GLEANINGS — August 18, A.D. 2013                                                                                                               "Eight Guidelines for the Decalog"

Our Larger Catechisms' excellent exposition of the Decalog (Ten Commandments) asserts that for a right understanding of them, several rules are to be kept in mind. 
1. The Ten Commandments reflect in human terms the perfections of God's holiness and righteousness. Written on man's heart at creation, that moral law binds every human being of every time and place to full, perpetual conformity  and obedience.
(Grace is abused if taken as a pretext to obviate that. God's grace in Christ doesn't remove the requirements of the Law, rather it provides a way for Someone else to fulfill its requirements for lawbreakers! We cannot be justified by the Law, but the Law remains profitable to all men.)
2. The Law speaks to the limits of human behavior and to all the faculties of human nature; there is no ethical "neutral zone." It reaches the understanding, the will, the mind, the affections (emotions) as well as all outward behavior. Hence our Lord Jesus, expounding on the Law in His sermon on the mount, teaches that inward lust is adultery, and inward hatred is murder.
3. The Law being an indivisible whole, the distinct commandments can "overlap" in expressing what God requires of man. For example, idolatry and adultery both touch upon the overall moral requirement of faithfulness. Theft and covetousness both touch upon the overall moral requirement of contentment. 
4. By the analogy of faith and by "good and necessary consequence" we must ever recognize that where a duty is commanded, the contrary sin is forbidden; where a sin is forbidden, the contrary duty is commanded. "You shall not murder" both condemns David's plot to take the life of Uriah the Hittite, and commands actions like those of the Samaritan in Christ's parable who took measures to preserve and protect the life of his neighbor.
5. Likewise where a promise is annexed to a commandment, a contrary threatening exists. Where a threatening is annexed, the contrary promise is made. For example, the Fifth Commandment promises blessings to those who honor their parents. We rightly shudder as we infer the contrary threatening which proverbs 30:17 expresses thus, "...the eye that mocks his father, and scorns obedience to his mother, the ravens of the valley will pick it out, and the young eagles will eat it." Jesus severely denounces those who shirk their responsibility to parents under the guise of religious devotion. (Cf. Mark 7:10ff)
6. That which God forbids, is at no time to be done; what He commands is always our duty. Yet every particular duty is not to be done at all times. The Fourth Commandment, for example, concerns that time period called the week which originated at creation. We are commanded and forbidden in one way regarding six days of each week, and in another way concering one day of each week – known as the Lord's day or the sabbath.
7. The preacher, the writer of Ecclesiastes, wrote: "Truly, this only I have found: That God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes." In other words, remembering that we are prone to twist God's commandments to accomodate our sinfulness, learn to love what you at first might perceive as the hard things of the Law; don't look for loopholes. In pursuing holiness (1 Timothy 6:11, Hebrews 12:14) we find that "His yoke is easy, and His burden is light." 
8. Finally, remember that we are bound to encourage and help our neighbor to keep the moral law. In his rage, David was on his way to kill Nabal. Nabal's wife Abigail's actions kept David from doing violence. Love for your neighbor (who might be the person in the house next door, your wayward sibling or child, or a civil magistrate) is not condoning his sin, but warning him of its consequences.