These two commandments are complementary: one God only to be worshipped, one way only in which to worship him. Consider:—
I. THE FIRST COMMANDMENT.
1. How Israel would understand it. "No foreign god in opposition to me." The natural idea would be that Jehovah was one amongst many deities; that possibly, away from Egypt, some other god might have higher authority (cf. 2 Kings 18:33-35). In any case it would be hard to realise that he was more than God of gods; others might be inferior to him, but surely they might claim an inferior worship. All such notions are set aside at once. Whether there are other gods or no, all such must be Jehovah's enemies; to offer them worship of any kind was to be disloyal to Jehovah, and to break the covenant.
2. How it applies to ourselves. Polytheism, a thing of the past! In theory perhaps, but how about our practice? Obedience is the best evidence of worship; our God is he by reference to whom we govern our conduct, and regulate our actions. Illustrate from the case of the man whose life is given to the pursuit of wealth—wealth is practically his deity; or the case of one whose conduct is regulated by constant reference to public opinion; wealth, public opinion, and the like may be nothing more than personified abstractions, none the less we may serve them far more consistently than we serve God. Such service is worship, worship of an alien deity; it involves disloyalty to Jehovah, and enrols us amongst the forces of his foes. Quite as easy for us to break this commandment as it was for Israel; it needs to be reiterated in our ears no less persistently than it was in their ears.
II. THE SECOND COMMANDMENT. As the first has to do with the object of worship, so this has to do with the manner of worship. An image degrades the ideal, it can only present God, and that imperfectly, under one out of many aspects. One image of God alone is adequate (Colossians 1:15). To the Jew, this second commandment was a fence to guard the empty shrine, which shrine could only receive its occupant when "the Word was made flesh" at the incarnation of our Lord. Notice:—
1. The effect of braking the commandment. Degrading the God worshipped, it led on naturally to the degradation of the worshipper, and through the worshipper his posterity was affected, so as to become yet more degraded. Who could have a better excuse than Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, for breaking the commandment? Who could have broken it more carefully? Considerations of utility seemed to justify him. He might have argued that the first commandment was all-important, and that to ensure respect for it he must tamper with the second. None the less the effect was manifest (2 Kings 17:22, 2 Kings 17:23). The sin of Jeroboam was the ruin of his people.
2. The bearing of the commandment on ourselves. Christ has come. The empty shrine is filled. We possess the true image, and can worship God in Christ. "But Christ, you say, is unseen; thoughts wander in prayer, I need some object by which to fix them, some symbol upon which they may stay themselves and rest." The excuse is plausible; but it is the same excuse as a Jew in old times might have offered. A man may use, as good men have used, the crucifix, e.g; as an aid to devotion. But the crucifix, or any other symbol, is utterly inadequate; it shows Christ only under one aspect: we must worship him in all his fulness if we take him as the image of the invisible Jehovah. To confine our thoughts to Calvary is to limit, and by limiting to degrade the ideal. The crucifix has much to answer for in narrowing men's views, and making their religion one-sided and incomplete. For a Christian to obey the second commandment, he must worship Christ in all his fulness. Only so can he worship God with that pure worship which is alone acceptable.
"Show me not only Jesus dying,
As on the cross he bled,
Nor in the tomb a captive lying,
For he has left the dead.
Not only in that form suspended,
My Saviour bid me see;
For to the highest heavens ascended,
He reigns in majesty!"
—G.
The first commandment deals with the object of worship; the second, with the manner of worship; in the third and fourth we have the method of worship, true reverence and genuine devotion.
I. THE THIRD COMMANDMENT.
1. Obedience to the letter insufficient. None ever obeyed it thus more strictly than the Jews did. The Sacred Name, called the shuddering name; only pronounced once annually by the High Priest on the Great Day of Atonement. So strictly was the command kept that the true pronunciation of the name is lost to us. Even in our own Bibles we have evidence of the ancient practice, "The LORD" being used as a substitute for Jehovah. Yet, with all this, of. Ezekiel 36:20. The name, which was never uttered by the lips, was yet profaned by the conduct of the worshippers. We, too, may never perjure ourselves, or speak profanely, yet the tenor of our whole life may bring God's name into contempt. The commonest excuse made by those who never enter a place of worship is based upon the inconsistent conduct of those who frequent such places regularly. They may not go themselves, but they know well enough who do go, and they know also the kind of lives which they who do go are leading.
2. The true obedience. They who worship God must worship him in spirit and in truth. True reverence is a thing of the heart, which shines through and illuminates the conduct. This leads us to:—
II. THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT. True reverence will best show itself in copying the example of the person reverenced. The fourth commandment shows us God's example made plain for a man to copy.
1. The rest-day to be kept holy.
1. The rest for a man's spirit is only to be obtained by sharing the spiritual rest of God; if the holiday be not a holy-day this spiritual rest will still be lacking.
2. The days of labour to be modelled on God's pattern. Labour as much commanded as rest; but labour, as rest, after the Divine model. All that God does, he does earnestly and thoroughly. To work as God works is to work with the heart as well as with the hands (Colossians 3:23). One cannot wonder that the rest-day is profaned, when the days of toil are profaned no less, when a man's chief object seems to be not to do his work, but to have done with it. If God had worked as we work, he could scarcely have called his work "very good." The world by now would have been a dilapidated chaos, more appalling than the waste from which it sprang. The commandment is not "Six days shalt thou loiter," but "Six days shalt thou labour."
CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS.—Mere literal keeping of the commandments may bring them and their author into contempt. We can only "magnify the law and make it honourable" by keeping it from the heart outwards. The Jews kept the third and fourth commandments literally enough. Our own Sunday legislation dates from the time of Charles II; when, of all times, God's law was, perhaps, the most fearfully profaned. "My son, give me thine heart," that is the invitation which first requires to be accepted. If we would really keep the commandments, let our prayer be: "Lord have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep thy law."—G.