How many commandments are there now?
Question:
How many commandments are there 10 or 9 or 11?
Could you please confirm, one way or the other, that in the New Testament there are only nine commandments mentioned as commandments? Is that missing commandment is the fourth original commandment "Keep Holy the Sabbath Day"?
So does this mean that in the Old Testament there were 10 commandments, in the New Testament there are 9 commandments, and then Jesus made a new commandment in John 13:34. So are we back to 10 or now 11?
Thanking you
Answer:
There is a section of the Old Law that was titled "The Ten Commandments."
- "So he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread nor drank water. And He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments" (Exodus 34:28).
- "So He declared to you His covenant which He commanded you to perform, the Ten Commandments; and He wrote them on two tablets of stone" (Deuteronomy 4:13).
- "And He wrote on the tablets according to the first writing, the Ten Commandments, which the LORD had spoken to you in the mountain from the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly; and the LORD gave them to me" (Deuteronomy 10:4).
The Ten Commandments are recorded in Exodus 20 and repeated in Deuteronomy 5. They serve as the introduction or foundation of the Law of Moses. It doesn't mean that the Law of Moses only consisted of ten commandments. For example, the book of Leviticus contains a long list of commands concerning all aspects of life and the worship of God. "These are the commandments which the LORD commanded Moses for the children of Israel on Mount Sinai" (Leviticus 27:34).
The New Testament is a replacement of the Old Testament. "Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another -- to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God" (Romans 7:4). See Why We Don't Follow the Old Testament. In the New Testament, nine of the Ten Commandments are repeated. See Ten Commandments. But like the Old Testament, this doesn't mean that these were the sum total of all of God's commands.
