The First Commandment – No Other Gods

The First Commandment

No other gods

Deuteronomy 10:14-16

“Behold, to the LORD your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it. Yet the LORD set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day. Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.”

There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind respecting the question of Who stands back of the Law of God. He is Creator, Sustainer, and Owner of all created things. Simple observation of the cosmos tells us that this God is powerful, wise, good, orderly, and unchanging.

Further, He is completely free and independent of His creatures; He has no need of the cosmos nor of the men who inhabit it (Acts 17:25). He is immense, omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent. He lacks for nothing. All the holy and eternal being and power of God have gone into the proclamation of His Law. Men must not doubt for a moment His intention of seeing this Law obeyed–not because of God’s desire to dominate or tyrannize His creatures, but because of His determination to bless them.

He who promises that the Law He has commanded is for our good is able, as we see from the creation around us, to cause that Law to accomplish its desired intent.

In this series of In the Gates we present a detailed explanation of the Law of God, beginning with the Ten Commandments, and working through the statutes and rules that accompany each commandment. For a practical guide to the role of God’s Law in the practice of ethics, get The Ground for Christian Ethics by going to www.MyParuchia.com and click on our Book Store.

–

In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore, editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001, 2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.