The Bilateral Ten Commandments
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Traditionally the view is that the first 4 Commandments are about your relationship with God, and the last 6 your relationship with people. However, while visiting a Jewish synagogue I found the Torah’s commentary presented the view that Judaism holds the Ten Commandments should be split 5 and 5, not 4 and 6. I already held this view and appreciated this symmetry.
Symmetry is how God designs things. The Ten Commandments are at the core of God's law, and He reflected that when He built symmetry into our bodies. Our bodies are bi-lateral, possibly to reflect the parallel divine-human relationship. We have 10 fingers and toes, divided 5 and 5, to remind us that everything we do (hands) and everywhere we go (feet) is governed by God's law, in our divine (5) and human (5) relationships. They are the original tzitzit.
Tzitzit is a Hebrew word used to describe the practice of putting reminder fringes on clothing to observe the Law. Due to a few Israelis breaking the Sabbath when Israel was in the wilderness, God added the tzitzit rule. However, God designed us with this already built into us, but we once lived too dull to pay attention. If we live sensitive to the Spirit, we will be directed into this application in some way that meshes with our lives.
So, a question arises: how is the 5th Commandment primarily about our relationship with God (honoring your parents), and not our relationship with people?
It’s about children respecting God’s appointments over their lives. Our parents have a major role in our lives. This includes the time frame and culture we live in. It's the cultural parenting dynamic. Do you believe God designed you to thrive in your part of the world? With the intention of a fully active father?
This has to do with trusting God's wisdom personally applied to your life, a practical experience of Psalms 139. How much does your walk and talk reflect how far God's creatorship enters your life? Yield to it. We see this prevalent throughout the book of Psalms.
I understand that as the world collapses into its last day dynamics it is HARD to trust our parents, especially if we were abused. But we know our brokenness needs to be healed. Healthy people step into our lives and take the place of our parents, repairing our arrested development. They help us to finish gardening our seeds of destiny.
Recovery is an option built into our lives, no matter how hard it is. God believes in you and has faith in you! He wants to walk the hope journey with you so His love can work in you and through you. We launch our hope journey from faith and pursue it until healthy love is functioning in us.
I know from experience that if you were abused this explanation is inadequate. No explanation is adequate. This has more to do with the ringing desire for justice within you. There is a righteous desire for some level of vengeance. I suggest that until you have learned how to let Scripture’s truth that “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord” come to life in you the ongoing healing work of God will stay elusive. We need to trust that God’s desire is for the salvation of all, and He is patient until opportunities arise. He will pursue it for your abuser, and you need to come alongside Him and pursue it too.
How far does His Sabbath’s creative deliverance extend? Into the very times in which you live, right down to the ability to shape your personal life. Rest in this expansive dynamic. Respect those He has entrusted to participate with Him and you in your journey. Respect how He is parenting you and all that He employs in this. Let each do their part and stay open to God’s next step in your journey.
We see situations in Scripture that confirm this bilateral parallel division. When we lay these two sets of Commandments next to each other we wind up with a unified whole. When you have a problem with God on Commandment level X, it manifests as a problem with people on the same level.
We can use the Ten Commandments as a diagnostic tool with this bilateral dimension. You can discern what needs to be corrected in others relationship with God, be prayerfully involved, so they can be healed and restored to proper relationship in their community.
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Here's a brief view of the bilateral Commandments. More detail will follow.
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1 & 6 – the murder slays the image of God.
2 & 7 – Conjugal faithlessness is as grave as idolatry, which is faithlessness to God.
3 & 8 – Stealing results in blasphemy in God’s name.
4 & 9 – Breaking Sabbath is a false witness: claiming God isn’t who He says He is.
5 & 10 – Jealous parents raise kids improperly, making it hard for the kids to grow up with a proper respect of God.
The following are a few Scriptural examples for each of the divine/human pairs. Then there is consideration of the core values that make it an appropriate pairing.
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Worship / murder – Cain and Abel, Hosea 6:7-9
Cain and Abel. Cain's inappropriate worship of God (#1), led to a hatred of Abel's appropriate worship of God. Refusing to accept Abel's testimony of blessing that resulted from his acceptable worship, Cain murdered him (#6), to eliminate the constant call of his testimony. 1 & 6 are parallel Commandments. We see this cause-and-effect relationship between how we treat God effects how we treat people.
Hosea 6:7-9
As at Adam, they have broken the covenant; they were unfaithful to me there. Gilead is a city of evildoers, stained with footprints of blood. As marauders lie in ambush for a victim, so do bands of priests (worshipers); they murder on the road to Shechem, carrying out their wicked schemes.
All of God’s laws, values and decisions are completely just. We need His counsel when we are straying from doing things the right way. God counseled Cain, but he refused to accept it. Abel walked as an accurate bearer of God’s image. He was killed by Cain to silence his tangible testimony. His light was too bright for Cain’s darkness. It hurt his soul. He needed to repent or end it. By ending Abel’s life Cain was trying to silence God’s life’s influence, His call to true worship. We can see how well these two commandments align. When Cain ignored God’s counsel this included the counsel that came from His brother’s life. But he was around him enough for Abel’s testimony to really upset him. He had to kill him to escape its influence.
idolatry / adultery – Ezekiel 23:37, Jeremiah 3:6 – 9, 5:7, Romans 2:22
Ezekiel 23:37
for they have committed adultery and blood is on their hands. They committed adultery with their idols; they even sacrificed their children, whom they bore to me, as food for them.
Jeremiah 3:6
During the reign of King Josiah, the LORD said to me, “Have you seen what faithless Israel has done? She has gone up on every high hill (idolatry) and under every spreading tree and has committed adultery there.
Jeremiah 5:7
“Why should I forgive you? Your children have forsaken me and sworn by gods that are not gods. I supplied all their needs, yet they committed adultery and thronged to the houses of prostitutes.
Romans 2:22
You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?
Idols depict the nature of the god's life. Small gods with a few areas of power and authority versus the true God who has no limits and can only accurately be represented by nothing. To worship an idol is to misrepresent God. It’s to recreate Him in your own image, what you think a god needs to be like to meet your needs.
Adultery is the same way. An adulterer has given up on his spouse and selected a replacement who he thinks a spouse needs to be like to meet his needs. Like an idolater he is in a fantasy, shaping life the way he thinks it should be. God has no role, he just has a fig-leaf covering for his nakedness.
blasphemy / stealing - Zechariah 5:1-4
Zechariah 5 - The Flying Scroll
1 I looked again, and there before me was a flying scroll.
2 He asked me, “What do you see?” I answered, “I see a flying scroll, twenty cubits long and ten cubits wide.”
3 And he said to me, “This is the curse that is going out over the whole land; for according to what it says on one side, every thief will be banished (stealing), and according to what it says on the other, everyone who swears falsely (blasphemy) will be banished.
4 The LORD Almighty declares, ‘I will send it out, and it will enter the house of the thief and the house of anyone who swears falsely by my name. It will remain in that house and destroy it completely, both its timbers and its stones.’”
Taking a name in vain is equivalent to 'valuing' it as empty in nature, i.e., powerless. ​To ‘Takes His Name’ is a Hebrew idiom. To take on the name of someone was to serve as an ambassador. You believe in the worldview of the person. You are acting in a way that brings honor to His name, living up to the fullness of the life He offers.
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Stealing, for when your downward spiral escalates, increasing your needs. Disillusioned, you abandon the substitute covenant of your Commandment #7 attempt, and all systematic world views. You are a lone ranger now, striking out on your own. A perverse view of life develops with cynicism. Perverseness becomes the dominant theme of your personality. You are now taking life as vain; you don’t value what it takes to build and create. An ambassador versus a cynic, the same level of being fully committed to constructive life or destructive life.
Sabbath / False Testimony - John 5:36, 19:35, Acts 14:17, 22:18
John 5:36
I have testimony weightier than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to finish (Sabbath)—the very works that I am doing—testify that the Father has sent me.
John 19:35
The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe.
Acts 14:17
Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.
When a case goes to court there is debate that needs to be resolved. Two people are insisting on two different points of view. Only people who have first-hand knowledge of relevant facts are called to testify. They have experienced relevant events that can bring this debate to a close. God set up the legal process in Israel for court cases to be resolved with the testimony of two witnesses. John 8:17
Two witnesses end the debate, the court comes to a verdict and rests. A true version of reality settles the matter and legally stands for all relevant situations. The court has reached a Sabbath rest reality. No one needs to work to make this happen – the legal system and the police force establish the fact. A new reality was born and will grow to full stature. Truth, as a Sabbath rest dynamic, is pregnant time. It brings new truth to the life of the community, one that grows and develops into maturity.
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We have another dynamic of this bilateral relationship to consider.
For what truths is the Sabbath the conclusion of the debate? The case is now settled for origins, bondage, death and humanity’s future.
Exodus 20 – Keep the Sabbath in honor of God’s creation ability.
Deuteronomy 5 – Keep the Sabbath to honor God’s ability to liberate from slavery. A born-again person begins to experience this once the Spirit enters his or her life.
Matthew 27 – Keep the Sabbath to honor God’s ability to resurrect us from all forms of death.
Isaiah 11 – Keep the Sabbath to honor God’s ability to do kingdom restoration on all of earth. The prophetic ‘coming but now is’ deposited in us.
We have four testimonials of the incredible powers of God. These four established facts answer all questions on these central matters for each person’s life quest-ions.
Only two are needed to seal the matter legally. Four is irrefutable. Truth affirmed. Case closed. The matter is settled forever!
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​honor parents / jealousy – Zechariah 8:1-5, 1 Corinthians 3:3-7, Mark 10:17
Zechariah 8:1-51
1 The word of the LORD Almighty came to me.
2 This is what the LORD Almighty says: “I am very jealous for Zion; I am burning with jealousy for her.”
3 This is what the LORD says: “I will return to Zion and dwell in Jerusalem. Then Jerusalem will be called the Faithful City, and the mountain of the LORD Almighty will be called the Holy Mountain.” (Parenting)
4 This is what the LORD Almighty says: “Once again men and women of ripe old age will sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each of them with cane in hand because of their age.
5 The city streets will be filled with boys and girls playing there.”
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1 Corinthians 3:3-7 - The Church and Its Leaders
3 You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans?
4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere human beings? (jealousy)
5 What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task.
6 I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow.
7 So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. (Parenting)
Mark 10:17
"And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before Him and asked Him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’” And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.” And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions."
The rich young ruler comes to Jesus and asks what he must do to have eternal life. Jesus starts reciting the Ten Commandments, starting with the human relationship ones. The young ruler listens patiently until Jesus gets to the visible sign of jealousy (#10), reflecting our lack of respect for how God is parenting us (#5). At this point the man's spirit is uncomfortable and exhibits defensiveness by asserting he has done all these faithfully.
Jesus now knows what his problem is and zones in on his lack. He is rich and discontented, so Jesus calls him on his distrust in God. Since you think God has given you a bad deal, get rid of it and try a different deal. Instead of having everything with power, have nothing and be a follower. You claim to be loyal, honoring God and respecting His parenting in your life. If you are doing #5 successfully then you can apply #10 this way.
#5 is the perfect antidote to jealousy: let yourself be Fathered, God is interested in your life and has great plans and provision for those plans to come to fruition. You don't need to be craving someone else's' life. You are a unique creation!
We can also see jealousy as the conclusion of our journey away from God. Our energy is spent on getting nowhere as a false witness. Even lying as a lifestyle can’t cover the pain of the boat load of shame.
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Despair, a broken cynic beyond repair. The person is just left with our true original motive, stripped of all hope: wanting, but not willing to pay the price. Won't walk with God by dying to self’s methods, trusting God’s love and ability, to be resurrected into our full glory.
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Sadly, the person winds up dead anyway. An intense craving lurks below the surface, easily accessed with a super sensitive trip wire, exposing full-blown rage. The nature of fully aged despair transforms into jealousy. Now the hair-trigger personality is just a ticking time bomb - anything can set the abused, battered, cornered beast off on a vicious attack.
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Sadly, this is what we now often see in the USA in news stories. People who with the slightest provocation go ballistic and launch an all-out stream of rage on strangers, a have-not obliterating reality by demolishing someone who has, so they are on equal footing. The jealous one momentarily relieves his tortured soul, finding a perverse moment of ‘equality’. The cycle is complete as the jealous resorts to murder, taking life instead of giving it, proving his craving for living in God’s image; yet refusing to surrender to its laws.
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