The Ten Commandments and the Lord’s Prayer stand as two of the most familiar passages in Scripture, yet they are seldom read alongside one another. One is given by God on Sinai, the other spoken by the Son on a mount. Both order the relationship between God and his people, and both begin with the same orientation: God first, then all else.
When placed side by side, the first tablet of the commandments and the opening petitions of the Lord’s Prayer reveal a shared structure. Each addresses the primacy of God, the holiness of his name, and the ordering of life under his will. The correspondence is not exact, but it is close enough to suggest a unity of voice rather than coincidence.
This essay considers that relationship, reading these two foundational texts together as parallel expressions of the same divine instruction.
“For most of us, the most well-known Old Testament passage is likely the Ten Commandments. It is not only a holy writ for three major religions but is also foundational to the laws of many nations and reflects basic principles that govern societies. The first five commandments–one God, no idols, a holy name, a sacred day, and how we love and honor God–speak of our relationship with God. The last five commandments–murder, adultery, stealing, false witness, coveting–speak of our relationship to each other, and in as much as we can avoid these sins, we can love our neighbor.
Again, for most of us, the most well-known New Testament passage is probably The Lord’s Prayer. Taught from childhood in all Christendom and recited weekly in liturgical congregations, it may be the only New Testament scripture that Christians know by heart, even among the unchurched. Like the Ten Commandments, the first part–our Father, heaven, a holy name, his kingdom, and his will–emphasizes our relationship with God. The second part–daily bread and forgiveness–highlights our earthly and relational concerns.
One of the earliest and widely accepted divisions of the Ten Commandments is described by the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria (30 BC–50 AD), who says that the “Decalogue [is] divided into two groups of five oracles each.” Josephus and early Church father Irenaeus (130–202) support this division. Even more specifically, Anglican priest Arthur Penrhyn Stanley (1815–1881) suggests that the “Commandments were probably divided into two equal portions, so that the Fifth Commandment, instead of being at the top of the second table, was at the bottom of the first.” And the Encyclopaedia Judaica says that “it is commonly assumed that they stood five over against five.”
Suggesting parallels between the Ten Commandments and the Lord’s Prayer, early 20th century Pastor A. W. Pink writes that the Lord’s Prayer is “divided into two groups of three and four, respectively: the first three relate to the cause of God; the last four relate to our daily concerns. A similar division is discernable in the Ten Commandments: the first five teach us our duty toward God; the last five teach us our duty toward neighbors.”
A comparison of the first tablet and the Lord’s Prayer reveals how closely they are connected. It is not surprising that these foundational passages from the Old and New Testaments are broadly similar because they come from the same God–God the Father on Mount Sinai and God the Son on another unnamed mount. English author and preacher Thomas Watson (1620-1686) compares them this way: “The ten commandments are the rule of our life, and the Lord’s prayer is the pattern of our prayer. As the moral law was written with the finger of God, so [The Lord’s Prayer] was dropped from the lips of the Son of God.” These two communications from God form the setting for our relationship with him and each other.
The First Commandment
“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.” (Exodus 20:2–3)
and
“Our Father” (Matthew 6:9)
There is one God. The pronoun our is used to identify a group’s possession of a single person or thing. Our house means that we all share one house. To say my house implies I have one house, and you have another. When we say our Father, we collectively call on just one God. Praying Our Father encapsulates the first commandment, to have just one God in our midst; when we pray, he is the only one we pray to. Arthur Stanley says this: “OUR Father, not my father. He is the God not of one man, but of all who can raise their thoughts towards him.”
The word our also points to the community and the Church to which we belong, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them” (Matthew 18:20). We say our Father because we have the privilege to acknowledge the body of Christ to which we belong. We all pray, but the one listening is the only God, the Father. Moses says, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Deuteronomy 6:4). So it is for his Church that “there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist” (1 Corinthians 8:6).
The word Father has a similar emphasis on singularity. Each of us has only one biological father. Jesus uses the words our and Father to start the Lord’s Prayer to reiterate the force and preeminence of the first commandment. Jesus gives fuller meaning to this and all the commandments in the Sermon on the Mount and throughout the gospels. For instance, he later says, “call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven” (Matthew 23:9)
Though at the top of the first tablet and from which all the others flow, our in the Lord’s Prayer, intrinsic in the first commandment, previews our obligation to our neighbor in the second tablet. James asks, “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? Submit yourselves therefore to God” (James 4:1). He traces second-tablet sins to a first commandment concern: not keeping God first.
It is said that the transgression of any other commandment is a de facto transgression of the first because every other sin puts the self before the One God, who is before all. English minister William Ames (1576–1633) writes, “in God, and for God only, we ought to perform all other duties; and so the duties of the second tablet are thus virtually contained in the first Commandment.” This first commandment and this opening of the Lord’s Prayer underpin all commandments and the gospel.
The Second Commandment
“You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.” (Exodus 20:3–6)
and
“Father in heaven” (Matthew 6:9)
The word Father is doing double duty here, as we have not only one Father, but our heavenly Father is a person, not an object. A carved image is an object, not a person. When Jesus says, Our Father, he combines God’s unique nature–there are no others like him–with God as a living being. Further, praying to a Father in heaven is the opposite of praying to an idol from the earth.
“He plants a cedar, Half of it he burns in the fire, And the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it.” (Isaiah 44:12–17)
“Woe to him who says to a wooden thing, ‘Awake;’ to a silent stone, ‘Arise!’ Can this teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in it.” (Habakkuk 2:19)
How distant an inanimate object is from a loving Father who gives us the gift of the Holy Spirit as a comforter. Jeremiah minces no words when he says, “Every man is stupid and without knowledge” (Jeremiah 51:17) who makes and worships an idol that Paul later says, “has no real existence” (1 Corinthians 10:4). The idolater says to a tree, “You are my father” (Jeremiah 2:27), but we say to God, Our Father.
We worship a living God and a loving Father, not a silent stone and not a God who sleeps or is distracted. “And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Luke 11:9) is an offer from a very personal God. He gives, he opens, and he lets us find him. “I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me” (Micah 7:7). The Father offers a personal relationship made available for us to “draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16), where we say, “Abba, Father” (Romans 8:15). He is Our Father and in heaven. Living–and personal.
The Third Commandment
“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.” (Exodus 20:7)
and
“hallowed be your name.” (Matthew 6:9)
Both texts are about the holiness of God’s name. One is his command to us, the other our confession to him. In one, God says, Don’t dishonor me; in the other, we say, I honor you. This is an attitude of the heart we have toward him. This asks for more than not misusing his name but understanding his holiness so that we might live in the right relationship with a holy God. This commandment and this prayer are generally thought to be about not using God’s name in a curse. But, as in other commandments, this is more than rash words from our lips. Instead, it is about an attitude in our hearts that honors God and draws us closer to him.
Jesus takes the third commandment beyond courtroom perjury or general lies. Rector W. C. Green (1832–1911) points out that Jesus is broadening the meaning of Jesus from “not swear falsely” to “not speak falsely.” Psalm 15 describes a person who “walks blamelessly and does what is right and speaks truth in his heart; who does not slander with his tongue and does no evil to his neighbor” (Psalms 15:2-3). Proverbs extends this to our behavior when the writer prays not to be tempted, “lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God” (Proverbs 30:9). And Jesus says, “out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45).
Ezekiel says false prophets are claiming to speak for God and, as such, are using his name for their purposes, not God’s. This is using God’s name in vain. “Have you not seen a false vision and uttered a lying divination, whenever you have said, ‘Declares the LORD,’ although I have not spoken?” (Ezekiel 13:7). We should be wary of justifying our actions by claiming God’s approval of them. James says, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that” (James 3:15), warning us not use his name for selfish purposes.
God’s command for us to honor him springs wholly from mercy. He tells Moses, “And you shall not profane my holy name, that I may be sanctified among the people of Israel. I am the LORD who sanctifies you, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God” (Leviticus 22:32). Only he can save and sanctify us, and, if we don’t honor him, we cut ourselves off from this hope.
The Fourth Commandment
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.” (Exodus 20:8–11)
and
“Your kingdom come” (Matthew 6:10)
The Sabbath is a day of rest, but there is one Sabbath that all other Sabbaths point to as the most important–the one when God provides a permanent and eternal rest by the realized promise of a kingdom led by the King of Kings. The Passover foreshadows this historic Sabbath in the Israelite Exodus from Egypt, wherein all the Egyptian firstborn–and none of God’s chosen people–die. The lamb’s blood on the doorposts and lintels foreshadows the death of God’s one and only Son on the cross. God’s will is done, and his kingdom does come when we are saved on that Passover Sabbath.
From “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 3:2) to “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36), Jesus accomplishes God’s will to gain what we cannot achieve for ourselves: entrance into his kingdom and a true Sabbath rest. The exchange with the criminal on the cross brings them together: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And Jesus replies, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:42-43). That very day, the criminal gains salvation and an eternal Sabbath rest. Much earlier in his ministry, Jesus said, “there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:27), indicating the kingdom is not just for the dead but the living, who see the proof of it when Jesus is resurrected. Every Sabbath celebrates this victory.
In an earlier encounter Jesus says to one who seeks to follow him, “It is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the needy” (Luke 12:33). We gain entrance to his kingdom the moment we give up all to follow him. As a host of GriefShare and Respite Retreats, Nancy Guthrie says, “God’s kingdom comes now as people bow to Jesus as King. At its simplest, the kingdom is where the King is; it’s where he rules and reigns. As he rules and reigns in your life, that is the kingdom.”
The Old Testament contains many beautiful provisions for God’s people to rest in him. It begins with a daily rest of the body and the soul, for “in peace I will…lie down and sleep” (Psalms 4:8). Then, one day a week, “you shall do no work. It is a Sabbath to the Lord” (Leviticus 23:3). In addition, the Israelites observe seven yearly feasts with additional holy days of rest in each. Every seven years, they celebrate a full year of Sabbath rest. Finally, every fifty years, a year of Jubilee rest is added, a time in which all debts are forgiven and, as God instructed Moses, “each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his clan” (Leviticus 25:8).
For a person living a lifespan of “seventy years, or even by reason of strength eighty” (Psalms 90:10), this fifty-year cycle provides each a chance to experience this Jubilee rest at least once. Having experienced it once, one would yearn for it again, even for eternity, with all debts forgiven and a return to our home in heaven. While we lost our Edenic home to sin, in the final Jubilee, we gained a new heavenly one.
Jesus frequently references our being at rest in him. “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:29-30). In seven parables in Matthew 13 (echoing the biblical pattern of seven as Sabbath fullness and covenant completion), Jesus says, “The kingdom of heaven is like…” and relates how God is constantly pursuing us like a hidden treasure and a pearl of great value. He is ever keen to bring us into his fold.
The day we accept the call of Jesus is when we both enter his kingdom and enter his Sabbath rest. “Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2). Pastor Richard Villodas uses the term “monastic spirituality,” which he describes as “slowing our lives down to be with God.” An attitude of restfulness in Jesus, not just scheduled rest stops on the calendar, benefits our souls. This is a continual Sabbath rest as we enjoy his peace with the Holy Spirit.
The Fifth Commandment
“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” (Exodus 20:12)
and
“[Y]our will be done, on earth at it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10)
God’s will on earth is often accomplished in and through people obeying his will and being attentive to the Holy Spirit. Philo of Alexandria says this commandment is “the last of the sacred duties inculcated in the first [tablet], and links on with the duties toward men contained in the second [tablet].” How the child honors the parents is the foundation for how the adult will honor God, for as Philo continues, “a man who is imperious towards his immediate and visible parents cannot be pious towards his invisible Father.” The responsibility to teach piety rests with the parents. Parents who prayerfully petition the Lord for guidance on modeling obedience, respect, and honor, combined with grace and unconditional love for their children, will create a foundation for their relationship with Jesus.
At twelve years of age, Jesus asks his parents, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49). Joseph and Mary ask Jesus to honor them by leaving the temple and coming with them, and even Jesus, the Son of God, obeys despite his deep desire to be in the temple. “How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts! My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord” (Psalms 84:1-2). To leave that place had to be difficult, but “he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them” (Luke 2:51).
Following this, “Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52) until eighteen years later when he heard his Father say at his baptism, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11). Jesus chose to obey his parents and “learn obedience through suffering” (Hebrews 5:8), which wasn’t just the persecution at the end of his life but submissiveness to his parents and his heavenly Father’s will throughout his life. Jesus says, “I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished!” (Luke 12:50). He knows of this burden throughout his three-year ministry, for this is the entire reason for his ministry.
But before this, Jesus made the most difficult choice of “becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8), even before he took on human flesh. Earlier still, Jesus was “foreknown before the foundation of the world” to ransom us (1 Peter 1:20,18) and, immediately after the Fall, was prophesied to be crucified for us when Satan would “bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15) on the cross. He follows God’s will entirely and perfectly on earth as in Heaven. Our obedience is to accept his work for us, believe in his name, love one another, and glorify God’s obedient servant as our King.
Again, the first tablet and the Sermon on the Mount are linked. Honoring our parents “is the first commandment with a promise, that it may go well with you” and “that your days may be long in the land” (Ephesians 6:2). To teach our children by example to love God and each other and, as a result, to have them join us for long days in eternity is the greatest gift a parent can give a child. The first four commandments tell us to honor God, and the fifth would have parents teach their children to honor them that they might know how to honor God. The first tablet forms a unified piece to lead us to him and down the path to love our neighbor.
The Sixth through the Tenth Commandments
Murder, adultery, stealing, false witness, coveting.
(Exodus 20:13–17)
and
“Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” (Matthew 6:11–13)
The final section of the Lord’s Prayer broadly addresses the second five commandments. To be satisfied with “our daily bread” is to be happy with God’s provision. To be dissatisfied with what God provides leads us to the temptation to violate these commandments. And when we sin, we ask forgiveness from God and seek forgiveness from our neighbor. However, the rest of the Lord’s Prayer does not have a similar one-for-one correspondence with the second tablet. However, turning back one page to chapter five of Matthew shows five well-known parallels corresponding to the second tablet commandments.”
This essay is part of Shadows of Christ: Twelve Essays.
thegospeloneverypage.com 