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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJames Hastings Dictionary of the NT: Commandment
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In so far as primitive Christianity, in contrast to the OT, appeals to the conscience as the supreme tribunal of moral judgment (1Co_8:7 ff., Rom_14:5; Rom_14:14-23; cf. Rom_2:15), and calls upon Christians themselves to determine what is the will of God (Rom_12:2, Eph_5:10; Eph_5:17, 1Jn_2:20; cf. Jer_31:34), it may be said to proclaim the ethical autonomy of the individual Christian. This, of course, involves the assumption that the Christian apprehends the character of God as revealed in Jesus Christ; and accordingly the ethical maxim of primitive Christianity is that the believer should have the mind of Christ (Php_2:5 ff.) and should follow Him (1Co_11:1, 1Pe_2:21 ff., 1Jn_2:8 etc.).
But, on the other hand, the apostles, including St. Paul, make reference to a tradition of authoritative Divine commandments, and indeed they themselves lay down a number of precepts designed to serve as guides for the moral judgment of Christians ( ἐíôïëáß , äüãìáôá , ðáñáããåëßáé , ðáñáäüóåéò , etc.). We note the following categories.
1. Commandments of the Mosaic Law.-We have in the first place those commandments of the Mosaic Law, or of the OT, which are regarded as of Divine authority not only by the Jewish-Christian apostles, but also by St. Paul; cf. Jam_2:8-11, Rom_7:8-13; Rom_13:9, Gal_5:14, Eph_6:2. Of the laws of Moses, the Decalogue, as we might expect, is assigned a position of peculiar importance; it forms the fundamental law of the Old Dispensation (2Co_3:3 : ‘tables of stone’), and is therefore always cited when the leading commandments are under consideration (Rom_13:9, Jam_2:11). It is worthy of remark, however, that here both St. Paul and St. James take into account only the commandments of the second table, asserting that the whole Law is summed up in the command to love one’s neighbour (Gal_5:14, Rom_13:8 f.), ‘the royal law’ (Jam_2:8), though it is true that in Eph_6:2 St. Paul quotes a commandment from the first table (‘Honour thy father,’ etc.).* [Note: Just as, e.g., Mat_19:19 and is this commandment is appended to those of the second table (nos. 6, 7, and 8). It is impossible to decide whether the Jewish, the Eastern and Reformed, or the Roman Catholic and Lutheran arrangement of the commandments is followed here.] The sequence of the laws quoted in Rom_13:9 and Jam_2:11 agrees with that of the Septuagint version of Exo_20:13 in putting adultery before murder. So far as the Decalogue shares the statutory character of the Law as a whole, it also, according to St. Paul, is involved in the abrogation of ‘the law of commandments’ (Eph_2:15), as is evident from what is said regarding the law of the Sabbath, the obligatory character of which, according to Rom_14:5, Gal_4:9 f., Col_2:16, is in principle surrendered. Hence Luther’s interpretation of this commandment is the right one; though, in view of 1Co_7:17, St. Paul probably maintained that it should remain binding upon Jewish Christians (see article Law).
Further, St. Paul (as also the other apostles) cites not only the Decalogue, but the rest of the Torah as well, in support of his own ethical precepts (1Co_9:9; 1Co_14:34, 1Ti_5:18; cf. Jam_2:11; in all these passages, however, the reference is to commandments which justify themselves to the Christian consciousness). He avails himself of the principle laid down in 1Co_10:11, Rom_15:4, Col_2:17, i.e. he applies the OT commandments to the Messianic era in an allegorical or typological sonse; thus 1Co_9:9 (maintenance of Christian teachers) = Deu_25:4, 1Co_9:13=Num_18:8, 1Co_5:7 f.=Exo_12:3 ff. (the putting away of leaven). He likewise reinforces his own admonitions by sayings from the Psalms and the Prophets, as, e.g., 2Co_9:9= Psa_112:9, 1Co_1:31=Jer_9:23, Rom_12:19= Deu_32:35; cf. Jam_4:6= Pro_3:34, Heb_3:7-11=Psa_95:7-11. Finally, St. Paul and the rest frequently give their precepts in the form of OT exhortations; cf., e.g., Rom_12:20=Pro_25:21 f., 1Pe_2:17=Pro_24:21, 1Pe_3:10 ff.= Psa_34:13 ff., Heb_12:5 f.=Pro_3:11 f.
2. Commandments of God and Jesus.-(1) The commandments of God frequently referred to in the Epistles of John and in Rev. (1Jn_3:22; 1Jn_4:21; 1Jn_5:2 f., 2Jn_1:6, Rev_12:17; Rev_14:12; cf. the Pauline usage, 1Co_7:19) should doubtless be regarded as the OT commandments in the NT acceptation (i.e. as applied by Jesus); cf. 1Jn_2:7 f., where the commandment to love one’s brother is spoken of as at once old and new, and 1Jn_4:21, where brotherly love in Christ’s sense is combined with love to God (cf. Mat_22:37 ff. and parallels).
(2) Apart from this the apostolic Epistles refer but seldom to the commandments of Jesus. In James, 1 Peter, Hebrews, and Revelation we meet with no utterance of the earthly Jesus, while 1 and 2 John allude to His commandments only in general terms (1Jn_2:3 f, 1Jn_3:23 [brotherly love]; cf. 2Jn_1:9). Nor will it surprise us to find that the Pauline Epistles likewise contain but few references to the commandments of the Lord. Apart from Act_20:35 (which, it is true, implies a more extensive use of the Lord’s words in the oral teaching of St. Paul; cf. the pl. [Note: plural.] ëüãùí ), we find such references only in 1Co_7:10; 1Co_9:14; (1Co_11:23-25), Gal_6:2, 1Ti_6:3. The first of these passages refers to the prohibition of divorce; the second to the apostles’ right to live by preaching the gospel (cf. 1Ti_5:18); Gal_6:2 to ‘the law of Christ,’ i.e. mutual service; and 1Ti_6:3 to the words of Jesus in general (cf. 1Ti_4:6). But the explicit distinction which St. Paul draws between what the Lord did and did not command shows that he had an accurate knowledge of the Lord’s words-just as he also distinguishes between his own precepts and the Lord’s commandments. To trace this distinction to the difference between a greater and a less degree of certainty in the inward revelation (Baur) is the sheerest caprice; cf. the historic tense in 1Co_9:14. That St. Paul in general based his moral teachings on the authority of Jesus Himself appears from 1Th_4:2, where he reminds his readers of the charges he delivered to them ‘through the Lord Jesus’; cf. 1Co_4:17, where, as the context shows, his ‘ways which are in Christ’ ate the ethical precepts for which Christ was his authority. In using here the somewhat vague expression ‘in Christ,’ he simply indicates that his precepts are not mere repetitions of the words of Jesus, but that they are ‘Christian’ in the wider sense-like, let as say, the ‘Teachings of the Lord through the Twelve Apostles’ in the Didache. The commandments of Jesus are frequently cited also by the Apostolic Fathers; cf. 1 Clem. xiii. 3; 2 Clem. iii. 4, iv. 5ff., xvii. 3, 6; Ign. Eph. ix. 2; cf. Magn. xiii. 1 ( äüãìáôá ôïῦ Êõñßïõ êáὶ ôῶí ἀðïóôüëùí ); Did. xi. 3 ( äüãìá ôïῦ åὐáããåëßïõ ).
3. Commandments of the apostles.-From the commandments of Jesus appealed to by the apostles it is an easy transition to those of the apostles themselves (cf. 2Pe_3:2); it should be noted, however, that the term ἐíôïëáß is restricted to the commandments of God and Jesus, while the apostolic ‘commandments’ are denoted by other terms: äüãìáôá (Act_16:4), ðáñáããåëßáé (1Th_4:2; cf. 2Th_3:10), ðáñáäüóåéò (1Co_11:2, 2Th_2:15; 2Th_3:6), and the like. But although St. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 7, distinguishes between his own ‘judgment’ (1Co_7:25 ãíþìç ) and the commandment of the Lord, he nevertheless demands obedience to the former, inasmuch as he is possessed of the Spirit of God (1Co_7:40; cf. Act_15:28), and, accordingly, he can even assert that what he writes is ‘the commandment of the Lord’ (1Co_14:37). It is true that he sometimes appeals, as in 1Co_10:15, to the personal judgment of his readers, but it is clear, from 1Co_11:16 and 1Co_14:37 f., that he attached no decisive importance to such judgment. In any case, all opposition must give way before the consensus of apostolic usage (1Co_11:16; 1Co_14:36), and St. Paul always assumes that such a consensus really exists; cf. Rom_6:17 ôýðïò äéäá÷ῆò (‘fixed form of moral teaching’), Rom_16:17 (where ‘the teaching’ = moral teaching).
This common ethical tradition would include, above all, the so-called Apostolic Decree (Act_15:28 f., Act_16:4). It must certainly have comprised the injunctions regarding things sacrificed to idols, and fornication, an echo of which is still heard in Rev_2:20; Rev_2:24 (cf. Rev_2:24 the phrase ‘cast upon you none other burden’ with Act_15:28), and which the Apostle, not only according to Act_16:4, but also in 1Co_6:12-20; 1Co_10:14-33, expressly urges upon Gentile Christians. Cf. further articles Law and Moses.
We must also take account of the lists of vices and virtues given in various forms by the apostles: Gal_5:19-21, 1Co_5:10; 1Co_6:9 f., 2Co_12:20 f., Rom_1:29-31; Rom_13:13, Col_3:5-8, Eph_4:31; Eph_5:8 f., 1Ti_1:9 f., 2Ti_3:2-5, Rev_21:8; Rev_22:15 (vices); Gal_5:22, Col_3:12-15, Eph_4:2 f., Eph_3:2 to Eph_5:2, 2Pe_1:5-8 (virtues). Similar lists are found in Did. ii. 1-v. 2, Barn. 18-20, Polycarp, ii. 2-iv. 3. Though such tables were in their origin dependent upon Jewish and Greek models (e.g. Wis_12:3 ff; Wis_14:22 ff.; cf. Mat_15:19; Diog. Laert. vii. 110-114)-as St. Paul indeed indirectly recognizes in Rom_1:32, Php_4:8 (cf. the Stoic phrase ôὰ ìὴ êáèÞêïíôá , Rom_1:28)-they nevertheless reveal, especially as regards the virtues, their distinctively Christian character.
Along with the lists of vices and virtues should be mentioned also the so-called ‘house-tables,’ i.e. the groups of precepts for the various domestic relationships-husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and slaves (e.g. Eph_5:22-33; Eph_6:1-9, Col_3:18-25; Col_4:1, 1Pe_2:18 to 1Pe_3:7). These, as will be seen, make their first appearance in the later Epistles, but they may well have attained an oral form at an earlier date. Finally, the Pastoral Epistles, in addition to the family precepts, give several series of directions for the various orders of Christians-bishops, deacons, widows, etc., thus furnishing in fact a kind of Church organization, the social duties of the various relationships being made more or less subordinate to the ecclesiastical point of view (cf. 1Ti_2:1 to 1Ti_6:2, Tit_1:5 to Tit_3:2).
The reduction of Christian morality to concrete details was a matter of historic necessity. Just as the spirit of Christianity was not, even at the outset, possessed by all believers in the same degree, but was found pre-eminently in the apostles and prophets, so it was not present so fully in the later period as in the earlier. Hence, when the apostles were nearing their end, they felt it necessary, for the sake of the succeeding generation, to commit to writing the more detailed ethical teaching which no doubt they had to some extent already brought into an oral form. Cf. further article Law.
Literature.-The NT Theologies of B. Weiss, P. Feine, and H. Weinel; G. B. Stevens, The Pauline Theology, 1892; C. v. Weizsäcker, Apostolic Age, Eng. translation , i.2 [1897] 154; A. Seeberg, Der Katechismus der Urchristenheit, 1903, p. 1ff.; O. Moe, Paulus und die evangelische Geschichte, 1912, p. 56ff.; A. B. Bruce, St. Paul’s Conception of Christianity, 1894, p. 293ff.; E. v. Dobschütz, Christian Life in the Primitive Church, Eng. translation , 1904, p. 399ff.
Olaf Moe.