THE fifth commandment, "Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee" (Ex. 20:12), set forth a fundamental rule with wide implications, including the promise that when obeyed the commandment would assure the reward of long years of active service in the land assigned by God to the children of Israel.
Here, surely, is a law demanding honor not only to our human parents but also to our heavenly Parent, whose loving care was eloquently indicated in the Psalmist's words (Ps. 27:10), "When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up." This commandment emphasizes the necessity and joyous results of honoring God. When Jesus was addressing the young man who asked for counsel in his longing to have eternal life, the fifth commandment was one which the Master especially commended as leading to the desired goal (see Matt. 19:19).
The Master himself fulfilled his obligations to this commandment in both of its basic aspects. His love for his mother and his loyalty to her and to Joseph are partly indicated in the statement that, as a boy, "he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them" (Luke 2:51). Later, at his crucifixion, he delivered his mother to the special care of "the disciple . . . whom he loved" (John 19:26), generally considered to be John.
However, in his consistent stress on and personal practice of this commandment, Christ Jesus never lost sight of its deeper meaning. The Gospels make plain that his Father in heaven was constantly in his thought; and when any conflict of interest might appear to arise, he always took his stand for implicit obedience to this Parent.
Even when he was a lad of twelve, Jesus recognized that his Father's demands upon him took precedence over the opinion of Mary and Joseph that instead of remaining to learn and to teach in the temple at Jerusalem, following the Passover feast which they all had attended, he should have set out for home with them without delay. His response came in these memorable words (Luke 2:49): "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?"
The determined stand which he took against the importunate demands of his family, and against the claims of human heredity through his mother, was further evidenced by his conviction that his true relatives were not necessarily blood relations but rather his disciples, who sought earnestly to obey their heavenly Father, honoring Him practically by accepting His spiritual demands. Thus we read in Mark (3:33) that Jesus asked, "Who is my mother, or my brethren?" adding, "Whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother."
Two of Jesus' statements closely associated with the fifth commandment often tend to confuse readers of the King James Version. In Luke (14:26) he appears to insist on his followers hating their parents; but in the original Greek, the verb rendered "hate" often meant "to love less," the point being that loyalty to God must exceed loyalty even to one's parents. Then in Mark (7:10-13) the Master accuses the Pharisees and the scribes of evading the commandment by permitting men to claim falsely that monetary support due to their parents was Corban (an Aramaic word meaning strictly "vowed or dedicated to God"). In other words, by pretending that the money due for the support of their parents was dedicated to God, men made void the fifth commandment.
In no respect did the Master ignore this commandment, which so clearly demands the practice of honoring one's parents, although he insisted that God, the heavenly Parent of all, must come first in every case.
