The Ten Commandments in Calvin’s Institutes, Part 3: The first four Commandments.

1. The first commandment (Ex 20:2-3). No other gods at all!

2. Calvin: “The purpose of this commandment is that the Lord wills alone to be pre-eminent among His people, and to exercise complete authority over them. To affect this, He enjoins us to put far from us all impiety and superstition, which either diminish or obscure the glory of His divinity” (Pg., 382).

3. What belongs to him is adoration, trust, invocation and thanksgiving.

4. The second commandment (Ex 20:4-5). They that worship God must worship him in spirit, not by vain imaginations of the mind.

5. Calvin: “The purpose of this commandment, then, is that He does not will that His lawful worship be profaned by superstitious rites. To sum up, He wholly calls us back and with draws us from petty carnal observances, which our stupid minds, crassly conceiving of God, are wont to devise. And then He makes us conform to His lawful worship, that is, a spiritual worship established by Himself” (Pg., 383).

There are curses and promises connected to this command. This last phrase is repeated throughout God’s word (Num 14:18; Ex 34:6-7; Jer 32:18). Its blessing and curse are not limited only to this present life; they have eternal ramifications.

6. The third commandment (Ex 20:7). The mind and tongue are forbidden to speak God’s name without meaning, or with cursing.

7. Calvin: “The purpose of this commandment is: God wills that we hallow the majesty of His name. Therefore, it means in brief that we are not to profane His name by treating it contemptuously and irreverently......we ought to be so disposed in mind and speech that we neither think nor say anything concerning God and His mysteries, without reverence and much soberness; that in estimating His works we conceive nothing but what is honourable to Him” (Pg., 388).

If every idle word will be brought into judgment - how much more terrible the judgment of idle words about God. See Matthew 12:36-37.

8. The fourth commandment (Ex 20:8-10). The whole universe is God’s, including all the days. But one day in seven is a holy convocation to and for the Lord from the work He has given us to do.

9. Calvin did not affirm the Christian Sabbath. At the Lord Jesus’ coming the ceremonial part of the command was abolished. Christians should meet on Sundays, not because God commands it, but simply because that is what the church has done since her beginning. Christians must do spiritual service on the day the church meets. He writes, Athe purpose of this commandment is that, being dead to our own inclinations and works, we should meditate on the Kingdom of God, and that we should practice that meditation in the ways established by him” (Pg., 394).
“The purpose of this commandment,” Calvin writes, “is that, being dead to our own inclinations and works, we should meditate on the Kingdom of God, and that we should practice that meditation in the ways established by Him” (Pg., 394).