“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which Yahweh your God is giving you” (Exodus 20:12, NKJV).
The key word in this commandment is “honour.” But the Hebrew word kawbad, which is translated as the word “honour,” actually means something different. The Hebrew word commands us to keep the physical and spiritual well-being of our parents as a weighty consideration or very high priority in our lives. But, in the English language, especially with the carryover of all the past pagan Roman connotations, the word “honour” does not accurately convey this concept in any way. In the pagan world, especially among Romans, a father merely owned his wife and children, and he was to be called the “lord” of the children or addressed as “sir.” Esteem was what pagans considered to be the “honouring” of a father or parent. But it is not what God intended this fifth commandment to mean.
Only a humanistic world view esteems human beings, not biblical Judaism nor biblical Christianity. But, after the pagan influence of Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome, the corrupted church of Israel began to teach children to honour their parents by holding a high opinion of them, by showing great respect and esteem for them, whether or not those parents were actually honourable and respectful in reality, whether or not the spirits and lives of their parents ever actually were faithful to God. And it is obvious that most parents are very ordinary souls with blind and dumb spirits, who walk according to their flesh and know nothing about the real God or His ways. The spirits of most elect parents seem to be almost entirely asleep, unable to know or do what is right or pleasing to God. And some are evil, vile souls born of the devil, with awakened spirits that actively seek to please only Satan himself. So, does God really want us to “honour,” to highly esteem such wilful, unrepentant sinners? Does our true, just, pure, God want us to force ourselves to believe lies about our parents if they are not even remotely worthy of any honour? Must we create a delusional high opinion of our parents in our minds, so we can obey this fifth commandment? And will Jesus fulfill these fifth-order laws in us and through us by causing us to believe lies? No! But Jesus wants us to always be just and loving.
How is it just or righteous to lie to ourselves, to delude ourselves into thinking truly bad parents are good and worthy of “honour,” if they surely are not good? My own father was a bully who terrorized and beat his wife and children, who was selfish and superficial to the core, who lied, slandered and connived so he could always get his own way, who even caused the death and imprisonment of the innocent. Should I “honour” this? However, until the day he died, I strove to do what is right, to speak the truth to him and about him, then tried to ensure that he was physically cared for even while he wanted me dead. And this was a high priority of mine, lest the name of Jesus might be slandered.
Since all God-like love is built on a foundation of pure reality, verity and truth, how can we ever truly love our parents if we build a relationship with them upon a total lie? Now it is true that Jesus causes us to love with grace and mercy, knowing that we ourselves are weak and sinful just like all other souls, where we cherish many beloved souls, and regard them as very valuable to both our God Jesus and to us. But this love is never built on a lie, by calling the bad “good” and “honourable” if they are not truly “good” and “honourable” in reality. All human beings are actually sinners in God's eyes, even the very best of parents. Some parents are indeed a lot better than others, but no parents are actually worthy of any true “honour.” God Himself has declared literally all of them to be sinners worthy of hell. So God want us to revere and esteem all parents blindly, did not want us to lie about them, refusing to see these ordinary sinners for they truly are in reality. Therefore it is absolutely certain that the verb “honour,” as it is defined in English dictionaries, is not the correct translation of the verb kawbad used in this fifth commandment. So what verb or verb phrase should we use here?
A better translation of this fifth commandment might be: “Give weighty consideration to the just and loving treatment of your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that Yahweh your God is giving you.” Also, we need to remember that we have only limited amounts of time, energy and resources. So we must prioritize all we do for others. So, among our parents, which one should be our highest priority? To whom should we grant our weightiest considerations? Well, we all have three parents: the Father of our spirits, the father of our flesh and the mother of our flesh. And it is clearly the Father of our eternal spirits, our perfectly holy and loving God, the wisest of all fathers, who should be granted the greatest weight of all our considerations in life. Our heavenly Father is always the first and foremost of all fathers, since our biological fathers only give us temporary flesh and temporary things of the flesh. After Him, if God calls our spirits help and serve either of our earthly parents, according to their needs, or offer any kind of dignity and respect to them, we can do that. And the only way to bring any genuine, God-endorsed “honour” to our biological parents will be through “honouring” and serving our heavenly Father first and foremost, through a loving, true, honest faithfulness to Jesus and to His words, as much as it depends on us. Then, when people see our lives sanctified by Jesus, they might say, “That one's father and mother did something right!”
This fifth commandment stands above all the five commandments below it. Therefore, obeying the fifth-order laws are a higher priority in God’s eyes than all the other orders of laws listed below this. The breaking of this archetypal commandment is worse than murder, sexual immorality, theft, lying and covetousness. For the fifth-order laws do not merely prohibit sins against human beings, but also prohibits all general sins against our heavenly Father Himself. Because God Himself is the Father of all elect spirits, the Father of all fathers, these fifth-order laws tell us to maintain our relationship with God Himself. They command each elect soul to “give weighty consideration to the just and loving treatment of your Father God,” as your first and foremost priority in life. And, of course, all sins against human beings are actually sins against God, because God created and owns all human beings. Thus, we also must “give weighty consideration to the just and loving treatment” of our own parents, of all other human beings, and of all God’s creations, in order to treat our Father God in a just and loving way. And this is why the fifth-order laws stand above the last five orders of laws. For, if we truly obey His fifth-order laws, then we will also obey all the laws listed below these fifthorder laws. If we prioritize our just and loving treatment of God above all else, we will not murder, will not exploit other flesh for sexual gratification, will not steal any physical or spiritual entity that belongs to God, will not slander and will not covet Satan’s rewards for the wicked in his world order.
The last five orders of God’s laws are all pertaining to our intentions toward other human beings. And, because our behaviours toward animals, plants and God’s inanimate creations will invariably affect other human beings as well, the last five orders of God’s laws also include His commands to “tend” the garden of His earth and “name” all living entities (that is, to take responsibility for all life on earth). Then the first five of the Ten Commandments, and all the first five orders of God’s laws, pertain to our intentions toward God. They legislate against sins against God Himself, although the fifth-order laws also prohibit sins against human parents. The first four of the Ten Commandments all prohibit sins directly against God alone, and do not legislate against any kind of sins that directly involve human beings—though sins against the first four orders of God’s laws always and invariably will negatively affect the lives of human beings, and often result in the unjust murder of many souls. On the other hand, a perfect fulfillment of God’s intended meaning of the first four orders of His laws will invariably result in a perfect fulfillment of the last six orders of God’s laws as well. For, if we truly love and rightly serve our God, in all His wisdom and through His power, we will always do what is right, just and loving for all of His creations. We need to fully understand this, if we want to comprehend God’s laws, and realize the reason for God prioritizing some laws more than others.
Now let us very carefully consider such things, since so much pagan nonsense has been taught about God’s Ten Commandments. Think about this. Why did God place this commandment, telling us to bear a weighty consideration of our words and deeds regarding our parents, in the fifth position on the list of His priorities regarding what He would teach us about life and faith? Why did He place these fifth-order laws as a higher priority than the five orders of laws below it, making the spiritual and physical consideration of our parents’ needs a higher priority than avoiding sins against other human beings and His physical creations? Why is it more important to weigh the true needs of our parents than it is to avoid murder, sexual immorality, theft, lying and covetousness? Well, if we interpret God’s fifth-order laws correctly, we soon realize that this fifth commandment tells us how we should generally behave throughout life, from the time of our birth to the day our parents die, and forever after that. It is telling us that we should speak and act in a way that produces a good opinion of our parents, including the Father of our elect spirits, regarding everything we say and do in our entire lives. If we live a godly, just and righteously loving life, by making all that our heavenly Father requires our first priority in life, then our earthly parents will receive a good opinion from the other God-fearing, honest souls as well. They will be “honoured,” if a humanist wants to call it that. If we live in such a way, it will bring true “honour” to our parents, so others might think our parents did something right in giving birth to us and raising us. So let us do what is “honourable” and right. But, above all, we need to bring “honour” to our heavenly Father, by living a life which truly fulfills all the other five commandments below this one. And the only way we can do this is in Jesus. If anyone wants to bring true “honour” to one’s parents, and obey this fifth commandment, one must also obey the other five commandments below this one, whether or not one’s parents want one to obey those other five commandments. Surely, if any parent is shamed by a child who tells the truth and obeys the ninth-order laws of God, that child is still obeying the fifth-order laws in God’s eyes.
This commandment also proves that God made family life central to all that we do in life. Consider how this fifth commandment legislates the child’s relationship with the nuclear family’s parents, and the living parents of those parents, and one’s living great grandparents, then, ultimately, the living father of the child’s spirit. Consider how it is absolutely necessary for parents to teach their children about life. A child’s foundational perception of life, in one’s mind of flesh, is basically established by the time a child is about four years old, and almost irreversibly etched upon one’s brain of flesh by the time the child is about twelve years old. And this is primarily accomplished by one’s parents and extended family, by those who raise the child during the formative years. Then the principal mind of a child, the mind of one’s spirit, also has its perception of life shaped and established by the father of that spirit. If God is the Father of that child’s spirit, God will continuously shape and establish the views and perceptions of the mind of that child’s spirit. If Satan is the father of that child’s spirit, he will either entirely neglect the child’s spirit, letting the child develop almost entirely materialistic views and live exclusively according to the mind of flesh, or will teach that child’s spirit to murder, exploit, steal, lie and covet, delude that spirit into thinking it is a god who can do whatever it wants.
Now consider again how this fifth commandment stands above the five commandments regarding murder, sexual immorality, theft, lying and covetousness, and how the secular laws of most lands strive to regulate, control or eliminate murder, sexual immorality, theft, lying and covetousness. Tax laws and law suits seeking financial compensation for losses, damages or suffering, strive to fulfill God’s tenth-order prohibitions against covetousness, and try to force the covetous to share wealth with those whom they have treated unjustly, to bring about some equality. Then states have laws against slander, bearing false testimonies, theft, exploitation for sexual gratification, and endangering or killing others through negligence or malicious motives. But they have very few laws, and rightly so, that forbid citizens to make the consideration of our heavenly Father’s requirements, or even our earthly parents’ needs, to be our highest priorities in life. And we have no secular laws, and rightly so, that command us to obey the first four orders of His laws: (1) to make all decisions according to God’s will, (2) to worship no false gods, (3) to teach the truth about what God has said so we do not abuse His name, and (4) to do His works in the ways revealed by His Sabbath laws. Think about this. Why do Christian democracies refuse to make secular laws enforcing the first five orders of God’s laws? The reason is obvious. All God’s laws are ultimately spiritual, ultimately obeyed by the spirit. But only the last five orders of God’s laws can be obeyed by the flesh, in outward appearances. Only the first five orders of God’s laws must be entirely obeyed by the spirit, and any attempt to enforce these first five orders through the flesh will only result in extreme hypocrisy. For all of the first five orders of God’s laws require God Himself, the Holy Spirit of Jesus, to awaken an elect spirit, then teach and train each individual elect spirit to know and apply these first five orders of God’s laws.
Finally, think about how God created the first family through Adam and Eve, and how God has called all the members of His church of Israel “brothers” and “sisters” ever since, even the Gentiles from the most distant lands, after He gathers them into His priesthood. God treats all the elect as His children of His family, no matter what physical race they might come from. So, based on these final considerations, we need to admit that all governments, cultures, societies, corporate bodies and other groups of people must relate to each other as family members, as brothers and sisters who should make weighty considerations regarding the treatment of their “parents,” who need to prioritize those considerations above the considerations of the other “children.” And their common parents are Adam and Eve, who are the parents of all parents, who still live, though not in bodies of flesh. So let them weigh the needs of Adam and Eve more than the fathers of their races. Above all, let all always act in a just and loving way that pleases or “honours” the Father of all spirits, much more than anyone else.
If we give our weightiest considerations and first priorities to the words and will of the Father of our elect spirits, who speaks through Jesus and His Holy Spirit, we begin to fulfill all the other laws of God by default, spontaneously, straight from the heart, not by our flesh striving to obey laws. If our hearts take Christ’s wisdom our highest priority, we wage war against murder, sexual immorality, theft, lies and covetousness. All our righteousness, all our just and loving ways, begin in our spirits dwelling in our flesh. And only our spirits are familiar with God, who is a Spirit. Only our spirits trust and build family homes. While an understanding of just love may come from elect parents who build a family life, all love originates from the heavenly Father of our spirits. Even if humanists will insist that we should bring “honour” to our biological parents, the only real “honour” they could ever receive through us is if we fulfill all that God’s Law commands, with regards to other human beings and God Himself. God created the biological family so we might learn the ways He commanded and ordained. God created the biological extended family in the image of His eternal family, the church.
Although biological extended families existed on earth before the true church, God created His children, His family of elect spirits, in the beginning, in heavenly time before earthly time. For God's Word tells us that Jesus, our oldest Brother, “was in the beginning with God” (John 1:2, ESV). Jesus was before the earth was. And so were we. Time in heaven is not like time on earth, not linear and not predestined. It is almost like our memory and our imaginations, but with greater flexibility, so we can pass through heavenly time in any direction and actually modify events as needed, with God in all time. But all time on earth exists simultaneously and immutably, from beginning to end. So, although all our spirits are actually created at the moment of our conception on earth, Jesus created them in heaven before time on earth began. And Jesus, our oldest Brother, is one Person of the one God, not created, but merely relating to us as Jesus, yet also as our Father and as His Spirit within us at the same time—since both earthly and heavenly time are His creations and He is not bound by either kinds of time, not limited to being in one place at one time. So the members of His church are family. All are “brothers” and “sisters” in Jesus. Or much younger members may be called our own children, our sons and daughters. Yet this is precisely why the devil strives to destroy family life, to turn our governments and all bodies of people into cold, ruthless, unjust institutions ruled by selfserving, greedy, power-hungry psychopaths at the top, by “parents” like himself, who only oppress, exploit and destroy souls in their care. Satan does not want heads of “families” to sacrificially, justly and lovingly care for everyone’s needs, like parents of their own beloved children, nor sacrifice their lives for their children. The devil is cunning, and knows that, if he destroys family life, he can lure people into loveless sins against all God’s laws, with greater ease, and create a ruthless hell on earth.
The fifth-order laws—when rightly interpreted in the ways God interpreted and applied them in real history, in the ways He manifested their right interpretations through His words and actions for and upon the real lives of His elect children—are a bridge between the commandments regarding sins directly against God and the sins against human beings. For this fifth commandment not only refers to our earthly parents, but also to God, the Father of our spirits. If we do not begin to consider the words and requirements of our heavenly Father as our highest priority in life, even much more than those of our earthly parents, we are lost. First let us seek to make all our considerations of Him and His words the most weighty considerations and priorities of our lives. For any lack of consideration will negatively affect our lives and all His people too. Moses declared, “Is He not your Father, who bought you? Has He not made you and established you?” (Deut. 32:6, NKJV). From the beginning, God's people have always known that their spirits’ Creator is their Father. And when He and His words are prioritized above all people and all things, our lives grow far more just and loving. So this fifth commandment is primarily about prioritizing our considerations for our heavenly Father, God.
But look at how Satan tempts the elect. He begins by causing them to covet something, so their greed or lust of the flesh will steer the course of their whole lives towards that coveted thing, so they will waste their very limited time on earth in pursuit of that meaningless, worthless thing. In doing so, they forfeit all the good food for their spirits, all that their heavenly Father destined them to love and experience, all the works they could have done for their family’s benefit through a love joyfully flowing from their hearts. Naturally, we should not forget to maintain a weighty consideration of our human parents as well. For this can also help us to build a good and loving life. And Jesus said this fifth commandment also means we must not curse nor cause harm to our parents, but we should try to care for them in their old age (Mark 7:10-13). And this may sometimes involve obedience to our parents. But earthly parents do not always follow God's will, and do not always ask their children to do God's will. Yet our ultimate responsibility is to obey God, who is our first Father. God our Father bears the greatest authority over us all, as the Father of all mankind, as the Father of all our fathers.
So, above all, all “honour” must be directed towards our heavenly Father. Our spirits strive to fulfill the principles taught by our loving, wise, heavenly Father as our first priority. Our Father’s will is to be done on earth as it is in heaven, and His will always overrides the wills of any human parents or human lords acting as fathers in governments, churches, businesses or any other group of people who should be a family caring for each other. Now we must love our God in a joyful relationship, as our loving Father, whose love is totally unconditional and eternally assured. Our spirits can speak to our God as happy children talking to their familiar Father, as children living in the family home, as children who trust their Father’s wise counsel, and know their Father is always ready to listen and always willing to help us in our need. If we “honour” our heavenly Father first, through the truth found in His Word, as it is worked in us and through us by Jesus Christ’s Holy Spirit, God will indeed grant us a long life in His land. In fact, He will surely give us eternal life through His human body, His Son, through Christ’s work on the cross to enable His workmanship in us and through us.
None but God can grant us a long life, even everlasting life. And this commandment indicates that, if we give weighty consideration to the needs of our parents—first our heavenly Father, then biological parents, then our “fathers” and “mothers” who teach, nurture and build up our land—this will please God and He will grant us a long life “upon the land which Yahweh your God is giving” us. Those who justly, wisely and lovingly guide, instruct and set examples for us in our homes, work places, lands and governments need to be understood, cherished, protected, housed and fed, so they can do their works for us, so peace and unity can be maintained in the land, so we may move forward and not fall back into chaos and self-destruction. God grants us numerous “fathers” and “mothers” of many different kinds, each with various strengths and weaknesses, to teach, train and gather us into a people that might effectively serve God’s creations in truth. Then, as we rightly and effectively serve our God’s land and people in truth, doing His works on earth, this will result in us living longer lives.
Logically, this implies that we must give our weightiest and most highly prioritized considerations to our Father God, who is the only Power able to grant us a longer life, the only Owner and Giver of the “land” in which live. If we please our wisest, holiest and most just Father in heaven, as our first and foremost priority, more than we please our earthly parents or anyone else, if we seek to know and understand Him and His words above all others, we will learn to make right decisions and will live long upon any land over which He grants us stewardship. The promise of long days in God’s land forces us to conclude that the only way we can ever bring any kind of real “honour” to any of our earthly parents is by living lives that our heavenly Father deems to be “honourable,” by seeking the counsel and wisdom of our loving God, by letting our spirits be trained and strengthened in His ways. There is actually no way to “honour” our earthly fathers by calling them by a title like “sir,” while they do evil, while they destroy lives, while they either ignore God or slander His name. For, if earthly parents want their children to give them worldly and superficial “honour,” while their lives are offensive to the Father of all souls, let both those earthly parents and their children know that God has only promised to grant a short life of condemnation and punishment to the wicked, ending in death and eternity in hell. God never promised to grant a long life to worldly sinners, whether or not those loveless souls respect and “honour” their wicked parents. Only a life of just love pleases our Father God and carries His promise of long life in His land. And this promise of a long life in God’s land is actually a symbolic promise of eternal life in His land of heaven. So how can the fifthorder laws be merely about children showing superficial “honour” for ignorant, worldly parents who oppose God’s will, who turn the children away from the destinies ordained by their heavenly Father?
This fifth commandment further connotes that this “honour” for parents also involves gratefulness to God. God’s Word tells us that He owns the land and grants only a temporary stewardship of His land to whomever He wills, through grace alone. Thus, no flesh can ever truly own their own land, and no one has a right to do whatever they want with their land. So, as parents and children live on God’s land, let them show gratitude to God, their Father, the real Owner. Then God's Word also tells us that God’s grace puts the spirit of life in every soul, and later takes that life away again, whenever He wills. God also chooses our parents, although He does not allow every child to live with one’s own biological parents. Conversely, no parent owns their children, and no parent has any right to counsel and direct their child’s life in the way they personally choose. All their choices must come from God and must be ratified by God. And, since God is a Spirit, God only speaks to the spirits of the parents.
Thus, all parents must ensure that their own spirits are awake, alert and listening to the Holy Spirit of our God Jesus, whom our heavenly Father has sent to counsel them, concerning their children and everything else. Since this commandment is worded in a way which distinctly seems to connote an “honour” that can only exist through a spirit’s personal and weighty consideration of the heavenly Father’s requirements, an “honour” that can only be transferred by children to their earthly parents if those children are truly “honourable” in God’s eyes—and since Jesus will only cause a child to be deemed “honourable” if the child fulfills God’s just and loving ways, or parents become His faithful agents in assisting children to become “honourable” in His eyes—both the children and parents must give all glory and honour to God alone. This means parents must take no honour for themselves. So earthly fathers should not be called “sir,” but can be called by what they are, such as “dads.” And this includes the fathers of all other families, like churches. If Jesus works in our lives, all will be well. If Jesus does not build up holy, just, loving spirits in parents and children, nothing can ever save them.
Next we may ask why God gave this commandment to the children and not to the parents. Well, the first and most obvious reason is because God is the Father of all spirits. He gave this command to the children because He considers the spirits of both the biological children and their biological parents to be His children. Considering the context—where this follows immediately after the first four of the Ten Commandments, which are all about each individual’s relationship to God—we are forced to conclude that this is a commandment exhorting each individual elect child of God to give a weighty consideration to all the requirements of God their Father. The fifth-order laws also include numerous commandments and prohibitions for parents too. But this archetypal fifth commandment, which represents all family laws, specifically addresses the children, not the parents. Thus, it implies that our behaviour does not depend entirely on our parents or our environment. That is, all people have spirits, and our behaviour is ultimately affected by the non-material influences upon our spirits. The way our parents raise our bodies of flesh, rightly or wrongly, may have very significant effects upon the way we behave. But upbringing and education are not the only causes of our behaviour, nor the biggest influences. Our behaviour clearly does not depend too much upon genetics either. We do not become good or evil based on the way our parents raise us, nor do we become good or evil based on good or evil genes inherited from parents. Ultimately, our behaviours depend most upon how much our spirits give weighty consideration to the words and desires of the just and loving Spirit who is the Father of our spirits. Here God commands children to weigh considerations for one’s biological parents too, but especially for the Father of their elect spirits, who is every elect soul’s principal and most influential Parent. Thus, the fifth commandment commands us to place a lower priority on the things our earthly parents want, and a lower priority on our physical influences, than we place on the words and counsel of the Father of our spirits. The “genetics” of our spirits is most important. If we heed our Father in heaven, and realize that He put a propensity to love in our spirits, as He created them, then we can break free from any negative influences of a bad upbringing or bad family genes.
Certainly, the fifth-order laws of God clearly instruct parents to raise their children in right ways as well. So we do not forget this, even though it is the personal relationship of our spirits with our God and Father that is of primary importance. Yet a parent’s relationship with one’s heavenly Father is the only thing that can make a parent’s nurturing, guidance, teaching and training of one’s child be truly effective in producing just and loving results. And our heavenly Father is our only perfect example of how parenting should be done. Just as our heavenly Father is always ready to teach our spirits, God also commanded this to all fathers: “You shall teach [God’s words] diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise” (Deut. 6:7, ESV). But our lives do not depend entirely upon our parents. Each individual’s life depends on the spirit’s relationship with God. If this were not true, this fifth commandment would have been given to the parents and not to the children. If God addressed only the parents, then we might conclude that the welfare of each child and the whole of the land, the well-being of our nations and the whole world, actually