Q.43. What introduces the ten commandments?

A. These words introduce the ten commandments: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of he land of slavery.

Before we begin our detailed walk through the ten commandments, the catechism calls us to consider the context of the ten commandments. In Exodus 20, God was stating the “ten words” to the people He had just redeemed from slavery in Egypt. He had already saved them from a situation in which they were powerless. God Himself acted to do for them that which they could not do for themselves: to free them from bondage to Pharaoh.

Now that God has redeemed them, what does He expect from them? Since He has just made them into a nation, into His own people. How does He expect them to conduct themselves based upon His work of saving them? He gives them the ten commandments to obey as an act of gratitude for what He has done for them in redeeming them from the slavery of Egypt.

This intro to the ten commandments speaks to all those whom God has saved from their sins. I was not one of the people whom God brought out of Egypt under the leadership of Moses. But I have been redeemed from the penalty of my sins and have been adopted into God’s family. He is the Lord my God, who brought me out of the slavery to sin.

Therefore, I am called to show my gratitude for what Christ has done by living according to His rules: the ten commandments.

1 Corinthians 5:14-15

¹⁴ For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; ¹⁵ and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

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Romans 6:1-14

¹ What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? ² By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? ³ Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴ We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

⁵ For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. ⁶ We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. ⁷ For one who has died has been set free from sin. ⁸ Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. ⁹ We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. ¹⁰ For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. ¹¹ So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

¹² Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. ¹³ Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. ¹⁴ For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.