You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
Roderick Lawson of Maybole (1863-1897) reprinted the Westminster Shorter Catechism along with his own explanatory notes and review questions for each Shorter Catechism question. Lawson's comment on question and answer 56 is very helpful:
Comment: The special warning here held out to us is, that although men may permit us to break this commandment with impunity, yet God will assuredly not do so. He will not fail to judge us.Lawson makes this commandment very personal. Both the Larger and Shorter Catechism do not deal directly with verses 5-6.
In Martin Luther's Large Catechism he explained the words of the third Commandment in his concluding section about the Ten Commandments. Luther numbered the third commandment the second commandment. The following quote are marked as paragraphs 319-326:
In conclusion, however, we must repeat the text which belongs here, of which we have treated already in the First Commandment, in order that we may learn what pains God requires to the end we may learn to inculcate and practise the Ten Commandments: For I the Lord, thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me, and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love Me and keep My commandments. Although (as we have heard above) this appendix was primarily attached to the First Commandment, it was nevertheless [we cannot deny that it was] laid down for the sake of all the commandments, as all of them are to be referred and directed to it. Therefore I have said that this, too, should be presented to and inculcated upon the young, that they may learn and remember it, in order to see what is to urge and compel us to keep these Ten Commandments. And it is to be regarded as though this part were specially added to each, so that it inheres in, and pervades, them all. Now, there is comprehended in these words (as said before) both an angry word of threatening and a friendly promise to terrify and warn us, and, moreover, to induce and encourage us to receive and highly esteem His Word as a matter of divine earnestness, because He Himself declares how much He is concerned about it, and how rigidly He will enforce it, namely, that He will horribly and terribly punish all who despise and transgress His commandments; and again, how richly He will reward, bless, and do all good to those who hold them in high esteem, and gladly do and live according to them. Thus He demands that all our works proceed from a heart which fears and regards God alone, and from such fear avoids everything that is contrary to His will, lest it should move Him to wrath; and, on the other hand, also trusts in Him alone and from love to Him does all He wishes, because he speaks to us as friendly as a father, and offers us all grace and every good. Just this is also the meaning and true interpretation of the first and chief commandment, from which all the others must flow and proceed, so that this word: Thou shalt have no other gods before Me, in its simplest meaning states nothing else than this demand: Thou shalt fear, love, and trust in Me as thine only true God. For where there is a heart thus disposed towards God, the same has fulfilled this and all the other commandments. On the other hand, whoever fears and loves anything else in heaven and upon earth will keep neither this nor any. 325] Thus the entire Scriptures have everywhere preached and inculcated this commandment, aiming always at these two things: fear of God and trust in Him. And especially the prophet David throughout the Psalms, as when he says [Ps. 147:11]: The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear Him, in those that hope in His mercy. As if the entire commandment were explained by one verse, as much as to say: The Lord taketh pleasure in those who have no other gods. Thus the First Commandment is to shine and impart its splendor to all the others. Therefore you must let this declaration run through all the commandments, like a hoop in a wreath, joining the end to the beginning and holding them all together, that it be continually repeated and not forgotten; as, namely, in the Second Commandment, that we fear God and do not take His name in vain for cursing, lying, deceiving, and other modes of leading men astray, or rascality, but make proper and good use of it by calling upon Him in prayer, praise, and thanksgiving, derived from love and trust according to the First Commandment. In like manner such fear, love, and trust is to urge and force us not to despise His Word, but gladly to learn, hear, and esteem it holy, and honor it.Since we are talking about trying to understand a particular command of the moral law another good resource to look at is the Prophetic books of the Old Testament. The Prophets gave the word of the Lord to the nation of Israel during a long time of disobedience towards God, and so much of their prophesies are targeted towards how the covenant nation of Judah and the uncovenanted nation of Samaria (Willson, 64-67) were in an active state of breaking and twisting God's moral law. The tasks of the Prophets were to correctly interpret God's ten words given on Sinai so that the people's comfortable lifestyles were correctly understood as actually being uncomfortable to God. Their lives were a mess, because they have lowered God's standard so that "It's not their fault."
Three specific passages can help us understand Luther's appendix to every commandment. Jeremiah 16:10-13, Ezekiel 18, and 33:7-20. The most helpful passage is spoken through Jeremiah and says:
And when you tell this people all these words, and they say to you, "Why has the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us? What is our iniquity? What is the sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?" then you shall say to them: "Because your fathers have forsaken me, declares the Lord, and have gone after other gods and have served and worshiped them, and have forsaken me and have not kept my law, and because you have done worse than your fathers, for behold, every one of you follows his stubborn, evil will, refusing to listen to me. Therefore I will hurl you out of this land into a land that neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor."According to Jeremiah the people were correct to say that God was not judging them based on the actions of their fathers, but Jeremiah's message went further to say that the present generation of the nation of Israel had exceeded their fathers in their sinful acts.
My pastor, Dave Long, helpfully pointed out the Jeremiah passage many years ago while preaching on the Westminster Larger Catechism.
