The Sanction Attending the Third Commandment – A Kingdom Catechism

The Sanction Attending the Third Commandment

A Kingdom Catechism

God disciplines those who take His Name in vain.

Q 72: What sanction does the Lord threaten for disobeying the third commandment?

A 72: The Lord threatens that He will continue to hold guilty, and thus subject to discipline, all those who take His Name in vain. (Exod. 20:7; Deut. 5:11; Ps. 66:18; Heb. 12:3-11)

Of course, this follows because of the hypocrisy involved in professing to belong to the Lord yet failing to live for His glory. But the Lord does not withdraw His love from us when we thus walk faithlessly before Him; rather, He applies His discipline to us, in one or more of several ways, in order to bring us to our senses so that we confess and repent of our sin and seek Him and His Spirit again unto righteousness. We may persist in taking the Lord’s Name in vain, but if we are truly His, He will never desist from seeking to lead us to walk in a manner worthy of that Name, whatever that may require. We may be faithless, but He remains ever faithful (2 Tim. 2:13).

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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.