The Laws of Nature and Morality

Among the innumerable ethical laws and rules that regulate human behavior the most concise, clear and important are the Ten commandments. Although they were written many thousands of years ago when social conditions were drastically different from ours, their importance and authority has not diminished. To the contrary, the more our lives are entangled with contradictory opinions about what is right and what is wrong, the more we need the clear and unambiguous guidance of our Creator and Law-Giver.

Morally sensitive people have always regarded God's commandments with great esteem and considered them to be an inexhaustible source of wisdom and inspiration. "/Thy commandments make me wiser than my enemies ... Great peace have those who love Thy law, and nothing causes them to stumble/," we read in the book of Psalms (Excerpts from Psalm 119:1, 77, 97, 98, 165). For a believing Christian the commandments of God can be likened to a bright star which guides him to the Kingdom of Heaven.

When comparing the commandments of God to the laws of nature, we can discern some interesting similarities and differences. For instance, they both originate from the same Divine Source and complement each other, with one set of rules regulating physical events and the other set governing the behavior of moral beings. The difference lies in that, while the laws of nature are compulsory, the moral laws appeal to the will of a free and intelligent spirit. In endowing us with the freedom of choice God has elevated us above all other creatures. This moral freedom gives us an opportunity to grow spiritually, perfect ourselves and even to become like our Creator. On the other hand this freedom
places on us great responsibility and may become dangerous and destructive if misused.

A conscious violation of God's commandments leads moral beings (angels and humans) to moral degeneration, spiritual bondage, suffering and even to complete social destruction. Thus, for example, even before God created our visible world, a great tragedy occurred among the angels when one of them, the proud Lucifer, rebelled against his Creator and incited other angels to disobedience. Then many angels left their heavenly abodes to establish their own kingdom. After this Lucifer became known as Satan and his angels demons, and their kingdom, now called hell, became a place of eternal darkness and suffering.

Another tragedy occurred in the life of mankind when our ancestors Adam and Eve violated God's commandment regarding the tree of knowledge. Because of their transgression, human nature became sinful, and the life of their descendants became filled with crime, suffering and misfortune. Catastrophes of a lesser degree belong to the deluge during Noah's time, the devastation of the perverted cities of Sodom and Gomorra, the destruction of the kingdoms of Israel and Judea, and the fall of many ancient empires. Historians strive to find external causes which contributed to these calamities, but the Bible reveals to us that the ultimate cause was in the moral degradation of the people. Comparing further the laws of nature with the commandments of God, it must be said that the former are temporary and conditional because they are bound to this transient physical world. Moral laws, on the other hand, are eternal because they reflect the perfection of the Creator, who is eternal and unchanging.

In what follows we shall briefly narrate the history of the Ten commandments, comment on their significance and explain their meaning in the light of New Testament teaching.

Historical Circumstances of the Ten Commandments

The reception of the Ten commandments is one of the most significant events of the Old Testament. With this event is connected the very formation of the Jewish nation and the beginning of the covenant with God that ultimately led to the creation of the New Testament. Before the reception of the Ten commandments there lived in Egypt an obscure and illiterate Semitic tribe, enslaved to build cities and monuments for the pharaohs; after it there arose a great nation called upon to serve God and to spread among other nations the true faith in Him and salvation in His Messiah, our Lord Jesus Christ.

The circumstances surrounding the receipt of the Ten commandments are related in the book of Exodus (chapters 19-20 and 24). In approximately 1500 B.C., following the great miracles performed by Moses in Egypt, the pharaoh was compelled to free from slavery the Hebrew people. Led by Moses, the Hebrews miraculously crossed the Red Sea and went south across the desert of the Sinai peninsula, setting their course towards the promised land. On the fiftieth day after the exodus from Egypt, the Hebrews arrived at the foothills of Mount Sinai and encamped nearby. As Moses ascended the mountain, God appeared to him and said, "Thus you shall tell the children of Israel: ‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to Myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My Covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.'" When Moses repeated to the people what God just said to him, they answered, "All that the Lord has spoken, we will do" (Exodus 19:5-8).

Then the Lord instructed Moses to prepare the people for the receipt of the commandments by abstinence, fasting and praying. Moses again ascended to Mount Sinai. On the third day, as a dense cloud covered the mountain, it started shaking. After this, bright lightning flashed, thunder roared and the loud sound of trumpets was heard. All the people from far away observed these events with trepidation.

It was during this awesome appearance that the Lord proclaimed to Moses His Ten commandments and inscribed them on two stone tablets. After descending from the mountain, Moses gave these commandments to the people, and they promised to observe them because they all witnessed the glory and power of God. Then the covenant between God and the Hebrews was established: the Lord promised the Hebrews His mercies and protection, and they in turn promised to Him that they would live righteously. Moses once more ascended the mountain, remaining there for forty days while fasting and praying. Here the Lord gave Moses other laws, both ecclesiastical and laic, and commanded him to erect a transportable temple-tent, and gave him maxims regarding priestly service and sacrificial offerings. The two stone tablets with the commandments were placed in the "Ark of the Covenant" (a gilded chest depicting cherubim on the lid) as an everlasting reminder of the covenant between God and the Israelite people.

Comment : The whereabouts of these stone tablets is unknown. In the 2nd chapter of the second book of Maccabees it is mentioned that during the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar in the 6th century B.C. the prophet Jeremiah hid the stone tablets as well as some other belongings of the temple in a cave on Mount Nebo. This mountain is within twenty kilometers to the east of where of the mouth of river Jordan on the Dead Sea. Just before the entry of the Israelites into the promised land (about 1400 years B.C.) the prophet Moses was buried on this same mountain. Repeated attempts to find these stone tablets with the Ten Commandments have been in vain so far.

Here is the text of the Ten commandments: (Note that between the Ten commandments presented in the book of Exodus 20:1-17 and the book of Deuteronomy 5:6-21) there is an insignificant difference with brief comments added to them. These little amplifications are omitted here.

1. I am the Lord your God ... thou shalt have no other gods before Me.

2. Thou shalt not make for thee any graven image or any likeness of
anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or
that is in the water under the earth; thou shalt not bow down to them,
nor serve them.

3. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.

4. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days thou shalt labor
and do all thy work, but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy
God.

5. Honor thy father and thy mother, that it may be well with thee, and
that thy days may be long upon the earth.

6. Thou shalt not kill.

7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.

8. Thou shalt not steal.

9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife; thou shalt not covet thy
neighbor's house, nor his field ... nor anything that is thy neighbor's .

During the subsequent forty-year-long journey through the desert, Moses gradually recorded what God was revealing to him as well as many historical events in the life of the Jewish nation. Ultimately these writings formed the first five books of the Bible - Genesis, Exodus,Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.

The Significance of the Ten Commandments

The Old Testament books contain many laws which regulated not only the religious life of the Hebrews but their civil life also. With the beginning of the New Testament, the majority of these civil laws as well as many religious rituals had lost their significance and were discarded by the Apostles at their council in Jerusalem (see Acts chapter 15). However, the Ten commandments, which contain the most fundamental principles of moral life, without which the very existence of human society becomes impossible, were retained and even reinforced in the New Testament. It was because of such importance and inviolability that the Ten commandments were written not on paper or some other perishable material but on stone.

As we shall see, the Ten commandments follow a specific plan. They start with the most important and obvious and go to the less important and less obvious. The first four define duties towards God, while the following five define duties towards other people. The last commandment speaks of controlling one's thoughts and desires.

Some similarities can be found between the Ten commandments and laws of ancient nations that inhabited the northwestern part of Mesopotamia (well-known laws of the Sumerian king Ur-Nammu (2050 B.C.), the Amorite king Bilalam, the Sumer-Akkadian ruler Lirit-Ishtar, the Babylonian king Hammurabi (1800 B.C.), and the Assyrian and Hittite laws composed around 1500 B.C. ). These similarities and common elements between the God-revealed and natural laws are due to the fact that the moral law is ingrained by God into the human soul, so human beings, even when they don't know God, have a good natural feeling of what is right and what is wrong. If our nature were not corrupted by primordial sin, it is most likely that just the voice of conscience would be sufficient to regulate our personal and social life.

The Ten commandments express moral duties in a minimal and most general form, thus allowing maximum freedom in the arrangement of one's life's affairs. They are aimed at setting those boundaries which, when trespassed, can damage family and community life. Our Lord Jesus Christ in His sermons often referred to the Ten commandments and explained their deep spiritual meaning. We now shall turn our attention to each commandment successively and comment on them in the light of the New Testament.

The First Commandment

" I am the Lord your God ... thou shalt have no other gods before Me ."

With this commandment, the Lord draws our attention toward Himself as the ultimate Source of our existence and of all goodness in life, and as the supreme Goal of our existence. He is eternal, almighty, knows everything, and lives in an approachable light. He is the only true God, the Creator of everything visible and invisible; He is the Author of life, the Lawgiver, our most merciful Savior and loving Benefactor. For this reason He deserves all our respect, reverence and sincere love. He deserves that all our thoughts, words and actions be inspired by Him and be directed toward His glory, as the Lord Jesus Christ has taught us to wish and pray: Hallowed be Thy Name; Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven."

Thus the first commandment lays the proper foundation for private and social life and for this reason it holds a preeminent place among the other commandments. It casts man's spiritual outlook toward God and tells him to make the Lord the object of all his thoughts and endeavors. Consider the knowledge of God as the most precious knowledge, His will - the highest authority, service to Him - your life's calling. Because of this all-encompassing content, the first commandment reveals the superiority of the God-revealed law over all human legislation – ancient as well as contemporary. Experience shows that a healthy morality can be built only when it is founded on religious principles. Without divine authority, all human laws become conditional, unconvincing and subject to change.

In our age, the first commandment is as applicable and important as it was thousands of years ago. Indeed, although many contemporary people are saturated by all sorts of information and knowledge, they have but a dim awareness of God's existence and role in their life. This estrangement from God deprives people's intellects of necessary spiritual guidance and makes their lives wavering and empty. To find the correct direction in life, one should learn about God and His revelation by studying the Holy Scriptures and meditating, which can be augmented by reading the writings of the Holy Fathers and other religious books approved by the Church. This process of spiritual self-education becomes especially fruitful when it is accompanied by prayer and a sincere desire to become a better Christian. This acquired religious knowledge will enlighten not only the mind but will also permeate the heart and become the light of Christ shining in good deeds. Because of this wide scope, the first commandment includes in itself the rest of the commandments, which expand its meaning with specific actions.

Sins against the first commandment result from indifference toward God and His revelation or, what is even worse, from deliberate rejection of His will. These sins include atheism (militant rejection of God's existence), polytheism (belief in many gods), disbelief or agnosticism (unwillingness to learn about Him), superstition, disavowal of faith, heresy (distortion of His revealed truth) and despair (disbelief in His providence and mercy). All of these are, first of all, sins of the mind. Because sins of the mind invariably lead to sinful life and falling away from God, the Fathers of the Church always struggled with great energy and forbearance to preserve the purity of faith in God.

The Second Commandment

"Thou shalt not make for thee any graven image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; thou shalt not bow down to them, nor serve them."

This commandment forbids creation of any substitutes for God – worship of any kinds of idols, either physical or imaginary. The commandment was given when idolatry was mankind's sickness. In those times pagans deified all kind of objects - innumerable gods and goddesses – heavenly bodies, animals, birds, reptiles, plants, all kinds of demonic and grotesque creatures, anything in which dark superstition saw something supernatural or unexplainable. The Old Testament prophets and subsequently the Apostles and Christian preachers enlightened the world with faith in one and only one true God, the Creator of the universe and the Heavenly Father of mankind. Gradually, Christian teaching has almost completely eradicated the old paganism, and in our days the worship of idols is confined to just a few corners of the world (Japan, India, and the jungles of South America and Africa) as remnants of ancient superstitions.

However, there still exists a more subtle form of idolatry which persists even among those who would consider ludicrous any literal worship of idols. Indeed, the spirit of the second commandment forbids worship of anything or regard of anything more than God. When any relative object becomes for a person something to which he dedicates all his thoughts, time and energies, that object becomes an idol. Not only unbelievers but many contemporary Christians as well are mostly concerned about gathering material wealth and worldly fortunes, about making a successful career, achieving physical happiness and physical gratifications. There are many who give themselves up to political ideas or adore worldly leaders, movie or music stars, and because of their own little temporary gods, they completely forsake the true God and the salvation of their souls. For some, contemporary science has becomes the supreme authority by which they judge and even reject the God-revealed truths. In general, anything material and temporal that becomes the most important object for a person to the detriment of his soul has become his false god. Also, such strong passions as sex, drug addiction, drunkenness, smoking, gambling, gluttony, greed, vanity, pride, etcetera, have become the cruel masters of many. When the book of Revelation predicts the increase of paganism toward the end of the world, it certainly means this indirect form of idolatry: "They worshipped idols of gold, silver, brass, stone and wood which can neither see nor hear nor walk" (Revelations 9:20). The Apostle Paul labels greed as idolatry, and regarding gluttons he comments that "/their god is their belly/" (Colossians 3:5; Philippians 3:19).

Comments: God does not prohibit in His second commandment the fine arts of sculpture and paintings in themselves, because this would be a contradiction to all that He has said elsewhere about the decoration of the Temple.

It is wrong to assume that the second commandment forbids the Orthodox honoring of holy icons or other religious items. Orthodox Christians do not perceive icons as deities, but rather as reminders of spiritual truths - of God as He has appeared to Prophets, of the Incarnate Savior, of angels and miraculous biblical events. An icon, through its figures and colors, conveys that which the Holy Scripture describes in words.

Sacred pictures are lawful symbols on the same grounds as words are symbols that can convey religious ideas. Christians, in praying before an icon, give honor not to the material from which it is made, but to the One Who is depicted thereupon. Man's makeup is such that, eyesight, hearing and other senses greatly influence his thoughts and spiritual mood. It is much easier to concentrate in prayer, to address the Savior and to feel His closeness when one sees a representation of Him, rather than by watching an empty wall or something that distracts us.

It is noteworthy that Moses, through whom God forbade the worship of idols, was ordered by God to place gold cherubim on the cover of the Ark of the Covenant. The Lord said to Moses: "Place them on both ends of the cover. There I shall unveil Myself to you and speak with you above the cover between two Cherubim/." Likewise the Lord commanded weaving of the likeness of the cherubim on the curtain separating the Sanctuary from the Holy of Holies and on the inside of the hanging coverings of the tabernacle (Exodus 25:18-22 and 26:1-37). Subsequently, in the temple of Solomon, there were sculptures and embroidered likenesses of the cherubim (1 Kings 6:27-29 and 2 Chronicles 3:7-14). The Lord approved these holy images during the dedication of the temple, as we read in the Bible: "/The glory of the Lord [in the form of a cloud] filled the house of the Lord/" (1 Kings 8:11).

There were no icons of the Lord God in the Tabernacle tent or in the temple of Solomon because He had not yet revealed Himself in the flesh as God Incarnate. There were no likenesses of the Old Testament righteous men since mankind was not as yet redeemed and justified. The Lord Jesus Christ sent a miraculous icon of His Face to King Avgar of Edessa. It was known as the "Icon-not-made-by-hand." Having prayed before this icon of Christ, Avgar was cured of leprosy. The Evangelist Luke, a physician and artist, painted and left to posterity several icons of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Several of them are found in Russia and in Greece. Christians made copies from these portrayals of the Savior and the Blessed Virgin, many of which the Lord glorified with miraculous works. Thus evolved the many miracle working icons – the carriers of Divine Grace and blessings.

The honoring of God's saints, their icons and relics (holy remains) does not contradict the second commandment. Angels and saints should be considered our elder brothers who help us to attain salvation and pray for us before the throne of God (Rev 5:8). The Lord Himself enjoined: "Pray for each other." As we know from the Gospels, the Lord always helped those for whom others interceded.


Missionary Leaflet 37E
Copyright © 2001 Holy Trinity Orthodox Mission
466 Foothill Blvd, Box 397, La Canada, Ca 91011

Editor: Bishop Alexander (Mileant)



 

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