THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT
"Thou shalt not steal."-Exodus 20:15
At this point the Decalogue passes from the discussion of the essential
facts of human life to matters of lesser importance, affecting human
inter-relation. By the phrase "of
lesser importance" it is not intended to suggest that they are
unimportant, but in the words of Jesus, "Life
is more than meat"; (Luke 12:23)
and up to this point the commandments have forbidden sins which interfere with
the relation of man to God, or harm in any way the life of man in itself. In
the Mosaic economy, violation of any of the first seven commandments incurred
the death penalty. This was not so with regard to the last three, proving that
in the realm of comparison the first seven are of greater importance. To the mind
of God, worship and the relation of the worshipper to Himself are matters of utmost
moment.
The rebellious nature of sin is remarkably evidenced by the fact that
human laws have inverted the order of this importance. At the present moment,
laws protecting property are far more numerous upon the statute-books of all
lands than laws protecting life. It would assuredly be wrong for man to punish
man for refusal to worship, or for worshipping gods other than the true, or the
true in ways other than appointed; yet it is an appalling matter that the
breakdown of active and solemn recognition of relationship between man and God
is hardly counted sin at all in public opinion. A preacher may denounce murder,
impurity, theft, lying, in terms of fiery indignation, and he will carry any
ordinary audience with him, but if he denounces the sin of godlessness in the
same terms, he will most probably arouse the resentment of a large percentage
of his congregation. And then there is his politically correct country where he resides. And yet this sin of rebellion is the root from which all
others grow. Gradually, however, the best opinion of all men is being conformed
to the Divine ideal, and the age is coming to understand that "life is more than meat."
Whether it can he said that as yet there is any approach to a consensus of
opinion that life is only perfectly conditioned in the will of God, may be open
to question.
So much having been said as to the relative value of the commandment, now
turn to a consideration of this law dealing with the question of human
possession. "Thou shalt not steal."
There is urgent need for close attention to this commandment, for while the
actual act of stealing is looked upon increasingly as vulgar, yet the day is
characterized by a multiplication of methods of theft, which men are prone to
speak of by any other than the right. "Business
acumen," “the habit of the
trade," "imperialism," are all phrases used under certain
circumstances, where the true fact of the case might be expressed in the one,
less pleasant sound, but far more truthful, word theft. Even in the realm of
actual stealing, if the person perpetrating the deed is of sufficiently good
social standing, one is apt to hear of kleptomania. It is a curious thing that
the word is hardly, if ever, used anymore in the courts. Let there be
an honest facing of the Divine purpose as marked in the command, "Thou shalt not steal."
Consider, first, the command; secondly, the light of the New Testament upon it;
and, thirdly, its application to our own time.
The Command
The command is, in the first instance, recognition of the rights of
property. It gives the lie to the dictum of Proudhon, the father of
anarchism;-La propriete, c'est le vol. Property is not theft. Man is by his
creation able to possess, and to deny the possibility of possessing property is
to make theft impossible. In the last analysis all possessions belong to God,
as all wealth is created by God. Man, in his relation to God, is ever compelled
to know that nothing he possesses can be held to be outside of the right of
divine interference. Man in relation to man can claim to possess, outside the
right of human interference, this being clearly recognized by the command.
While thus recognizing the rights of property, the commandment forbids
any violation of these rights. For illustration, let it be taken for granted
that men do possess the things which they call their own. It will immediately be
seen that there are only three ways in which man can come into possession of
anything: either by the free gift of another person, or by toil, which receives
something as legitimate return, or by theft, the taking that from another which
belongs to him.
The 8th commandment recognizes the first two, and forbids the
third. The reason for this will be discovered by an examination of the three.
The first two are based upon the essential laws of human inter-relation;
namely, love and work. The first of such is the law of love. The gift bestowed
by one upon another or by another upon one, is an expression of love, and
becomes the property of the one to whom it is given. Something earned by toil,
for the possession of which the work done has been a legitimate return, in that
it has also benefited the person who received it, is property. Theft violates
both of these laws. The thief cannot love the person from whom he steals, and
it is very difficult for the person from whom the theft is made to love the
thief. The thief violates the law of toil by attempting to possess without
toil, and thus to take from another something for which no equivalent return is
made. Thus the commandment recognizes the true rights of property, the rights
of love and work, and forbids the possession of anything except upon the
condition of obedience to these laws.
The Light of the New Testament
This may be gathered from one remarkable passage -"Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labor,
working with his hands the thing that is good, that he may have whereof to give
to him that hath need" (Eph.
4:28). It will immediately be seen that the argument of the preceding
section is here gathered up and stated with startling force. Mark well the
antithesis. On the one side, stealing, the false method of possession; on the
other, working and giving, the true methods. This is a drawing of the line with
surprising definiteness. According to this, all property which has not been
obtained by working or by giving is stolen property. Every item possessed has
either been bestowed as a gift, or worked for, or stolen. Apply this to much of
the social, commercial, and national life of our time, and a great deal of
vaunted morality will be seen to be grossest immorality.
But the New Testament carries the idea further, and lays upon the strong
the burden of the weak, declaring that property is to be gained by work, not
merely that it may be possessed, but that the over surplus may be given to
the disabled brother by the way, who has lost his power to work, and yet may
not steal. Thus within the new economy of the "holy nation," that man also steals who simply works for
the satisfaction of his own necessity, and fails to recognize the strenuous
claim of the common life he shares with the weakest member of the new social
order. This last statement has reference strictly only to those who are living
immediately within the Kingdom of God. But, as the very genius of the life of
that kingdom is that of caring for and loving the unfit and the unworthy, no
man who claims to have put the crown of his being upon the brow of the Christ
is truly loyal to his King except as he wins by toil possessions that he may
pass on to the most needy and afflicted.
Its Application to Our Own Times
Broadly stated, the 8th commandment forbids all forms of communism which
deny man's right to property. Of course, the word property is used throughout
this article in its simplest as well as in its broadest sense. Anything
honestly obtained is property, be it ever so small or large. It, moreover,
denies all right to property, except that of gift or work. All that a man
possesses as the result of gifts freely bestowed, or of work honestly done, is
secured to him by this enactment; and whosoever shall come into possession of
any such property, except by the free gift of the present owner, or as return
for work rendered, is to be branded as a thief, and punished accordingly.
Therefore, the 8th commandment arrests all men that possess anything
which they have obtained in any way, except as the free gift of another, or in
return for work rendered. This commandment, then, strikes at many different
forms of stealing, which are being practiced today.
Perhaps it is hardly necessary to say anything concerning the simple act
of stealing articles belonging to other persons. This is universally
acknowledged to be dastardly, and petty larceny may be severely punished through
the agency of the criminal courts of the country. For this reason very largely,
thousands of persons who are in heart quite capable of dishonesty are kept from
the overt act. Even in most respectable and moral society, however, some forms
of common theft have come to be looked upon as regrettable lapses, rather than
sin against God. One illustration will suffice. It would be interesting, but
extremely painful, to pass through the homes of thousands of Church members,
instituting a rigid examination as to the ownership of all the books to be
found therein. The habit of borrowing books is in itself malicious, but the
appalling extent of the carelessness as to the return of the same is hardly
realized, because people forget that to borrow a book and not to return it is a
theft. For Amazon has many copies of all the various books in print. If these sentences should cause the discovery of some of my books, and
they are returned to me, I shall be forever grateful for having had this
opportunity of enforcing the 8th commandment.
The sin of stealing is terribly prevalent in the matter of fraudulent
getting. In this age, when a man's "worth"
is estimated by the amount he possesses, the lust of possession seems to
destroy the principle of honesty in thousands of those who in other matters are
scrupulously careful. In certain circles, also, trickery, dishonesty, lying,
are all looked upon as evidences of shrewdness and acumen in business matters.
The 8th commandment that governs a very large percentage of
commercial life today is not "Thou
shalt not steal," but "Thou
shalt not be found out." Unjust weights, false measures, and (by far
the most common of all) lying advertisements, all break the 8th commandment.
Nothing need be said of the long-firm swindles, and the bogus companies that
are so common, except this, that God Almighty will hold every person guilty of
a breach of the 8th commandment that has given his or her name to any such
enterprise without having carefully and personally examined the honesty or
dishonesty thereof.
Then the whole habit of gambling and lotteries are of the essence of
theft and this for the reason that it is a means by which men come into
possession of property which is a violation of both the laws upon which
property may alone be held. A man who gambles, whether by play or betting, puts
into his pocket, money for which he has done no honest work; and by the very
act he robs the man from whom he receives, and violates the law of love. Among
all the foolish things that the enemies of righteousness have ventured to say,
no person has yet been found foolish enough to write an essay on the bond of
brotherhood existing among betting men, or the social possibilities of
gambling. Although the lottery commissions attempt to peddle the fact that schools will be a recipient of a portion of the proceeds that God might understand. It is, moreover, a fact that ought not to pass unnoticed, that the
gambling fever is the cause of more petty larceny and wholesale fraud than any
other form of sin. There is no more insidious evil sapping away the integrity
and uprightness of the nations of the earth today than this lust for possession
without toil, which lies at the root of all gambling. It behooves all lovers of
God and men, resolutely and without apology, to thunder the words of the 8th
commandment in the ears of all gamblers, whether their practices are gilded by
the glory of a court, or tarnished by the vulgarity of a slum. The gambler, lottery player,
whether he wear the purple, broadcloth, or corduroy, is a thief in the sight of
God, and ought, therefore, to be so in the sight of all honest men.
The 8th commandment is, moreover, violated by all such as
enrich themselves by means that rob their fellowmen of the inalienable rights
of human beings. The wealth that is tarnished by a death-rate higher than is
necessary is ill-gotten gains, and they who spend their days in the enjoyment
of such wealth are branded in the light of the perfect law of God as
thieves-thieves, indeed, by the side of whom Bill Sykes, the burglar, is a
hero, for in the prosecution of his unlawful practices he risks his life; but
these men risk nothing but the lives of their fellow-creatures.
The 8th commandment is broken again and again every day within
the great realm of capital and labor. How often today the words of James might
be quoted with advantage: "Behold,
the hire of the laborers . . . which is of you kept back by fraud, cries out;
and the cries . . . have entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabbath."
(James 5:4) It is lamentable, but
equally true, that many a working man robs his master in that he withholds his
fair share of honest labor, while he takes his wage. To capital and labor the 8th
commandment has a double message. First, a fair day's wage for a fair day's
work; and, secondly, a fair day's work for a fair day's wage.
Principles apply to individuals and to nations with equal force. This
being so, this 8th word of the Decalogue is a severe denunciation of the false
imperialism which is growingly manifest through all the nations of the world.
Strong peoples have, without cause, stolen the land of the weaker. Weak nations
have been handed over to the control of new powers without reference to their
own rights, and to the wrong of those so dealt with. It would be a humiliating
business for men of many countries to quietly sit down, and examine the history
of their own nation in the light of this great word.
Those who pray "Thy kingdom
come" should consistently act in the light of this commandment by
recognizing the right every man has to the things bestowed upon him as gifts,
and those which he has earned by toil, and should have no complicity with any
form of violating this principle of morality. The communion of the Church is
that of love, not of theft, and within the borders of the kingdom the command
is as binding as ever-"Thou shalt
not steal."
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