How Many Commandments?

—— Exodus 20 ——

The Ten Commandments, or “the Ten Words,” were the core of the Biblical covenant between Israel and God (see notes on Ex 20:2; Dt 4:13; 5:6–21). But actually keeping these commandments required that more detail be given: What constitutes work? How does someone honor their parents? Does killing refer only to human beings? What about warfare or self-defense? And if the commandments were broken, what were the consequences? Much of the rest of the Torah expands upon the basic laws of the Ten Commandments, addressing potential questions and situations. The ancient reader understood the whole of the Torah and all the other commandments to be a guide for living a righteous life. The exact number of laws in the Torah became a matter of rabbinic interest, probably after the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in ad 70.

Rabbi Simlai stated, “Six hundred and thirteen precepts were given to Moses—three hundred and sixty-five of them are negative, like the number of days of the solar year, and two hundred and forty-eight are positive commandments, corresponding to the parts of the human body.” Another rabbinic view took the numeric value of “TORAH” in Hebrew, which was six hundred and eleven, and added the first two commandments of the Decalogue (a term of Greek origin that refers to the Ten Commandments) to equal six hundred and thirteen. It’s possible the rabbis of Jesus’ days were beginning to ask the question of the number of commandments in the Torah; however, the number six hundred and thirteen was probably unknown in Jesus’ day.

The early church struggled with the relevancy of the laws in the Torah for the new believer. Many of the first followers of Jesus were observant Jews who did not set aside the law upon following Jesus. But as the church grew in number and acquired more Gentile believers, the question of Torah observance became an important issue (see Ac 15). Had Christ set all believers free from the law? What about the Ten Commandments? An early Christian source from the third century ad called the Didascalia took a nuanced approach to the law. It argued that the Christian should follow the Ten Commandments but that the so-called Second Legislation did not apply to the Christian:

“When you read the Law [Pentateuch/Torah], beware of the Second Legislation, so that you merely read it. But keep far away from the commandments and warnings that are found within it . . . For the First Law [Ten Commandments] is that which the Lord God spoke before the people had made the [golden] calf and served idols, which consists of the Decalogue and the judgments. However, those things which He rightly commanded them after the idolatry and imposed upon them as laws, do not draw these bonds upon yourself, for our Savior came for no other reason than to fulfill the law and to loose the bonds of the Second Legislation.”

Such an attitude toward the law in the third century suggests that some Christians were still following the entire law, much as their Jewish neighbors were doing. The struggle between Judaism and Christianity regarding observance of the law was apparently not resolved in the first few decades.

14 Throughout his letter Paul has been arguing against law and in defense of the Gospel of pure grace. Now, in a most striking fashion, he returns to law and seems to speak favorably of it, stressing that when Christians love and serve others, the law is fulfilled. There is a play on two meanings of the Greek word translated "summed up". On the one hand, it refers to the fact that the law can aptly be summarized by Lev 19:18 (a common rabbinic opinion, also endorsed by Jesus in Mt 22:39; Lk 10:25-28). On the other hand, the word can mean "fulfilled" (cf. Ro 13:8); in this sense Paul is suggesting that it is actually out of the new life of love made possible within the Christian community through the Spirit that the law finds fulfillment.

This use of the word "law" is most instructive, because it shows that in spite of all Paul has said, there remains a sense in which the requirements of the law are a proper concern for Christians. This does not mean that the Christian is to make progress in holiness by once again setting up a system of rules and regulations. But the essential ends of the law will be met in those who, being called by God and being filled with the Spirit, allow God to produce the Spirit's fruit within them. Faith in Christ is the bond that forms the basis for the fulfillment of God's holy will in one's life.

13:8–10 Love and the law

The first part of v 8 is transitional. Let no debt remain outstanding repeats an important implication drawn from the need for Christians to submit to secular rulers (cf. v 7a) and is the basis for Paul’s reminder that Christians owe one debt that they can never repay: the continuing debt to love one another. Paul returns to the theme of love (see 12:9–21), highlighting its importance by presenting it as the fulfilment (8b and 10), or summary (9), of the Mosaic law. The centrality of Lv. 19:18, the ‘love command’, was stressed by Jesus himself (Mt. 5:43; 19:19; 22:39; Mk. 12:31; cf. Jn. 13:34–35), and is echoed throughout the NT (cf. Gal. 5:14; Jas. 2:8; 4:11–12; 1 Jn. 4:11, passim). What Paul means when he insists that obedience to this commandment ‘fulfils’ or ‘sums up’ all the other commandments is not the idea that all we need to do to please God is to ‘love’—with the implication that as long as we have a ‘loving’ feeling, we can do anything else we please. Nor does Paul mean that loving others is simply the most important commandment in the law, or the spirit in which all the others are to be obeyed. Rather, he is saying that Christians now fulfil all the demands of the Mosaic law (at least those that relate to our obligations to other people) by loving. For love is at the heart of the ‘law of Christ’ (Gal. 6:2 cf. 1 Cor. 9:20–21), the law that Jesus made regulative of life in the new realm in which we live. And this law itself ‘fulfils’ the Mosaic law (see Mt. 5:17).