The First Commandment

For most Christians, they think of the Ten Commandments as the rules of God; the right way to live. But have you considered the proper function of God’s law in evangelism? We will take a brief look at each Commandment and how to rightly use it in evangelism. With some help from my old friend, Thomas Watson, my aim will be to help us understand the holiness of God through instruction of His Commandments.


The God of the Bible has always existed. Throughout the Scriptures, God never tries to make a case to explain that He exists, but He continually declares that He is the true, living, eternal God, whom we must have for our God.


I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. Exodus 20:2,3


We are to have no other gods before (or “besides”) the one true God. He is to be preeminent in our hearts. In other words, “You shall not prefer other gods to Me.” Jesus said that, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength’ (Mark 12:29,30). The essence of the First Commandment is that it confronts our attitude of “Not Your will, but mine be done.”


After searching the entirety of Scripture, The Westminster Confession of Faith summed up the First Commandment in this: The duties required in the First Commandment are, the knowing and acknowledging of God to be the only true God and our God; and to worship and glorify Him accordingly, by thinking, meditating, remembering, highly esteeming, honoring, adoring, choosing, loving, desiring, fearing of Him, believing Him, trusting, hoping, delighting, rejoicing in Him, being zealous for Him, calling upon Him, giving all praise and thanks, and yielding all obedience and submission to Him with the whole man; being careful in all things to please Him, and sorrowful when in anything He is offended; and walking humbly with Him.


Idolatry is the oldest sin in the Bible and the most prevalent. We see it present in our lives:

  • When we set our mind, will, or affections upon others things.
  • When we pray or give religious worship to saints, angels, or any other creature.
  • When we slight and despise God and His commands.
  • When we are discontent and impatient with God’s dispensations.
  • When we ascribe the praise of self in any good we either are, have, or can do.


“I am the LORD, and there is no other, besides ME there is no God” (Isaiah 45:6). “And there is no other god besides Me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none besides Me” (Isaiah 45:21). God is zealous for the fame of His Name. Idolatry is an assault on the divine glory of God. Transgression of the First and Second Commandments is idolatry. John Calvin comments that, ‘our hearts are an idol factory’. We think we are clear of idols today; we don’t have carved idols or golden calves. Although, anything that satisfies us, completes us, or gives us purpose besides God is an idol. It distracts us from true union and communion with God. Idols of today can be self, power, sex, money, beauty, achievement, family. Far too often we can find ourselves adoring the gifts instead of the Giver. The things that God gives us are not necessarily bad in themselves, but when we elevate them above God and His glory, we have made an idol.


One attribute of God that many have difficulty with, is the reality that God is jealous. Jealous for His glory and jealous for His people. “I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments” (Exodus 20:5,6). “For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God” (Deuteronomy 4:24). Do we magnify the glory of God by treasuring it above all things, or do we belittle it by trading it for others things? The result is “I am the LORD; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols” (Isaiah 42:8). God loves the world for sure, but He loves His glory more. For God to love anything more than Himself would be a sin.


There is only One who can stand uncondemned regarding this Commandment. Jesus of Nazareth lived a life without sin; He was perfect in thought, word, and deed. Everything He did pleased the Father absolutely. The cross not only revealed that He loved His Father with all of His heart, soul, mind, and strength, but it proved that He loved His neighbor as much as He loved Himself. 


D. James Kennedy says it well, “You cannot say, ‘No, Lord,’ and mean both words; one annuls the other. If you say no to Him, then He is not your Lord.”