God gave man body, soul, and a will, a level of conscience and awareness that means man can create, invent, build, and know right from wrong. The reason why God – and by extension the Law – takes this so seriously is because, “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image” ( Genesis 9:6). In Biblically based approaches to the law, killing must be met with a firm hand of justice. Life is sacred, and killing is a violation of the order God intended and must be dealt with. Such grace is not to be extended under man’s justice for the intentional killing of another person, with Old Testament law requiring, “then the elders of his city shall send and take him from there, and hand him over to the avenger of blood, so that he may die” ( Deuteronomy 19:12). It is important to note that part of this allowance is the individual’s heart, with the provision in verse six being, “.he had not hated his neighbor in the past.” God sees the heart of each person, and asks the law to do it as much as possible. Here, the law makes allowance for grace in the case of accidents. If anyone kills his neighbor unintentionally without having hated him in the past - as when someone goes into the forest with his neighbor to cut wood, and his hand swings the axe to cut down a tree, and the head slips from the handle and strikes his neighbor so that he dies - he may flee to one of these cities and live, lest the avenger of blood in hot anger pursue the manslayer and overtake him, because the way is long, and strike him fatally, though the man did not deserve to die, since he had not hated his neighbor in the past” ( Deuteronomy 19:4-6). “This is the provision for the manslayer, who by fleeing there may save his life. God instituted Refugee Cities for the displaced, the dispossessed, and for those who have committed manslaughter: One such moral complication is manslaughter, when someone accidentally kills another. The Book of Deuteronomy outlines the ways of upholding justice and obeying the law. But sin entered the world, making killing a part of life, and justice harder to enforce. If this world was perfect, then it would be easy to follow the sixth commandment. In a perfect world, the sixth commandment would be easy to follow, requiring that no one take the life of another. The last six deal with man’s interactions with other people. The first four focus on man’s relationship with God, codifying the way man should interact with a Holy God. While God handed down more laws on Mount Sinai, only the first ten were written in stone. When they gathered at Mount Sinai, God descended upon the mountain and gave Moses the basis of the laws the nation of Israel was to live by, with the first ten being carved into stone by God’s own finger. God brought them out of Egypt to make them a nation modeled after His rules and His ways, and “.a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” ( Exodus 19:6b). Where Does "Thou Shalt Not Kill" Command Appear?īefore their time in Egypt, the people who became the nation of Israel were tribal shepherd people. The Holy Spirit helps those who have become disciples of Jesus Christ grow more like Jesus, becoming more righteous through their lives. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death” ( Romans 8:1-2). The law created an impossible standard for sinful individuals, highlighting the need for a Savior “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Paul wrote to the Galatian church, “Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’ But the law is not of faith, rather ‘The one who does them shall live by them’” ( Galatians 3:11-12). God also handed down the Ten Commandments so that no one could claim to be ignorant of right and wrong. He chose to magnify His law through the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The Bible says that, “The Lord was pleased, for his righteousness' sake, to magnify his law and make it glorious” ( Isaiah 41:21). As a nation, these rules were important because Israel was meant to show the world the way of the one, true God. The Ten Commandments were the foundations of the Law that Israel would build itself on. But Jesus clarified that one should not harbor hatred, murderous thoughts, or wicked feelings for a neighbor either. When God said, “You shall not murder” in Exodus 20:13, He meant no one could take the life of another. However, God prioritized this law as one of the ten most important. The sixth commandment is one that people feel they can avoid easily. ![]() Often, people look at these rules and believe they are easy to follow or can be selectively followed and ignored in certain circumstances.
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