The Ten Commandments and God’s Grace

The Ten Commandments are some of the most famous verses from the Bible. Yet, they are also some of the most misunderstood. Often we read them and think: this is how I get to God. We view them as a ladder; we see them as rungs we need to climb to get to God. However, when we read these commandments in the context of Exodus, we’re reminded that obedience is a response to God’s grace, not a requirement to receive it.

The Ten Commandments begin with a preamble. Before outlining his commands, God reminds his people who he is and what he has done for them.

And God spoke all these words, saying, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Exodus 20:1-2).

The Ten Commandments are not given in a vacuum. God has rescued his people miraculously from slavery in Egypt. He’s delivered them through the Red Sea from a pursuing Egyptian army. He’s brought them to Mount Sinai to meet with them. God has redeemed his people before he gives them these words to live by. In short, their deliverance precedes the call to obedience.

Then Ten Commandments are not a ladder to climb to God because God has already come down to us in Jesus Christ.

The previous nineteen chapters of Exodus are essential for rightly interpreting the Ten Commandments. God rescues his people before he gives them the Law. Notice, he doesn’t tell them to get their lives together before he frees them from slavery. He doesn’t make his rescue of them conditional. Instead, he rescues them because he loves them and because he made a promise to Abraham. The people don’t deserve to have God rescue them—they’ve done nothing to earn it—but God rescues them because he loves them and keeps his promises. Now that he has freed them, God calls them to live as his people.

Through the cross of Christ, God offers his people an even greater deliverance, but he continues to follow the same pattern: his grace comes first. Obedience is a response to, not a requirement for, his redeeming work.

The Apostle Paul explains, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). The salvation that God offers is a gift. It cannot be earned. There’s no ladder we can climb. God has already come down to us in Jesus Christ. It is all his grace.

Paul continues in the next verse of this letter, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10). Salvation is all of grace, not our works, because we are God’s workmanship. As his workmanship, God has prepared for us good works to walk in. His grace comes first, and then we respond in the obedience he has prepared for us.