The Purpose of the Ten Commandments

Is there a reason why God gave us the Ten Commandments? Why didn’t He just tell us to be kind and loving to one another and to be loving towards Him? That is essentially how the Ten Commandments were summarized by Jesus (see Matthew 22:37-39). Isn’t that good enough? After all, weren’t there godly people like Seth, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and Jacob before God gave the Ten Commandments? How could Abraham be called a ‘friend of God’ if he was doing the wrong thing? Abraham was doing what was right, and God didn’t give him the Ten Commandments, or did He?

To understand why God gave the Ten Commandments, we must also identify when He gave them. Were the Ten Commandments given to humanity well before Mount Sinai? The Bible defines sin as “transgression of the law” (1 John 3:4). It also tells us, “To him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin” (James 4:17). Finally, Paul wrote in Galatians 3:23-24, “Before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. Therefore, the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.” For anyone to know what sin is or to know what good is, God gave the Ten Commandments. That is one reason why God gave the Ten Commandments.

Historical Context of the Commandments

We know sin is first called by its rightful name in Adam and Eve’s day. God spoke to their son, Cain, about his jealousy towards his brother, telling him, “If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door” (Genesis 4:7). We must conclude that God gave the Ten Commandments to Cain in some form because “sin is a transgression of the law” (1 John 3:4). Genesis 26:4-5 records this of Abraham: “I [God] will make your descendants multiply as the stars of heaven; I will give to your descendants all these lands; and in your seed, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed; because Abraham obeyed My voice and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.” God also gave the Ten Commandments to Abraham in some form. Otherwise, he could not have kept them (you can’t keep something you don’t have).

Romans chapter four tells us that Abraham was one of those “justified by faith” (Galatians 3:24). So when God gave him the Ten Commandments, it was a tutor that brought him to Christ, that it might be Christ’s works that made him righteous. That is one of the other reasons why God gave the Ten Commandments: to draw us into a faith-based relationship with Christ. We look at the standard of character that the Ten Commandments give, and we see how incredibly far short we fall. We also realize we can’t keep them in our own strength. We need Christ to give His strength (grace) for us to become Ten Commandment keepers.

The Continuity of the Commandments

The language of the Ten Commandments that God gave in Exodus is not recorded earlier in the Bible, but this does not mean that these laws were not in place until Mount Sinai. Yes, God gave the Ten Commandments on stone there, but even before that, they were given the Sabbath (see Genesis 2:1-3, Exodus 16), and they knew it was wrong to murder (Genesis 4). If you study the creation week and the world before the fall of humankind, you will see that the Ten Commandments were given at the beginning of Earth’s history. God gave the first commandment when Adam opened his eyes to look solely into the wonderful face of Jesus breathing into his nostrils (Genesis 2:7). There was nothing between humanity and our God (Exodus 20:2).

God gave the second commandment as He made the only image to represent Him—male and female (Genesis 1:27-28). No other image was created to represent God; nothing was worshipped as God in Adam and Eve’s life except their Creator. In Psalm 148, the psalmist wrote, “Let [all creation] praise the name of the Lord, for He commanded and they were created” (Psalm 148:5). The third commandment was given as God placed His praises in the mouth of His creation, and it honored His name.

God gave the fourth commandment in the creation of the Sabbath day on the seventh day—sanctified by God’s holy presence (Genesis 2:1-3). God, as our heavenly Father, gave the fifth commandment in His request to not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:17). God gave the sixth commandment when He gave Adam and Eve, and all creation, immortal life. Death and murder only arose after Adam and Eve’s choice to walk apart from God by eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:17).

God gave the seventh commandment as He made one man and one woman to be in a holy union to bring forth children according to their likeness (Genesis 1:27-28; 2:18-25). God gave the eighth commandment, which forbids stealing, by writing the law of self-sacrifice (receiving to give) into creation. In the creation week, each day gave to the next day. The first and second days’ light, land, and water made growing day three’s flowers, grass, and trees possible. These, together with the heavenly bodies made on day four, provided food, water, shelter, warmth, and seasons for the living creatures on days five and six.

God gave the ninth commandment when He established the world with His Word, which is truth, for God cannot lie (Titus 1:2, John 1:1-3). Finally, with this simple statement, “Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good” (Genesis 1:31), God gave the tenth commandment. There was no need or desire for any more ‘stuff.’ Covetousness was not to have a place in the unfallen world. Nothing beyond the ‘very goodness’ of God and His world was needed, and it was supplied.

The Nature of God’s Commandments

Why did God give the Ten Commandments from the beginning of the world? Because “God is love” (1 John 4:16). The Ten Commandments are the principles that help define what true love is (Matthew 22:37-39). The only way this world could be brought into existence by a God who is love is that the Ten Commandments were automatically a part of it. In giving us His life, which is a demonstration of love, God gave us the Ten Commandments, which are also a demonstration of love.

This is the fourth reason why God gave us the Ten Commandments: because He gave us Himself. He gave us His life, character, His love, His goodness.

The Israelites and the Sinai Covenant

Now you might still be left wondering why God gave the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai. Before God gave the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai, the Israelites had been living in Egypt for a few centuries (see Exodus 1:1-13:16). In the course of time, they had become slaves to the Egyptians. This meant they were bound by the requirements of their Egyptian masters. They had to work when asked and worship who the Egyptians demanded they worship.

History tells us that there were over 2000 gods in ancient Egyptian culture. Many of them had their own temples and priests and required sacrifices. There is some evidence that human sacrifices were used in the worship of specific gods. The Egyptians also had nine religious festivals throughout the year, which some historians believe included drunken orgies. This was the religious practices that the Israelites were exposed to for a number of generations.

When God gave the Ten Commandments, the Israelites had lost a lot of knowledge of how to worship the God of their ancestors. They had not been allowed to worship as they would have prior to slavery. Moreover, what understanding they had of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would have been tainted by their exposure to the Egyptian gods. These words were recorded when God gave the Ten Commandments: “Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘Write these words, for according to the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.’ So he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread nor drank water. And He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments” (Exodus 34:27-28).

The Ten Commandments as a Promise

God gave the Ten Commandments, not as a set of rules that would appease a twisted sense of control that we suppose He might have, but as a promise. That is what covenant means. It is a promise or agreement between two parties. The promise was that God would restore His character of love into the hearts and lives of His people. The words at the very beginning of the first Commandment tell us of this promise.

When God gave the Ten Commandments, He commenced by saying, “You shall have” (Exodus 20:3). This phrase is the English translation of the Hebrew word hâyâh. It is the same word translated as “Let there be” from Genesis 1:3 onwards in the creation week as God spoke this world into existence. In Genesis, God said, “Hâyâh light,” and light appeared. He said, “Hâyâh the sun, moon, and stars,” and those great heavenly bodies suddenly came to be. When God said “Let there be” in the first chapter of Genesis, everything came to “be”—precisely as He said.

According to the Strong’s Concordance, hâyâh means “to exist, be or become, come to pass.” Beginning the Ten Commandments with hâyâh is quite significant. When God gave the Ten Commandments, He did so with a promise that His word would cause us to have Christ’s sinless, loving character; we would have the Ten Commandments written on our hearts. They will be! It won’t be because of any effort on our part except the effort to surrender to God’s will, because God said it would be!

The likeness to God that Adam and Eve had in the beginning, before the fall, was promised to be restored to us again.

Summary of the Ten Commandments’ Purpose

So, let’s summarize why God gave the Ten Commandments. God gave the Ten Commandments because:

1. They define sin and goodness.
2. They draw us into a faith-based relationship with Christ.
3. They define what love is.
4. They reflect the reality that God gave us Himself in self-sacrificing love.
5. They promise that our characters will be as beautiful as Christ’s character.