The Ten Commandments Expounded
See how the Catechisms unfold each commandment into duties required and sins forbidden, ordered under the two great tables of love to God and love to neighbour.
The Catechisms devote more space to the Ten Commandments than to any other theme, walking through them one by one. Their method is consistent: identify the commandment, then ask what it requires and what it forbids, so that the whole law touches the whole life.
The two tables and a method of reading
The commandments fall into two tables. The first four set out our duty to God; the last six set out our duty to man. Jesus' own summary, love to God and love to neighbour, governs both, so that no duty toward others is acceptable apart from love to God, and no claim to love God is genuine while we wrong our neighbour.
For every commandment the Catechisms ask two questions: what is required, and what is forbidden. Positive and negative belong together, for each prohibition implies its contrary duty. This pattern teaches the reader to find in a single command a whole field of obedience reaching the heart, the words, and the deeds.
The first table: worship and reverence
The first commandment fixes the object of worship, requiring us to know and own God as the only true God and to give Him all the honour due Him, while forbidding atheism, idolatry of the heart, and every rival affection. The second governs the manner of worship, requiring that we worship as God appoints and forbidding images and will-worship.
The third guards the holy use of God's names, titles, word, and works against all profaning and abuse. The fourth sanctifies time, setting apart one whole day in seven for holy rest and the public and private exercises of God's worship. Together the first table orders the heart Godward in truth and reverence.
The second table: justice and love to neighbour
The fifth commandment, honour to parents, the Catechisms read broadly as governing all relations of superiors, inferiors, and equals, with their mutual duties. From there the sixth preserves life, the seventh chastity, the eighth property and just dealing, and the ninth truth and the good name of our neighbour.
The tenth reaches furthest inward, forbidding all discontentment and every covetous motion of the heart against our neighbour's good. By ending with desire itself, the law shows that outward conformity is not enough; it convicts even the secret stirrings of sin and presses every reader to the grace of Christ.
Study the full text, Scripture proofs, and commentary on each:
- Pick one commandment and read its WLC question on duties required alongside the question on sins forbidden; note how each implies the other.
- Compare the WSC and WLC treatments of the fifth commandment and observe how widely the Catechisms apply 'honour thy father and mother.'
- Read WLC 147 on the tenth commandment and ask why the Standards end the law with the heart's desires.
See how this doctrine is stated across the Reformed confessions side by side.
The Ten Commandments Expounded →