A Perfectly Reasonable Commandment – The First Commandment

A Perfectly Reasonable Commandment

Exodus 20:2, 3

“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.”

The faithfulness, grace, and power of God are gloriously on display in His redemptive work, both that of bringing Israel out of Egypt, and that by which He secures us to Himself through our Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord is faithful; He keeps His covenant, remembering his Word to our forebears and carrying out all that He has promised us in Jesus. His amazing grace is seen in that He reaches to us, who are completely undeserving, and delivers and guards us by His ongoing faithfulness and love. We were slaves to unrighteousness, tyrannized by our own bad choices; yet he reached out to us, adopted and renewed us, and continues to hold on to us by his grace alone. This was Israel’s experience of the sovereign grace of God, and it is ours as well. What more reason do we need for worshiping Him alone as God and Lord?

God’s redemption is all of grace. Can His Law be anything else? Why is it a measure of the grace of our redeeming God that He would insist that we devote ourselves exclusively to Him?

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“In the Gates” is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore

T. M. Moore is 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.

Editor’s note: The use of a translation other than the Authorised Version in an article does not constitute an endorsement in whole or in part by The Christian Observer.