1Deut 10:4; Ex 34:1–4; ²Mt 22:37–40

We saw in WLC 93, that "the moral law is the declaration of the will of God to mankind." No where in the Scriptures do the words ‘moral law’ appear. But a study of the Scripture, both of the Old and New Testaments, leads us to the special character of the set of laws recorded in Exodus 20:1-17 and repeated with slight modifications in Deuteronomy 5:6-21.

This set of law is known as "the words of the covenant, the ten commandments" (Ex 34:28). We believe this is a summary of the Moral Law.

This set of commandments was "delivered by the voice of God upon Mount Sinai" (cf. Ex 20:1, 19) in the midst of "thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking" (Ex 20:18). All the other laws of God were given by God’s inspiration to Moses and the prophets, but the Ten Commandments alone were spoken by audibly in the hearing of the people. And not only so: All the other laws of God were inscribed using the pens of men, but the Ten Commandments were personally inscribed by God on tables of stone—twice (Ex 34:1). Also, the Ten Commandments alone, of all the laws of God, were placed in the Ark of the Covenant (1Kgs 8:9).

Now, when we examine the Ten Commandments, we see that all other laws in the Scripture can be reduced to one or more of the Ten Commandments. And moreover, when the Lord Jesus was asked what is the greatest commandment in the Law, He answered:

Our Lord was probably paraphrasing Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18. But what does He mean by "on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets"?

When we examine the content of the Ten Commandment, we discover what He means, for the Ten Commandments can be divided into two sets of commandments, "the four first commandments containing our duty to God, and the other six our duty to man."

When our Lord speaks of loving God with all our heart, soul and mind, He is no doubt reducing the whole moral law into one summary commandment. This commandment may be immediately expanded into the first four commandments. When our Lord speaks of our duty to love our neighbours as ourselves, He is no doubt summarising the last six commandments. The last six commandments, we should realise, are subservient to the first four commandments, for the command to love our neighbours can be reduce to a command to love God. Indeed, ultimately our duty to love our neighbours is our duty towards God. That is to say, "our moral responsibility to God is the basis of our duties towards our fellow man" (Vos). This is why our Lord teaches us that the "first and great commandment" is to love God, and that while the command to love our neighbour is "like unto it," it is second unto the command to love God.

This of course, does not mean that any of the commandments are unimportant. James teaches us that if we break the least of the commandments, we break the whole law (Jas 2:10-11). Thus if we covet our neighbour’s property, we do not love God as we should. Our neighbour’s property has become as a god unto us, and we become guilty of idolatry which is a breaking of the first commandment (Col 3:5). W