It is a question to which there are many answers in the Bible, which is the one source that we can look to for an authoritative and reliable answer. All of these answers point in the same direction, for there are no contradictions in God’s revelation. One of these answers is to be found in the Book of Deuteronomy, where Moses is reiterating the history of Israel’s journey through the wilderness and the laws that the Lord had given them during that time. The answer is: “To fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, to keep the commandments of the Lord, and His statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good” (10:12,13).
There are several expressions here which basically run parallel to each other. God’s commandments and His statutes are fundamentally identical, and to keep them is to serve Him, to do the part of a servant. And if someone truly acts the part of a servant of God, he or she will act out of love to the gracious God who cares for that individual’s body and soul. Further, to keep God’s commandments is to walk in the ways that He has appointed for mankind, the manner in which we ought to live. Because we are to walk in all His ways we are to keep all the commandments that He has set before us. Finally, on the basis of these verses, to fear the Lord points us in the same direction as all the other expressions in these verses, but with an emphasis on our attitudes to God as “the high and lofty One” (Is 57:15), whom we are to respect. Let us notice some further points arising from these verses:
1. God’s right to command. The Pharaoh whom Moses and Aaron had to confront was certainly not the last person on earth to challenge that right. He asked, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go?” (Ex 5:2). There are plenty people today who deny God’s existence and reject the authority of the revelation He has given in Scripture. One major reason for this generation being without a sense of God’s authority is that previous generations rejected the fact that “in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Gen 1:1). But God did create everything, including human beings. Because He brought everyone into existence, we are all under His
authority and so belong to God. The passage in Deuteronomy 10 goes on to give a reason to the Israelites for obeying Him: “The Lord your God [the Creator] is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible” (v 17). It is a reason for us also to obey all God’s commandments. But the theory of evolution is one of the most dangerous ideas to have been thrust between God’s authority and human obedience.
2. God’s Commandments. God’s will for how we should live, speak and act is summed up in the Ten Commandments. But these commands are amplified throughout Scripture, giving us a full picture of God’s will for our obedience. Basic to the other nine commandments is the First, where God says, “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me” (Ex 20:3). Thomas Watson calls it “the foundation of all true religion”, and sums it up as directing us to “sanctify God in our hearts and give Him a precedence above all created beings”.1 We must remember that we can make gods of those people who are particularly close to us, when we give them a place in our hearts that belongs only to God, and make gods also of our possessions. Among Watson’s points in applying this Commandment is this: “To have God to be a God to us, is to fear Him. . . . This fearing is (1) To have Him always in our eye . . . (2) To have such a holy awe of God upon our hearts that we dare not sin.”2
Many people deem some commandments, such as the Sixth and the Eighth, to be essential for the proper functioning of society, and states throughout the world enforce some aspects of them. Yet God pronounces the Commandments as a whole to be good (see also, for instance, Rom 7:12), including the Fourth. They are good for us; it is good for us to obey them and, in particular, it is good for us to obey the Fourth Commandment.
It is good for us to have an opportunity – and it should be a welcome opportunity – to have a day each week which we can, apart from works of necessity and mercy, set apart for spiritual activity. Yet this is an age when, as it has been said, “there are many Christians for whom the whole notion of one day set aside for God seems a quaint throw-back to Victorian values”.3 But emphatically it is no quaint throw-back; the Fourth Commandment is of permanent relevance and of permanent value. It is good for people to keep it in every generation, not only in Old Testament times. More importantly, God’s authority is behind it today as it has always been.
So far has the Sabbath fallen that there is now very little controversy about it, certainly on a national level in Britain; it is very largely ignored rather
1Thomas Watson, The Ten Commandments, Banner of Truth Trust, 1965 reprint, p 49.
2Watson, The Ten Commandments, p 51.
3Quoted in Christian Institute e-mail, “In the news this week, 26 July 2024”. Christian in the quotation should more accurately be “professed Christian”.
than opposed – for many, it is a weekly holiday and nothing more. However, controversy continues to swirl about the Seventh Commandment, for in many countries the position has been reached where everyone demands the prerogative to do what is right in his own eyes, without any criticism, however mild, being levelled against anyone who argues for obedience to this demand. But people and governments need to learn that “for all these things God will bring thee into judgement” (Ecc 11:9). Even on the human level, disregard of the Seventh Commandment is damaging individual families and the cohesion of society. And the words of Scripture are relevant: “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Gal 6:7). This generation is in many ways reaping the fruits of its rebellion against God’s commands.
One may also note that, although justice systems pursue murderers, albeit imperfectly, the state allows, and provides facilities for, the murder of millions of unborn children, and moves are being made to allow the murder of those who are terminally ill – with, it seems, the approval of many in society. Yet we need to bear in mind that it is not sufficient for us to be outwardly moral. If, on the other hand, by God’s grace, we live in His fear, we will wish to obey these commands in our speaking and thinking, and seek to follow the implications of these commands.
3. How are we to keep God’s commands? We are told to keep them “with all thy heart and with all thy soul”; in other words, we are to observe them diligently. So Joshua told the Israelites before his death: “Take diligent heed to do the commandment and the law, which Moses the servant of the Lord charged you” (Jos 22:5), and he goes on to use some of the other expressions that we find in the verses from Deuteronomy quoted earlier. We are not to be partial in our observance, choosing some commands and neglecting others; we are to take God at His word when He speaks to us by way of command – as we are to take Him seriously whatever He says to us.
The Saviour called sinners to trust in Him: “Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Mt 11:28) – and then went on to tell them how they should live: “Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light”. Sinners are not only to trust in Christ for salvation, though that is absolutely necessary; they are to come under the yoke of His commandments. And though the world may consider His commandments to be unbearably burdensome, that is to take a totally wrong view of them; they are not burdensome; He assures us that they are light, and He gives grace to His true followers to keep them.
4. How is it possible for us to keep them? God’s commands are absolute;
we are obliged to keep them. But we are fallen creatures; it is impossible for us to keep God’s law perfectly; we continually sin and come short. How is it then possible for us to reach heaven when every sin deserves God’s wrath and curse eternally?
Our first answer is that we need a substitute, to do two things: (1) to endure God’s wrath and curse in the place of all who will ever be saved, and (2) to keep all His commandments perfectly in their place. While there are perfect beings in God’s creation – the angels who never fell – they can only keep the law for themselves; they cannot act as substitutes for others. Nor can they endure the punishment due to others.
Yet it was God’s purpose from all eternity to save sinners, and the saviour that He chose was His own Son; there was no other who was fit for that work. We have the revelation of that purpose in John 3:16: “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life”. God the Father gave His Son to do all that was necessary for the salvation of sinners. That work on earth was completed and Christ ascended to the right hand of His Father, where He makes continual intercession for those on whose behalf He worked out redemption. He is presenting the merits of His work in this world, so that they may be saved. His work is set before sinners in the Scriptures and in the preaching of the gospel, so that they may believe on Him and accordingly may not perish but have everlasting life.
David Brainerd, the remarkably godly and earnest missionary to the American Indians, writes of a woman he felt was “filled with joy unspeakable and full of glory”. She was crying out, sometimes in English and sometimes in her own language: “O blessed Lord, do come; do come! O do take me away; do let me die and go to Jesus Christ! I am afraid if I live, I shall sin again.” That was her great motivation: that she would not continue to sin. Her heart was filled with the fear of God. Such was her hatred to sin that she was ready to be taken away even from her young infant, believing that the Lord would make provision for the child. Since that time, Brainerd continued, “she has seemed constantly to breathe the spirit of the new creature, not through fear of hell as before, but with strong desire after Him as her only satisfying portion”.4 Here is indeed a remarkable example of the fear of God.
Let us seek grace, so that we may begin, and continue, to do all that God requires: “to fear the Lord [our] God, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve the Lord [our] God with all [our] heart and with all [our] soul, to keep the commandments of the Lord, and His statutes”.
4Jonathan Edwards, ed, The Diary and Journal of David Brainerd, Banner of Truth Trust reprint, 2023, pp 331-333.