Friday, February 22, 2013
437. What is the bond between the Decalogue and the Covenant? (part 2 continuation)
(Comp 437 repetition) The Decalogue must
be understood in the light of the Covenant in which God revealed himself and
made known his will. In observing the commandments, the people manifested their
belonging to God and they answered his initiative of love with thanksgiving.
“In brief”
(CCC 2079) The Decalogue forms an organic unity in which
each "word" or "commandment" refers to all the others taken
together. To transgress one commandment is to infringe the whole Law (cf. Jas
2:10-11). 2079
To deepen and
explain
(CCC 2060) The gift of the commandments and of the Law is
part of the covenant God sealed with his own. In Exodus, the revelation of the "ten words" is granted
between the proposal of the covenant
(Cf. Ex 19) and its conclusion - after the people had committed
themselves to "do" all that the Lord had said, and to
"obey" it (Cf. Ex 24:7). The Decalogue is never handed on without
first recalling the covenant (“The LORD our God made a covenant with us in
Horeb." Deut 5:2).
Reflection
(CCC 2063) The covenant and dialogue between God and man are
also attested to by the fact that all the obligations are stated in the first
person (“I am the Lord.") and addressed by God to another personal subject
(“you"). In all God's commandments, the singular personal pronoun designates the recipient. God makes his
will known to each person in particular, at the same time as he makes it known
to the whole people: The Lord prescribed love towards God and taught justice
towards neighbor, so that man would be neither unjust, nor unworthy of God.
Thus, through the Decalogue, God prepared man to become his friend and to live
in harmony with his neighbor.... The words of the Decalogue remain likewise for
us Christians. Far from being abolished, they have received amplification and
development from the fact of the coming of the Lord in the flesh (St. Irenaeus,
Adv. haeres., 4, 16, 3-4: PG 7/1,
1017-1018). (CCC 2062) The Commandments
properly so-called come in the second place: they express the implications of
belonging to God through the establishment of the covenant. Moral existence is
a response to the Lord's loving
initiative. It is the acknowledgement and homage given to God and a worship of
thanksgiving. It is cooperation with the plan God pursues in history. [END]
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