Law Given to Israel
263
“I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of
Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” He whom they had already known
as their Guide and Deliverer, who had brought them forth from Egypt,
making a way for them through the sea, and overthrowing Pharaoh
and his hosts, who had thus shown Himself to be above all the gods of
Egypt—He it was who now spoke His law.
The law was not spoken at this time exclusively for the benefit
of the Hebrews. God honored them by making them the guardians
and keepers of His law, but it was to be held as a sacred trust for
the whole world. The precepts of the Decalogue are adapted to all
mankind, and they were given for the instruction and government of
all. Ten precepts, brief, comprehensive, and authoritative, cover the
duty of man to God and to his fellow man; and all based upon the
great fundamental principle of love. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength,
and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself.”
Luke 10:27
. See
also
Deuteronomy 6:4, 5
;
Leviticus 19:18
. In the Ten Commandments
these principles are carried out in detail, and made applicable to the
condition and circumstances of man.
“Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.”
Jehovah, the eternal, self-existent, uncreated One, Himself the
Source and Sustainer of all, is alone entitled to supreme reverence and
worship. Man is forbidden to give to any other object the first place in
his affections or his service. Whatever we cherish that tends to lessen
our love for God or to interfere with the service due Him, of that do
we make a god.
“Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven 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: thou shalt not bow down thyself to
them, nor serve them.”
[306]
The second commandment forbids the worship of the true God by
images or similitudes. Many heathen nations claimed that their images
were mere figures or symbols by which the Deity was worshiped, but
God has declared such worship to be sin. The attempt to represent
the Eternal One by material objects would lower man’s conception of
God. The mind, turned away from the infinite perfection of Jehovah,
would be attracted to the creature rather than to the Creator. And as his
conceptions of God were lowered, so would man become degraded.