The fifth commandment is the first one of the final six. The final six speak about loving people, just like the first three speak about loving God. This fifth commandment, or fifth Word, is, “You shall honor your father and your mother….” It deals with honor.
The beginning of love is honor. The idea behind the word honor is value. To honor someone is to see their value. It is to see that they are valuable, and precious. They are valuable because they were created by God. They were created by the handiwork of God, by the skill of His fingers, by the moving of His heart with divine purpose and wisdom. Every single human being is to be honored -- “honor all men” (I Peter 2:17).
This is the idea behind what James meant when he said, “With it [the tongue] we curse men, who are made according to the likeness of God…. My brethren, these things ought not be this way” (James 3:9-10). We ought to speak correctly about people, because they are made in the image of God, and according to His likeness. They are very valuable. Therefore we should treat them as such.
You cannot love people until you see their value.
Once you see how God sees them, however, this will compel you to honor them, and from this root heart feeling, comes the desire to do good for them.
The first and foremost people to honor is our parents. The reason for this is simple, and yet quite profound. We honor them because we came from them. We owe our existence to them. If we dishonor them, we dishonor ourselves, and our own place in God’s purposes. Really, to honor our parents is to honor God, because He formed us in through the mechanism of our parents. This is yet another reason why of the six final commandments, the one about honoring our parents is closest to the first four dealing with our relationship with God and walking in God. In the order of God’s works, we first had to come forth from our parents before we could exist, or love, or believe. Our parents are extremely valuable to us, so we honor them in our hearts, and with our actions.
And, as this idea of honoring is extended to “honor all men,” we honor them at their roots, as it were -- we honor them for God’s purpose and wisdom in creating them. They were designed to be a unique revelation of God -- hence His image -- and we need to respect that. We need to see how precious they are to God.
This includes unbelievers. Yes, it is true that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 6:23). What this means is that all have missed the mark of what they were created to be (His dwelling place, the gate of heaven), and have come short of showing forth the glory of the image and likeness of God that they were created for. Though all were created in His image to be a unique revelation of His being, all also have fallen short of expressing that glory. In Christ Jesus we have redemption, so that we can have the inheritance of showing His glory, the wonders of His nature and works, through our lives, behavior, and words. Yet there are many who have not yet received this redemption, who still fall short of the glory. Nonetheless we honor them for their intrinsic value -- God created them, and Jesus purchased their salvation and redemption. They are of high enough value that God sent His Son in order to purchase their redemption. “You were bought with a price.” “You were redeemed … with precious [valuable] blood” (I Peter 1:18-19). What a high price Jesus paid.
A brother once shared a valuable Word with me along these lines. He asked me, “What sets the value of something, say, for example, an antique table or a chair?” After I pondered this a while, he gave the answer. “Whatever people are willing to pay sets the value.” If a price is set too high, people won’t buy the object. If it is worth the cost, then they will buy it. The idea is that the high price that Jesus was willing to pay, “not only for our sins, but also for those of the whole world” (I John 2:2), shows how very valuable all people are to God!
So we need to value them in the same manner. This “great love with which He loved us” will fill our hearts, and cause us to see the precious value of each and every person we come across. Once we honor them in this way, the acts of love depicted in the final five commandments will come alive within our hearts.
So, let’s press on to the Sixth Commandment….