Ten Commandments

The Ten Commandments are not a ladder Israel had to climb to earn Yahweh’s favour. They were given to a people Yahweh had already redeemed from slavery, which fixes the order of grace and obedience from the very first line.

Why do the Ten Commandments begin with redemption, not rules?

Yahweh introduces the commandments by identifying himself through what he had already done: “I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before Me” (Exodus 20:2-3). Redemption comes first, and the commandments that follow describe how a redeemed people are to live before the God who rescued them, not a set of conditions they had to meet beforehand.

What do the Ten Commandments actually cover?

The commandments divide naturally into duties toward Yahweh and duties toward neighbour, covering worship, the use of his name, the Sabbath, family, life, marriage, property, truth, and desire. Because they flow from redemption rather than earn it, obedience to them is Israel’s grateful response to grace already given, a pattern the New Testament preserves when it grounds Christian obedience in the salvation already accomplished by Christ. The articles below trace this theme through several key passages.