"Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee." - Exo 20:12
The Fifth Commandment.
In Gods top ten list, the first four items are all about teaching man who God is and how Holy He is. We are not to worship any other, attempt to make any visual representations of Him, use His name in vain, and remember His act of Creation every 7 days. All of a sudden, Dad and Mom show up in #5! That seems like a big and sudden transition from God to man...
Indeed it is. A lot of commentators divide the commandments into two " tables". A duty of man-to-God table, and a duty of man-to-man table. The first 4 commandments fall into the first table, and the last 6 into the second. This is fine, but I would invite you to consider the 5th as also belonging in the duty of man-to-God category, and forming a natural and logical bridge to the duty of man-to-man, and actually, extending and amplifying what was said in the first 4.
If you have been reading our prior weeks posts on the Law (if not - please do !) , you will have seen that God cares immensely about how He is represented, and is very protective about His image. We have pointed out that the only image of God that He approved, and that we can see is Man! If you have that perspective, all of a sudden, the 5th commandment appears in a different light!
Gods image, as male and female , joined together by marriage into One flesh by Him - hey, that looks like Dad and Mom! We owe our life to Him as the giver and breather into us of the Spirit that turns dust into a living soul - and we owe our birth to our parents who give us our life. Not only that, if you recall our Lord's Prayer, it begins with the words - Our Father. God Himself inhabits and hallows the relationship between parent and child! If we are to respect our Jesus-gifted inheritance as the children of God, it's imperative we learn how to respect and honor the parent-child relationship! In fact, the Lord's Prayer actually provides us a model for how to do that - we have written about it here.
The Hebrew word for honor is the verb Kabed, closely related to the noun Kabod which both denote and have the immediate sense of great weight. Kabod is also used to refer to His Glory - ( for e.g. Ichabod means the Glory has departed ) extending the conceptof weightiness and honor to the person of God. Therefore, to honor our parents is to ascribe to them a weight and respect similar to that we give Him. This means not only respect but obedience- the two -absolutely most most critical- concepts that He desires in our relationship with Him!!!!
How did our Lord obey this one? Luke 2:51 has this thumbnail sketch for us ... "And He went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them:" ; Jesus obeyed His human parents. Even amidst the agony of the cross He cared for His mother, instructing His disciple John to take care of her. He took the Pharisees to task for watering down this commandment with their traditions and loopholes- " Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition? For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death. But ye say, Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, It is a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; And honour not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition." - Mt 15:3-6
This commandment has not expired! We find it in the New Testament Apostolic teaching of Paul who explicitly refers to this commandment. "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother (which is the first commandment with a promise), so that it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the earth." - Eph 6:1-3 He also indicates that the corruption of the last days will cause this to be violated - "But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, --disobedient to parents--, ungrateful, unholy,...." - 2 Tim 1-2. If you are wondering why more and more people are dying young, why we are plagued with death and destruction- here is the answer. Our current sinful culture has destroyed what it means to be married and to be parents ( think of the plight of kids from multiple marriages, single parents, same sex parents ... etc ).
Children also no longer respect their parents because they are not worthy of it. Parents have a weighty responsibility not to profane the image of God they bear... God hates child abuse. "You even took your sons and daughters you bore to Me and sacrificed them to these images as food. Wasn't your prostitution enough? You slaughtered My children and gave them up when you passed them through the fire to the images." - Eze 16:20-21 "And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." - Eph 6:4
A last thing to note, that the Apostle also points out in the text from Ephesians 6:2 - is that this commandment is unique in also including a promise and blessing of long life for keeping it. Long life is promised! I think you can skip the gym, health food, drugs and supplements if you just do this :-) - but that's just me being lazy!! Seriously though, you should reflect that the keeping all the commandments of God confer blessing and peace. This is just more icing on the cake! The joy of grandchildren is something only grandparents know!!
" My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments: For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee. Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart: So shalt thou find favour and good understanding in the sight of God and man. " - Prov 3:1-4