The Tenth Commandment, Part 1
Aaron Feil | Wednesday, October 24, 2018Copyright © 2018, Aaron Feil
This evening we come to the final installment in our teaching on the Decalogue as we come to the tenth commandment. We will be covering this commandment over two weeks. Therefore, let me give you an outline for these two weeks so you have a sense of where we are going.
Today we will cover three main points:
- First, the foundation for the tenth commandment – God’s interest in the heart
- Next, we’ll get into what is the tenth commandment and what sins it prohibits, specifically, the sins of coveting, discontentment, and envy
- Lastly, we will speak to God’s cure for coveting
When we come back in two weeks, we will dig into the practical application of this commandment for God’s people. God gives us many warnings as well as many reasons and means to positively honor him in this commandment.
With that outline in mind, let us then proceed to understand the tenth commandment.
As we come to this commandment which Paul simply summarized as, “Do not covet,” we, in fact, encounter one of the great themes that runs throughout the Scriptures, a theme that we cannot remind ourselves of too often. That theme is God’s abiding interest in the heart.
That is our first point for tonight. We must first understand God’s interest in our hearts before we can understand the tenth commandment, because its origin and foundation rests on that divine interest.
1. God Demands Holiness in the Heart
God made us body & soul. He rules all he has created.
First, we may say that God takes an interest in the entire created universe. It is all his—and he created it, he sustains it by his powerful word, and he is determined to be glorified by it. But we may also say that God takes particular interest in man as the pinnacle of his creation. God made man in his own image. Therefore, we find that, in the midst of this vast universe, God’s particular focus and attention is directed to man. In Psalm 33:13–15 we read, “From heaven the Lord looks down and sees all mankind; from his dwelling place he watches all who live on earth- he who forms the hearts of all, who considers everything they do.”
God sees and knows the heart
God watches over every person living on the earth and observes everything they do. No one escapes his particular notice. And his consideration is not merely superficial. God does not just give a quick or occasional glance our way. In fact, as we look throughout Scripture, God impresses upon us that he is not even satisfied to just examine our actions. One of the most persistent themes throughout Scripture is that God knows and examines our hearts. The human heart is the center of who man is. So God sees our thoughts, our attitudes, our motivations, our imaginations, or what the Puritans liked to call the inner motions of the heart.
In Hebrews 4 we see the word of God being sent forth as the great revealer of the heart: “For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Heb. 4:12–13).
God also makes it clear that we cannot hide from him. Our minds and our hearts provide no shelter from unwavering gaze. So we read, “‘Can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see him?’ declares the Lord. ‘Do not I fill heaven and earth?’” (Jer. 23:24).
We find in Scripture that a particularly terrible consequence of our sin is that we can deceive ourselves into thinking that God does not see our sin, that it remains somehow hidden from him so that he does not see it or act upon it. But in Jeremiah 16:17 the Lord says: “My eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from me, nor is their sin concealed from my eyes.”
Scripture reveals God is not satisfied by mere appearances. He does not buy into our pretense. In contrast, sinful man is fixated on appearances and so he creates a god of his own making that is satisfied with an outward show while making no demands on the heart. But the living God utterly rejects this, saying in 1 Samuel 16:7: “The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
Scripture also declares that, as part of God knowing the heart, he weighs and examines our motives. So we read, “All a man’s ways seem innocent to him, but motives are weighed by the Lord” (Prov. 16:2).
God demands holiness in the heart
Thus, we can first say that God sees and knows the heart. He sees our thoughts, our affections, and our motivations. But all of this serves his ultimate purpose, which is this: God demands holiness in the heart. He not only sees the heart, but he also tests it by his perfectly righteous standard. He not only knows the heart, but he is also the ever-present righteous Judge of it. In Jeremiah 17:10 he says, “I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve.”
When we look at man in sin, we see the inevitable enmity between God and man. God demands holiness in the heart, but man’s heart hates holiness and, in fact, pursues all that is contrary to it. Therefore, we find that God’s placing particular emphasis on man’s heart as his fundamental issue. For instance, as God prepared to judge the world in the great flood, he declared his reason for doing so, as we read in Genesis 6:5: “The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.”
Ultimately, God impressed upon us his demand of holiness in the heart when Jesus Christ summarized the greatest commandment. In Luke 10:27 we read, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind. In this verse we see God demanding holiness in all aspects of our life. But let’s observe from this verse God’s particular emphasis on the interior of man as three of the four aspects of our love come from within us—from our hearts, from our souls, and from our minds. This is not because God cares less for our outward actions, but, rather, because he knows that if our hearts are made right before God, then out of the overflow of our hearts will come God-pleasing words and actions.
We can never remind ourselves too often of this great truth, that God sees our hearts, he knows our hearts, and he tests our hearts. God demands holiness in our hearts, in all our thoughts and affections, and in all our hearts’ motions and motives.
Thus, as we go on to consider the tenth commandment itself, let us remember this great truth that forms the commandment’s foundation: God’s abiding interest in our heart.
2. The Tenth Commandment – Its Prohibitions
Our second point is to consider the tenth commandment and its prohibitions. We first find the tenth commandment in Exodus 20:17 and also Deuteronomy 5:21.
In Exodus 20:17 we read, “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” As we noted previously, in Romans 7:7, Paul simply summarized the command as “Do not covet.”
What desires are not sinful – how to discern legitimate vs. sinful desires
Before we look at what the tenth commandment prohibits, we can first say that this command does not prohibit all desires. As we know, God created man with various desires and declared prior to the Fall that all he created was very good. It is only after the Fall that we must zealously guard against sinful desires and only pursue those desires which are consistent with God’s glory and our good.
We know from Scripture that God is well aware of our needs in this world and he has made provision for them. But the problem is when the world gets into the heart. The Puritan Thomas Watson noted that water is useful for sailing a ship, but all the danger is when the water gets into the ship. So for us the danger lies when the world gets into our heart. It is this condition that the tenth commandment prohibits.
Let us, then, move on to consider what this command is prohibiting. We will look at this under three points: coveting, discontentment, and envy.
First, let’s consider what it means to covet. The Puritan Ezekiel Hopkins said coveting is “this inordinate inclination of the soul to what is evil and sinful.” Augustine simply described it as desiring more than enough. Thomas Watson, noting that there are two words in the Greek used to describe coveting, says that one of them signifies an “insatiable desire of getting the world” and the other is an “inordinate love of the world.”
Thus, we can think of coveting as having one origin—our sinful hearts—but expressing itself in a number of ways, such as a desire for that which is sinful in and of itself, or as a desire for something our neighbor possesses which we do not, or as an excessive desire for something in the world which may be lawful but which God has determined not to give us.
Why the longer formulation/objects of coveting
Returning to the command itself, we see it being very specific in its prohibition, that we are not to covet specific possessions which belong to our neighbor. So the command is very specific. But we also find God prohibiting coveting “anything that belongs to your neighbor.” And we should note that God uses this same formulation to convey the comprehensiveness of his command in the well-known 1 Corinthians 10:31 passage when Paul says, “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God”
God knows the sinful human heart. He knows how prone we are to look for exceptions to his commands. If he were to speak to us just in particulars, we would neglect the heart of the matter, the spirit of the law. Or if he were to speak to us in generalities, then we would content ourselves with some vague performance while neglecting immediate, exact obedience to all that is implied in his command.
In the tenth commandment, God prohibits coveting in particulars and in the all-encompassing “anything else” to show there is no loophole or refuge from the reach of this command. God is the all-seeing, all-knowing, all-holy Lawgiver and, therefore, the reach of his law coincides with the all-encompassing reach of his presence.
Next, when we look into God’s word, we see man coveting all manner of things. Most common is man’s sinful desire for wealth and what it provides. We see Achan coveting the devoted things when Jericho fell, King Ahab seizing Naboth’s vineyard for his own use, and Demas abandoning Paul because he loved this present world. We see the Pharisees in Luke 16 described as lovers of money while sneering at Jesus Christ for rebuking them for their love of it. And what do all these people share in common? They were all considered the people of God, as it were. Yet their lust ultimately showed that Money was their master, not God.
We see also David violating the tenth commandment in his desire for Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite and his son Amnon sinning against Tamar. We ourselves can break the tenth commandment by coveting things that could be considered good. For instance, we find Korah and his followers coveting the priesthood in Numbers 16 and Simon the Sorcerer sinfully desiring the Holy Spirit so that he could profit by him. Thus, we find man displaying his great wickedness and total depravity by twisting essentially every good thing that God has given us in this world into an object of sinful coveting.
What is its purpose as the last commandment?
What is the significance of the tenth commandment as it relates to all of the others? It is safe to say that God did not throw this commandment in as the last for no reason. No, it holds a special place among the commandments as it specifically speaks to the critical importance of God’s law governing the heart, as we’ve said before, and so in this way it makes clear and explicit what is implied in the other commandments.
So we find this heart-focused commandment placed at the end of the Decalogue to emphasize God’s demand of righteousness in our hearts. As the Puritans put it, it is there to safeguard and bind together all of the other commandments under this essential principle.
While this should have been sufficient, such is the nature of our sinful heart that Jesus Christ had to speak to this issue in Matthew 5. He made it unmistakably clear that the law of God rules the heart as well as the outward actions. Jesus Christ was not introducing a new commandment in Matthew 5. Rather, he was confronting man with his blindness to see the true scope of the commandments originally given, that, as Paul says in Romans 7, the law is spiritual and its reach extends to the inner core of man. Such an understanding prompted John Frame to say: “The tenth commandment vindicates Jesus’ reading of the Decalogue. The focus on the heart is not a New Testament innovation. It is also an Old Testament concern. From the beginning, God wanted Israel to write his words on her heart.”
Tests of Covetousness
Let us consider some particular tests to help us determine if we are in fact sinning against God by coveting. When we look at a case like Achan, we can readily conclude that he coveted. In fact, in his confession to Joshua, he said as much. But we need to recognize the subtlety of this whole area of sin and the propensity of our sinful heart to fall into it. Therefore, let me put before you several tests to help us detect whether we have fallen into this sin. Here my outline leverages from Thomas Watson.
First, a man may be said to have fallen into covetousness when his thoughts are wholly taken up with the world. The good man’s thoughts are fixed on heaven for he eagerly awaits his Savior from there. They are fixed on Jesus Christ, the author and perfecter of his faith. The covetous man’s thoughts are fixed on the things of this world, he is all taken up with the world and what it has to offer. His eyes and thoughts are inevitably cast downward while the man of faith finds his pleasure to look up to his heavenly country. And as he grows in his faith, he finds himself more and more frequently looking upward and with increasing pleasure. But the man who has fallen into covetousness is completely preoccupied making plans for this life while neglecting the next.
A second test is when a person exerts much more effort and sacrifice to get the things of the world than the things of heaven. A man may take great pains to lay hold of the world. He is willing to sacrifice much to attain it. He is the man described in Ecclesiastes 4, who seeks two handfuls with toil and chasing after wind. He may be the model of energy and diligence as he pursues the things of this world, but when it comes the things of God, he is like the lazy man in Proverbs who refused to raise his hand from the dish. He is a man who is up before dawn and working until after dusk, sowing and reaping in his worldly fields while his spiritual fields lie neglected, filled with thorns and briars. Through his ceaseless striving, he may declare himself to be rich. But Jesus declares him to be pitiful, poor, blind, and naked (Rev. 3:17).
A third test of having fallen into covetousness is when all a person speaks of is the world. Yes, we are in this world and therefore must speak of it. But if all we speak of are the things of this world, that reveals a problem in us. What we are in the habit of speaking of reveals what we value. Jesus Christ declared, “Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks,” and, “The one who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks as one from the earth.” The good man brings good things out of what he has stored up in his heart but the covetousness man speaks of nothing but the world. It was said of Peter, “Your speech betrays you” (see Matt. 26:73). So we should consider our speech and what it reveals about the state of our thinking and our heart, whether it reveals a sinful hungering and preoccupation with the things of this world, or whether it reveals us to be a citizen of heaven as we pass through this fallen world.
A final test is when a man so sets his heart upon worldly things that, for the love of them, he is willing to part with the heavenly. Such a man will cling to Achan’s wedge of gold but spurn the pearl of great price. He is like the men of the Gerasenes who would rather see Jesus depart than lose their herd of pigs. These are examples of people dominated by covetousness, whose hearts were corrupted by evil desires. And we should not think that we in the church are immune, for consider Demas, a man in the church who Paul described in Philemon as a fellow worker. Yet Demas ultimately allowed covetousness to take hold of him and therefore gave up Jesus Christ to grasp for the world.
May the Holy Spirit, who knows our hearts, use these tests to show us if we are sinning against God by falling into covetousness and breaking the tenth commandment. If we find ourselves in such a place, may we say with David, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit with me.” And though our riches may increase, may we not set our hearts on them but, rather, may our hearts say with the psalmist, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Ps. 73:25–26).
What is more generally prohibited? Discontentment
Next, we want to consider more broadly what is prohibited by the tenth commandment. As we’ve seen, the tenth commandment explicitly prohibits sinful desires, but it certainly goes beyond this. You see, for the seeds of sinful desire to germinate and grow, they must originate in the soil of discontentment. It is discontentment with what God has given us that spurs us to sinfully grasp for what he has withheld. It is saying, “I know better than God, and I refuse to be satisfied until I’ve laid hold of all that I desire.” It is trading away God and his provision as we exalt the world and its passing pleasures.
Yet on this topic of discontentment and complaining, there can be said to be a righteous complaint. For instance, David starts out Psalm 64 by saying, “Hear me, O God, as I voice my complaint.” He says in Psalm 142:2, “I pour out my complaint before him.” Therefore, this raises a question: How do we discern between a righteous complaining and a sinful complaining that violates the tenth commandment?
Here I would use two biblical stories we are familiar with: the story of Hannah, the mother of Samuel, and the history of the Israelites in the wilderness. In looking at these, we find several tests we can use to distinguish between sinful discontentment and that which is acceptable to God.
The first test is seen in Exodus 16 and 17. Here the Israelites had no food or water and it says that they quarreled with Moses and Aaron. You see, these people did not even bring God into the picture, despite all he had done for them in the past. Thus, we find that a lack of faith and a lack of spiritual sight is fertile ground for sinful complaining. When we face trouble and God is not in the picture, sin inevitably comes into it.
In contrast, Hannah was a woman of mighty faith. She knew her God; he was a very real and present help to her in her time of trouble. He was not just in the picture for Hannah but, as we study her story, we see that he was the dominant factor in her distress and its blessed outcome.
So the second test follows closely on the first and this is it: While Hannah in reverence took her complaint to God, the Israelites in the desert sinfully complained of God. Hannah directed her complaint to the God of heaven, the Sovereign Lord, and thus she laid her distress at his feet and humbly waited for this God who is rich in mercy to stoop down and bring her relief.
In contrast, the Israelites complained about God. When the report came in from the spies about the Promised Land, they said, “Why is the Lord bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword?” Such sinful complaining maligns the character of God—his power, his wisdom, his goodness, and his righteousness. So this is the second test: Do we take our complaints to our God in prayer? If so, this is pleasing to God, as it honors him. But if we are not directing our complaints to God in humble prayer, we must see that in some way our complaining and grumbling is ultimately directed against him and, thus, we have slipped into a sinful violation of the tenth commandment.
A final test is our response when God graciously brings relief to our complaint. In Hannah’s case, her righteous complaint was combined with righteous worship and thanksgiving to God when he met her heart’s desire. In the case of the Israelites, their sinful complaint recorded in Scripture was combined with resounding silence when God graciously met their need for food and water. Hannah praised God and in fact dedicated Samuel back to God. The Israelites, on the other hand, grumbled. They had received from their gracious Lord, eaten their fill, and then moved on without any mention of worship or thanksgiving. Thus, our final test is this: righteous complaining will be met with righteous thanksgiving, but sinful complaining is met by sinful ingratitude.
May these tests help us to discern if we are violating the tenth commandment by sinfully complaining against the Lord. And when we are confronted with troubles and afflictions, may we do as Hannah did instead. May we, by faith, bring God into the picture, not to complain of God but, rather, to direct our complaint to him in humble and reverent trust. Then may we worship and thank him when he sees fit, in his perfect wisdom, righteousness and goodness, to grant us relief.
What is more generally prohibited? Envy
Returning back to our consideration of what is prohibited in the tenth commandment, I would only briefly mention one other type of sin that is forbidden in this commandment. It is what the Westminster Larger Catechism describes as “envying and grieving at the good of our neighbor.”
In the Bible, we can often see the words “coveting” and “envy” used interchangeably, but we can say that where coveting is the sinful desire for something belonging to our neighbor, the idea of envy here is a sinful resentment of some good thing our neighbor possesses, even going so far as wanting to see our neighbor deprived of that good thing.
We see examples of this sin of envy in various places in the Bible. Envy was the terrible sinful seed that led Cain to kill his brother Abel out of resentment for God looking with favor on Abel’s offering but not on Cain’s. After David defeated Goliath, it was envy which first turned Saul down his terrible path of jealous hatred of David. Envy is a grievous sin which should impress upon us the twisted, terrible state of our sinful heart.
3. The Gospel – The only cure for coveting
Our consideration of the sins prohibited by the tenth commandment now leads to our third and final point: God’s cure for coveting.
As we start to consider this final point, I wanted to specifically speak to the children here. You see, it is so important that you understand this commandment rightly and see how it applies to you, so that you may see your great need and how God has met that need.
It may be that when you think about the tenth commandment, you think once again of Achan coveting and taking the gold and fancy clothes from Jericho. You children may think that because you’ve never done anything like that, you are doing okay when it comes to this commandment.
But let me give you an example which I hope will show you how you can so easily slip into sinning against God with this commandment. In fact, I suspect that this example shows something that many children here have fallen into, perhaps even this day.
You see, having boys in school, I happen to know that what kids have for lunch can be of great interest. So imagine the following picture: There are two boys at lunch at GVCA—one named Eric and the other Joe. Now as Eric unpacks his lunch, he lays out a feast of deliciousness. Joe, having witnessed this and with his face is already a bit downcast, brings out his usual sensible but not terribly exciting lunch. And what is Joe’s response to this situation? As Joe looks on the lunchtime banquet Eric is enjoying, he utters that time-honored phrase: “You’re so lucky,” while in his heart he is grumbling and complaining at his own lunch. Joe doesn’t recognize that through his parents, God provided the particular lunch God would have him receive with thankfulness and contentment. Rather, Joe was grumbling at his own lunch while coveting Eric’s, and therefore he was breaking the tenth commandment in his heart and sinning against the living God.
And though God is infinitely big and fills the whole universe, he is also everywhere present, and nothing escapes his notice. It is as if God was sitting right there next to Joe, observing all his actions, examining all that was going on in Joe’s heart. And even this one sinful act of the heart at a lunch table at GVCA is enough to condemn Joe to eternal judgement.
Therefore, I would ask the children here: Can you relate to Joe? Have you ever complained in your heart against your parent’s decision or your teacher’s instruction? Undoubtedly you have. In fact, we all have. We have all set our hearts on that which God has forbidden and therefore we stand condemned by God’s law to go to hell.
Praise God that doesn’t need to be the end of the story. The question, though, is this: What is your response to this commandment? Here I would say there are two basic responses. Perhaps your response is like that of the rich young ruler. When Jesus put before him the commandments as a means to eternal life, he responded, “All of these I have kept since birth.” You see, he had so reduced the commandments that he foolishly concluded that he had kept them.
But Jesus revealed to him his true state when he commanded the rich young ruler to sell all he had. At this point, we see the young man departing in dejected disobedience, showing that he was living his life in violation to the tenth commandment. He had allowed sinful desires for money and the world’s pleasures to take root and rule him. Despite his profession of interest in the things of God, he was showing that his ultimate master was not God, but the world. So we see him leaving, forsaking Jesus Christ, and journeying back to his wealth, not realizing that his journey to his wealth does not end there but, rather, in hell.
There is another response to this commandment. It is the life-saving response. It is the response of Isaiah that we find in Isaiah 6. Here we find Isaiah being brought into the presence of God. He sees the thrice-holy God high and exalted, seated on his throne. What is Isaiah’s response? He says, “Woe to me! I am ruined!” Why does he say this? It is because Isaiah recognized the greatness of his sin in seeing the Holy God.
This is also the only right response we can have when we come as a fallen sinner to the tenth commandment. You see, God’s law is a reflection of the Great Lawgiver. Paul declared that the law is holy, righteous, and good. That is because the Great Lawgiver is Holy, Righteous and Good.
God’s commands reflect God’s character and the righteous standard he applies to every person. God gave us the command so that sin might be recognized as sin, as Paul says in Romans 7. God is holy. The problem is that we are not. But God graciously comes using the law to show us our great need to be saved from our sin and guilt. And it is this tenth commandment that is particularly well suited to show us our sin and our need for salvation. For it is this command, “Thou shalt not covet,” that Paul uses in Romans 7 to highlight what he calls the sinfulness of sin.
It is this command that shows us that, apart from God’s work of salvation, we are a veritable factory of evil desires. We set our hearts on sin; we harbor evil thoughts and imaginations; and we crave the things of this world, and grumble and complain when we lack them instead of being content. We envy and grieve at the good of our neighbor instead of loving our neighbor and rejoicing with him.
My prayer is that for any who have not come to see the sinfulness of their sin through a right understanding of the law that they would see it tonight and say with the Apostle Paul, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” May they also hear the answer, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Why thanks to God? Because it is through Jesus Christ that we can be delivered from the condemnation that the Law rightly proclaims against us. It is through Jesus Christ alone that we can be saved and delivered from our corrupt sinful hearts. It is Jesus Christ who came to redeem his people by paying for every sinful thought, every covetous desire, every evil motion of our hearts.
Let us, therefore, see the great grace and mercy of God, coming to us through His commandments, the Ten Commandments. They show us the greatness of our sin, so that we will be left undone as Isaiah was and so that we will turn to Jesus Christ. May we call out for forgiveness, that we may be found clothed in the righteousness of Christ and be given a new heart—a heart that is no longer a factory of evil lusts but rather is a sanctified heart, occupied by the Holy Spirit where we increasingly love what God loves and hate what God hates.
May we praise God for this commandment, this demand of holiness in the heart. And may we praise God for the conviction of sin it brings. Most of all, may we praise God for his glorious salvation found in Jesus Christ. May each child and adult here be found to have seen the greatness of their sin, repented of it and entrusted themselves to Jesus Christ, receiving a new heart, the home of the Holy Spirit. And may our hearts, which were before a constant source of sin against God, now be a source of holy and righteous affections, that we would truly love our God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength.
Thank you for reading. If you found this content useful or encouraging, let us know by sending an email to gvcc@gracevalley.org.
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