The 10 Commandments are One Universal Rule Spelled Out
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Opening READINGS
From Biblical & Hebrew Scripture
Exodus 20:1-17 - "The 10 Commandments"
And God spoke all these words: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
“You shall have no other gods before me.
“You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.
“You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.
“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
“Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.
“You shall not murder.
“You shall not commit adultery.
“You shall not steal.
“You shall not steal.
“You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.
“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
From Swedenborg's Theological Writings
Click here for free ebooks of Emanuel Swedenborg's Theological Writings
Click here for free ebooks of Emanuel Swedenborg's Theological Writings
The 10 Commandments are One Universal Rule Spelled Out
By Rev. Cory Bradford-Watts
Did you know that there are (at least) two versions of the 10 Commandments in the Bible? And they’re quite different! I guarantee you that you’re not very well acquainted with version two (at least, I wasn’t), the one that in the Biblical story quickly replaced the first one that we know after it was broken. This second one includes things like “redeem firstborn goats with a lamb, and if you don’t, break their necks!” Makes sense as to why this version is largely forgotten, but even so, this specific list is the only one that is called the 10 Commandments by scripture.
It’s funny that things can get murky really quickly when we look to the Bible or any other religious text for a specific set of literal rules to follow. Many holy texts go as far as to describe how to brush your teeth and other minute details of life. The Bible is like this, as it spells out the customs and laws governing the day-to-day life of the Hebrew people.
I think looking at these contextual laws as literal rules for life today is a little farfetched for most people, even for the most passionate Christians and for most Jews as well. But does that mean we should completely ignore them, or ignore the versions of the 10 Commandments?
Well, I think there’s a reason why the version of the 10 Commandments that broke is the one that we tend to point to. Rules like thou shalt not kill or still, honor thy father and mother, remember the Sabbath day, and so on, make more apparent sense to most of us than, let’s say, number nine from the 10 Commandments redux version: “Do not offer the blood of a sacrifice to me along with anything containing yeast.”
The moral rules of the first version speak to our hearts clearly and they’re easy to support. Even the spiritual interpretations of these commandments highlighted by our unintentional namesake back in the 18th century, Emanuel Swedenborg, make apparent sense: honor thy Mother and Father means honor your spiritual Mother and Father: God(dess). Do not steal means do not steal from God, or in other words, don’t claim anything for yourself since all good things are a gift from God. These Commandments spell out rules of life that we connect with and that speak to a fundamental rule of reality: love each other and love God.
This was Christ’s point, the person some believe to be Jehovah, Allah, Sophia, Vishnu in the flesh. Jesus said that “all the law and the prophets,” so the entire Hebrew Scriptures – perhaps, all scripture – hang on two commandments. He said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” Which means that the point of those texts, from the 10 Commandments to Lamentations, is to help uplift and inspire those two attributes more than anything else. And I think the version of the Commandments that we know most clearly sums up what it means to act and intend in a way that exemplifies that central focus, from its literal sense to its spiritual.
We spend a lot of time in this community talking about the scientist-turned-mystic Emanuel Swedenborg’s belief that loving God comes down to appreciating and receiving God’s loving and wise qualities (no matter our tradition), the good things that make and infuse all things. It also means loving God’s divine personal presence in our lives and in every life or thing around us. I think we and Swedenborg highlight this for good reason! As Jesus said, loving God and the neighbor is what all scripture comes down to – and we’re told it uplifts these things for the sakes of our eternal joy and health. And so, understanding what it means to love the Lord/Lady in an open, pluralistic and non-divisive way is of crucial importance for our own lives and for the life of our world.
Further, I think we can simplify this central focus of scripture even more, into one, universal rule: love God.
When Jesus was asked, “Who is my neighbor?” he responds by telling a parable about someone hurt on the side of a road, about all the people that pass him by and the Good Samaritan who stops to help. Interestingly enough, he doesn’t say, “All the people in this story are your neighbor.” He instead makes the point that it is the Good Samaritan, the goodness in intention and action in other people that is our neighbor. Now, I don’t think this definition was articulated to be divisive, but that it’s a call to love the goodness (the loving, wise qualities) in all others and that we should help to uplift these things in all things, including ourselves. Moreover, we’re often told that all those neighborly, good qualities that we have are God with us – and so to love our neighbor is to love God in others. Note, loving ourselves in the way that scripture describes is also synonymous with loving goodness, life, and Divinity within us.
Thus, we can sum up the 10 Commandments and even all scripture in one, very short rule: love God. Love her presence, her Divine attributes, in all ways and in all things as much as we can.
Why is the Bible so long then? Why all the parables, the crazy narratives, and the literal inconsistencies? Well, as we’ve proven again and again, we like to ignore what it means to love Goddess. We like to make the gate narrow in our own selfish, worldly ways: “The only way to heaven is to say that you’re a Christian;” “You can only love God / Jesus by loving or believing in my awareness and idea of Jesus;” “Loving your neighbor means loving everybody while condemning almost everyone to hell.”
And so we have to be reminded. We need parables, wise advice, insightful reflection to help warm us up to love God and the life around us. Divinity has to provide some psychotherapy, guidance on the details, and ways to take baby steps toward the heavenly city within and around us. Even then, we skim the parts we don’t like or don’t get and paint the other parts in a color of our choosing – ignoring the rainbow of love, light, and openness that Divinity itself is trying to paint through the text.
God asks us in most traditions to love Goodness, to love the goodness and life that is God. To love it so much that we strive to uplift it in our world, in ourselves, and in those around us. The 10 Commandments help to detail what that central focus means in act, as does Christ’s words and bigotry breaking social justice. It’s easy to say that loving God just means agreeing with me, but loving Divinity is so much wider than that, it breaks through the barriers of language and time, traditions and faiths, into the One Divine Rule that enlightens all in our rainbowed diversity: Love.
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