Straight Outta Egypt
The Ten Commandments, the Summary of the Law, and the New Commandment
This article is based on one of the lessons for the Confirmation Class that I’m currently teaching. I trust it will be useful to more people than just our confirmands. As a reminder, the 1662 Catechism breaks into five parts: (1) What Happened When You Were Baptized; (2) What Baptized Christians Believe (The Apostles’ Creed); (3) How Baptized Christians Should Live (The 10 Commandments and our Lord’s Summary of the Law); (4) How to Call on God’s Grace through Prayer (the Lord’s Prayer); and (5) What are the Sacraments. This post is my attempt to work through that third part of the catechism. The rest of the confirmation posts may be found here.
Let’s start with this question: How do the Ten Commandments begin?
Are you struggling to remember the first commandment, or are you patting yourself on the back because you remembered it instantly?
If your mind went straight to the first commandment, that’s the wrong answer. The Ten Commandments don’t begin with the first commandment; they begin with the preamble.
“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Exod 20:2).
Before a single obligation is placed on Israel at Sinai, God names himself as the one who rescued them. The Mosaic law doesn’t come to Israel so that the people might be rescued from Egypt if they would only keep the law well. The law comes to an already redeemed people to show them what it means to live precisely as the brought-out-of-slavery people.
Yahweh is not saying, “Here are my requirements, now meet them, and then I will save you.” Rather, he is saying, “I have already saved you. Now, here is what it looks like to live as the people I have saved.” Redemption comes first. Obedience flows from redemption.
Not a Law Code — A Covenant Document
And God spoke all these words, saying, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Exod 20:1–2).
In the 1800s and 1900s, scholars studying ancient Near Eastern texts discovered a significant clue about the Ten Commandments. They identified a common treaty type used throughout the ancient world, especially in the Hittite Empire, known as a suzerainty treaty. This treaty involved a powerful king formalizing his relationship with a lesser vassal state through a structured agreement that included a preamble naming the great king, a historical prologue outlining the king’s deeds for the vassal, and stipulations—specific duties the vassal was expected to fulfill as part of the covenant.
The Ten Commandments follow this specific pattern: starting with “I am the LORD your God” as a preamble, then “Who brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” serving as a historical prologue, followed by the ten stipulations. The Decalogue is primarily a covenant document, not just a moral code handed down from above. It outlines the terms of a relationship that God has already initiated through an act of rescue.
In the ancient world, the suzerain’s stipulations extended the identity of the great king to the vassal, who was expected to live in a manner reflecting the king’s character and reputation. Similarly, at Sinai, God is doing something even greater — not establishing a vassal state, but forming a people who will bear his image, carry his name, and demonstrate his character in all their actions.
This parallel highlights the importance of the preamble. In the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, it remains in its proper place when the Decalogue is read during the Communion service. In doing so, the liturgy subtly and rightly indicates that the preamble is a vital part of the Ten Commandments. You cannot fully grasp what the commandments require until you know who is asking and what he has already done.
The First Commandment: No Other Gods
“You shall have no other gods before me” (Exod 20:3)
The first commandment is often translated as “You shall have no other gods before me,” but the Hebrew is more precise: “before my face” — lěpānay (לְפָנַי), literally “in my presence.” The imagery evokes a throne room. No other divine being is to occupy the space that belongs to Yahweh alone, whether in the physical layout of the tabernacle or in the internal geography of Israel’s loyalty.
Today, most of us don’t build shrines to other deities. However, we do center our lives around things that are not God — status, approval, comfort, and the opinions of people whose voices have become louder in our minds than the voice of Christ. Every time something created takes the place that belongs to the Creator, we have brought another god into his presence.
And this is where it becomes serious. G. K. Beale has argued, drawing on the Psalms and Old Testament prophetic literature, that we become like what we worship. The Psalmist states concerning idols, “Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them” (Ps 115:8).
Building your life around status makes you small, anxious, and competitive. Centering it on approval makes you shapeless, with no true self that isn’t defined by others’ opinions. Focusing on comfort makes you unable to sacrifice, love, or do anything that costs you something. The first commandment isn’t just a ban; it’s a warning about what happens when we worship the wrong things. We are always shaped by what we love most. God should be the priority in our lives, and nothing else should even come close.
The Second: No Carved Images
“You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments” (Exod 20:4–6).
The second commandment does not ban visual art, as some argue. The tabernacle itself was decorated with cherubim, pomegranates, and almond blossoms (Exod 25–26). It also does not ban artistic depictions of Christ, since he took on a real human body. Still, most Anglican and Reformed theologians believe that images of the Father or the Spirit inevitably misrepresent an infinite and invisible God, so the tradition generally advises against them. The rule is clear: no image should be used as a mediator in worship.
In the ancient Near East, an image of a deity was understood as a place where that deity’s presence resided. An image was a way to locate, summon, and ultimately control divine power. The second commandment rejects this entirely. Yahweh cannot be captured in wood or stone. He cannot be managed with the right technique or ritual object. He is not the kind of God who can be domesticated.
But this commandment is not just about God’s dignity. An idol has eyes but cannot see, ears but cannot hear, a mouth but cannot speak (Ps 115:5–7). Worshippers are shaped in the image of what they worship. Those who bow to something blind, deaf, and mute become spiritually blind, deaf, and mute themselves. They lose the ability to perceive what God is truly doing. The tragedy of the golden calf is exactly this: Israel was worshipping an image they created at the foot of the mountain while the living God was present on the mountain in fire and cloud. They had eyes and could not see. The second commandment is not only about guarding God’s transcendence. It is about safeguarding our ability to perceive him.
The Third: Bearing the Name
“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain” (Exod 20:7).
The third commandment is almost always seen as a ban on profanity. But the Hebrew verb is not “take” — it is nāśāʾ (נָשָׂא), which means “to bear” or “to carry.” The commandment is: you shall not bear the name of the LORD your God in vain.
Having God’s name given to you means acting as his representative in the world. The people who carry his name are responsible for what that name represents. When Israel was unfaithful, the prophets said the divine name had been dishonored among the nations, not because anyone had sworn carelessly, but because the people who bore God’s name had lived in ways that misrepresented him (Ezek 36:20–23).
For Christians, this cuts deep. Being baptized involves bearing the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Matt 28:19). Calling yourself a Christian means adopting the name (or title) of Christ. Your actions afterward either honor the name or treat it as meaningless. The third commandment is not primarily about spoken blasphemy. It focuses on the integrity of the life lived by those who bear God’s name.
The Fourth: Sabbath
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy” (Exod 20:8–11).
The Sabbath commandment is the longest of the ten and exists in two slightly different forms. In Exodus 20, the reason given for Sabbath rest is creation (20:11). In Deuteronomy 5, the reason shifts to redemption: “you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out” (Deut 5:15). It’s the same commandment, but with two different theological foundations.
The ancient Near Eastern context provides valuable insight here. In the major Mesopotamian creation stories, humans are created specifically to ease the burden on the lesser gods. The gods rest; humans work for them. The Genesis story entirely reverses this. Israel’s God rests at the end of creation not because he needs relief, but as an expression of delight and completion. And his image-bearers — unlike anyone else in the ancient world — are invited to share in that rest.
The Sabbath principle does not stop at one day in seven. It expands outward through the whole structure of Israel’s life. Every seventh year, the land itself was to rest — fields were to be left fallow (Lev 25:1–7), debts were to be released (Deut 15:1–3), and slaves were to be freed (Deut 15:12–18). And after seven cycles of seven years came the fiftieth year, the Jubilee, in which everything was to be returned to its original state (Lev 25:8–55). The land was returned to its original families. Debts were canceled. Those who had sold themselves into slavery went free. The Jubilee was the Sabbath writ large across the entire social order, a declaration that the land and its people ultimately belonged to God, and that no economic arrangement was final or irreversible.
The Sabbath is therefore a theological statement about human identity and about the shape of a just society. Your productivity does not define you. Neither are the impoverished defined by their poverty. No one’s circumstances are the last word. You can pause. You can lay your work down and rest. The world will not collapse if you stop toiling because the world does not belong to you. It belongs, thankfully, to the God who rested on the Sabbath day, and who has promised to set everything right by giving the world its promised rest.
Every act that brings God’s rest to a person in distress — feeding the hungry, relieving a debt, healing a body — is a Sabbath act. It anticipates the final rest, when God will make all things new.
The Jubilee, and the promised rest that the prophets saw expanding outward to the whole world, serve as the backdrop against which Jesus stands up in the synagogue in Nazareth and reads from Isaiah 61:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18–19).
The year of the Lord’s favor is the Jubilee year. Jesus proclaims that the great Jubilee has arrived and that, in him, the ultimate Sabbath rest has entered history. Debts will be forgiven. People will be set free. The land will be renewed. And so, Jesus says, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27–28). Jesus does not abolish the Sabbath; he fulfills it.
The Fifth: Honor Your Father and Mother
“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you” (Exod 20:12).
The fifth commandment includes a promise: “that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you” (Exod 20:12). Paul points out in Ephesians 6:2 that this makes it the first commandment with an attached promise. The blessing is not only personal — it also symbolizes the stability of a society grounded in intergenerational loyalty and care.
There is something important to reflect on here. You did not choose your parents. You did not choose your family, your language, your culture, or the time period in which you were born. Human beings are deeply influenced by their environment. We arrive in the middle of a story already unfolding, shaped by people, places, and histories we had no part in creating. The fifth commandment recognizes this fact. To honor your father and mother means to take seriously the unique context in which God has placed you. And because God is the father of all, honoring your earthly parents is, in a way, honoring the one whose fatherhood they imperfectly reflect.
The Sixth Through Tenth
“[6] You shall not murder. [7] You shall not commit adultery. [8] You shall not steal. [9] You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. [10] You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s” (Exod 20:13–17).
After the lengthy expansion of the Sabbath commandment, the next five commandments follow quickly: No murder, no adultery, no stealing, no false witness, no coveting. Each of the first three (no murder, no adultery, no stealing) is two words in Hebrew. The rhythm itself is revealing, as if, after establishing the theological foundations, the remaining commandments fall into place.
Jesus discusses these commandments in the Sermon on the Mount, not to abolish them but to reveal their deeper meaning. “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment” (Matt 5:21–22). And again: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (5:27–28). The commandments specify outward actions; Jesus is focused on the inner attitude that leads to them.
The commandment against adultery is especially important in the prophetic tradition. Throughout the prophets, Israel’s unfaithfulness to the covenant is described using the language of adultery (Jer 3:8–9; Ezek 16). Hosea was instructed to marry an unfaithful woman so that his own marriage would enact and embody Yahweh’s relationship with unfaithful Israel. In the biblical view, marriage is the closest human analogy to the covenant between God and his people. Violating it is not just a personal betrayal; it’s a failure to represent the exclusive, faithful love that defines God’s relationship with his people.
The ninth commandment — no false witness — envisions a courtroom, but its logic goes beyond that. Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). If truth is not just an idea but a person, then every lie is a step away from the one who is truth itself. Our calling is to speak truthfully about God, creation, and our neighbors. Every deception is a departure from that calling.
The tenth commandment is deeper than the others. It forbids not just an action but a desire. You shall not covet. The question it raises is this: what does it mean that I need this thing — this house, this car, this life — to feel complete? The catechism begins by reminding us of our identity as baptized children of God. As a baptized person, you have died with Christ and been raised with him. What could you need that you don’t already have in him?
The Summary of the Law
After asking the confirmand to recite the Ten Commandments, the 1662 Catechism asks what one learns from them. The answer divides the commandments into two parts: you learn (1) your duty toward God and (2) your duty toward your neighbor. Likewise, when Jesus is asked which commandment is the greatest, he provides the same structure:
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets” (Matt 22:38–40).
Interestingly, none of the Ten Commandments are listed as the first or second great commandment, but I won’t say any more about that. The first commandment is quoting the Shema (Deut 6:4–5), the confession that every faithful Jew would recite daily, morning and evening. This command came immediately after the giving of the law in Deuteronomy and was understood as the law’s animating center. By quoting this commandment as the first and greatest, Jesus identifies what Israel was always supposed to understand the commandments to be about.
And when he adds that the second commandment is like the first — homoia (ὁμοία) — that word is doing real work. He is not saying they are equally important. He is saying they are alike in kind. Love of neighbor, which comes from Lev 19:18, is not a separate category from love of God. They are two expressions of the same orientation of the whole person toward the good. John makes the connection explicit: “If anyone says ‘I love God’ and hates his brother, he is a liar” (1 John 4:20). You cannot split them. The vertical and the horizontal are inseparable.
Of course, the command to love your neighbor as yourself begs the question, “Who is my neighbor?” A lawyer asks Jesus this exact question, and Jesus tells a story in reply. That story is the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29–37), in which your neighbor turns out to be whoever is in front of you in need, even your enemy. This startling reality should remind us that the commandments that govern our life together are not a list of obligations to be minimally satisfied. They are the shape of a life bent outward, toward God and the other, in love.
Paul draws out this logic directly. Writing to the Romans, he says:
“The commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,’ and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rom 13:9–10).
And he makes the same argument in Galatians:
“The whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Gal 5:14).
Paul is not collapsing the commandments into a vague principle of niceness. He says instead that the Ten Commandments specify what love looks like in concrete situations. Love is the root; the commandments are the fruit. If you genuinely love your neighbor, you will not murder him, steal from him, lie about him, or covet what is his. The commandments tell you what love requires when love gets specific. And if you follow that logic all the way to its end, you arrive at Christ himself.
That is why, in Romans 10:4, Paul writes that “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” The word translated as “end” is τέλος, which means both an endpoint and a goal. Christ is the endpoint of the law as a means of earning righteousness before God; no one is justified by merely keeping the commandments. But he is also the goal the law was always pointing toward. The law was never meant to save people. It was meant to show what a fully human life looks like, and that is perfectly fulfilled in Christ alone. He is the one who loved God with his whole heart, soul, mind, and strength. He is the one who loved his neighbor as himself, and even more — who loved all the way to the cross. He is the telos of the law.
So, when we read the Ten Commandments, we aren’t merely reading a description of what God requires of us if we are to pull ourselves up by our own moral bootstraps. We are reading a description of who Jesus is. And we are being invited, by the Spirit who raised him from the dead, to be conformed to that image.
The New Commandment: Maundy Thursday
One last comment before I bring this to a close. I’m always surprised that the new commandment Jesus gives to the Church gets so little expression in our liturgy except on Maundy Thursday, so let’s talk about it here for just a moment.
On the night before he died, Jesus gathered his disciples at the table, washed their feet, and gave them a commandment that both fulfills and goes beyond the Decalogue:
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (John 13:34).
The word “Maundy” comes from the Latin mandatum, the word the Vulgate uses to translate the Greek ἐντολή, meaning “commandment.” Maundy Thursday is literally called Commandment Thursday. The Church observes that night as the day Jesus gave us this new law.
The love command itself isn’t entirely new in content — “you shall love your neighbor as yourself” is already in Lev 19:18, which Jesus identified as the second of the two great commandments. What’s new is the standard: “as I have loved you.” The measure of Christian love is no longer the love of self. It’s the cross.
The foot-washing demonstrates this truth before words can explain it. Jesus, the one with authority over everything, assumes the role of a household servant and washes road-dusty feet. The act serves as a parable of what the coming hours will achieve. “For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you” (John 13:15). The new commandment isn’t just an addition to the list. It’s the core logic behind all the commandments. It’s not just any love that matters; it’s a love patterned after the love of Christ for his Church.
This command also points to Jeremiah’s promise of the new covenant. What the Decalogue could outline but not create, a people whose inner lives reflect their covenant duties, the Spirit of the risen Christ inscribes on the heart. So, the Lord said through Jeremiah:
“I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts” (Jer 31:33).
That language is precisely what the congregation prays at the end of the Decalogue in the 1662 liturgy: “Lord, have mercy upon us, and write all these thy laws in our hearts, we beseech thee.”
The commandments show us the shape of a redeemed life. The new commandment reveals its inner logic. And prayer and the sacraments are the tools God uses, through that power of his Holy Spirit within us, to shape us into people who can truly live them out. This Spirit-enabled obedience is, after all, why God has put his Spirit within his people:
“And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules” (Ezek 36:26–27).