Do Christians Have to Keep the Ten Commandments?

Christians have argued about this since the first generation of the church, and the New Testament seems to pull in two directions. Jesus said:

Don’t think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I didn’t come to destroy, but to fulfill.

Matthew 5:17

Yet Paul told the Romans, “you are not under law, but under grace” (Romans 6:14), and told the Galatians that “a man is not justified by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ” (Galatians 2:16). So which is it: are the Ten Commandments still binding, or did Christ set them aside?

The short answer: yes, Christians are called to keep the Ten Commandments, but not as a way to earn God’s favor. Nine of the ten are repeated in the New Testament, and Jesus and the apostles sum them up as love for God and neighbor. What changed is their place: they describe the life of people already rescued, not a ladder to climb toward God. The Sabbath is the one commandment Christians apply differently. For all ten, see The Ten Commandments: What Each One Means.

Read the New Testament with the commandments in mind and they turn up on almost every page:

• No other gods: “You shall worship the Lord your God, and you shall serve him only” (Matthew 4:10).
• No idols: “Little children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21; see What Is Idolatry?).
• The name of God: Jesus on oaths, “let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes’” (Matthew 5:33–37), and James 5:12.
• Honor your parents: quoted in full, promise included, in Ephesians 6:1–3.
• Murder, adultery, stealing, false witness: Jesus lists them to the rich young man (Matthew 19:18), and Paul repeats them in Romans 13:9.
• Coveting: “I wouldn’t have known coveting, unless the law had said, ‘You shall not covet’” (Romans 7:7).

One commandment is never repeated as a command: the Sabbath. Jesus kept it and argued about how to keep it, but no apostle tells Christians to observe the seventh day, and Paul treats special days as a matter of conscience (Romans 14:5; Colossians 2:16–17). That is why Christians apply the fourth commandment differently, as Remember the Sabbath explains.

Love doesn’t harm a neighbor. Love therefore is the fulfillment of the law.

Romans 13:10

The confusion usually comes from mixing up two questions: how a person is put right with God, and how a person who belongs to God should live.

On the first question, the New Testament is unambiguous: no one is saved by keeping the commandments. Paul says the law shows us our sin rather than curing it, “for through the law comes the knowledge of sin” (Romans 3:20), and that the commandment against coveting was what first exposed his own heart (Romans 7:7). The commandments are a mirror, not a ladder.

But this was never a new idea invented to replace the Old Testament. Exodus itself puts the rescue first. God brought Israel out of Egypt before he gave a single command, and the ten open with “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out” (Exodus 20:2). The commandments were always the shape of life for people who had already been saved.

On the second question, the New Testament is just as clear: those who belong to Christ should live the way the commandments describe. Jesus said, “If you love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15), and John adds that “his commandments are not grievous” (1 John 5:3). Grace does not cancel the commandments. It changes why we keep them.

Every major Christian tradition teaches that the Ten Commandments still apply, but they explain it in different ways:

• Catholic. The Ten Commandments express the natural moral law and are binding on Christians; the Council of Trent taught this, and the Catechism is built around them (§2068).
• Lutheran. The law works as a mirror that shows our sin and drives us to Christ, and as a guide for the Christian life.
• Reformed. The law of Moses is divided into moral, ceremonial and civil parts. The ceremonial and civil laws ended with Christ and ancient Israel; the moral law, summarized in the ten, remains (Westminster Confession, chapter 19).
• Other evangelicals. Some say Christians are under “the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2) rather than the law of Moses, but that nine of the ten are restated within it.
• Seventh-day Adventists. All ten remain, including the seventh-day Sabbath.

Behind all of them stands the promise of the new covenant, which the New Testament says has come in Christ:

I will put my law in their inward parts, and I will write it in their heart. I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Jeremiah 31:33

The commandments do not disappear in the new covenant. They move from stone to the heart.

So what does keeping the Ten Commandments look like for a Christian? Not anxious rule-keeping, and not ignoring them either. A few principles:

• Start from the rescue. Read the commandments as a description of the freedom God has already given, not as the price of his love.
• Read them through Jesus. He took several of them deeper, to anger, lust and honesty in speech (Matthew 5). Keeping the letter while breaking the heart of a commandment misses it.
• Let love fill them in. Each “you shall not” protects something good. Ask what love would do for the person the commandment protects.
• Use them to examine yourself. Many Christians read through the ten before confession or Communion. They are still the clearest mirror there is.

For this is loving God, that we keep his commandments. His commandments are not grievous.

1 John 5:3

And when you fail, as every Christian does, the same gospel that frees you from earning God’s favor also brings you back. The commandments show the way; Christ carries you on it.

Do Christians have to keep the Ten Commandments?

Yes, though not to earn salvation. Jesus said he came to fulfill the law, not abolish it (Matthew 5:17), and nine of the ten are repeated in the New Testament. Christians keep them as an expression of love for God and neighbor, which Paul calls “the fulfillment of the law” (Romans 13:10).

Are the Ten Commandments in the New Testament?

Nine of them are. Jesus lists several to the rich young man (Matthew 19:18–19), Paul quotes five in Romans 13:9, and the command to honor parents appears in Ephesians 6:2. The Sabbath is the only one not repeated as a command.

Did Jesus abolish the Ten Commandments?

No. He said, “I didn’t come to destroy, but to fulfill” (Matthew 5:17), and he deepened several commandments, applying them to anger, lust and oaths. What Christians believe ended with Christ are the ceremonial and civil laws of ancient Israel, not the moral commands of the ten.

Do Christians have to keep the Sabbath?

Christians differ. Catholics and many Protestants keep Sunday, the day of the resurrection, as the Lord’s Day. Many others see the Sabbath as fulfilled in Christ, and Seventh-day Adventists keep Saturday. The New Testament treats special days as a matter of conscience (Romans 14:5).

Can you be saved by keeping the Ten Commandments?

No. The New Testament says no one is justified by the works of the law (Galatians 2:16), because no one keeps it perfectly. Salvation is God’s gift through faith in Christ. The commandments then describe how saved people live.