When Did the Ten Commandments Begin?

 

Many people in the Adventist Church want to believe that the 10 Commandments were given and created long before the world began.

Sometimes this is because they want to reinterate to the world how important they are, and that they were given before anyone was referred to as a Jew or Hebrew.

So, let's analyze that thinking. Because we feel the Sabbath is so important, we want to believe that it too, was enacted even before this world began.

However, we have God Himself creating the Sabbath on the 7th day of creation. If God did not create the Sabbath on the literal 7th day of creation, then the Sabbath does not itself declare a literal 7 day creation week.

The only Biblical record we have of God blessing and sanctifying the 7th day is in the creation story.

Many would have more reason to believe that creation was not a literal 7 day creation. God not creating the Sabbath in the 7 day creation week also throws our entire theology on its ear.

Jesus actually gave us the best answer:

Mark 2:27 (ESV): "And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.""

We think that soldifies it. Man was not created until the 6th day of the creation week. The Sabbath was created AFTER man, not before.

This means that the 4th commandment was not created until man was. You cannot look at that any differently.

The 5th commandment mentions parents. Adam and Eve were the first parents. The first humans, to be exact. Angels do not have mothers and fathers, nor do they bear children.

We can also look at the 7th concerning adultery. Were angels and other heavenly citizens engaged in promiscuity?

Number 10 mentions coveting a neighbor's wife. The 4th, 5th, and 10th infer marriage. We know of no marrying in heaven, and if this was in regard to other universal beings, it would not make sense. Man is the subject of all 10 commandments.

We can say without a shadow of a doubt, that the Biblical 10 Commandments were started at the creation of this world, not before.

That said, as in the plan of salvation, it would not be wrong to say that the plan of the 10 Commandments was in place before creation.