#43 On the Nature of God: Revelation about God from the Ten Commandments

Have you ever wondered what famous people like presidents Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln were actually thinking? For example, how did they really feel about slavery? What they wrote in letters—widely published in modern times—reveal much about how they actually felt.

Likewise, finding out how God felt can be discovered by reading what He said. For example, the Ten Commandments that He gave to the Israelites, commonly called Moses’ Law, reveals much about what God believes is important, Exodus 20:1-17:

“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. You shall have no other gods before me. 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 the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. 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. 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 heaven and 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.

Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. 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.”

These ten commandments illustrate what matters most to God. He gave them to the Israelites to teach them how to think and feel about Him and how to treat each other.

These commandments can be divided into two major sections: 1. How the people were to treat God, and 2. How the people were to treat each other.

God begins by reminding them of His power. He is ‘the God who was powerful enough to bring them out of slavery when it surely looked as if they could never be free.’ He is to be their only God. He explicitly warned them about worshipping the idol gods of the surrounding nations. Further, they were to treat Him with respect and never abuse His name. They were to worship each week on the Sabbath, Saturday.

The second section, the next six commandments, involved their duty to their fellow man. They were not to lie, steal, or murder. Further, they were to honor their parents, remain faithful to their mates, and keep God’s law on marriage of one man and one woman. Even their thinking was governed in that they were not to covet that which belonged to another.

These matters of worshipping only God and treating our fellow man correctly remain important today in Christianity as revealed in the New Testament.

In summary, God cares about how we feel about Him and how we treat our fellow man.

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