Rev. Dan Calvo
Pittsburgh New Church; March 29, 2026
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The Ten Commandments are all related to our actions. Some of the commandments describe things that we must actively do, like keeping the Sabbath day holy and honoring our father and mother, while many of the commandments describe things that we must not do, such as not committing adultery, not using the Lord's name in vain, and not worshipping idols. All these commandments focus on our external actions. They describe things that can be seen and heard by others.
Then we come to the ninth and tenth commandments. These commandments are different from the rest. Instead of focusing on visible actions, they focus on something that cannot be seen or heard by anyone else: our desires.
The ninth and tenth commandments say this:
“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” (Exodus 20:17)
Unlike the other commandments, these ones do not describe something that we do with our bodies or our words. Instead, they address something happening inside of us. They speak about what we desire.
The ninth commandment, which tells us not to covet our neighbor’s house, and the tenth commandment, which tells us not to covet anything else that belongs to our neighbor, are given as separate commandments by the Lord. Yet their spiritual meaning and their application in our lives are very closely related to the point in which they are written in the same verse in the Word.
These commandments reveal something very important about the Lord's concern for us. The Lord doesn’t just care about our external behavior. He also really cares about our inner life.
We all know that it is possible for someone to behave well externally while keeping evil desires internally. A person might avoid stealing but secretly wish to take what belongs to another. A person might avoid lying, but they still may take pleasure in imagining ways to deceive others. A person might avoid adultery but still have fantasies of betraying their spouse. The Lord always sees beyond the external actions and into our intentions.
This teaching is explained clearly in the Heavenly Doctrines. In the book True Christian Religion we read:
The ninth and tenth commandments look back to all the commandments that precede them. They teach and enjoin that we are not to do evil and that we are also not to desire doing evil. Therefore the Ten Commandments are not only for the outer self but also for the inner self. Someone who does not do evil things but nevertheless desires doing them is still doing them. (TCR 326)
These commandments act like a mirror at the end of the list. They look back at everything that came before them and ask us to reflect on our intentions. It is not only a matter of whether we refrain from evil actions. It is also a matter of whether we are holding on to the desire to do those things in our hearts.
The Lord spoke about this same issue during His ministry on earth. He warned the scribes and the Pharisees about focusing too much on external appearances while neglecting their inner spiritual lives. He said to them:
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, because you clean the outside of your cup and plate, but the insides are full of plundering and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of your cup and plate, so that the outside may be clean as well.” (Matthew 23:25-26)
This is a very simple message. A cup may look completely clean on the outside, but if the inside is filthy, the cup is still unclean. In the same way, we may appear good and clean externally while our inner life is still full of selfish desires.
Whenever we desire to break any of the ten commandments, whenever we desire to commit adultery, whenever we desire to lie, or whenever we desire to steal, we are still engaging with all the evils described in the earlier commandments, and we are breaking the commandments against coveting.
Following the commandments against coveting may sound like a pretty tall order. It is already difficult to avoid doing evil actions all the time. Now the Lord is telling us that we should not even want to do those things. If we follow that line of thinking, the commandment can begin to feel overwhelming.
After all, temptations show up in everyone’s mind. We all experience passing thoughts that we know are not good. We might suddenly feel anger toward someone, or envy toward a neighbor, or lust toward someone who is not our spouse. If every fleeting thought counted as breaking the commandments, then none of us would have any hope at all of ever seeing Heaven.
But this is not what the Lord is teaching.
The Lord is not concerned with every passing thought that enters our minds. Instead, He is concerned with something deeper: whether we welcome those thoughts, dwell on them, and eventually make them part of our intentions.
This important distinction is explained in another passage from the Heavenly Doctrine. In the book Divine Providence we read:
Nothing that we simply think about becomes part of us, even though we think we intend to do it, unless we intend it to the point that we would actually do it if the opportunity arose. As long as it is a matter of thought alone it cannot be made part of us, because our understanding does not unite itself to our will, or the thinking of our understanding to the desire of our intent. (DP 80)
This teaching brings an important sense of balance. We have thoughts constantly passing through our minds. Many of them appear and disappear without leaving any kind of a lasting impression. What matters is whether we hold onto those thoughts and nurture them until we would be willing to act on them if the opportunity presented itself. When we begin to imagine carrying out an evil and secretly wish that we could do it without consequences, then that desire has begun to take root in our heart.
In the Heavenly Doctrines, sin is sometimes described as a kind of spiritual disease. When we break the commandments, we not only harm the people around us, but we also damage our own spiritual well-being. Evil spreads through the soul in the same way that illness spreads through the body.
The ten commandments act like a treatment plan for healing this illness. By following the ten commandments, we begin to remove the destructive tendencies that separate us from heaven.
The ninth and tenth commandments address something particularly important in this healing process. They draw our attention to the root cause of our spiritual sickness: our inner desires for evil.
The connection between our desires and our actions is described in another passage from True Christian Religion:
A desire and an action are as closely connected as blood and flesh or oil and flame. The desire is in the action in the same way that air from our lungs is in our breath and speech. (TCR 328)
If our desires are dominated by selfishness and envy, those desires will eventually shape the way we treat others. But if we bring our desires into harmony with the Lord's Higher will, then our actions will begin to reflect that transformation.
This is why the commandments ask us not only to avoid doing evil but also to examine the desires that live within us and reject any desires that are against the Lord’s Will for us.
Another passage from True Christian Religion, which you can read in the back of your handout, explains how these commandments look back at all the others and address their spiritual root:
In the spiritual meaning, the Ninth and Tenth commandments prohibit all the cravings that go against the spirit, that is, against the spiritual qualities taught by the church, which primarily relate to faith and charity. If our cravings were not tamed, our flesh would pursue its own freedom and would quickly fall into every kind of wickedness. In brief, these two commandments taken in their spiritual meaning look back to the spiritual meaning of all the commandments previously given, adding that we are not to crave doing those evil things. The same goes for all the commandments previously given in the celestial meaning. (TCR 327)
In other words, these commandments summarize the deeper meanings behind every commandment that came before them. They remind us that the true battle is not only about controlling our external actions. It is about reshaping the desires of our hearts. And when we reshape the desires of our hearts, we experience tremendous spiritual freedom and growth.
The Heavenly Doctrine explains this beautifully in another passage from True Christian Religion:
Eight of the commandments say nothing about loving God or loving our neighbor. They do not say that we must love God or we must keep God's name holy. They do not say that we must love our neighbor, or deal honestly and uprightly with our neighbor. They say only, "There is to be no other God before my face; you are not to take God's name in vain; you are not to kill; you are not to commit adultery; you are not to steal; you are not to testify falsely; and you are not to covet what your neighbor has. " Briefly put, we are not to intend, think, or do evil against God or against our neighbor. We are not commanded to do things that directly relate to charity; instead, we are commanded not to do things that are the opposite of charity. This is because the more we abstain from evils because they are sins, the more we want the goodness that relates to charity. In loving God and our neighbor, the first step is not doing evil, and the second step is doing good. (TCR 329)
The doctrine goes on to explain in the following passage how this spiritual transformation gradually takes place in our lives:
The more we abstain from what is evil, the more we will and intend what is good, because evil and good are opposites. Evil comes from hell and good comes from heaven. Therefore the more hell is removed, the closer we get to heaven and the more we focus on good. The truth of this becomes obvious when we see eight of the Ten Commandments in this way. For example: (1) The less we worship other gods, the more we worship the true God. (2) The less we take the name of God in vain, the more we love the things that come from God. (3) The less we want to kill and to act on the basis of hatred and revenge, the more we want what is good for our neighbor. (4) The less we want to commit adultery, the more we want to live faithfully with our spouse. (5) The less we want to steal, the more we aim to be honest. (6) The less we want to testify falsely, the more we want to think and speak what is true, (8) and the less we covet what our neighbors have, the more we want our neighbors to be doing well with what they have. (TCR 330)
This teaching brings us back to the purpose of the ninth and tenth commandments. They are not simply warnings about envy or jealousy. They are invitations to begin the deeper work of being spiritually born again by abandoning our evil desires and embracing the good desires that the Lord wants us to have.
The ninth and tenth commandments remind us that our duty to follow the Lord’s Will goes deeper than our external behavior. The Lord is not only asking us to change our external actions, He is also asking us to change our desires. When we ask the Lord for help in turning away from selfish desires, we open the door for something better to take their place. When we begin that process by following the commandments, our hearts begin to change, and our actions follow that change. And in that transformation of our desires, the Lord leads us closer to a life that truly follows His loving Will for us to be saved to eternity. Amen.