“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” (Exod. 20:7).
I don’t know whether the third commandment1 is the most frequently broken of the Ten, but I suspect it is the most misunderstood. Most churchgoers (and non-churchgoers, for that matter) tend to think the third commandment is mainly meant to forbid religious profanity. To be sure, any profaning of God’s name is forbidden, and that would include the use of God’s name as a cuss word. But uttering the name of Jesus Christ after we stub our toes may be the least of our violations of the third commandment.
1. Throughout this essay I will follow the Protestant and Eastern Orthodox numbering of the commandments.
As we will see, this command touches all that we think, do, or say in connection with God and his Words, but most especially God’s name. It is meant to govern our conduct whenever we “lift up” the name of God by using it—and even more so when we dare to take his name upon ourselves, bearing it like a banner over our whole lives. In other words, the third commandment is a general prohibition, binding on all, that forbids blasphemy, irreverence, and “empty speech” about God,2 but it is also a particular prohibition against profaning the name of God through hypocrisy as someone “who is called by [his] name” and created for his glory (Isa. 43:7).
2. For an argument concerning the third commandment’s relationship to natural law, see J. Budziszewksi, What We Can’t Not Know: A Guide, Revised and Expanded Edition (Ignatius Press, 2011), 29–53, esp. 33–34.
The Name above All Names
Ancient near eastern cultures believed that knowing the name of person or a deity granted the speaker control over them.3 Perhaps that is why the Lord refused to reveal his name to Jacob after their famous wrestling match (Gen. 32:29). Instead, God renamed Jacob, calling him “Israel” (Gen. 32:27–28). This act was not only a sign of his people’s future relationship to the Lord4 but also a reminder that Jacob hadn’t really won that scrimmage. He was fortunate to have escaped with his life (Gen. 32:30), and he walked with limp to go long with his new name for the rest of his life (Gen. 32:31).
3. Yoon Jong Yoo, “The Literary and Theological Significance of Names in the Book of Exodus 1:1–15:21,” Journal of Biblical Text Research 41 (2017): 7–28.
4. The name “Israel” means “one who struggles (or wrestles) with God.”
This view of names seems superstitious to moderns, yet an almost mystical reverence for names remains alive and well. Bookmarks, cards, and various internet services revealing the “true meaning” of a name still sell like hotcakes. Some parents worry that giving a child a certain name may influence the course of his life.5 Advertisers, propagandists, and politicians (but I repeat myself) know the power of a name, too. They have learned that the name “Science,” with a capital-S, casts a strong spell that entices many to accept virtually anything advocated under that designation.6
5. I suppose there is a sense in which this is true, and Shel Silverstein elucidates this in “A Boy Named Sue,” which Johnny Cash made famous in his At San Quentin album (1969).
6. Like the dubious COVID vaccine, for example.
I propose that most haven’t thought deeply enough about what a name can do. When you call the name of a man in a crowd, you cause him to turn his head. If a teacher were to write the name of a student on the chalkboard, he would instill great curiosity both in the named student and in everyone who knows the one to whom the name belongs. When an email arrives in the inbox, the sender’s name—long before the contents of the email are read—already disposes the receiver in one way or another, stirring him to delight or to sadness, to hope or to trepidation.
Names are powerful things. They identify a particular person in a particular way. They say something about who we are and where we come from (cf. Gen. 2:7, 20). And though they do not give others power over us (as pagan near eastern cultures thought), names do grant others the power to call on us. I have long thought the words of Genesis 4:26 should stop us in our tracks: “At that time people began to call upon the name of the Lord” (Gen. 4:26).7
7. Though the divine name “Yahweh” is used here, it is perhaps impossible to know whether this specific name was revealed to Adam and his progeny and subsequently lost to the people descended from Abraham until the Lord again revealed his name to Moses. But it’s worth thinking about.
Many generations later, when the Lord appeared in the bush that burned but wasn’t burned up, Moses asked, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” (Exod. 3:13). The Lord then answered his question, revealing his name: “I am who I am” (Exod. 3:14).
This name means he is the God who was and is and is to come (Rev. 1:8). It further means that the Lord is the God who needs nothing and the one on whom all things depend (Heb. 3:4). He is the flame that burned in the bush without consuming it, for this Fire needs no fuel (Deut. 4:24). The Lord’s name also reveals that he is incomparable and unique. He is who he is, and all things find their identity in relation to him.8 And there is no “process” of changing or evolving in this God. “I am who I am,” he says to us. There is no shadow of turning in the God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb. 13:8; Jas. 1:17). And because the Lord is unchanging in his being, constant in ways, and faithful to his promises, we are not destroyed (Mal. 3:6).
8. That is to say, we properly call something good or beautiful or true because it reflects the goodness, beauty, or truth of God. We do not call God good because he measures up to our self-conceived standard(s) of goodness.
All this means the Lord is utterly unlike the gods of the ancient world. They were limited and provincial, cranky and capricious, and had no real consistency or shared coherence. The ancient pantheons placed man in a state of continual turmoil, for what pleased one god annoyed another. They all demanded flattery and bribes, they blessed and cursed unpredictably, and so the pagan became a pawn caught up in a cosmic war.9
9. For a fuller treatment of this idea, see Joy Davidman, Smoke on the Mountain: An Interpretation of the Ten Commandments (Westminster Press, 1954), 21–22.
But the Lord is not like any of that. He is neither needy nor moody, and because of his constancy, we can know with certainty what pleases and displeases him. We are because he is, and he knows us better than we know ourselves. This is the identity of the God who says, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain” (Exod. 20:7).
Gosh Darn It All to Heck: Adventures in Missing the Point
The Hebrew word for “take” in Exodus 20:7 is a form of the verb nāśā’. Its lexical range is conveyed in English with terms like bear, carry, lift (up), and take. Cain’s guilt was too great to nāśā’ (Gen. 4:13). The waters of the flood nāśā’ed Noah’s ark (Gen. 7:17). On his deathbed Jacob asked his son Joseph to nāśā’ his body to the promised land for burial (Gen. 47:29–30). The winds of the eighth plague nāśā’ed the locusts to Egypt (Exod. 10:13). Jethro counseled Moses to appoint judges to nāśā’ the burden of instructing Israel (Exod. 18:22). And just before giving the Ten Commandments, God said to his people, “You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I nāśā’ed you on eagle’s wings and brought you to myself” (Exod. 19:4).
The English word “take” would work as a rough translation in many of those verses, but one word that could not work in any of those verses is “speak.” Moses and the prophets would surely marvel to learn that God’s prohibition against taking the Lord’s name in vain has come to be understood as, “Do not use the name of God as a swear word.” It’s worth noting how we got here.
Misconceptions about “taking” the Lord’s name in vain began in the Second Temple period of Judaism. Around that time most scribes and rabbis had come to regard the divine name of God (Yahweh/the Lord) as being so sacred that it could not be pronounced without violating the third commandment.10 Only the high priest was permitted to invoke the Lord’s name, once per year, and he could only do so in the most holy place of the temple. Eventually the name-that-could-not-be-spoken was further outlawed from being written. Hence the vowels for the word ʾădōnāy (lord) came to be placed under the consonants for the word Yahweh, giving rise to the mishmash transliteration, Jehovah.11
10. See Collin Cornell, “Names of God in the Hebrew Bible,” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion, July 29, 2019.
11. Should you ever find yourself looking for the Holy Grail in the lost city of Alexandretta, it would behoove you to remember that in the Latin alphabet Jehovah begins with an ‘I.’
By the time that the Old Testament was translated into Greek (ca. 3rd century BC), this way of thinking about the name of God and the third commandment was so entrenched that the plain meaning of some verses became obscured. For example, the Hebrew text of Leviticus 24:16 reads, “Whoever blasphemes [nāqab̲] the name of the Lord must be put to death; the whole community is to stone him. If he blasphemes [nāqab̲] the Name, he is to be put to death, whether the resident alien or the native” (Lev. 24:16, ESV).12 In the Septuagint, however, Leviticus 24:16 reads, “He that names [onomazō, not blasphemeō] the name of the Lord, let him die the death: let all the congregation of Israel stone him with stones; whether he be a stranger or a native, let him die for naming [onomazō] the name of the Lord” (Lev. 24:16, Brenton LXX).
12. The application of a fundamentally religious commandment to “the resident alien” has interesting import for present debates about the enforcement of laws and customs on immigrants, both legal and illegal. But that’s another article for another time.
This misguided notion about “naming” God’s name lives on in Judaism today, but not only there. Many a Christian pastor can regale you with stories of a congregant who persistently refers to our Creator as “G–D” or “L–RD” in all her emails. Such conventions are patently silly and utterly unnecessary. Worse still, they reflect a dangerous ignorance about the real threat of violating the third commandment in a number of serious ways.
Fast forward several centuries and a new misconception emerges born of misemphasis rather than misunderstanding. In his Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin links the third commandment closely with the ninth (i.e., the prohibition against bearing false witness against one’s neighbor). The connection is not a spurious one, for the third commandment does prohibit a form of bearing false witness against God. Calvin, however, is centrally concerned with the taking of oaths in God’s name. He writes, “The [third] commandment refers especially to the case of oaths, in which a perverse employment of the divine name is particularly detestable.”13
13. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge (Hendrickson, 2008), 2.8.22.
Calvin is following medieval theologians here,14 and post-Reformation theologians tended to follow Calvin.15 Their chief concern was the prohibition of lying in God’s name in legal contexts, which would make God out to be guilty by association with our falsehoods. Thus, they thundered against using God’s name “despitefully or unreverently [sic]” through “cursing,” “forswearing,” or “rash swearing” in his name.16 There is a glimmer of what we now call “swear words” here, but the main focus was the improper taking of oaths (cf. Matt. 5:37; 23:16).
14. Aquinas says that “inordinate swearing is the matter of a special prohibition by a precept of the decalogue.” This was the dominant medieval interpretation. However, he goes on to say that the commandment is also “a prohibition a false doctrine.” Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province, 2nd rev. ed. (1920; online ed.), I-II, q. 100, a. 5, ad. 3, https://www.newadvent.org/summa/2100.htm If we add hypocrisy to this, I think we are much closer to the totality of the third commandment’s purview.
15. See, for example, Reformed Baptist Hercules Collins’ An Orthodox Catechism, ed. Michael A. G. Haykin and G. Stephen Weaver, Jr. (1680; repr. RBAP, 2014), Q. 112–114.
16. Collins, An Orthodox Catechism.
Lying under oath—especially an oath invoking God as a witness—is, of course, a grave sin. Yet the reduction of “You shall not take the Lord’s name in vain” to a prohibition against false oaths collapses the third commandment into the ninth. Moreover, it treats the third commandment as if it were mainly a means to preserving social order (by guaranteeing the truth) rather than a means of directing the conduct of every person who names the name of the Lord.17 There are, in other words, many ways to despitefully or irreverently “take” God’s name that extend beyond our speech.
The Third Commandment in All Its Terrifying Glory
What, then, is required in the third commandment? The Westminster Larger Catechism says,
The third commandment requires, that the name of God, his titles, attributes, ordinances, the Word, sacraments, prayer, oaths, vows, lots, his works, and whatsoever else there is whereby he makes himself known, be holily and reverently used in thought, meditation, word, and writing; by an holy profession, and answerable conversation [i.e., corresponding behavior], to the glory of God, and the good of ourselves, and others.18
17. See Ephraim Radner, “Taking the Lord’s Name in Vain,” in I Am the Lord Your God: Reflections on the Ten Commandments, eds. Christopher R. Seitz and Carl E. Braaten (Eerdmans, 2005), 77–84.
18. Westminster Assembly, The Larger Catechism, Q. 112.
Or, as Reformed Baptists later summarized, “The third commandment requireth the holy and reverent use of God’s names, titles, attributes, ordinances, words, and works. (Deut. 28:58–59; 32:1-4; Ps. 29:2; 111:9; 138:2; Job 36:24; Eccl. 5:1; Matt. 6:9; Rev. 4:8; 15:3–4).”19 Stated negatively, “The third commandment forbiddeth all profaning and abusing of any thing whereby God makes himself known” (Mal. 1:6–7, 12; 2:2; 3:14).20
19. William Collins, The Baptist Catechism (aka Keach’s Catechism), 5th ed. (1695), Q. 59.
20. Ibid., Q. 60.
These careful expositions of how the third commandment is explained and applied in Scripture show that God requires a holy reverence in all our conduct and thus forbids any abuse that would cause his name to be profaned. Such abuses certainly include our speech, but even this extends beyond the use of God’s name as a cuss word. A man violates the third commandment when he says something false or heretical about the Lord. A man also breaks the third when he uses God to justify anything that he has not actually endorsed. Indeed, everything that tarnishes or cheapens the Lord’s name, including anything that causes others to do the same, is blasphemous irreverence toward God and a violation of the third commandment.
All this takes on special significance for the people of God, who “take” the name of the Lord in a unique sense. We are those who bear God’s name (Isa. 43:7; Matt. 28:19) on our hearts and heads and hands (Deut. 6:4–9; cf. Rev. 14:1). And to bear the name of the Lord is no small thing. For God has redeemed a people for himself (Titus 2:14) to serve as his ambassadors (2 Cor. 5:20), representing his interests and speaking on his behalf.
Israel was first formed for this purpose and called to be a blessing to the world (Gen. 12:1–3), “a kingdom of priests” (Exod. 19:5–6), and “a light to the nations” (Isa. 49:1–7). Viewed in this light, the third commandment is partly a call to mission.21 And every time a priest raised his voice to give the Aaronic blessing,22 he reinforced this divine commission. God says of this act, “So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel” (Num. 6:27, emphasis added).23 To have God’s name put upon you, and to receive that name by faith, entails remembering the God of covenant promises whose his name is worthy of reverent conduct in all of life.
21. Peter Leithart, The Ten Commandments: A Guide to the Perfect Law of Liberty (Lexham Press, 2020), 48.
22. “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace” (Num. 6:24–26).
23. Terence Fretheim, Exodus, Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (John Knox Press, 1991), 227.
Yet at each stage in Israel’s history, a dreadful majority of Israelites showed themselves to be people who had taken God’s name in vain. By the time of the exile, we find a marked increase of prophetic judgments against Israel’s sins, not simply as sins, but as hypocrisy.24 For hypocrisy strikes at the heart of the third commandment, dragging the reputation of God through the mud by attaching his name to people who honor God with their lips, while their hearts are far from him (Isa. 29:13).
The Lord said of such people, “I scattered them among the nations, and they were dispersed through the countries. In accordance with their ways and their deeds I judged them. But when they came to the nations, wherever they came, they profaned my holy name…” (Ezek. 36:19–20).25 Hence we see that God has a special concern for his reputation, his glory, such that Israel’s (many) sins carried particular significance because of their identity as the bearers of God’s name. As biblical studies professor Mac Sandlin explains,
24. E.g., Isa. 29:13; 48:1–2; 58:2–7; Jer. 7:1–11, 21–24; 23:25–32; Ezek. 20:30, 39; 22:23–31; Micah 3:9–11; Amos 5:21–24; Hag. 1:2–11; Zech. 7:4–14; Mal. 1:6–14.
25. What is more, the Lord goes on to say, “It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes” (Ezekiel 36:22–23). Even God’s redemptive acts are first and foremost for his name’s sake.
“Idolatry, injustice and evil are blights on any people, but they are infinitely worse when committed by those clothed in the name of [the Lord], since the sins of the people ruin his reputation in the world. Because God has been so gracious as not only to reveal his name to this people, but even to put his name on them and thereby to dwell among them, Israel is able to dishonor God in a way that no other nation can.”26
The situation had not improved by the time that Christ began his public ministry. Jesus quoted the words of Isaiah to the Jewish leaders (Matt. 15:8–9), who went around claiming to be the children of Abraham while actually being children of the devil (John 8:44). This explains Jesus’s recurring condemnations of the scribes and the Pharisees: they were hypocrites who, as Peter Leithart put it, “only play-acted righteousness. They didn’t fill out the robes they wore, nor live up to the family name (Matt. 23).”27
26. Mac S. Sandlin, “Blasphemy, Risk, and the Name of God” in Leaven 21, no. 2 (2013): 76.
That was Paul’s conclusion, too. His primary criticism of his kinsmen in the book of Romans was not simply that they had “sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23), but that they did so as people who had taken God’s name in vain and ruined his reputation among the nations. Writing to those who called themselves the people of God, boasted in the Lord, and claimed to know his will and serve as a guide to the blind, a light to those in darkness, and an instructor of the foolish (Rom. 2:17–21), Paul says,
27. Leithart, The Ten Commandments, 49.
You then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law. For, as it is written, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” (Rom. 2:21–24, emphasis added).
Of course, Paul has already said that the Gentiles had enough revelation to be without excuse, plus enough sin to suppress that revelation without Israel’s help (Rom. 1:18–32). Even so, the Lord said to his people, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” We are firmly in third-commandment territory here, and what was true of Israel can be true of Christians today who take the name of the Lord on their lips while denying him by their lives.
Who Is Sufficient for the Third Commandment?
The far-reaching scope of the third commandment may cause some to wonder, “Does it refer to everything, then?” or, “Is every sin a violation of the third commandment?”
We are not the first to ask such questions. Maritn Luther believed that all the commandments were contained implicitly within the first.28 The apostle James before him said that to break one commandment was to become guilty of breaking them all (Jas. 2:10). This is not to say that every commandment is identical to the others, such that each requires or forbids exactly the same. It is rather to say that every commandment is intrinsically connected in such a way that to break one of them entails breaking them all in the process.
28. Though he cheated a little, because Lutherans and Catholics combine the first two commandments, treating them as one, while separating the tenth into two prohibitions against differing kinds of covetous desires.
Given enough time for careful reflection, we could easily demonstrate this point with any of the Ten Commandments. As for the third, however: To take the Lord’s name in vain is to forsake the living God above all else (1st Command), ignoring his words and treating him as if he were a mute idol (2nd Command). Such a person neither remembers the Lord nor regards him as holy (4th Command), but dishonors the Father from whom every family is named (5th Command). This course of action treats the Lord as if he were dead (6th Command), completely irrelevant to life. It commits spiritual adultery with rival claimants to our hearts (7th Command), robs God of the glory he is due (8th C), bearing false witness against the Lord in the process (9th Command). And all of this we carry out because of some deep covetousness (10th Command) that has clouded the “surpassing worth” of God (Phil. 3:8).
The punishment for such blasphemy is death (Lev. 24:16). It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the third commandment. And yet, millions of people every year take the name of the Lord upon themselves as they are baptized “in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19). They even dare to call themselves Christians (cf. Acts 11:26; 1 Pet. 4:16), that is, “little Christs.” Given all that we have seen about the third commandment, what could compel someone to do such a thing?
The answer is found in the life and death of the one who was the ultimate bearer of God’s name (Matt. 1:23), the image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15) in whom the fullness of deity bodily dwelled (Col. 2:9), the one who is “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature” (Heb. 1:3). This God took on flesh and dwelt among us so that we might see his glory (John 1:14), a glory that bore our guilt in his body (1 Pet. 2:24), carried our griefs and sorrows (Isa. 53:4), and took our sins away (1 John 3:15) when he was lifted up on the cross (John 3:14). There Jesus suffered the penalty for all our blasphemy, all our hypocrisy, and all our irreverence. And for this reason, “God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow” (Phil. 2:9–10).
It is not, therefore, a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the third commandment when your life has that Name written all over it. Yet this gift of grace that exonerates us from guilt does not excuse us from renewed efforts toward obedience. “Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?” (Rom. 6:1). Instead, those whose eyes have been opened to the glory of the Lord have more, not less, of a desire to honor his name (Mal. 4:2).
And we do so no matter the cost. As the apostle Peter says, “If you are ridiculed for [bearing] the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. But let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, an evildoer, or a meddler. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed but let him glorify God in having that name” (1 Pet. 4:12–16).
That passage concludes with a reminder that “the time has come for judgement to begin with God’s household” (1 Pet. 4:17), not as a warning of future condemnation but as a summons to greater fidelity and corresponding holiness. For just as the name of God once dwelt among his people in the tabernacle (Deut. 12:11) and later in the temple (1 Kgs. 8:29; 9:3), now that name resides in you by the gift of the indwelling Spirit (Rom. 8:11). For we have become the temple of the Lord (Eph. 2:21; 1 Cor. 3:16).
Now recall how the priests of old were charged with keeping the house of God clean from all impurities and defilements (Num. 3:7–10; 2 Chr. 29:15–18), so as not to profane the name of the Lord who dwelt there (Mal. 1:6–14; cf. Matt. 21:12–13). For “God’s temple is holy,” Paul reminds us, and then he adds these sobering words, “and you are that temple” (1 Cor. 3:17). This is why nearly every time the NT authors teach on the church-as-temple-of-the-Lord, they apply this doctrine by calling the people of God to put away all that is unbecoming of those who bear his name (Eph. 2:21–5:21; 1 Cor. 6:19–20; 2 Cor. 6:14–18; 1 Pet. 2:5–12). In other words, “As he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct” (1 Pet. 1:15; cf. Lev. 11:44).
Conclusion: Hallowed Be Thy Name
I fear that much of this essay smacks of legalism to the growing number of antinomians in our day. They would do well to read what older authors have written about such things.29 They would do even better to reread 1 Timothy 1:8–11, carefully and thoughtfully. For there Paul walks through the Ten Commandments in order, beginning with the ungodly (1st Command), the sinners (2nd Command), the unholy (3rd Command), and the profaners of the Lord’s Day (4th Command). He then mentions those who dishonor their fathers and mothers (5th Command), murderers (6th Command), the sexually immoral and those who practice homosexuality (7th Command), enslavers (8th Command), liars and perjurers (9th Command), and “whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine” (an allusion to the 10th Command’s wide purview).30
29. See, for example, Mark Jones, Antinomianism: Reformed Theology’s Unwelcome Guest? (P&R Publishing, 2013).
30. For an excellent academic treatment of this passage, see Richard C. Barcellos, “First Timothy 1:8–11 and the Utility of the Decalogue,” Reformed Baptist Theological Review 1:1 (Jan 2004): 3–25.
To keep the Lord’s commands is not legalism, but love (John 14:15). And Paul says that these commandments are “in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God” (1 Tim. 1:11). The commands are not the gospel, but they are in accordance with it. Thus, the gospel liberates us from the penalty of disobedience, not from the necessity of it. Indeed, the good news that believers will never come into judgment produces “the obedience of faith” (Rom. 1:5). And for this reason, it is not legalism to insist that Christians “make every effort” (2 Pet. 1:5) to put to death the sins Christ died to save them from (cf. Col. 3:1–17).
Despite many protestations to the contrary, therefore, the Ten Commandments—which publish a particularized, Israel-specific summary of the basic moral duties incumbent on all—continue within the new covenant. They do not continue as its basis, as they did for the Mosaic covenant (Deut. 4:13). Yet they do continue as a mirror for all (Jas. 1:22–25), as a muzzle for hard hearts (Deut. 19:18–20; Acts 5:5–13; Rom. 13:3–5), and as a map to guide those “love God and obey his commandments” (1 John 5:2; cf. Rom. 3:31; 8:4; 1 Cor. 7:19).31
31. The “mirror,” “muzzle,” and “map” alliteration is not original to me. For more on this, see Stephen Spinnenweber, Loving the Law: The Law of God in the Life of the Believer (Christian Focus, 2025).
For, in the end, what else are the Ten Commandments if not “a character portrait of Jesus”?32 And are we not called to imitate him (1 Cor. 11:1; Eph. 5:1; 1 John 2:6), especially as those who bear his name (Jas. 2:7)? Let the redeemed of the Lord say so. And let them strive to keep the third commandment, in accordance with the gospel of the glory of our blessed God (1 Tim. 1:11), until the world takes up the everlasting chorus of “Hallowed by Thy Name” (Matt. 6:9).
