What they think was added to the First Commandment.
What they think was added to the First Commandment.
§ 72. But that they may show more clearly what Christ added to the Law of Moses, they run through the individual commandments and list them in order, in such a way as to separate the commandment about graven images [Exod. 20:4–5] from the First Commandment [Exod. 20:3–5]. They say that Christ added two things to the First Commandment: (a) “A certain form of praying prescribed in the Lord’s Prayer” (p. 164).
We respond. Christ did not institute a new worship of God that was not yet expressed in the Law of Moses and was not yet used in the Old Testament. Rather, by expressing a certain form of praying, He wanted to alleviate our weakness. The royal psalmist taught various set forms for praying, but who will say that he added something to the divine Law?
** And even before Christ’s birth there were certain set forms for praying to God in the church, and these set forms had been prescribed by the Holy Spirit. Some psalms which are found in the Psalter were written long before David and were accepted by the patriarchs, as is seen from Hilary (preface to his commentary on the Psalms) and as is gathered from Scripture itself (Exodus 15; Deuteronomy 32; 1 Samuel 2; 1 Kings [3]; Isaiah 38; Jonah 2; Habakkuk 3). In the petitionary psalms are two things that are asked of God: that which applies to the promotion of God’s glory and that which is required to supply our need. These are the two main points of the Lord’s Prayer [Matt. 6:9–13]. There is no better explanation of the Lord’s Prayer than the Book of Psalms, nor is there a better epitome of the Psalms than the Lord’s Prayer. **
Nor are we bound in such a way to the set form that Christ prescribed, which someone might deservedly call “the prayer of prayers,” that we are simply not allowed to use other words in the prayers we are to make to God.
(b) The second thing they say has been added to the First Commandment consists in our “acknowledging, worshiping, and calling upon Christ as true God, that is, as such a one who has divine power over us” (p. 170).
We respond. In its own place we have spoken in detail about the true deity of Christ against those fighters against God [θεομάχοι], and we have proved it not only from the New but also from the Old Testament [On God the Father and His Eternal Son (1610 Loci Theologici, locus 5); cf. On the Most Holy Mystery of the Trinity (1625 Exegesis, Commonplace III)]. We admit that in the New Testament there is more and clearer witness of the Son’s true deity, but still we explicitly deny that the Old Testament is completely devoid of such testimony.