The Ten Commandments
Written by the finger of God upon tables of stone — the eternal moral law that Christ did not abolish but fulfilled and deepened.
There is a law older than the kingdoms of men and surer than the foundations of the earth. It was not invented by Moses, nor argued out by philosophers, nor agreed upon by councils. It was spoken aloud from a burning mountain by the voice of God, and then written by His own finger on tablets of stone. We call it the Decalogue — the Ten Words — and after three and a half millennia it stands unrepealed. Empires that ignored it have crumbled; consciences that obeyed it have found peace. To understand the Ten Commandments is to understand the moral architecture of the universe.
The Giving at Sinai
Israel had been delivered from Egypt, and at the third month they came to the wilderness of Sinai. The mountain smoked, thunder rolled, and the trumpet sounded long. There, before a trembling nation, God did not first issue ritual or sacrifice — He issued commandments. The opening words bind the people to Him alone:
“Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image … Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God … and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.”
From these first words the whole law unfolds. Each commandment is brief, but each governs an entire domain of human life. Enumerated, they stand as ten pillars of righteousness:
The Ten Commandments (Exodus 20)
- 1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
- 2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, nor bow down to it.
- 3. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
- 4. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
- 5. Honour thy father and thy mother.
- 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 neighbour.
- 10. Thou shalt not covet.
The first establishes monotheism — God will not share His throne. The second forbids idolatry, the worship of any image or substitute. The third guards the sanctity of His name against profanity and false oaths. The fourth sanctifies time itself, setting apart the Sabbath. The fifth anchors the family by commanding honour to parents — the only command with a promise attached. The sixth protects life; the seventh, the marriage covenant; the eighth, property; the ninth, truth and reputation; and the tenth reaches inward, forbidding not merely the deed but the desire — thou shalt not covet. Already in the tenth commandment we see God legislating the heart.
Two Tables: Duty to God, Duty to Neighbour
The Decalogue was inscribed upon two tablets, and tradition has rightly read in them two tables of duty. The first table — commandments one through four — governs our relationship to God: He alone is worshipped, no image rivals Him, His name is hallowed, His day is kept. The second table — commandments five through ten — governs our relationship to one another: honour parents, do no murder, keep faith in marriage, take nothing that is not yours, speak no lie, and covet nothing.
This twofold division is no later invention. It is the very structure the Savior Himself revealed when, asked for the greatest commandment, He named two — love of God and love of neighbour — and declared that the entire law hangs upon them. The two tables of stone are the two great commandments written long.
The Moral Law Endures, the Performances Pass Away
A vital distinction must be drawn. The Law of Moses contained two kinds of commandment woven together: the ceremonial law — the sacrifices, ordinances, and performances that pointed forward to the atoning Messiah — and the moral law, the Ten Commandments, which expresses the unchanging character of God. When Christ came, the ceremonial law reached its purpose and was fulfilled in Him. But the moral law was not done away; it endures.
The risen Lord taught this plainly to the Nephites. The shadows had met their substance, yet the covenant of righteousness remained:
“Behold, I say unto you that the law is fulfilled that was given unto Moses. Behold, I am he that gave the law … the law in me is fulfilled, for I have come to fulfil the law; therefore it hath an end. … old things are done away, and all things have become new. … ye shall keep my commandments, which I have commanded you.”
The performances ended; the commandments continued. The Lord did not say “keep nothing,” but “keep my commandments.” This is exactly the principle Christ proclaimed in the Sermon on the Mount:
“Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. … Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven.”
To fulfil is not to abolish. A prophecy is fulfilled when it comes true, not when it is erased. Christ fulfilled the law by living it perfectly and by becoming the sacrifice every offering had foreshadowed — and in doing so He confirmed, not cancelled, the moral commandments that bear God’s own signature.
Abinadi’s Witness Before King Noah
No man defended the abiding force of the commandments more boldly than the prophet Abinadi. Standing before the wicked court of King Noah — priests who claimed to teach the law of Moses while living in adultery and idleness — Abinadi exposed their hypocrisy by asking whether they truly kept what they professed:
“I know if ye keep the commandments of God ye shall be saved … I am God. And again: Thou shalt have no other God before me. … Have ye done all this? I say unto you, Nay, ye have not. And have ye taught this people that they should do all these things? I say unto you, Nay, ye have not.”
Then, filled with power so that his face shone like Moses’ upon the mount, Abinadi recited the commandments aloud to that hostile court — the first, the second, and onward — insisting they were given for the people’s salvation:
“Ye have not applied your hearts to understanding; therefore, ye have not been wise. Therefore, what teach ye this people? … And he read unto them the remainder of the commandments of God … Thou shalt not kill. … Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness … Thou shalt not covet.”
Abinadi sealed this testimony with his life, burned at the stake rather than recant. His martyrdom is itself a witness that the Ten Commandments are not a discarded relic but a living word worth dying for — and his testimony converted Alma, through whom the gospel was preserved among the Nephites.
Christ’s Higher Law: From the Hand to the Heart
If Christ confirmed the commandments, He also deepened them. The Decalogue restrained the hand; the Sermon on the Mount reaches the heart. Where the law said “do not murder,” Christ traced murder back to its root — the unrestrained anger that despises a brother:
“Ye have heard that it was said … Thou shalt not kill … But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. … Ye have heard that it was said … Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.”
This is not a softer law but a far sterner one — for it judges the secret thought as well as the open act. The man who never strikes but seethes with hatred has broken the spirit of the sixth commandment; the man who never touches another’s wife but feeds his lust has broken the seventh in his heart. Christ did not lower the bar; He raised it to heaven, demanding inward purity, not merely outward conformity.
And He revealed the single principle that animates every commandment. When a lawyer pressed Him for the greatest, the Lord answered with love — love that fills the first table and the second alike:
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
Here the two tables of stone find their living meaning. The first four commandments are simply what love of God looks like in practice; the last six are what love of neighbour looks like in practice. The Decalogue is love, carved into ten clear duties so that no one can plead ignorance of what love requires.
The Eternal Moral Order
Consider what these ten words are. They were not whispered to one prophet in private but thundered to a nation in the open. They were not penned by a human scribe but engraven by the finger of God on tables of stone — the only words Scripture says God wrote with His own hand. They governed Israel under Moses, they were defended unto death by Abinadi, they were confirmed and deepened by Jesus Christ, and they bind the conscience of every soul still.
The ceremonies that once surrounded them have been fulfilled and folded into the Atonement of the Lamb. But the moral law itself has no expiration, for it is nothing less than the character of God translated into commandment. To love Him supremely, to honour His name and His day, to revere parents, to guard life and marriage and property and truth, to master even our desires — this is not the bondage of a vanished age but the very shape of a redeemed life.
The Decalogue is the eternal moral order. Written by God’s own finger, recited by martyrs, deepened by the Savior into a law of the heart, it stands today exactly as it stood at Sinai — unrepealed, unashamed, and binding still. “If ye love me,” said the Lord, “keep my commandments.”