, it’s far too easy to just be angry. In the Large Catechism, Luther wrote this: “We must not kill, neither with hand, heart, mouth, sign, gestures, nor counsel.” Therefore, this commandment forbids everyone to be angry except those who are in the place of God—that is, parents and government. Some of you parents are breathing a sigh of relief that it’s okay to be angry.
No, harming our neighbor certainly includes murder, physical murder, but also doing or saying anything that injures or endangers another person’s life, neglecting to assist people in bodily need, and harboring anger or hatred in our hearts against our neighbor. And of course, that’s where this sin resides—is in the heart. And though we might not say it with our mouths, we might not actually do it with our hands. Our Lord knows what’s right here, and He doesn’t want us to be angry. And it’s clear from His teaching about the commandment.
And we have to remember, our Lord has every reason to be angry with us, and He is not. He has made his face shine upon us. He is gracious to us, and Christ is the one by His atoning sacrifice who was able to fill this fulfill this fifth commandment, and indeed the entire law. And in doing so, He has reconciled us to the Father, so we are no longer under that law, but we are under grace.
And now, because we are forgiven, then we are to extend this forgiveness to others and this love to others, especially to those that we share the pews with. So we are to set aside our differences, and we are to let go of the things that keep us from being reconciled with one another. So I want us today to be sure and quick to reconcile with one another, so we can live together under His grace.
So that brings us back to the commandments, and we ask the question: Okay, so what are the commandments about today? What are they for? Well, the purpose is unchanged. I mean, yes, they were given specifically to the people of Israel, but Jesus Himself teaches us this: that the law still stands for all of God’s people. One verse prior to what we heard today from Matthew, Jesus says, “Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”
So the teaching and preaching of the law is actually in service to the gospel, and the accusation of the law with its condemnation and its promise of death to the sinner propels us toward the gospel of Christ and thus to life and salvation. And so we ought not see the commandments as just rules, but rather a picture of how we, God’s people, are supposed to live a blessed life, a holy life where we can fully enjoy all the gifts which our Lord has given to us.
Yes, the law is there for purposes of curbing our desire to sin, to show us that we are indeed sinners. But it also guides us in holy living, and this is exactly what it looks like for the people of Israel now, us today, to be different, to be set apart from the multitude of unbelievers. This is what it looks like to be living as God’s chosen people, the Church of God in Christ.
Now, if we get to it, one of our communion hymns this morning is “The Law of God Is Good and Wise,” and if you look across the page from that, you will see the gospel shows the Father’s grace. So the law is indeed good, but the gospel gives us what the law never can, and that is our salvation.
And so we want to continue to strive to keep the commandments, but we don’t forget that it is only the saving power of the gospel that brings us the promise of eternal life. Christ died for us, so that in our baptism we die with him. He died to sin, so we are also now dead to sin, and we are therefore delivered from the condemnation of the law, being made alive to God.
For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. May this ever be our hope, and our assurance, and our confession. Amen.
Now may the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Our Lord. Amen.