The sum and preface of the commandments

This week's questions

What is the sum of the ten commandments? The sum of the ten commandments is, To love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength, and with all our mind; and our neighbour as ourselves.

Question 42

What is the preface to the ten commandments? The preface to the ten commandments is in these words, I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

Question 43

What doth the preface to the ten commandments teach us? The preface to the ten commandments teacheth us, That because God is the Lord, and our God, and Redeemer, therefore we are bound to keep all his commandments.

Question 44

Last week we learned that the moral law is summed up in the ten commandments. This week the ten are gathered again into two, and we hear the words God spoke before any of them. From next week we take the commandments one by one.

Ten commandments hanging on two loves

Question 42 follows the summary the Lord himself gave. Asked for the greatest commandment, Jesus joined Deuteronomy's love for God (Deuteronomy 6:5) to Leviticus's love for neighbour (Leviticus 19:18), and ended, "All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments" (Matthew 22:40). The Larger Catechism lays the two loves across the two tables: the four commandments of our duty to God are summed up in loving him Larger Catechism, Q. 102, and the six of our duty to man in loving our neighbour as ourselves and doing to others as we would have them do to us Q. 122. The Heidelberg Catechism likewise gives the first table, of four, to our duties to God, and the second, of six, to our duties to our neighbour Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 93; Catholics and Lutherans, numbering as we saw last week, count three and seven.

A summary does not make the commandments unnecessary. It is not an eraser but a cord that binds them together. Paul names the commandments against adultery, murder and theft, gathers them and every other into love of neighbour, and concludes: "Love does no wrong to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law" (Romans 13:10). Love tells us what the commandments are after; the commandments show us what love looks like. The English minister Matthew Henry, on Jesus' summary, urges: "By these two commandments let our hearts be formed as by a mould" Matthew Henry.

The order of the two loves matters too. Bernard of Clairvaux wrote in the twelfth century that "a man cannot love his neighbor in God, except he love God Himself" Bernard, On Loving God 8. Augustine, bishop of Hippo in North Africa, saw love as what finally shapes a people: "two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self" The City of God 14.28. The Heidelberg Catechism, for its part, sets this same summary in its part on our misery Q. 4. Only Christ has loved this way without fault, and so the summary sends us to him.

The preface: the Redeemer's commands

The preface of Question 43 comes before the commandments: grace before law, redemption before command. The Larger Catechism hears in it God's sovereignty as JEHOVAH, eternal, unchangeable and almighty, having his being of himself; his covenant with all his people, as with Israel of old; and his deliverance of us from spiritual bondage, as he brought Israel out of Egypt Larger Catechism, Q. 101. Question 44's three names, Lord, our God and Redeemer, are all there. The library's introduction opens the preface itself, so here we open the two proof texts given for Question 44.

The first is the song of Zechariah at the birth of his son John the Baptist, praising the God who promised his people:

deliverance from hostile hands, that we may serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our lives.

Luke 1:74-75

Rescue comes first; service follows, and without fear. In the second, Peter calls his readers, "just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do" (1 Peter 1:15), and gives the reason:

For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life you inherited from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or spot.

1 Peter 1:18-19

Israel left Egypt under the blood of the Passover lamb; the Christian's exodus is the cross. The Heidelberg Catechism keeps the same order when it asks why the redeemed must do good works, and answers first, "that with our whole life we may show ourselves thankful to God for his blessing" Q. 86. Thankful obedience is taught at length in Guilt, grace and gratitude; see also What is love? and How should we live?

To ponder this week

Do I obey this week in order to be loved, or because I have been loved and redeemed? Most of us find both in our hearts. Each time you set yourself to keep a commandment, say the preface aloud first. When you remember who is speaking, the One who brought you out, the same commandment sounds different.

Practice