The law of God for every Christian is a guiding star that tells a person how to get into the kingdom of heaven. For many centuries, the significance of this Law has not diminished. On the contrary, a person’s life is increasingly complicated by conflicting opinions, which means that the need for an authoritative and clear guidance of the commandments of God is growing. That is why many people in our time turn to them. And today, the regulators of our lives are the commandments and the seven major mortal sins. The list of the latter is as follows: despondency, gluttony, lust, anger, envy, greed, pride. These are, of course, the main, most serious sins. The 10 commandments of God and the 7 deadly sins are the foundation of Christianity. It is not necessary to read mountains of spiritual literature - it is enough to avoid what leads to the spiritual death of a person. However, this is not as easy as it seems at first glance. It is not easy to completely eliminate all seven deadly sins from your life. And keeping the Ten Commandments is also not an easy task. But we should at least strive for spiritual purity. God is known to be merciful.
The commandments and laws of nature
The foundations of Orthodoxy are the commandments of God. You can compare them with the laws of nature, because the Creator is the source of both. They complement each other: the former give the human soul a moral foundation, and the latter regulate the soulless nature. The difference is that matter obeys physical laws, while a person is free to obey moral laws or ignore them. God's great mercy is to provide each of us with freedom of choice. Thanks to her, we are spiritually improved and can even become like the Lord. Nevertheless, moral freedom has another side - it imposes on each of us responsibility for our actions.
The seven deadly sins and the 10 commandments are the foundation upon which all human life should be built. If we consciously violate God's commandments, we degenerate spiritually and physically. Failure to comply leads to suffering, slavery, and ultimately to disaster. We offer you to get acquainted in detail with the commandments of God. They underlie both modern and ancient legislative systems.
How did the commandments appear?
The most significant event of the Old Testament is their receipt from God. The very formation of the Jewish people is connected with the 10 commandments. Before they were received, a tribe of coarse and powerless Semite slaves lived in Egypt. After the emergence of Sinai legislation, in fact, a nation arose that was called to serve God. Subsequently, the apostles, great prophets, saints of the first times of Christianity, came from it. Jesus Christ was born from it in the flesh. Accepting the commandments, the people promised to keep them. So would a Covenant (that is, a union) be made between the Jews and God. It consisted in the fact that the Lord promised the people his protection and mercy, and the Jews had to live righteously.
First three commandments
The first 3 commandments are dedicated to the relationship with the Lord. According to the first of them, a man should not have other gods than the true one. The second warns us against creating an idol, from worshiping false deities. The third commandment calls not to utter the name of the Lord in vain.
We will not dwell on the meaning of the first three commandments. They are related to the attitude towards God and, in general, are understandable. Consider in detail the remaining 7 God's commandments.
Fourth commandment
According to her, it is necessary to remember the Sabbath day in order to spend it holy. For six days a person must work and do all the work, and the seventh day should be dedicated to God. How to understand this commandment? Let's figure it out.
The Lord God tells us to do the necessary things and work for six days - this is understandable. What is to be done on the seventh day is not clear, is it? It must be dedicated to holy works and service to the Lord. Cases pleasing to Him include the following: prayer at home and in the temple of God, caring for the salvation of the soul, enlightening the heart and mind with religious knowledge, helping the poor, religious conversations, visiting prisoners in prison and the sick, comforting the grieving, as well as other acts of mercy.
Saturday in the Old Testament was celebrated as a remembrance of how God created the world. It says that on the seventh day after the creation of the world, “God rested from his works” (Genesis 2: 3). After the Babylonian captivity, the Jewish scribes began to explain this commandment too rigorously and formally, prohibiting on this day any deeds at all, even good ones. It can be seen from the Gospels that even the Savior, the scribes accused him of “violating the Sabbath,” because Jesus healed people on that day. However, it is the “man for the Sabbath,” and not vice versa. In other words, the peace established on this day should benefit spiritual and physical forces, and not deprive us of the opportunity to do good deeds and not enslave a person. Weekly elimination from everyday activities provides an opportunity to gather thoughts, think about the meaning of earthly existence and your labors. Work is necessary, but the salvation of the soul is the most important thing.
The fourth commandment is violated not only by those who work on Sunday, but also those who, on weekdays, are lazy and shy away from fulfilling their duties. Even if you do not work on Sunday, but do not dedicate this day to God, and spend it in amusements and entertainments, indulging in excess and revelry, you also do not fulfill the God's Covenant.
Fifth commandment
We continue to describe the 7 commandments of God. According to the fifth, father and mother should be honored in order to live happily ever after on earth. How to understand this? Honoring parents means loving them, respecting their authority, not daring to offend them with actions or words under any circumstances, obeying them, taking care of them if they need anything, helping parents in their labors, praying to God for them, as in life , and after the death of the parents. Not respecting them is a great sin. Those who cursed mother or father in the Old Testament were punished by death.
As the Son of God, Jesus Christ was respectful of his earthly parents. He obeyed them, and Joseph helped the carpenter. Jesus reproached the Pharisees for refusing to support their parents on the pretext of dedicating their property to God. By this they violated the fifth commandment.
How to treat strangers? Religion teaches us that reverence is necessary for everyone, in accordance with his position and age. Spiritual fathers and pastors should be respected; civilian leaders who care about the welfare, justice and peaceful life of the country; teachers, educators, benefactors and seniors. Young people who do not respect the elderly and elders sin, considering their concepts to have become obsolete, and themselves as backward people.
Sixth commandment
She says: "Do not kill." The Lord God forbids this commandment to take life from himself or from other people. Life is the greatest gift, only God can set its limits for every person.
Suicide is a very serious sin, because in addition to murder, it also contains others: lack of faith, despair, murmuring against God, as well as rebellion against His providence. It is also terrible that a person who forcibly cuts off his own life does not have the opportunity to repent of his sin, since repentance after death is invalid. A person is guilty of murder even when he does not kill himself, but contributes to this or allows others to do so. In addition to killing the physical, there is also a spiritual one, which is no less scary. He is committed by one who seduces his neighbor to a vicious life or to unbelief.
Seventh commandment
Let's talk about the seventh commandment of the law of God. “Don't commit adultery,” she says. God orders to keep mutual faithfulness to the wife and husband, to be chaste unmarried - pure in words, deeds, desires and thoughts. In order not to sin against this commandment, one should avoid everything that arouses unclean feelings in a person, for example: “spicy” jokes, profanity, shameless dances and songs, reading immoral magazines, watching seductive photographs and films. The seventh commandment of the law of God indicates that sinful thoughts should be suppressed when they appear. You can not let them take control of our will and feelings. Homosexuality is considered a serious sin against this commandment. It was for him that Sodom and Gomorrah, the famous cities of antiquity , were exterminated.
Eighth commandment
The 7 commandments of God relate to various aspects of human life. The eighth is devoted to the relation to the property of other people. It reads, "Do not steal." In other words, the appropriation of property belonging to others is prohibited. Various types of thefts: robbery, theft, sacrilege, bribery, extortion (when, taking advantage of the misfortune of others, they take a lot of money from them), parasitism, etc. If a person holds a worker’s fee, weighs and measures during the sale, conceals what is found, evades paying debt then he commits theft. In contrast to the greedy pursuit of wealth, faith teaches us to be merciful, hardworking, and selfless.
Ninth commandment
It states that one cannot perjure one's neighbor. The Lord God thus prohibits all lies, including: slander, denunciations, false testimony, slander, slander, gossip. Slander is a diabolical affair, since the name "devil" itself means "slander." A Christian is unworthy of any lie. She is not consistent with respect and love for others. We should refrain from idleness, watch what we say. The word is God's greatest gift. We become like the Creator when we speak. And the word of God immediately becomes a deed. Therefore, this gift must be used only for the glory of God and for a good purpose.
Tenth commandment
We have not yet described all of God's 7 commandments. It should focus on the last, tenth. It says that it is necessary to refrain from unclean desires and envy of one's neighbor. While other commandments were mainly devoted to behavior, the latter pays attention to our desires, feelings and thoughts, that is, what happens inside a person. It is necessary to strive for spiritual purity. It should be remembered that a bad thought is what every sin begins with. If a person stops at it, a sinful desire appears, which pushes to commit the corresponding act. Therefore, in order to deal with various temptations, it is necessary in the bud to stop them, that is, in thoughts.
For the soul, envy is poison. If a person is subject to it, then he will always be unhappy, he will always miss something, even if he is very rich. In order not to succumb to this feeling, you should thank God for being merciful to us, sinful and unworthy. For our crimes we could be exterminated, but the Lord not only endures, but also sends His mercies to people. The task of every person’s life is to acquire a pure heart. It is in him that the Lord rests.
Commandments of bliss
The commandments of God discussed above and the gospel commandments of bliss are of great importance to every Christian. The latter are part of the commandments of Jesus that he delivered during the Sermon on the Mount. They enter the gospel. They got this name because following them leads to eternal bliss in eternal life. If the 10 commandments forbid that which is sinful, then the commandments of bliss say how holiness (Christian perfection) can be achieved.
The Seven Commandments for the Descendants of Noah
Not only in Christianity are the commandments. In Judaism, for example, there are 7 laws of the descendants of Noah. They are considered the necessary minimum that the Torah places on all of humanity. Through Adam and Noah, according to the Talmud, God gave us the following 7 commandments of God (Orthodoxy, in general, claims about the same): the prohibition of idolatry, murder, blasphemy, theft, adultery, as well as the ban on the use of flesh, which was cut off from a living animal, and the need to create a fair judiciary.
Conclusion
When Jesus Christ asked the young man what should be done in order to inherit eternal life, he answered: “Keep the commandments!” After that, he listed them. The Ten Commandments given above give us the basic moral guidance necessary for building life, both public and family and private. Jesus, speaking of them, noted that all of them are reduced in essence to the doctrine of love for others and God.
In order for us to benefit from these commandments, we must make them our own, that is, let them guide our actions, our worldview. These commandments must be rooted in our subconscious or, figuratively speaking, written on the tablets of our hearts by God.