The Fifth Commandment

Up to this point, we have addressed both spiritual and civil government, covering the exercise of divine and parental authority as well as the obedience owed to each. In this commandment, however, we step outside our own households and into the wider community, in order to learn how each person should treat his neighbor. For that reason, this commandment makes no mention of God or civil authorities, nor does it strip them of the power to put people to death. God has, in fact, delegated to civil magistrates, in the place of parents, the authority to punish those who do evil. In earlier times, as we read in Moses, parents were required to bring their own children before the court and pronounce the sentence of death on them. What this commandment forbids, therefore, is what one private individual may not do to another; it places no restriction on the civil government.

This commandment is straightforward enough. We hear it explained every year in the Gospel reading of Matt 5:21. There Christ summarizes it briefly as a prohibition on murder in all its forms: by hand, by word, by the thoughts of the heart, by sign or gesture, and by helping or advising others to harm. It forbids anger, except, as noted earlier, for those who act in God's place through parental or civil authority. Anger, reproof, and punishment are the prerogatives of God and His representatives, to be exercised against those who violate this and other commandments.

The occasion and need for this commandment arise from the wickedness of the world and the wretchedness of human life. God, fully aware of both, placed the commandments as a defense for godly people against the wicked. As with every other commandment, there are many temptations to break this one. We must live among people who wish us harm, giving us every reason to become their enemies. Consider a neighbor who, envious of our home, our wealth, or the advantages God has given us, vents his resentment in malicious words. The devil stirs up many enemies who wish us neither earthly nor spiritual good. In response to their hostility, anger, pain, and the desire for revenge take root in our own hearts. Bitter words follow between us and our enemies, then blows, and finally calamity and death. To prevent things from reaching that point, God, as a loving Father, steps in through this commandment and settles the quarrel for everyone's safety. In short, God's purpose here is to ensure that all people are protected, freed from threat, and able to live peaceable lives in the face of injustice and violence. This commandment functions like a wall, a fortress of defense built around our neighbor, protecting his freedom and shielding him from bodily harm and suffering.

The teaching of this commandment, then, is that we must never harm anyone for any wrongdoing, no matter how guilty that person may be. Where murder is forbidden, everything that could lead to murder is forbidden as well. Many people who could never be accused of actual murder still effectively bring it about through their malicious scheming against those they hate. Nature plants the desire for revenge in each of us, and it is simply common human experience that no one willingly accepts being wronged by another. God's purpose is to cut out this root and source of bitterness entirely. He gives us the fifth commandment as a constant reminder, holding our duty before us the way a mirror holds up our reflection; and that duty is to submit to God's will, bringing the wrongs we suffer to Him in trust and prayer. When we do this, we can remain at peace and let our enemy rage and scheme to his heart's content. In this way, God shapes us toward a calm spirit in place of anger, and toward a heart of patience and gentleness with those enemies who would otherwise provoke our wrath.

To put it plainly, then, in terms anyone can understand: the meaning of the command not to kill is this. First, harm no one, whether by your own hand or through any other action. Second, do not use your words to advise or encourage harm to anyone. Third, do not use or support any means whose purpose is to hurt another person. Finally, do not harbor evil intentions or malicious desires in your heart. In this way, both body and soul remain blameless before everyone, and especially before those who wish you harm or actively work against you. To do evil to someone who desires and does good to you, however, is not a human failing; it is something closer to the demonic.

Second, this commandment is broken not only by those who directly cause harm, but also by those who fail to help their neighbor when they easily could. If you could have clothed someone and didn't, you left them to freeze. If you saw someone starving and didn't feed them, you let them die of hunger. In the same way, if an innocent person faces execution or some similar crisis and you had the power to intervene but chose not to, you are responsible for their death. The excuse that you didn't actively help or encourage the harm will carry no weight, because you withheld the love and care that could have saved their life.

This is why God considers those who withhold their counsel and help in times of physical or spiritual need to be murderers. He will allow terrible calamity to fall on them at the day of judgment. Christ makes this plain when He says: "I was hungry, and you did not give me to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink; I was a stranger, and you did not take me in; naked, and you did not clothe me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit me" (Matt 25:42-43). In other words: you would have left me and my followers to die from hunger, thirst, and cold, to be torn apart by wild animals, to rot in prison, and to perish from neglect. What is that, if not the accusation of a murderer? Even if you never committed such an act directly, the guilt still falls on you if you stood by and let your neighbor perish when you could have helped. Consider this: if I saw someone drowning or falling into a fire, and I could reach out a hand and pull them to safety, but chose not to, how could anyone see me as anything other than a murderer and a wicked person? God's central intention, therefore, is that we allow no harm to come to anyone, but instead show every person genuine kindness and love. And as I noted earlier, this kindness is directed especially toward our enemies. Showing kindness to friends is nothing remarkable; even people with no faith in God do that, as Christ points out in Matt 5:46.

Here again we have God's Word, calling us toward truly noble and elevated conduct: meekness, patience, and above all, love and kindness toward our enemies. He wants us to hold onto the truth of the First Commandment, that He is our God, which means He will help and protect us, and in doing so, He works to root out the desire for revenge within us.

If this teaching were practiced and preached consistently, everyone would be motivated to do good works. Such teaching, however, would undermine the doctrine of the monks. It would restrict the freedoms of their religious orders too severely. It would threaten Carthusian piety and might even lead to the prohibition of their prescribed works and the dissolution of the monasteries altogether. Under this teaching, ordinary Christian life would be just as acceptable to God, and in fact far more so. Everyone would then see clearly how the monks have oppressed and misled the world through a false, hypocritical display of holiness, since they neglect this commandment along with all the others, treating them as unnecessary, as though they were not commandments at all but merely optional suggestions. Beyond that, they have boldly celebrated and promoted their self-styled calling and works as the pinnacle of the spiritual life, while quietly arranging for themselves a comfortable existence free from hardship, suffering, or patience. They entered the monasteries specifically to avoid the burdens and obligations they owed to their neighbors. But we know that the works commanded by God's Word are the truly holy and righteous works, the ones in which God and His angels rejoice. Compared to these, all human-invented piety is filth and corruption, deserving nothing but God's righteous condemnation.