The Ten Commandments
The Lord gave people of every age eternal commandments; they were given to mankind through the prophet Moses, and to him they were handed over directly by God. Since then these commandments have become binding upon every person. So it is natural that the antiquity of these commandments does not mean that they have grown old. These commandments are eternal. As centuries ago every word of these commandments was to be fulfilled, accepted and without fail taken into account, so it is today and so it will be for ever. All ten commandments are eternal commandments, to be fulfilled eternally, and every person must without fail keep them. Naturally, every Christian should know well the sense and the substance of each commandment. Although after His incarnation the Lord brought the teaching of the New Testament, this does not mean that He abolished the ten commandments of Moses. The ten commandments were not abolished by the Lord's preaching; on the contrary, they were the more confirmed, and were explained to mankind still more clearly in the way of the Gospel. It is precisely these ten commandments that are binding upon every Christian. Therefore we must know the sense and the meaning of each of them.
1. I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt have no other gods before me. ( explanation )
2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, nor any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them.
3. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. ( explanation )
4. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy: six days shalt thou labour, and do in them all thy work, but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God.
5. Honour thy father and thy mother, that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest be long-lived upon the earth.
6. Thou shalt not kill.
7. Thou shalt not commit adultery. ( explanation )
8. Thou shalt not steal. ( explanation )
9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, nor his field, nor his ass, nor any of his cattle, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.
God is the Creator of our heart. He cleanses and renews it; only we must not hinder Him, and must not set our own will against His saving and restoring power. And this means the fulfilling of God's commandments, of God's laws.
To the prophet Moses, on the fiftieth day after the exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt, there were given by the Creator the ten laws that save the race of men and raise up our soul, and to keep them is the duty of every believer.
The first four commandments teach us what our relationship to the Lord should be, while the remaining six open to us the principles of right life together with people, with our neighbour.
The first commandment: I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt have no other gods before me.
This commandment requires that we believe in, love, hope in and worship the true God.
Today, as never before, it is precisely this law that is broken. Unbelief, doubt in the existence of God, doubt in the immortality of the soul… darken the heart and the mind of man. Some follow fortune-telling and sorcery; heresies are frequent, and blasphemy against the priest, and a soulless attitude to the holiness of the Church and to the holy mysteries (baptism, confession, communion and others). Despondency and despair are frequent, because people put their hope, instead of in God, in those who are mighty in this world, or in their own high position and wealth.
All this is sin against the first commandment.
In order to know God it is necessary to read the Gospel and the works of the holy fathers; we must go to church and pray there, study the creation of God — nature and the history of the human race — and study our spiritual world. Then we shall feel Him with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind and with all our strength (Mark 2:29–30).
The second commandment: Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, nor any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them.
This law forbids the worship, in place of the true God, of physical bodies, of unspiritual objects, of the lights of heaven, of animals and birds.
For a Christian, slavery to sinful inclinations is also counted as idolatry: many strive after the gaining of wealth, because their idol is wealth; some are possessed by the sick disease of ambition; some have made bodily pleasure their chief business; others drink, follow games of chance… and no longer remember God and the service of Him. Even the unrestrained desire to acquire knowledge, and the multitude of scientific discoveries, lose their value if they are not governed by faith and love, for such knowledge may become the cause of great evil.
So be wise, temperate, humble and hoping in God.
The third commandment: Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
It is an offence when the name of God is mentioned in empty and useless talk, and a still greater and heavier sin if people swear falsely by the name of God. Blasphemy, the judging of God's truth, inattention at prayer, the breaking of a vow… all this is against the third commandment. (Here I would add the telling of jokes about God and all kinds of joking about God — note of the site's author.)
The name of God should be uttered with great reverence and fear. Recall how the prophet Isaiah describes his vision: “I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphims; each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly, and… they said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory” (Isaiah 6:1–3).
See with what reverence the powers of heaven serve God. All the more does greater awe and worship befit us.
The fourth commandment: Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy: six days shalt thou labour, and do in them all thy work, but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God.
In the Bible it is written that God created the world in six days, and on the seventh day blessed it, hallowed it and rested from His work. This seventh day was the sabbath.
Christians keep Sunday as the day of rest, because Sunday is the day of Jesus Christ's resurrection and of our salvation, and they keep the great church feasts as well.
Those who do not keep these days and do not celebrate them sin by breaking the fourth commandment; a feast always begins on the evening before. If you are a believer, at that time you must leave all your business and go to church, so as to receive God's blessing. To be present at the feast-day and Sunday Liturgy is altogether necessary. At the Liturgy special prayers are read and sung which give great strength to the one who has come with faith and love.
Unfortunately, families are frequent today whose members work without cease and know neither Saturday and Sunday nor feast day. They are, as a rule, without plenty and without grace, because the blessing of God is not upon them.
The fifth commandment: Honour thy father and thy mother, that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest be long-lived upon the earth.
This is a very important commandment. On the honouring of parents depends the well-being of children. Holy Scripture teaches us how great is the significance of a father's and mother's blessing; only the blessing must be deserved, gained by esteem for one's parents.
Sick, aged and infirm parents need special attention. Yet some rid themselves of them and send them to a home for the aged. This is a terrible cruelty.
Parents grieve and weep over the disrespectful conduct of their children, though for the most part they are themselves to blame, because they did not bring them up in the Christian faith and in love.
Because of dishonour toward father and mother, children later suffer from various illnesses; there is no peace and no love in their family.
Everyone should remember: as they themselves treated their parents, so will their own children treat them.
The fifth commandment also means a good attitude toward elders, toward relatives, toward one's spiritual father; but if a parent, or any other person, demands of us the doing of something contrary to God, we are not bound to obey them.
The sixth commandment: Thou shalt not kill.
Murder is a terrible crime. Whoever attacks another's life sins not only before man but before God as well, because we have no right to take from a person the life granted by God.
The one who has committed this sin is greatly punished in this world too. Let us recall the first murderer, Cain, who shed the blood of his brother Abel and could find no place for himself among his kin. For this reason he went away to other parts and ended his days in torment; and for this sin the punishment passed on to his whole race. So it is now as well.
A special kind of murder is abortion. In this the mother herself becomes the murderer of her own child. Unfortunately, many do not feel the crime, and yet they will be severely punished for it. Of course, the one who performs the abortion will be punished too.
A great sin is the law on capital punishment, because by it we do not destroy evil but multiply it. “Thou canst not heal evil with evil,” St Basil the Great instructs us; “it can be cured only with good.” In a humane state under law this inhuman kind of punishment cannot exist.
A terrible sin is suicide. It is a protest against the will of God and is counted as blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. The suicide, unless they were mentally ill, destroys their soul finally. It is not even permitted to pray for them.
Besides the physical, there is another kind of murder: by insult, by false witness, by denunciation, by slander… St John the Theologian writes: “Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life” (1 John 3:15).
The seventh commandment: Thou shalt not commit adultery.
This commandment forbids unlawful, criminal relations between a man and a woman. Under it come the following sins: fornication, adultery, incest, debauchery, distorted forms of married life…
“Fornication, and all uncleanness… let it not be once named among you” (Ephesians 5:3), the Apostle Paul warns us. Great self-restraint befits a person: the Lord says: if a man looks on a woman to lust after her, he has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:27–28).
Unclean thoughts and desires, indecent songs and jokes, excessive amusement, immoral spectacles, gluttony, immoderate drinking… are a sin that ends in the breaking of the seventh commandment and in a grievous offence. And upon the offence follows the punishment of God.
The eighth commandment: Thou shalt not steal.
No one has the right to take what does not belong to them. Under this come the following sins: theft, that is, the secret taking of another's thing, another's property; robbery, the seizing of another's property by force; sacrilege, the appropriating or stealing of things dedicated and offered to God and of church property in general; bribe-taking, usury (when money is lent at interest), living at others' expense… (Here I would add the keeping of what one has found, and the failure to return a borrowed thing or a debt — note of the site's author.)
Sometimes thieves and criminals, wishing to justify their conduct, appeal to the example of that thief in the Gospel who was tortured together with the Saviour and who entered paradise with Him.
The thief was received because before his death he had time to repent. He felt with his whole being the weight of the life he had lived, and justly pronounced the sentence on himself and on his companion, who was being tortured with him. Nailed to the cross, he turned to the Saviour and said: “And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds.”
So strong was the repentance in him that his heart, weighed down with sin, was cleansed and he felt what others did not understand; he felt that God was suffering beside him; and so he asked: “Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom” (Luke 23:41–42).
And Jesus answered: “Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43).
This example is a clear confirmation that from every sin it is possible to rise up and be cleansed, and that the mercy of God has no bounds.
The ninth commandment: Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
This commandment requires of us that we walk in the way of truth. Grievous sins are counted: false witness, slander, informing, the judging of a witness…
The venerable father Anthony writes: “The tongue of a serpent is less to be feared than the tongue of a slanderer, for such a man sows quarrel and division among people who live in peace, sows evil and tares among relatives, and destroys unity. Whoever opens the doors of his house to such a man will himself fall into the whirlpool of sin. To keep company with such a man means to keep company with a murderer.”
The tongue of a slanderer is like the venom of a snake. It is even better to live beside a snake and a scorpion than to be close to a slanderer, for he will infect another with his disease as well, and together they will be judged at the judgement of God.
God is merciful, but know this: the sin of slander is hardly forgiven a person. Therefore, “be not ashamed to stand aside from such people, lest you too be infected with their venom” (St Anthony the Great).
The tenth commandment: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, nor his field, nor his ass, nor any of his cattle, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.
This commandment requires that we be content with our lot, with our condition, so that the sore of the soul, envy, may not hinder us. Envy harms first of all the one who is possessed by this disease.
Another sin is coarser and does not kindle in the soul as envy does, writes St Basil the Great; but envy eats a person's soul as rust eats iron… Envy is grief at another's good.
And St Gregory the Theologian warns us thus: envy is the sore of the soul and its poison. It is one of the most unjust and at the same time one of the most just of passions. Unjust, because it destroys the peace of the good; just, because it inwardly stifles the one in whose soul it nests.
Remember that although a person is cleansed of sins by baptism, the inclination to sin remains! And since baptism is possible only once in a lifetime, for the rooting out of sinful inclinations it is necessary to confess and to receive Communion often. It is necessary that parents accustom their children from infancy to receiving Communion; and when they have grown a little, to confession.
When we take medicine, the past life of the doctor has no significance at all for our bodily healing; so too in the mysteries of confession and communion our soul is healed, and the past life of the spiritual father has no significance at all for the healing of the soul. The necessary condition of communion is faith in Christ, the desire to depart from sins and to live by God's commandments. If you have no desire to depart from sins, do not receive Communion, for you will be punished by God. A believer goes to church not because they think themselves righteous, but because they know that only in the church is the true healing of the soul possible. Always remember that on earth you are a guest, and that your everlasting dwelling is the heavenly Church.
Father John Krestiankin, “How to Confess according to the Ten Commandments”
