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The Ninth and Tenth Commandments

We can consider the last two commandments together, because their content is very similar. In the Scoffield Bible, a Luther translation, the ninth commandment reads: “Do not let yourself desire your neighbour’s house” and the tenth commandment: “Do not let yourself desire your neighbour’s wife, nor his servant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his donkey nor anything that your neighbour has

In the revised Luther translation from 1984, the ninth commandment reads similarly: “You shall not covet your neighbour’s house” and the tenth commandment reads: “You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, servant, handmaid, cow, donkey, nor anything that your neighbour has.”

In the Bible “The Good News”, the ninth and the tenth commandments are already combined. There it reads: “Do not seek to bring to yourself anything that belongs to another, neither his wife, nor his slaves, cow or donkey, nor anything else that belongs to him.”

Let’s ask ourselves: What actually belongs to me? If I see myself as what I actually am, as the house of the Holy Spirit, as the temple of God – what then belongs to me? The fullness of God, heaven and earth belong to me. Everything that exists is in me as essence and power, in my spiritual body, which is the microcosm in the macrocosm. It is my spiritual heritage. My Father, who is also the Father of all pure beings, souls and men, gave each of us the countless powers of infinity as heritage. All of this is in us and we should develop it again through a life in accordance with the divine law.

What is ours in the outer world, here on earth, is our earthly heritage, so to speak. It is a gift from God, which we should manage well, but to which we should never bind ourselves.

The conclusion from this as regards the ninth commandment, “You shall not covet your neighbour’s house”, is: Be satisfied with what God has given you, with what you are granted to manage. It is your task to respect what you have on earth, to increase and care for it in a law-abiding way, but not to be envious of what your neighbour has.

Many are envious of their neighbour’s goods and property, because there is an imbalance, an inequality, in our world. If everyone had the same, then none would live in poverty and each would be more or less satisfied, because in the end, he has the same as his neighbour. It may be that what he has is formed or built or prepared and furnished differently, but seen as energy, it is the same. And as long as this imbalance exists on earth, people will violate the ninth commandment: “You shall not covet your neighbour’s house.”

In the standardized translation of the Bible, we can read how the first Christians lived in the first century after the death and resurrection of Jesus. There we read: “The community of faithful was one heart and one soul. None would say that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common ... And no one among them suffered need. For all those who possessed fields or houses sold them and brought the value of the things sold and laid it at the feet of the apostles. To each one was given as much as he needed.” (Acts 4:32-35)

We see that when people live the Christian ideals, the commandments of being for and with one another, of unity, togetherness, brotherliness, then the demands of the ninth and tenth commandments are no longer a question, for they are no longer tied to their personal property. Everything belongs to the community and everyone works in the community for the benefit of all.

The Original Christians of today strive for something similar. More and more people try to live in this sense. They put all their belongings together, so that each one can share equally in what the community administers and maintains, and can receive equally from what is produced in the community.

If we were born into affluence or if our situation in life brought this to us – for instance, a well-paid job, a well-managed and flourishing business – so that wealth, much property and many belongings came to us, then it depends on how we manage what we possess.

If we manage our goods and property in the right way and pass on what we don’t necessarily need, then our heir, our son or daughter, can also do the same. He will receive it from his parents, will manage it well and will pass on what he doesn’t necessarily need.

If parents haven’t acquired their property lawfully, how will things continue? According to the laws of the earth, the heirs receive the property after the death of their parents. But what is the spiritual principle here? Can property that was not built up with the positive powers of life, of giving and receiving, be lasting?

When we look into the world, we see that in many cases many a business dissolves in the second or third generation. It could be that the heirs have completely different interests. And so, what the parents have acquired in the wrong way often falls apart.

We can also look at the ninth commandment “You shall not covet your neighbour’s house” from a spiritual point of view.

As Original Christians, we believe that each of us is the temple of the Holy Spirit, that is, the house of God. How is it when we covet a person, in order to soil, to damage and to violate – perhaps in a physical way – his house, the temple? How is it when we see the house, the temple of our neighbour, as our property, in order to do what we want with this temple, this house?

If we use, for example, this house – the person – in which the Spirit of God dwells, as a slave, if we put the heaviest burdens and hardest work onto him, if we let our fellow man work for us for a meagre salary, while we, on the other hand, carouse and indulge and divert ourselves with our wealth, then we feel we are equal to God and thus penetrate like a false god into the temple, into the house of our neighbour and make him into our tool.

When we look into the history of the western world, we see that serfdom began in the Middle Ages. The farmers were there for the nobility, to work for them, and received only a fragment of what they produced. Let’s also think about slavery. The Europeans went to Africa and stole people, took them to America in ships and auctioned them off like so many goods. And the property owners in the New World bought up the slaves, paid money for them, and kept them in part like animals, used their manpower, and often let them vegetate away under wretched conditions.

History shows that one of the “Christian” official churches held slaves into the 19th century. Then the question arises: Who determines the policy of this institution? Was it the Christ of God who, as Jesus, taught brotherliness, or were other forces at work?

In Africa people were taken prisoners and auctioned off – slave trade was practised. This doesn’t happen this way anymore. But doesn’t something similar happen with the baptism of babies? We are not yet completely freed from slavery, for: Children who can’t decide for themselves, because they are still too young and thus don’t yet have the ability to tell the difference, are simply taken and bound to an institution through baptism, even though Jesus taught: “First teach and then baptize”. This means: Let your neighbour decide freely whether he wants to accept this or that religion.

And so, we see that we should not cling to the letter of the Bible, for otherwise many of us could say: “I don’t covet my neighbour’s house; I am content with what I have and am satisfied, and so I don’t violate the ninth commandment ‘You shall not covet your neighbour’s house’. Thus, I am a good Christian.” The person who does not examine himself, who doesn’t get to the bottom of his thoughts, who doesn’t grasp the meaning of the words in the Bible, deceives himself in the belief that he fulfils the Ten Commandments for the most part. An example follows of how a violation of the ninth commandment can take place in connection with the tenth commandment:

We have the tenth commandment in the Luther Bible and it sounds a lot like the ninth commandment: “You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, servant, handmaid, cow, donkey, nor anything that your neighbour has.” This commandment says that we should not take all this and much more from our neighbour. This doesn’t necessarily have to happen with violence or external reprisals. Often it happens in a much subtler way – through our wishing and wanting. And so, the following can happen:

We have our eye on a some property, for instance, a piece of land. We nurture wishful thoughts for a long time, perhaps for years, until one day our neighbour, through some situation or other, puts his land up for sale and we can acquire it. Then we think: “I always wanted this piece of land of my neighbour’s. Now coincidence wants this, too, and my neighbour is selling his land and I can buy it. What luck!”

Was this really coincidence or luck? Did God help us with this purchase? Or was it our wishing and wanting? Did we perhaps dream intensively – that is, fantasize in pictures – that we would possess this property? Thoughts are powers, just as are wish-images. Both strive to be realized.

This can happen in the following way:

We have emitted wishful thoughts, perhaps over years. We have placed a whole aura of our wishes over this property and now the owner has fallen into hard times. Who stimulated these hard times? Maybe it was us – with our wishful thinking. It is possible that these difficulties which helped in this process were already in our neighbour. But if they had come to light gradually, then he could have cleared them up step by step and would not have had to sell his property. So, we, too, bear part of the guilt in this process of sale and purchase.

Let’s carry the example a bit further: We buy the piece of land. Maybe we also take over the manservant, maidservant, cow, donkey and everything that the first owner had acquired. At first, everything goes well. But in the second and third generation the energy recedes, because our children and grandchildren have no interest in the piece of land. And then comes the question: Why is this so? The property was acquired wrongly, that is, untruthfully, insincerely and dishonestly, namely, because of greed and envy; in the last analysis, it was done with rapacious intent.

The woman mentioned in the tenth commandment can also be a part of this: We keep on emitting thoughts to another woman until we possess her, the same way we possess the property of our neighbour, dominate it and consider it our own.

Many feel that they are the owners of a smaller or larger wealth. How do we deal with our so-called property? Do we see it as our property with which we can do what and as we want – or do we see ourselves just as the steward of what God entrusted to us?

When we pass on everything that is beyond what we need, so that equality can develop on this earth and in this world, then we own our property rightfully. But then we are also content with our wife, our servant, our maidservant, with cow, donkey and everything else we have. The person who is not satisfied with what God entrusted to him to administer can then look for and accept what corresponds to his wish-image. However, the one who strives for, that is, covets, the property of his neighbour, wants something for himself exclusively. The one who wants something just for himself, his property, his possession, will also receive it sooner or later – but not through the divine powers. And he will hardly have it before he loses it. For a spiritual principle in the law of cause and effect says: You will lose what you want to hold on to.

For Original Christians, “coveting” is the same as “stealing”, because we know that with carefully nurtured wishful thinking we can often bring about more negativity than with words, which we express briefly, but no longer intensify in our thoughts.

Thoughts are powers. Covetous thoughts are robbing powers. If we can’t steal immediately from our neighbour what he has – at some point we will take it from him through our covetous thoughts, our dishonest words and perhaps through our dishonest actions, when our neighbour is receptive to this.

To belittle our neighbour because of an attribute, an ability or something he possesses and that we are envious of is also a violation of the ninth and tenth commandments, as well as of the seventh: “You shall not steal”.

As we can see, much is contained in the few words of the ninth and tenth commandments to help us recognize ourselves – on the one hand, the material aspect, on the other, the spiritual, the temple of God, the neighbour, our brother, our sister.

And so, this is how the Original Christians see the Ten Commandments and this is how we orient ourselves. Many a one of us can say that through this he has gained a happy and free life, that he has become content and that he has everything he needs and in many cases beyond that. For God is the fullness and gives to the one who doesn’t covet, who bears no false witness against his neighbour, who doesn’t steal from his neighbour - neither in thoughts nor in deeds.

Many of our fellow men will see the Ten Commandments in another way. We don’t want to force anyone to think and live as we do. Each one is free and each one has a different potential for recognition. If we live the Ten Commandments according to our criteria and knowledge – that is, include them in our lives – then we will be able to read ever more out of each commandment, because our consciousness expands and we can see things more deeply.

We Christ-friends in Universal Life have a wish: May more and more of our fellow men turn to the Ten Commandments and orient their lives to them. We Original Christians feel linked with all our fellow men, for in God we are all brothers and sisters, since we are children of God.

We wish you much strength and the perceivable love of our Lord and Redeemer, Christ,

Greetings in God

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