10 The Third Commandment
The Third Commandment
10. You shall not covet your neighbour's house; you shall not covet your neighbour's wife, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his ass, or anything that is your neighbour's.
Not Two Commandments. We mentioned before that there are different ways of numbering the commandments. The Jews, Greek Orthodox and Reformed have one commandment where the Romans and Lutherans have two. The argument for dividing the commandment rests on the repetition of "You shall not..." but is faulty because the content is the same and the New Testament quotes the command not to covet as one (see Rom.7:7, Rom.13:9).
Only Our Inward Desire? The tenth commandment obviously has to do with desires — desiring the property or wife of one’s neighbor. But haven’t the previous commandments on adultery, stealing and killing, etc. also focused on wrong desires?
Calvin and others distinguished between plan and desire. It one thing to have desires, quite another thing to consolidate them into a plan. In cases of adultery or murder, the will concurs self consciously with the desire. The desire evolves into plan to possess. Some desires however never come to outward expression. A man can desire another woman without making any moves to acquire her. Desire does not always lead to plan. There are stages of desire: a desire is nursed, the will is surrendered to the desire; a plan is developed to satisfy the desire and the plan translates the desire into a deed. According to Calvin, the commandment focuses on the first two stages of desire. We would argue instead, however, that the tenth commandment has to do, just as with the other commandments, with outward behaviour also. And outward behaviour always evolves from inward thinking.
You Shall Not Set Your Desire On... The verb ‘to covet’ can better be translated: "You shall not set your desire on..." If we set our desire on something, we are out to get it. Desire, therefore, already includes a plan (contra Calvin) which simply awaits the occasion. Achan coveted — set his desire on — a magnificent Babylonian robe, on pieces of gold and silver and he took all of it (Josh.7:21). Here ‘covet’ means that he could not keep his hands off all that stuff. The primary meaning of the tenth commandment is this: Anyone who sets his desire on his neighbor’s house wife, employees or animals will not be able to keep his hands off. With premeditation, he intends to strike. Coveting, therefore, lies somewhere between the disposition and the deed. The deed is condemned by the previous commandments, but the tenth looks behind those deeds to the passionate heart and to the steps people take to implement the plans.
Desire as a Spreading Flame. Some have said that the church cannot punish sins against the tenth commandment because those sins belong to an inner disposition, which cannot be seen. The heart can be compared to the boardroom. All kinds of decisions are made in the boardroom behind closed doors. But these decisions leak out so eventually outsiders get a pretty good idea of what went on inside. The same is true of the heart. We often judge superficially by outward appearance, but God judges the heart (1 Sam.16:7). In many cases, we can judge what is in the inside — because desire does not just burn internally — the fire spreads. What’s in your heart never stays hidden.
You are not to covet your neighbor’s wife. Coveting, although not necessarily resulting in adultery, can wreck marriages. The wife may not know everything brooding in the boardroom of his heart, but she knows enough to realize that there is another woman. The same holds true for coveting ‘land.’ Wars for land begin with desire and plans before attack. Coveting land often results in murders.
Passions may rage somewhere between inclination and deed without ever reaching their goal. A conspiracy to overthrow a government is hatched, but never carried out. There is a severe sentence if the conspirators are collared. Even though they did not kill (sixth commandment), they had wrongly coveted (tenth commandment). What lies in the heart becomes manifest. A person’s entire body reflects what is living in him. Love of money radiates from the eyes. The eyes have been called the mirror of the heart — you can read someone’s heart by looking at their eyes — bright, downcast, etc.?
A Sprawling Territory. Both king and commoner fall prey to covetousness. When a pirate had to confess his piracy to Alexander the Great and why he made the seas unsafe, the prisoner responded: I was merely doing the same as you, when you make the world unsafe. But since I work with a small ship, I am called a pirate; you are called a king, because you work with a whole fleet. The history of the human race has been a history of coveting what belonged to another. Think of envy — the first sin, how Cain’s envy lead to the death of Abel. God told Cain to master that desire (Gen.4:7), but desire masters us. Envy blinds a person to everything he has and allows him to see the one thing he does not have. The territory covered by the tenth commandment is sprawling — a desire for other things. Not possessing, but craving to possess is what is wrong. Not wealth, but wanting to be wealthy (1 Tim.6:9). Covetousness easily becomes idolatry.
Do Not Forfeit Your Freedom. Do not chase after your desires, or you become enslaved to them. It is not wrong to strive for a better position, but there is an unchristian chasing after affluence. The starting point of the tenth commandment is this: Your own house is the best one for you — your wife is the most pretty one for you — your job is the most fruitful development of your abilities. Your house may be smaller than others, your wife may be less attractive than other women and your job may rank lower on the scale of values than those of your friends.
Advertising and Gambling. Advertisements reflect what lives within man. The questionable side of advertising reflects the kind of people we are. When it comes to advertising, the customer is king and the advertiser is but his court jester. The court jester lives only by leave of the king himself. A Christian lifestyle repels against questionable forms of advertising — YOU shall not covet. Life is more than buying and consuming. Gambling is entirely questionable, however. Because gambling appeals only to greed. Even those promoted as ‘contests’ are forms of gambling because the accomplishment bears no relationship to the prize. Possessing is not condemned — but desiring to possess is.
The Good Desire and Autarchy. Yet, God does not condemn every possible desire. That’s Buddhism — freedom from everything earthly and the complete suppression of all desires. The state of nirvana is where there is complete oblivion to external stimuli and internal passions. If worrying about food and drink — proper desires — makes seeking the kingdom second, then there is coveting. But natural desires are good. Jesus was hungry, thirsty, sleepy, etc. Some things we should desire — God (Psalm 42:1-2), to be with Christ (Phil.2:23). Good desire lies embedded in living with Christ and is satisfied with what He gives — this is autarchy from the Greek, autarkeia, "sufficiency." God is able to give us sufficiency in all things (2 Cor.9:8). Christian autarchy or sufficiency has nothing to do with self-sufficiency, where someone saves himself. In 2 Cor.9:8 autarchy means that a believer has received enough. This sufficiency must be experienced as contentment. Godliness brings great profit if accompanied by contentment. Paul knew poverty and wealth and he learned to be "autarch" in every situation (Phil.4:11).
Penetrating More Deeply. The tenth commandment is concerned with those desires that a set a person in motion, leading him to reach for the things of his neighbor. This is a discernable desire. But some desires do not set a person in motion — they are called, by the court of human opinion, innocent thoughts or daydreams. But, "cleanse me from secret faults" (Ps.19:12). Sin arouses all kinds of desires within us. Are responsible for all desires or only the ones we nurture. Roman Catholic ethicists distinguish between spontaneous desires, nurtured desires and fulfilled desires and argue that we are responsible only for the latter two. Reformed ethicists say no — all three, evil desires arise out of an evil heart.
Our love for God must be radical — with heart, soul, strength and mind. All evil desires at any given stage must be enlisted in the service of Christ. We must put evil desires to death and replace them with good desires. Love’s radical claim is satisfied with nothing less — Lord’s Day 44. In the light of love’s radical demand, we discover our radical depravity. O wretched man that I am — I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom.7:24-25). We must always go back to the house of slavery known as sin and to the deliverer — the God of Israel who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ.