The Great and First Commandment | Exodus 20:3

Introduction

If you’re older than 30, you’re old enough to remember pre-9/11 airports. Remember how we used to be able to go all the way to the gate to pick up or say goodbye to friends and family? I remember getting off a flight in San Francisco and my friend was right there at the gate to meet me. If you’re under 30, this may really blow your mind, but we used to be able to keep our shoes on at the airport. That kind of freedom is unthinkable and almost unimaginable today!

In his book on the 10 Commandments, Kevin DeYoung asks this provoking question: 

“Have you ever thought about how much better life would be if everyone kept the Ten Commandments? We may grumble about rules and regulations, but think of what an amazing place the world would be if these ten rules were obeyed. If everyone kept the Ten Commandments, we wouldn't need copyright laws, patent laws, or intellectual property rights. We wouldn't need locks on our doors or fraud protection. We wouldn't have to spend money on weapons and defense systems. We wouldn’t need courts, contracts, or prisons. Can you imagine what life would be like if people obeyed the Ten Commandments? The law is not an ugly thing; it is good and righteous and holy (Rom. 7:12).”

Can you imagine? It would be like heaven on earth. In fact, Jesus means for us not only to imagine this but to pray for it. He taught us to pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” And the Ten Commandments reveal the moral will of God.

Here’s another question: which single commandment, if it was obeyed across the world, would make the biggest, most noticeable difference? 

The 6th commandment prohibits murder. Imagine a world without violent crimes. 

The 8th commandment prohibits stealing. Suddenly there would be no theft, no burglaries, no shoplifting, embezzlement, or corruption. There would be no printing of money and government-caused inflation. 

The 9th commandment forbids false witness. Imagine a world without perjury, false advertising, fake news, or cover-ups. 

But the commandment that would make the biggest difference in the world—if it was obeyed—is the first commandment. The first commandment is the foundational commandment. It’s not just the first in a list; it is the foundation upon which all the others are established. If you break this one, you can’t keep any of the other commandments. 

Or to say it another way, if you break any of the others, it’s because you first broke this one. Does anyone steal without first wanting something other than God? Does anyone commit adultery, murder, lie, or covet without first desiring something other than God more than God? J. I. Packer says of the first commandment, “True religion starts with accepting this as one’s rule of life.”

All your problems in life are, at the root, a failure to keep this command. The remedy to all your sinful behavior and unbelieving attitudes is to keep this command. 

Again, J. I. Packer writes, “Whether as persons we grow and blossom or shrink and wither, whether in character we become more like God or more like the devil, depends directly on whether we seek to live by what is in the Commandments or not.”

Do you want to grow and blossom or shrink and wither? Do you want to become more like God or more like the devil? Then pay attention to the Ten Commandments, and especially to the first commandment.

Exodus 20:1–3

“And God spoke all these words, saying, ‘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.’”

Here is the authoritative and transforming claim the first commandment makes: Abundant life is found in exclusive devotion to the unrivaled God.

Abundant life is found in exclusive devotion to the unrivaled God.

The first commandment is the key to abundant life. Scripture repeatedly emphasizes that God’s law is for the good of his people. “And the LORD commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the LORD our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as we are this day” (Deuteronomy 6:24; cf. 4:6, 10:13). 

And Jesus affirmed that the commands of God mark out the way of life and joy when he said, “If you would enter life, keep the commandments” (Matthew 19:17). God’s law defines the path of life.

This is implied, as we saw last week, in the preface to the Ten Commandments. God says, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Exodus 20:2). First, God liberated his people slavery, then he gave them his Law. The Law of God is for liberated people, to keep them free. That’s why James can call the perfect law, the law of liberty (Jas. 1:25). Weld these two words together in your mind: law and liberty. Man’s law enslaves, but God’s law liberates.

Now look at that phrase at the end: “You shall have no other gods before me.” In English, there’s some ambiguity and you could misread that: “You shall not have any gods before me or above me, but you may have other gods after me or below me.” But the Hebrew words have the sense “in my presence.”

“You shall have no other gods in my presence.” Where is God present? In Psalm 139, David writes, “Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,’ even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you” (Psalm 139:7–12).

God is present everywhere. He sees all things. He knows all things, including our thoughts, motives, and desires. The first commandment establishes the fact that this—and all the commandments—are about all of life. All of life is lived before God—in the presence of God.

Most people, if they are concerned with keeping the law at all, are content with occasional outward conformity. John Calvin says, “They think it enough to have carefully concealed from man what they are doing in the sight of God.” But God rebukes those who think they can hide their sin from him in Jeremiah: “Am I a God at hand, declares the LORD, and not a God far away? Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the LORD. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the LORD.” (Jeremiah 23:23–24).

You live your entire life in the presence of God. And in this first commandment, God lays claims on your entire life—for your good, that you might truly live.

The more consciously aware you are of this reality, the more thoroughly you will experience joy in life as God transforms you. Are you enslaved to pornography when no one is around? You forget that you sin in God’s presence. Are you kind and friendly outside of the home but angry and short-tempered with your spouse and kids? You forget that God is in your home. Do you look busy when your boss is watching, but slack off when he leaves? You forget that you work in God’s presence. Children and teens, do you talk and act one way around your parents and a different way around your friends? You forget that you live all of life in God’s presence.

And God means for you to live and not die—to live abundantly! In one of his works, Herman Bavinck shares this quote: 

“When you wish to do something evil, you retire from the public into your house where no enemy may see you; from those places of your house which are open and visible to the eyes of men you remove yourself into your room; even in your room you fear some witness from another quarter; you retire into your heart, there you mediate: He is more inward than your heart. Wherever, therefore, you shall have fled, there He is. From yourself, whither will you flee? Will you not follow yourself wherever you shall flee? But since there is One more inward even than yourself, there is no place where you may flee from God angry but to God reconciled. There is no place at all whither you may flee. Will you flee from Him? Flee unto Him.”

He is more inward than your heart. Will you flee from him? Flee unto Him!

Abundant life is found in exclusive devotion to the unrivaled God.

The first commandment calls for exclusive devotion to God. The pursuit of abundant life in God alone motivates us to heed the first commandment. And to that end, we should seek to understand what this commandment requires and what it forbids. The Westminster Catechism says, “Where a duty is commanded, the contrary sin is forbidden; and, where a sin is forbidden, the contrary duty is commanded.” As we work through the Ten Commandments, keep that in mind.

Look at the commandment again: “You shall have no other gods.” What does it mean to have a god? Other passages in the Old Testament speak of idol-worship in terms of invoking or calling on other gods, going after them, serving them, worshiping them, bowing down to them, fearing them, or offering incense and sacrifices to false gods. But to have is quite a broad, general word. It’s the perfect word because it covers everything.

I like this definition from Martin Luther; “A god is that to which we look for all good and where we resort for help in every time of need. … Whatever your heart clings to and confides in, that is really your God.”

J. I. Packer says it like this: “Your god is what you love, seek, worship, serve, and allow to control you.”

Your god is whoever or whatever you rely on for your satisfaction and security. Everyone trusts something. In this sense, no one is an atheist. Everyone has a god. The question is, Is God your God? Or do you have other gods?

Is your ultimate hope for security in politicians and the government? Or do you trust money to satisfy you and secure you? Or do you seek satisfaction in sexual pleasure, food, drink, or leisure—legitimate pleasures that make miserable gods?

One way to identify what you’re trusting is to ask yourself two questions: What do you desire the most—what do you think about and pursue the most? And what do you fear the most—what do you fear losing? 

In the first commandment, God forbids you to set your hope on anyone or anything other than him. Which means that the first commandment requires exclusive devotion to God. The question is not whether you call yourself a Christian or say you believe in God or attend church or give to charities. Listen to Martin Luther again: “For that is not to have a god, if you call him God only with your lips, or worship him with the knees or bodily gestures; but if you trust Him with the heart, and look to Him for all good, grace and favor, whether in works or sufferings, in life or death, in joy or sorrow.”

Do you trust God with your heart? Do you look to God for all your good at all times? Is he your highest joy and your deepest delight?

We see this first commandment kind of devotion throughout Scripture. Consider Psalm 73:25: “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.” Or Psalm 34:9: “Oh, fear the LORD, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack!” Or Psalm 16:2: “I say to the Lord, ‘You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.’”

In other words, in you, I lack no good thing (Ps. 34:9) and apart from you, I have no good thing (Ps. 16:2). That is the kind of devotion and dependence the first commandment calls for.  Do you trust in and rely on God?

Over the last few weeks, Pastor Greg has mentioned how this covenant ceremony at Mount Sinai is much like a wedding ceremony between God, the groom, and Israel, God’s bride. In every wedding I officiate, there is a part we call the Declaration of Consent. It’s the part when the Bride and Groom say the “I do’s.”I ask the bride and groom if they will forsake all others and “be faithful to [each other] as long as [they] both shall live.” If so, they say, “I do.” A marriage is an exclusive relationship, a closed covenant. There is no room for rivals.

That is the kind of exclusive relationship the first commandment establishes. God and God alone is to be the aim and desire of your life.

And this exclusive devotion to God is the key to abundant life. Whenever you desire anyone or anything more than God—no matter how good it seems—you will be tempted to react sinfully when that desire goes unfulfilled or especially when someone thwarts your desire. You might think, “I just want my children to obey.” Watch out! If you want obedient children more than you want to please God when your children are disobeying, you will respond sinfully to their disobedience and make things worse.

Or you might think, “I just want a happy marriage. What’s so wrong with that?” Watch out! If you want a happy, conflict free marriage more than you want to honor God when your spouse is sinning against you, you will react sinfully to your spouse’s sin and make things even worse. We could go on and on with examples. 

Resolve now by God’s grace that your highest aim and deepest desire at all times will be God himself—to have him as your God, to honor him and obey him, to glorify him, to enjoy him.

Abundant life is found in exclusive devotion to the unrivaled God.

The first commandment claims that God is the unrivaled God. “You shall have no other gods before me” does not imply that there are other gods.  It is a claim of supremacy—supreme authority, supreme honor, supreme dominion. “For thus says the LORD, who created the heavens (he is God!), who formed the earth and made it (he established it; he did not create it empty, he formed it to be inhabited!): ‘I am the LORD, and there is no other’” (Isaiah 45:18). (God repeats that exclusive claim five times in Isaiah 45!) God is the only God. There is none above him and none before him. All the superlatives belong to him. He is the greatest, the highest, the best, the most.

The first commandment establishes God alone as the source of moral authority. It’s fair to respond to any moral truth claim by asking, “Sez who?” For moral commands to have any weight or meaning, they have to come from a legitimate authority. If moral truth claims are nothing more than statements of personal preferences—whether those of one individual or a collection of people—they can be ignored. 

If morality is subjective and relative, it is entirely meaningless. A subjective statement is statement about the person talking, the subject. So “murder is evil” is not about murder, it’s about the person talking. It means nothing more than “I don’t like murder.” The rest of the world can simply shrug and carry on. Moral relativists who loudly denounce racism or patriarchy or climate carnage are acting like someone who walks into Times Square and yells, “I don’t like chocolate ice cream!” Okay, thanks for letting us know. Morality is meaningless unless it is objective and absolute, transcendent and universal.

But the moral law can only be universal if there is an absolute, transcendent, and universal Lawgiver who rules all humanity. The first commandment is crucial because it establishes the nature of all morality as transcendent, universal, and absolute. God is claiming that he is God and there is no other.  Therefore, God alone has ultimate authority to issue binding moral commands. These commandments are true for all people in all places at all times because they come from and reveal the moral will and the moral character of the One True God.

Not only is God the source of moral authority, but he is the only One worthy of your devotion. He is the unrivaled God. Throughout the 10 Plagues, we saw that God acted to reveal his glory so that Egypt, Israel, and the ends of the earth would know that he is the Lord. Remember how God said, “I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, and the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD” (Exodus 14:4)? God’s global purpose is to win the joyful allegiance of all peoples. In Isaiah 45:6, God says he works “[so] that people may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides me; I am the LORD, and there is no other” (Isaiah 45:6).

One way to get a sense of the significance of a law is to pay attention to the punishment for violating it. If your parking meter expires, you pay a few dollars. A slap on the hand. More serious crimes carry more serious sentences, up to the death penalty.

In the Old Testament, the mandatory punishment for violating the first commandment was death. “If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or your daughter or the wife you embrace or your friend who is as your own soul entices you secretly, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which neither you nor your fathers have known, some of the gods of the peoples who are around you, whether near you or far off from you, from the one end of the earth to the other, you shall not yield to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him, nor shall you conceal him. But you shall kill him. Your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. You shall stone him to death with stones, because he sought to draw you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. And all Israel shall hear and fear and never again do any such wickedness as this among you” (Deuteronomy 13:6–11).

The fact that that sounds too harsh and too severe reveals how little we think of God. Certain crimes elicit strong revulsion in us: crimes against children, sexual assault, violent and gruesome crimes. If we consider those crimes against people to be heinous, how much more heinous are crimes against the God in whose image those people are created? Because God is infinitely glorious and infinitely worthy to be trusted and obeyed, turning away from God to false gods is a crime of infinite evil. And since every one of us is guilty of violating this commandment, we deserve death.

But, thanks be to God, who has graciously provided his own Son to fulfill the law’s demand. Jesus perfectly obeyed the law so that he could be the sinless substitute for you. When Jesus began his public ministry, he spent forty days in the desert and he was tempted by the devil. Matthew records, “Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.’ Then Jesus said to him, ‘Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve”’” (Matthew 4:8–10).

Jesus fulfilled the first commandment! Unlike you and me, Jesus never loved, treasured, trusted, or worshiped anyone but God the Father. And yet he suffered the penalty of death that we deserve so that God could destroy our heinous idolatry without destroying us.

And then God raised him from the dead and made him the King of the world. That means you can be forgiven for failing to keep the first commandment. But it also means that through faith in Jesus you can be set free from slavery to false gods to worship the one true God.

Jesus did not die to free us from the obligation to love God alone and live for his glory. He died so that we might have God as our treasure forever. 

In fact, Jesus transforms the first commandment even more. Jesus is the Word made flesh, the eternal Son of God, the image of the invisible God, the radiance of his glory, and the exact imprint of his nature. Which means that the first commandment still applies, but now it is fulfilled by trusting and treasuring Jesus. In John 14:6, Jesus made this exclusive claim of ultimate authority. He said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me’” (John 14:6). Abundant life is found in exclusive devotion to Jesus, our unrivaled King and Savior. If you don’t worship Jesus, you are not worshiping the One True God.

Are you relying on Jesus? Are you trusting him for all your earthly and eternal good? Do you trust his promise to forgive your sins and secure you forever? Is his glory and fame the great desire of your heart?

If not, repent of having other gods before him and forsake your false gods. He will forgive you and change your desires.

If so, rejoice in the kindness of God toward you. And pray that more and more people would be freed from slavery to sin and brought into the glorious freedom of knowing and treasuring Christ.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.