Are the Ten Commandments still binding on Christians?

The Ten Commandments occupy a unique place in Scripture, spoken directly by God at Sinai and inscribed on stone tablets by His own hand (Exodus 31:18). Unlike the detailed ceremonial regulations surrounding them, these ten commands function as a summary of God's moral will, covering worship, family, life, sexuality, property, truth, and contentment. The question of whether they still bind Christians today deserves careful, honest treatment, because the answer is neither a flat yes to every detail nor a dismissive no.

The most reliable approach is to see how the New Testament itself treats each commandment, since Christians look to Christ and the apostles, not merely their own preference, to determine what carries forward.

Nine of the Ten Commandments are explicitly restated as binding throughout the New Testament. Paul lists several by name, do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not covet, then declares that these and any other commandment are summed up in loving your neighbor as yourself (Romans 13:9-10). James calls the command not to murder part of the royal law of love and warns that breaking one point of the law makes a person guilty of all of it (James 2:8-11).

Jesus intensified rather than relaxed several of these commands in the Sermon on the Mount, teaching that anger violates the spirit of do not murder and lust violates the spirit of do not commit adultery (Matthew 5:21-28). Far from setting the moral commandments aside, the New Testament deepens and internalizes them.

The commands to have no other gods and to make no idols likewise remain squarely in force, since Paul warns believers to flee from idolatry (1 Corinthians 10:14) and John closes his first letter with a simple, urgent plea, little children, keep yourselves from idols (1 John 5:21). Honoring father and mother is reaffirmed as the first commandment with a promise (Ephesians 6:2-3), and bearing false witness against a neighbor is condemned throughout the New Testament's repeated calls to truthfulness (Colossians 3:9).

The fourth commandment, remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, receives different treatment in the New Testament, which is why thoughtful Christians hold different views here without dividing over primary doctrine. Paul tells the Colossians not to let anyone judge them regarding a Sabbath day, since these were a shadow of the things to come, whose substance belongs to Christ (Colossians 2:16-17). Hebrews teaches that believers who have trusted Christ have entered a deeper Sabbath rest, resting from their own works as God did from His (Hebrews 4:9-10).

Some Christians, in the Reformed tradition especially, hold that the Sabbath principle transfers to Sunday worship as the Lord's Day, honoring one day in seven as a gift of rest and gathered worship. Others hold that the Sabbath was uniquely tied to the old covenant sign for Israel and finds its complete fulfillment in the rest believers have in Christ, without a specific day being required. Both positions honor Scripture; what all agree on is that regular worship and rest remain wise and good.

Jesus was once asked which commandment was the greatest, and He answered by summarizing the entire law, including the Ten Commandments, in two commands, love the Lord your God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:37-40). This is not a demotion of the Ten Commandments; it is their deepest interpretation. Every prohibition against idolatry, murder, adultery, theft, and false witness is simply love for God and neighbor spelled out in concrete terms.

This means Christians do not keep the Ten Commandments to earn God's approval, that approval is already secured in Christ, but as the grateful, Spirit-empowered expression of a heart transformed by grace (Ezekiel 36:26-27).

Are the Ten Commandments still binding on Christians? In their moral substance, overwhelmingly yes, they remain a trustworthy summary of what love for God and others looks like in practice. In their original covenant form, given specifically to Israel at Sinai as the sign of that particular covenant, believers now relate to God through the new covenant in Christ's blood, which fulfills and reshapes how these commands are kept.

The result is not less moral seriousness but more, obedience flowing from a heart set free by grace rather than a heart striving under threat of condemnation (Romans 8:1-4). The commandments still show us what love looks like; the gospel gives us the power to live it out.