10 Rules for Interpreting the 10 Commandments
The subject material is drawn from a sermon preached by Timothy Decker at Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Roanoke, VA.
In my dispensational days, I used to have a very simplistic approach to interpreting and thus applying the 10 Commandments. The 3rd Com was expressly about God’s name, YHWH, therefore it only applied to that one name and nothing more. The 2nd Com only dealt with statues or maybe pictures of God, therefore this became a very irrelevant commandment in the modern evangelical church. Or so I thought. At that time, I did not have the interpretive tools to see that the 2nd Com teaches that God regulates how he is to be worshipped.
But if we allow all of the Scriptures to inform our handling of the Decalogue, we have to acknowledge that the Bible unpacks all of the ways in which the 10 Commandments are unfolded and interpreted. Take for example Jesus, who would include an inward hatred for your neighbor as a 6th Com violation, not just homicide. Jesus would consider lusting with one’s eyes as adultery and a 7th Com violation. So clearly, there is more happening in the 10 Commandments than a surface level reading and application.
I suspect that I am not the only one who has tended to limit the Decalogue or simplistically read, interpret, or apply them. And if I’m not alone, as I suspect I am not, then this article is especially to help you engage in this subject. In what follows, I intend lay out 10 rules or interpretive principles for rightly handling the Decalogue. I will seek to answer the question: how do we rightly interpret and apply the 10 Commandments? Call it “laws for the Law.”
A Historical Precedent
Calvin himself said of the Decalogue, “The commandments and prohibitions always contain more than is expressed in words” (Institutes of the Christian Religion, II.8.8; italics added). Likewise, Turretin claimed, “As in Scripture there are more things than words, so in the precepts and interdicts there is always more than is expressed in words” (Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 11.6Q.III; italics added). Therefore, it is incumbent upon us to learn how we might discern what that “more” is.
To demonstrate that there is no novelty here, I will mention various names who have helped me think through this subject. I lean most on four works: two puritan theologians Thomas Watson & Edward Fisher, a reformed scholastic Francis Turretin, and most of all, a late 18th and early 19th century Scottish minister, John Colquhoun. In the modern era, Ernie Reisinger has assisted as well. They all precede their exposition of the Law with a hermeneutical foundation. Since they don’t all share the same rules, I’ve tried to bring together the best of them.
The 10 Rules
Rule #1: The Rule of Interpretation
We start with the most basic rule of interpreting any part of the Bible—Scripture interprets Scripture. This we confess, “The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself; and therefore when there is a question about the true and full sense of any Scripture (which is not manifold, but one), it must be searched by other places that speak more clearly” (2LCF 1.9). Very similarly, in his introduction to the Decalogue, Ernie Reisinger said, “The commandments must be understood according to the explanation that the prophets, Christ, and the apostles gave them” (Whatever Happened to the Ten Commandments, p. 9).
This seems so obvious, but it must be stated clearly, nevertheless. Fisher likewise explained, “The Ten Commandments are but an epitome or an abridgment of the law of God, and that the full exposition thereof is to be found in the books of the prophets and apostles, called the Old and New Testament” (Marrow of Modern Divinity in Two Parts, 1828 edition, part 2, p. 255).
All proper interpretation of any of Scripture requires this rule, not just when handling the 10 Commandments. We have to receive all that Scripture says on a subject in order to correctly interpret it. This is how we move from surface level simplicity to rightly dividing the Word, unpacking what is both expressly set down and necessarily contained. Additionally, this first rule is essential for all the rest, as they all flow out from it.
Rule #2: Rule of Internal Intention
That is to say, “the Law is Spiritual” (Rom 7:14). I take this to mean that the Law deals in more than just visible compliance. Obedience to God’s Law refers not only to external actions but also to internal desires and dispositions. Turretin wrote, “The law is spiritual, respecting not only the external acts of the body, but the internal motions of the mind” (Institutes, 11.Q6.II). We see this principle in places like 1 Sam 16:7, “For man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” Just prior, 1 Sam 15:22 says of obedience, “Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams.”
Because humans are not just bodies but are composed of both body and soul, our obedience must come from both our actions as well as our affections and intentions. Therefore, the Law must be understood to reach beyond the external motions of our body and move into the internal intentions of our heart. We observe the spirituality of the Decalogue most plainly in the 10th Com itself, as it expressly addresses wicked desires and greedy, covetous intentions. But we also see this rule of interpretation in Jesus’ teaching of hatred in relation to murder (6th Com) and lust in relation to adultery (7th Com; Matt 5). Jesus’ method for interpreting those commandments goes beyond the superficial and exterior and moves into the inward, spiritual matters of the heart.
Edward Fisher unpacked this wonderfully: “[The Law] charges the understanding [e.g. mind] to know the will of God; it charges the memory to retain, and the will to choose the better, and to leave the worse; it charges the affections to love the things that are to be loved, and to hate the things that are to be hated, and so binds all the powers of the soul to obedience, as well as the words, thoughts, and gestures” (Marrow, p. 255).
The point here is simple: you’ve not wholly or holily obeyed God’s Law if you only seek to obey in your actions, deeds, and words. Your heart is and must be involved in your obedience. Your intentions and aims are part of your obedience. And every time we consider one of the 10 Commandments, there is an invisible, spiritual element that we may not readily see, but it exists nonetheless. If we neglect this element, we run the risk of Pharisaism.
Rule #3: Rule of Inverse
This rule teaches that duties commanded in God’s law inversely require prohibitions, and prohibitions commanded in God’s law inversely require duties to obey. Colquhoun explained, “Where a duty is required, the contrary sin is forbidden, and where a sin is forbidden the contrary duty is required” (A Treatise on the Law and Gospel, 1819 ed., p. 95). I nearly called this the “rule of the contrary.”
If God has stated a restriction or a negative precept (e.g. the 6th Com “do not murder”), then the opposite positive command is also present: “protect life!” Likewise, if God has commanded a positive precept or command (e.g. the 4th Com “keep the sabbath holy”), then a negative precept is also implied: “not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together” (Heb 10:25). Colquhoun further explained, “Every affirmative precept includes a negative one, and every negative command contains an affirmative. Every precept, whether affirmative or negative, has two parts: it requires obedience and forbids disobedience” (Law and Gospel, p. 95). You generally observe this in the way that the Westminster Larger Catechism handles the 10 commandments: duties to observe and prohibitions that are forbidden.
In order to prove this, we must apply Rule #1: Scripture tells us how to interpret the Decalogue. We’ll start with an example for the 4th Com. Isa 58:13, “If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on My holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the Lord honorable, and shall honor Him, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words, then you shall delight yourself in the Lord.” Here, the positive command to keep the Sabbath holy and “call the Sabbath a delight” (fulfilling the affections mentioned in Rule #2) applies the rule of inverse by forbidding what is contrary to the positive command, “You shall honor him, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasures.”
Eph 4:28 proves that what is forbidden in the 8th Com (“do not steal!”) requires the inverse positive duty, “Let him who stole steal no longer [prohibition], but rather let him labor [positive command], working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need.” And so Scripture clearly establishes Rule #3, the rule of inverse.
The application of this rule has become a well-known definition for sin. Baptist Catechism #17 (WSC #14), “What is sin? Sin is any want [lack] of conformity unto, or transgression of the Law of God.” Now observe how the children’s catechism explains both “lack of conformity” and “transgression” of God’s Law (see Engle’s 1840 Catechism for Young Children: Being an Introduction to the Shorter Catechism): “What is meant by ‘want of conformity?’ Not being or doing what God requires. What is meant by ‘transgression?’ Doing what God forbids.” In other words, one breaks the Law either by a sin of omission (“want of conformity unto”) or a sin of commission (“transgression”). This is the rule of inverse worked out in catechesis.
Rule #4: Rule of Genus and Species
This rule teaches that if one species of law is specifically mentioned in the Decalogue, then all other species of the same genus is included in that law. Colquhoun says it more simply this way, “Where a duty is required, every duty of the same kind [genus] is also required; and where a sin is forbidden, every sin of the same sort [genus] is forbidden” (Law and Gospel, p. 96).
I almost called this the rule of dog and breed. If a specific commandment were likened to a husky or a German shepherd (a specific dog breed), then all other dog-breed-type of sins would also apply, as they all share the same genus of canine. Therefore, if there is a particular species of sin prohibited in the Decalogue, like taking God’s name (YHWH) in vain (3rd Com), then other sins of the same genus are forbidden based on that same commandment, such as saying “Oh my God!” or any blasphemy.
Or you could also use the illustration of the literary device called a synecdoche (“a part represents the whole”). This is when reference to the “white house” is a way of referring to the President of the United States and his administration, or the “crown” refers to the monarch in power. In the case of the Law, a specific sin prohibited could be “a part that represents the whole.”
Therefore, the 7th Com is one specific species of sexual sin concerning spousal infidelity, otherwise called “adultery.” But all species of sexual sins, like fornication or homosexuality, are part of the same genus of the 7th Com. This is why God could judge and punish the Canaanites in Lev 18 and 20 who were committing abhorrent and vile sexual perversions beyond adultery. Though they did not have the 10 Commandments written on tablets of stone, they were under the Moral Law of God. In this case, they were breaking God’s Moral Law, particularized in the 7th commandment concerning the species of adultery.
This not only applies to multiple species of the same genus, but this is also true of degrees of sin or weight among species of the same genus. Weighty matters, call them heavy St. Bernard-type of transgressions, as well as all the lesser Chihuahua-type sins are all included here. There might be varying degrees of sin (great Dane sins being weightier than Yorkshire terrier sins), but they are all sin and therefore breaking the same canine-type commandment expressed through their genus.
This rule of interpretation especially informs the 5th Com and our duty to be subject to the civil magistrate. Honoring one’s parents as superiors is a particular species of the 5th Com genus of subjection to all superiors. Another related species is to honor the civil magistrate. Obeying the pastors who rule over your (Heb 13:17) is an ecclesiastical species of the same genus of the 5th Com.
Rule #5: Rule of Both Cause & Effect
I’ve struggled to explain this one. To simplify what could be complicated, this rule teaches: any cause that effects a commandment has itself its own implied commandment. That is, not only the effect or result of sin is part of the commandment (e.g. fornication), but the cause preceding and leading to the effect is also part of the commandment (e.g. lust in this case). Thomas Watson wrote,
Where any sin is forbidden in the commandment, the occasion of it is also forbidden. Where murder is forbidden, envy and rash anger are forbidden, which may occasion it. Where adultery is forbidden, all that may lead to it is forbidden, as wanton glances of the eye, or coming into the company of a harlot. … He who would be free from the plague, must not come near the infected house. (The Ten Commandments, Banner of Truth edition, p. 45)
Watson provided Scriptural examples of this rule. In Matt 5, Jesus prohibits hatred to a brother (cause) because it leads to murder (effect). He also condemned looking on a woman in lust as adultery because it effects adultery or fornication. Among these, we are familiar. But I find this helps solve dilemmas in other matters where questions and controversies swirl.
Take, for instance, the 5th Com. Just as children are to honor their father in mother, so also are parents the cause that effects the commandment and thus adjoined to it. But inversely, parents as the cause are therefore commanded to instruct their children honorably and discipline them when they sin. Just as there is a commanded effect “children obey your parents,” so also is there a commanded cause, parents in this case (“train up your children in the ways of the Lord”).
Colquhoun simplified it this way: “Where a duty is required [effect], the use of all the means of performing it [cause], is required; and where a sin is forbidden [effect], every cause, and even every occasion of it, are prohibited” (Law and Gospel, p. 99). Colquhoun is not only explaining this present rule, but he is also demonstrating how Rule #3, the rule of the inverse, interacts with the others.
Returning to the 5th Com, we see this expanded for the civil magistrate or pastors in their respective spheres. If there is a duty effected to honor the magistrate, then there is also a causal command that they must do their job to rule justly, punish the evil-doer, and praise the good (1 Pet 2:14). If magistrates fail in their task, they have broken the 5th Com. If pastors are to be given over to the ministry of the Word and prayer, among other things, and yet fails to shepherd the flock of God under their charge, then they too have violated the 5th Com.
Rule #6: Rule of 1st Table Precedence
Here, there is a simple axiomatic truth: the 1st table of the Law (Commandments 1–4) is superior to the 2nd table (Commandments 5–10). Now there is a right way and a wrong way to understand this, so let me unpack it a bit. Colquhoun tells us, “The commandments of the second table of the law must give place to those of the first when they cannot both be observed together” (Law and Gospel, p. 101). Reisinger says, “If there seems to be a conflict [between keeping both tables], our duty to God personally must take precedence” (Whatever Happened to the Ten Commandments, p. 10).
This is so because even our obligations and duties to our neighbor is itself governed by God. If we sin against God in the 1st table, we have sinned against God alone. But if we break a commandment in the 2nd table, then we’ve sinned against our neighbor as well as God (Ps 51:4). This is because, as Watson well explained, “God wrote about the tables, and our obedience must set a seal to both” (The Ten Commandments, p. 46). Even a sin against our neighbor is a sin against God because it is God’s Law!
One way to demonstrate this is simply to observe when the commandments of men conflict with the commandments of God, for the apostles tell us that it is better “to obey God than man” (Acts 5:29). But there is a 2-way street here, and we must cross it carefully. In one direction, our love for Christ should take precedence over our love for our family. Jesus says as much on multiple occasions. Matt 10:37, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” Luke 14:26, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate [that is, love less than God] his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” And so we could say that it is better to worship God on the Lord’s day than to celebrate husbands/fathers on father’s day. The 4th Com takes precedence over honoring our fathers (5th Com) on a man-made holiday.
Nevertheless, and here is the rub, there are times where the positive commands to the 4th commandment, such as when or where you will gather for worship, may yield to the natural duties required in the 2nd table. There are those providentially ordained situations where inclement weather requires the canceling of the corporate worship on Sundays. This is because, “I [God] desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings” (Hosea 6:6). Turretin helpfully explained it this way, “The love of our neighbor ought to be subjected to the love of God… But the ceremonial of the first table yields to the moral of the second because God desires mercy not sacrifice” (11.Q6.VI). The key word is ceremonial.
There is great potential for harm here. The way this rule can be abused or applied wrongly is actually explained in Rule #7.
Rule #7: Rule of Means & Ends
This could also be titled the Prohibition of Pragmatism. This rule goes to combat the concept of “the ends justify the means.” In other words, some would say there are things that are normally forbidden but are sometimes permissible so long as the outcome is favorable. However, that is false and sinful. Therefore, we are not to do evil or break a commandment so that a good might result (Rom 6:1–2). This includes purposefully committing smaller infractions in order to prevent a greater sin. When given a choice of one evil or another, choosing to commit the lesser of two evils is still a breaking of the Law.
Paul implies that it is a slanderous report to be accused of “doing evil that good may come.” Rom 3:7–8 says, “For if the truth of God has increased through my lie to His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner? And why not say, ‘Let us do evil that good may come’?—as we are slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say. Their condemnation is just.” Clearly, Paul did not operate with that kind of mentality of pragmatism in order to obey God’s Law.
A difficult example is the moral conundrum as to whether it is permissible to steal (8th Com) if you are starving. Prov 6:30, “People do not despise a thief if he steals to satisfy himself when he is starving,” which makes it seem like it is permissible. However, the next verse says, “Yet when he is found, he must restore sevenfold; he may have to give up all the substance of his house.” He is not exonerated or pardoned. Rather, he has broken the law. Conversely, a righteous society will and ought to aid such a one so destitute that he or she is forced into the dire situation to steal for food.
A better example may be the kind of pragmatism that has infected the modern-day evangelical church. Should we give up on the regulative principle of worship (commanded in the 2nd Com according to Rules #4 and #5) in order to cater to the lost and bring in the unsaved? Should we neglect Lord’s day worship in order to hand out tracts on the street corner? As Calvinists, this shouldn’t even be an issue, for God has decreed both the means (saving faith “ordinarily wrought by the ministry of the Word” 2LCF 14.1) and the ends (conversion or “the grace of faith”). However, His means ought never to come into conflict with our obedience to His Law!
Now to qualify this, and especially when there is a tension between this rule and the previous rule (Rule # 6, 1st table precedence), Colquhoun explained, “While no sin must be committed in order to prevent a greater sin, some duties required should give place to other duties” (Law and Gospel, p. 101). To help clarify this distinction, we turn to Rule #8.
Rule #8: Rule of Opportunity
I could summarize this rule this way: Affirmative commands often; prohibitions always. How do we sort out when there is tension between the two tables (Rule #6) or a conflict of the means and ends (Rule #7)? Colquhoun is very helpful on this sticky issue: “That which is forbidden is at no time to be done; but that which is required is to be done only when the Lord affords opportunity” (Law and Gospel, p. 97). Again, affirmative commands are often to be obeyed except special circumstances, but prohibitions are always to be obeyed.
While walking through a grainfield on the Sabbath, the Pharisees accused His disciples of a 4th Com violation. He responded in Matt 12:7, “If you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless.” Though God commanded sacrifices in the OT, they were not to be offered at the expense of other weightier matters of the Law, such as “justice, mercy, and faith” (Matt 23:23). There were times and opportunities where it would be better to get an ox out of the ditch than to keep the Sabbath; times more fitting to give to the poor and needy than to spend money on a free-will offering.
On the other hand, while the occasion dictates keeping these positive duties, they are not absolute, not like the prohibitions of the 10 Commandments. For example, there is never a time when adultery is permissible. Never is there an occasion or opportunity similar to an ox in a ditch where coveting your neighbor’s wife or goods is permissible. Again I repeat what Colquhoun said, “That which is forbidden [adultery] is at no time to be done; but that which is required [keep the Sabbath holy] is to be done only when the Lord affords opportunity.”
The most obvious application of this rule is the 4th Com. As the Sabbath is the keeping holy 1 day in 7, you cannot break the Sabbath on Monday. There is no opportunity to do keep it on Monday. However, our culture is increasingly working on the Sabbath day, and this will pose unique challenges for Christians. One such matter is causing people to work on the Sabbath day. Here I am thinking of restaurants, gas stations, super-markets, parcel delivery services, &c. Do we have items shipped to us on Sunday because we ordered them on Friday? Are there not opportunities throughout the week to schedule such a delivery more carefully. Is our presence at the restaurants on the Lord’s day keeping the staff from worship? Restaurants and parcel deliveries are not evil things in themselves. But when they give opportunity to sin (Rule #8) or they are the cause that effects the opportunity for sin in others (Rule #7 & #8), then we have violated the Law.
Or take the 6th Com (“do not commit murder”). There is never a time when the 6th Com is relaxed or you can be in a position to permit a 6th Com violation. As long as you are around other humans, you are prohibited from murdering or hating them. And even if, in providence, you were stranded on an island by yourself, then the 6th Com is still in operation, for there is still opportunity to kill. You are prohibited from self-murder or hating yourself. Therefore, suicide is also prohibited in the 6th Com.
Rule #9: Rule of Responsibility
Depending on our situations and vocations in life, we all have obligations to our stations. Because there are obligations required in positive commands as well as obligations inferred in the negative ones, we are responsible to do all that is within our power, according to and within our sphere or station in life, to help others keep the commandments as well.
Again, we could apply the 4th Com Sabbath-day keeping and causing others to work. In this way, the 4th Com explicitly restricts worldly employment and work not only for ourselves but also those in our sphere: children and servants. Exo 20:10, “the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates.”). The 4th Com teaches us that we bear the responsibility of sin if we cause someone else to violate the Law. If our station in life is an employer, then we have a responsibility to our employees to see that they do not violate the 4th Com.
Or how about the 8th Com? The negative command “do not steal” implies positively (rule of inverse) that we help our neighbors with their property and do our part to prevent thieves and burglars if we are able. On the other hand, we are not violating the 8th Com if we aren’t operating as vigilantes, out on the streets looking for the bad guys. For most of us, it is not our vocational sphere to patrol neighborhoods, unless our vocation happens to be a policeman under the magistrate. But if we were to see our neighbors house in distress, love of neighbor (2nd table) and the 8th Com would have us assist, whether by calling the police or personal intervening (an application of the 6th Com).
This also works in the reverse, for whenever we see someone sinning, we are restricted from participating with them in that sin. 1 Tim 5:22b, “[Do not] share in other people’s sins; keep yourself pure.” That is, we are breaking God’s law if we are accessories to the sin. Judas Iscariot was a disciple of Jesus. That was his station. Yet he was guilty of the murder of Jesus because, as Acts 1:16 tells us, he “became a guide for those who arrested Jesus.” Those who hire the hitman are equally guilty of murder as is the hitman himself. Those craftsmen who erect idols participate in the sin of idolaters with those who bow down to the image.
Rule #10: Rule of Love
Scripture is clear. Rom 13:10, “Love is the fulfillment of the Law.” Of this, Turretin wrote, “Love discharges all the claims of God’s beneficence and of man’s obedience” (Institutes, 11.Q6.VIII). Thus, Paul could say almost ironically in Gal 5:22–23, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law” (emphasis added). If you are loving and loving well, there is no prohibition to transgress or command to ignore. You are not omitting your duties or committing what is forbidden. If you love, along with the rest of the fruit, then you will keep the law.
May we learn from Scripture how to rightly handle the Law of God. And may the Spirit sanctify us further and further to mortify our law-breaking and make us more law-abiding, for the glory of God.
Appendix:
What about stories in the Bible where the 9th Com was violated in order to keep the 6th Com?
Rule #6 concerned the precedence of the first table of the Decalogue over the second. But is there a priority or precedence of laws in the second table alone? Wasn’t Rule #7 against pragmatism? Lying as a means to achieve a righteous end, the saving of lives, would break that rule as well.
One such example is the Hebrew midwives of Exodus 1. Pharoah commanded them at the very point of birth, “When you do the duties of a midwife for the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstools, if it is a son, then you shall kill him; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live” (Exo 1:16). Some have suggested that the swift murder was ordered by the Pharaoh so as to conceal what the midwives were up to. Regardless, they were commanded to violate the 6th Com. But the midwives feared God (v. 17), which means they obeyed God’s Law (Eccl 12:13). When asked for their excuse, they said in v. 19, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are lively and give birth before the midwives come to them.” Did they not tell a lie in order to save the lives of the male infants? Did they not violate the 9th Com (“do not bear false witness”) in order to uphold the 6th (“do not murder”)?
I am very tempted to get into Christian resistance theory and political theology. But I won’t. You can read my views on that elsewhere. I’ll simply leave this subject to a single quote by the great Scottish reformer Samuel Rutherford said, “We must needs be subject to the royal office for conscience, by reason of the fifth commandment; but we must not needs be subject to the man who is king if he command things unlawful” (Q29.A1.8). Interpreting Rom 13 and the rest of Scripture on this matter in this way, then the midwives did not disobey the Pharaoh.
Now I would point at the very start that the Midwives may not have told a bold-faced lie as supposed. They may have ordered their midwife duties in such a way to lead to their tardiness and subsequent absence at the time of birth. Yet the text seems to suggest they knowingly and with intent (remember Rule #2?) disobeyed Pharaoh. I take vv. 20–21 as if to imply that God rewarded their faithfulness and refusal not to murder. Indeed, if the Hebrew women could deliver babies without midwives, then why was there a seeming “guild” of midwives that would be blessed by God later? It seems (and the text leans toward) the midwives not being fully honest with the Pharaoh.
Positively, we might say that not only does the 6th Com (applying Rule #3, the rule of inverse) require the midwives to protect life, especially the lives of the infants, but the rule of responsibility or station (Rule #9) would demand that the midwives more than anyone else have a vocational obligation to ensure the healthy delivery and life of the infants charged to their care. To give in to Pharaoh’s demands would have violated several other commandments.
But let us suppose they indeed lied or covered their tracks (similar to Rahab’s lie about the spies in Jericho). Is it ok to break the 9th Com so as to uphold the 6th? I think that is the wrong question. The real question to ask is: Did they actually break the 9th Com? I’m going to argue “no” and offer you 3 principles to help navigate this thorny issue.
Principle #1: Principle of disclosure
To summarize, we are only obligated to render to someone what is due. However, not everyone is entitled to the truth. Part of this matter is that we first have to discern all that is being demanded of us when we are called to give an answer of truth.
If Nazis asked a person “where are the Jews?” we would discern that they are actually asking “where are the Jews that they may be rounded up and slaughtered.” Therefore, we have to apply the principle of disclosure, and ask whether they have a right to that information and do I have a right to disclose that?
Doctors and lawyers operate on this principle every single day. They have an ethical obligation not to disclose certain matters of truth to those who do not have a right to it, even if asked. They have an ethical obligation to keep back certain matters, known as confidentiality. And it comes down to the matter of obligation. There are very few situations when either doctor or lawyer are obliged to break that confidentiality.
In a Ligonier blog article entitled “The Sanctity of Truth,” R. C. Sproul said, “‘We are always and everywhere obligated to tell the truth to whom the truth is due. We are to speak the truth where justice and righteousness requires the truth.’ But in this case, Dr. Sproul argues, righteousness required deceit. Being righteous before the face of God required, in this specific case, that a murderer be deceived. He goes on: ‘You are not required to tell everything you know or even tell the truth if it is necessary to stop a murder. There are occasions where it would be a sin to tell the truth.’”
I’ve seen a similar quote attributed to John Gerstner, though I am not sure if that is true. It goes: “You are obliged to give the truth to those who have a right to it. But you are not obliged to give it to those who have no right to it.” In that way, the midwives did not violate the 9th Com, as Pharaoh had no right to the truth, being a vile murderer.
Again Sproul, a student of Gerstner, said something very similar:
We have the principle that we must tell the truth when the truth is due. This position assumes that the truth is not always due. That is, not everyone is entitled to the truth… We are not required to tell robbers where we have hidden our valuables. Soldiers are not required to tell the enemy where their comrades are positioned. Truth is to be told to those who are due it. We are not pleasing God when we tell the truth to people who do not deserve the truth. (Pleasing God, 1988 edition, 201–202).
This principle is biblically stated in multiple places. Proverbs 26:1, 8 says, “As snow in summer and rain in harvest, so honor is not fitting for a fool… Like one who binds a stone in a sling is he who gives honor to a fool.” That which is not fitting is not given. Rom 13:7 is one that has direct bearing here, “Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.” Therefore, the Hebrew midwives applied the principle of disclosure deeming that Pharaoh was not owed to the truth.
Principle #2: Principle of Lawful distinctions
You’ve probably heard it repeated a time or two. “We distinguish.” Yes we do! As in all areas, so too do we have to make right and proper distinctions in the Law of God.
In this sense, just as there are times when killing is not a violation of the 6th Com, such as in warfare or self-defense or protecting one’s family from a would-be attacker, so also in a similar way is misdirecting or not disclosing information to the enemy in order to preserve life not a violation of the 9th Com. There is a place and tactic to tell lies in certain scenarios and conditions. Head-fakes, jukes, and dekes are part of sports, but they are not violating the 9tbh Com even though they are misleading. One must have a proper distinction of the law in place in order to know when this is.
Principle #3: Principle of love
If the primary encapsulation of the 2nd table of the Law is love for neighbor, then this operates as a mechanism to dictate how we obey the 2nd table. If I were alive in WWII, my love for the Jews in hiding would bleed over into my concealing their location from the Nazis. Indeed, am I not also loving my Nazi neighbor when I keep back the truth so that they may not commit more genocide, heaping up more condemnation?
Readers, these are not simple ethical matters we can just chew up and easily digest. This short appendix is not nearly sufficient to settle the matter. We have to sit on them a while, let it stew, let it marinate. We have to meditate on these things, prayerfully consider them, and ask God for the aid of discernment to make proper distinctions. I don’t expect you to come away with a full and perfect understanding of these things. I know I haven’t arrived at such. But I hope I have convinced you toward the right path in such situations. It is up to you to meditate on these things and ask yourself, “What would I do in such situations, and would I feel justified before God’s Law in doing them?
Dr. Timothy Decker is one of the pastors of Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Roanoke, VA, having joined them in 2018. He holds a B.A. and M.A. biblical studies from Carolina University (formerly Piedmont International University), a Th.M. in New Testament from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. in biblical studies from Capital Seminary and Graduate School. In his dissertation research, he examined the style of biblical Hebrew poetry in the New Testament. He has presented various papers at academic society meetings and authored numerous articles in several different scholarly journals. He is a member of ETS and IBR. When he is not reading or researching, he enjoys spending time with his wife and four children.
Courses taught at CBTSeminary: Elementary Greek I, Elementary Greek II
