How do the 10 commandments reflect Gods goodness and his wishes for human behaviour? (33 marks)

God also commands 'respect' for your 'mother and father' (Exodus 20:12) because after everything they have done for us they deserve the best respect we can give them regardless because we owe them so much. The relationship between man and God is similar to that between child and parent because God loves, cares and created us just like our parents do to us. He is saying we should treat our parents with the same respect that we treat Him with. In turn this will lead to a pleasant and happy family environment for us to live in so that we all get on the best we can.

Genesis 1:1 says ' in the beginning God created' and everything was perfect. However after Adam, man kept on sinning and disobeying God. He gave them a second chance with the 10 commandments again to try and show us how to live our lives so that we can return to the joyful relationship we had in union with him before Adam sinned. He does not want to punish us, the total opposite in fact which is why he provided these absolute sets of laws so that it was obvious to us what we should and shouldn't do. By making the rules so clear and concise it was very evident to the Jews how they should behave and therefore made the rules easy for us to follow. This is an excellent example of Gods goodness because no matter how many times we let him down, he still gave humans another chance to put things right and he didn't make it a difficult task either because he wants us to succeed.

God does not want to nor does he enjoy punishing us but he has to have a balance between mercy and justice. He was merciful to the Jews after they constantly disobeyed him; he saved and forgave them and he remade the covenant with them. He was also fair to the Pharaoh in that he gave him plenty of warning before he sent each plague and He gave him the opportunity after each one to let the Israelites go.

'God chooses life' so he does not want to kill and destroy something he created but in some situations he has no choice. Justice must be done but only to the correct degree according to the crime committed for example if any other God but him is worshipped then he will bring 'punishment on those and on their descendants to the fourth generation' (Exodus 20:5). He is always fair in punishment, which also reflects his goodness because he always gets the balance right.

The 10 commandments can be spilt into two sections, the first five reflecting the goodness and importance of God and the second five mirror imaging the first five telling us how we should behave towards one another. The first five commands talk about Gods nature and how we should treat him and respect him as well as obey everything he commands of us. The second five say how we should treat others in the image of the way we treat God because we are all equal and deserve to be treated with respect. For example, the first commandment is to 'worship no God but me' Exodus 20:1) which is similar to the commandment 'do not commit adultery' (Exodus 20:14) because they both are emphasising the importance of loyalty and faithfulness. It also reflects the goodness of God because married couples have made a commitment in front of God and so they have a duty to follow it because he is so important and holy.

The first two commandments 'Worship no God by me' and 'Do not bow down to any idol or worship it' (exodus 20:1,2) reflect Gods goodness because they shows us that he keeps his word and therefore expects us to do the same. He fulfilled his part of the covenant so it is only fair of him to ask the same of us. He also is doing it for our own good because it is too hard to follow more than one God. If we did follow other Gods as well as him then it would only cause confusion and lead to disobedience because there may be situations where two laws from two different Gods will be in direct conflict of each other and we would have to choose which one to follow, which God obviously does not want. This is. The very fact we would admit to there being other Gods also defies the point of there being a God in the first place because the whole point of God is that He is above everything else, nothing can match His holiness or perfection and if there is more than one then this disproves the existence of a God.

The third commandment for example shows us how good God is because it is forbidden to use His 'name for evil purposes' because it is so holy. God is all and intrinsically good and therefore it is wrong to use his name together with anything that is evil. His goodness is also reflected in the fifth commandment to 'rest on the Sabbath' because it was the one day of rest God took after making the world and this therefore 'made it Holy'.

In conclusion we can see that the last five commandments show us how we should be thankful for all we have got because God has provided everything we need. We should be satisfied and content with what we have because God has fulfilled all our needs, wants and desires. This is show more specifically in the last commandment to not 'desire another mans things'.

The purpose of the 10 commandments is for us to have a good and stable relationship with him as close to how it was before Adam sinned, as possible. He wants us to succeed in this, which is why he makes it so explicitly clear so we can not say we did not understand. God is the ultimate good and what we are all aiming at because He is perfect, fair and objective. If He weren't then he would not be perfect and if he were not perfect then he would be just like us.

File: 170.doc Printed by ckd 07/12/2001 10:06