437. What is the bond between the Decalogue and the Covenant? (part 1)

437. What is the bond between the Decalogue and the Covenant? (part 1)    

(Comp 437) 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 2077) The gift of the Decalogue is bestowed from within the covenant concluded by God with his people. God's commandments take on their true meaning in and through this covenant.

To deepen and explain

(CCC 2058) The "ten words" sum up and proclaim God's law: "These words the LORD spoke to all your assembly at the mountain out of the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, with a loud voice; and he added no more. And he wrote them upon two tables of stone, and gave them to me" (Deut 5:22). For this reason these two tables are called "the Testimony." In fact, they contain the terms of the covenant concluded between God and his people. These "tables of the Testimony" were to be deposited in "the ark" (Ex 25:16; 31:18; 32:15; 34:29; 40:1-2). (CCC 2059) The "ten words" are pronounced by God in the midst of a theophany (“The LORD spoke with you face to face at the mountain, out of the midst of the fire" Deut 5:4). They belong to God's revelation of himself and his glory. The gift of the Commandments is the gift of God himself and his holy will. In making his will known, God reveals himself to his people. 

Reflection

(CCC 2061) The Commandments take on their full meaning within the covenant. According to Scripture, man's moral life has all its meaning in and through the covenant. The first of the "ten words" recalls that God loved his people first: Since there was a passing from the paradise of freedom to the slavery of this world, in punishment for sin, the first phrase of the Decalogue, the first word of God's commandments, bears on freedom "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery" (Origen, Hom. in Ex. 8,1: PG 12, 350; cf. Ex 20:2; Deut 5:6). [IT CONTINUES]

(The question: What is the bond between the Decalogue and the Covenant? continues)