The Ten Commandments - Part Two

Extract

The Ten Commandments – Part Two
A. W. Pink

8. The Sixth Commandment
9. The Seventh Commandment
10. The Eight Commandment
11. The Ninth Commandment
12. The Tenth Commandment

8. The Sixth Commandment

“Thou shalt not kill” (Exod. 20:13). In the first five Commandments we have seen how God safeguarded His own glory; in the second five we are to behold how He provides for the security and well-being of men. First, for the protection of man’s person; second, for the sanctity and good of his family: “thou shalt not commit adultery;” third, for the safety of his estate and substance: “thou shalt not steal;” fourth, for his reputation or good name: “thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.” Finally, as a strong fence about the whole Law, God not only prohibits outward crimes, but inward motions of evil in our thoughts and affections: “thou shalt not covet.” It is the first of these regulations which specially relates to our neighbour that we shall now consider: “thou shalt not kill.”

This Sixth Commandment prohibits that barbarous and inhuman sin of murder, which is the firstborn of the Devil, who was “a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44). It is the first crime we read of after the fall of Adam and Eve, wherein the corruption transmitted to their descendants was fearfully displayed by Cain: his rancour and enmity goading him to slay Abel, because his brother’s “works were righteous and his own evil” (1 John 3:12). But this Commandment is not restricted to forbidding the actual crime of murder, it prohibits all the degrees and causes of it: as rash anger and hatred, slanders and revenge, whatever may prejudice the safety of our neighbour or tempt us to see him perish when it is in our power to relieve and rescue him. …