329. The Ten Commandments Contain Everything

about How to Love God and How to Love Our Neighbor

Eight of the commandments - the first, second, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth - say nothing about loving God or loving our neighbor. They do not say that we must love God or we must keep God's name holy. They do not say that we must love our neighbor, or deal honestly and uprightly with our neighbor. They say only, "There is to be no other God before my face; you are not to take God's name in vain; you are not to kill; you are not to commit adultery; you are not to steal; you are not to testify falsely; and you are not to covet what your neighbor has. " Briefly put, we are not to intend, think, or do evil against God or against our neighbor.

We are not commanded to do things that directly relate to goodwill; instead, we are commanded not to do things that are the opposite of goodwill. This is because the more we abstain from evils because they are sins, the more we want the goodness that relates to goodwill.

In loving God and our neighbor, the first step is not doing evil, and the second step is doing good, as you will see in the chapter on goodwill [435-438].

[2] There is a love of intending and doing good, and there is a love of intending and doing evil. These two loves are opposite to each other. The second is a hellish love and the first is a heavenly one. The entirety of hell loves doing evil and the entirety of heaven loves doing good.

We, the human race, have been born into evils of every kind. From birth onward we have tendencies toward things that come from hell. Unless we are born again or regenerated, we cannot come into heaven. Therefore the evil attributes we have from hell have to be removed first before we are able to want good attributes that come from heaven. None of us can be adopted by the Lord before we have been separated from the Devil. How our evil actions are removed and how we are brought to do good things will be shown in two chapters below: the chapter on repentance [509-570]; and the chapter on reformation and regeneration [571-625].

[3] The Lord teaches in Isaiah that our evil actions have to be moved aside first before the good things we are doing become good before God:

Wash yourselves; purify yourselves. Remove the evil of your actions from before my eyes. Learn to do what is good. Then, if your sins had been like scarlet, they will become as white as snow; if they had been red as crimson, they will be like wool. (Isaiah 1:16-18)

The following passage in Jeremiah is similar:

Stand in the entrance to Jehovah's house and proclaim there this word. "Thus spoke Jehovah Sabaoth, the God of Israel: 'Make your ways and your works good. Do not put your trust in the words of a lie, saying, "The temple of Jehovah, the temple of Jehovah, the temple of Jehovah is here [that is, the church]. " When you steal, kill, commit adultery, and swear falsely, then do you come and stand before me in this house that carries my name? Do you say, "We were carried away," when you are committing all these abominations? Has this house become a den of thieves? Behold I, even I, have seen it,' says Jehovah. " (Jeremiah 7:2-4, 9-11)

[4] We are also taught by Isaiah that before we are washed or purified from evil, our prayers to God are not heard:

Jehovah says, "Woe to a sinful nation, to a people heavy with wickedness. They have moved themselves backward. Therefore when you spread out your hands, I hide my eyes from you. Even if you increase your praying, I do not hear it. " (Isaiah 1:4, 15)

When someone puts the Ten Commandments into action by abstaining from evil, goodwill is the result. This is clear from the Lord's own words in John:

Jesus said, "The people who love me are those who have my commandments and follow them. Those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and manifest myself to them, and we will make a home with them. " (John 14:21, 23)

The "commandments" mentioned here are specifically the Ten Commandments, which prescribe that we should not do, or crave to do, what is evil. If we do not do evil or crave to do evil, we love God and God loves us. This is the benefit we receive after something evil has been removed.