Q75. What is forbidden in the eighth commandment?
A. The eighth commandment forbiddeth whatsoever doth, or may, unjustly hinder our own, or our neighbor’s, wealth, or outward estate.
Overt Theft
To steal from man is to steal from God. This follows by resistless logic, those two premises about moral law being from the first, and the image of God being the basic object. But it also follows from that third premise about stewardship. Because stealing does not just grasp from an individual image of God what God has given to that image, but in the grasping, the Master-steward relationship has been invaded. God is the Master in that Parable of the Talents, who has gone “on the journey” (v. 14). In every scrap of private property, God Almighty is conducting business operations, and the looters have presumed to break into heaven’s stores, because heaven has franchised on earth in private property, with God’s glory being the ultimate profit at stake.
Just as we saw with murder (the unjust taking of life), so with theft (the unjust taking of property)—if it is wrong for the individual to do, then it is also wrong for the individual to incentivize someone else to do, whether 1. by payment or 2. by vote or 3. by persuasion. Likewise, if it is wrong for an individual to do, then it follows that it is also wrong for a group to form into a mob and steal.
But from these two deductions, two premises form for another conclusion. If what it is wrong for the individual is wrong to transfer to some other actor; and if it is wrong for the group in the same way it is wrong for the individual, then it must also follow that it is wrong for the group force that has been incentivized to steal, or for the group to incentivize the individual to join in with group theft.
What logically follows from this is that socialism—or any Statist policy of violent redistributionism (whatever name we want to give to it)—would be the most violent transgression of the eighth commandment. No violence at the fruit can help but sever at the root. Which is why all the warnings about Saul collecting gold also included Israel’s daughters, and it’s why in order to seize Naboth’s vineyard, Ahab ultimately had to spill Naboth’s blood.
This is clearest when it comes to “enslavers” (1 Tim. 1:10), which was already forbidden in the Mosaic law: “Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found sin possession of him, shall be put to death” (Ex. 21:16). Now critics of the Bible are quick to poit to the distinction between enslaving captives from the Canaanites versus Israelites: “If a man is found stealing one of his brothers of the people of Israel, and if he treats him as a slave or sells him, then that thief shall die” (Deut. 24:7). It would take a separate study to show the overall biblical teaching on slavery. But for our purposes, it is sufficient to at least show that to steal a man is to own his life and, theoretically, without any other restraint, subject the slave to murder at the whim of the owner. So follow the logic—
Premise 1. You cannot own a person (absolutely) without having full power to end his life.
Premise 2. You cannot own all extensions of a person (property) without owning the person (absolutely).
Conclusion. Therefore, you cannot own all extensions of a person (property), without having full power to end his life.
The law of Moses recognizes the connection between the eighth commandment and the sixth even on the level of the individual, where right after the four or five fold repayment in Ex. 22:1, verses 2 and 3 go on to say,
“If a thief is found breaking in and is struck so that he dies, there shall be no bloodguilt for him, but if the sun has risen on him, there shall be bloodguilt for him. He shall surely pay. If he has nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft.”
Notice the logic between just killing versus murder there in that distinction about night versus sunrise. That’s an ancient way of distinguishing between malice of forethought versus real fear of life and therefore legitimate self-defense.
Brakel lists seven kinds of theft considered in terms of the object of theft: “1) ecclesiastical theft, 2) the theft of men, 3) the defrauding of the nation, 4) the theft of cattle, 5) the theft of property, 6) armed robbery, and 7) to be the accomplice of thieves.”1 Naturally any and all of these can be done by the collective force, and all the more so by the state. Hodge counteracts this:
“The law of the land has indeed legitimately much to do with questions of property; but the right itself does not rest upon that law, and is, in the sight of God, independent of it. The right exists prior to all law of the state. The law cannot ignore that right. It cannot rightfully deprive a man of his property, except in punishment of crime, or on the grounds of stringent necessity, and, in the latter case, with due compensation.”2
Here again we can see that the Reformed theologians of the past spoke in the same way about natural rights as did classical liberals such as Locke or Bastiat.
Covert Theft
Again, the Heidelberg Catechism compares very well with our answer here. Question 110 asks: What does God forbid in the eighth commandment? Answer:
“Not only such theft and robbery as are punished by the magistrate; but God views as theft all wicked tricks and devices, whereby we seek to draw to ourselves our neighbor’s goods, whether by force or with show of right, such as unjust weights, ells, measures, wares, coins, usury, or any means forbidden of God; so moreover all covetousness, and all useless waste of His gifts.”
This answer distinguishes between what we are calling overt theft and covert kinds: “Not only such theft and robbery as are punished by the magistrate; but God views as theft all wicked tricks and devices.” In other words, even if you can get away with it by the letter of civil law as it presently is, God sees it for what it is.
The secret kind of theft is called fraud, or in biblical language, the unequal scales: “A false balance is an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is his delight” (Prov. 11:1). God delights in something as “materialistic” as equal measurements in money and exchange? Correction—if God delights in it, you can bet it was his own glory he is delighting in. Therefore it is not “materialistic,” but all material is about him; or else you’re the one with an idol of neutrality! We do what we do in economic exchange, or in viewing other people’s goods, always because of what it says about God. But there are other kinds. To take a few that Brakel mentions,
“there is the withholding or reduction of wages. ‘Behold, the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth’ (Jas. 5:4) … there is purchasing on credit, while knowing all along that one either will not or cannot pay … ‘The wicked borroweth, and payeth not again’ (Psa. 37:21) … there is the establishing of a monopoly; that is, the conspiring of some to have the market to themselves, especially if they do this relative to grain and other edible commodities, not selling them below such an excessive price. ‘He that withholdeth corn, the people shall curse him’ (Prov. 11:26).”3
Not only is there an overt-and-covert distinction, but also between force and a fraud that is feigned “justice”. So it is, “whereby we seek to draw to ourselves our neighbor’s goods, whether by force or with show of right.” By this “show of right,” the Catechism obviously means an intentional fraud, a farce, a deception. And of course the more elaborate such a deception is, and the greater the threat, the more greatly this commandment has been violated. This is the great perversion of “social justice,” which comes to mean theft of property for the end of more equitable distribution of goods, as the group (or its planners) define sufficient equity. Since the past is seen as oppressive and property theft, it is natural for statists to support looting the property of a dead man. The “death tax,” as it has been called, is the means by which fathers are punished for being faithful at passing on an inheritance. But this is to steal from a family line. The Bible says, “Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set” (Prov. 22:28).
But supposing that the State has exceeded its proper bounds here as well. It is objected by many that the Bible gives us no recourse to censure the State. But this is false. Consider the reply of John the Baptist to two different civil officials.
“Tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, ‘Teacher, what shall we do?’ And he said to them, ‘Collect no more than you are authorized to do.’ Soldiers also asked him, ‘And we, what shall we do?’ And he said to them, ‘Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages’” (Lk. 3:12-14).
Traitor Jewish tax collectors and bloody Roman occupiers seemed to have a higher respect for the authority of God’s church than American Christians do. That needs to change. But these two kinds of civil officers came to John the Baptist to find out what the limits are on the state with respect to private property.
Vertical Theft
There are certain items that the Reformed tradition has called unjust in this area that Christians who are more libertarian struggle with. I will not treat this exhaustively. However, in the Larger Catechism, under the duties required in the eighth commandment (Q.141), is included:
“giving and lending freely, according to our abilities, and the necessities of others; moderation of our judgments, wills, and affections, concerning worldly goods.”
The libertarian objection is that while this may be required by moral law (perhaps under the Golden Rule), to include it under the eighth commandment confuses justice with charity in the same way that leftists utilize the concept of “social justice.” This implies that the money given freely (as an act of charity), from one who has to one who has not, is essentially a rememdy—that is was owed the recipient, and was his by right. If that was the intent of the authors of the Catechism, then I would agree with the criticism. However, this category of “vertical theft,” that the act of theft was a violation (in this case) of God more directly of how He would have us use our goods, then no such confusion arises.
This is foundational to the tithe. “Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and contributions” (Mal. 3:8). The prophets spoke of God shaking up the nations by the coming of Christ, so that the wealth of nations comes pouring into the church for use in his kingdom (cf. Hag. 2:6-9). But it is Christ’s gospel that does that shaking, so that the acts are always most voluntary, as Paul says: “Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Cor. 9:7).
Likewise with gambling, or “wasteful gaming” (WLC, Q.142).
In some pushback, it is objected that investment in stocks is no different. They are both risked money. But this is a massive equivocation. There is a spectrum of risk taking: from sound investment to recreational gambling. Relatively speaking, every act a finite subject takes in life involves varying degrees of risk. That is simply not the same thing as making sport of it. The end of the answer to Heidelberg Q.110 helps us here in the words, “all useless waste of His gifts,” or as another translation has it: “POINTLESS SQUANDERING” of his gifts. As skydiving is to the sixth commandment, so is gambling to the eighth. What is the point? It is pointless. It is done for a thrill or some rush or until, finally, one is addicted.
We will only add one more angle on the CIVIL USE. Leaving aside the questions of taxes per se, we can at least say that systems of taxation that are punitive, progressive, regressive, or monetary policy that inflates currencies (which is the modern form of UNJUST WEIGHTS), are all forms of theft. The biggest part of the reason has to do with the relationship between the tenth commandment with the eighth, but there are other reasons as well. Granted, this isn’t an economics class, but since I have taught that, I would commend you to those resources. But Deuteronomy 25:13-14 lays down the law for the unequal scales. Inflation by fiat currency and multinationals buying up land to drive up housing prices and starve out a people by the seizure and destruction of crops—all of which is now increasing across the West—is mass theft and signals the absence of legitimate government.
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1. Brakel, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, III:215.
2. Hodge, Systematic Theology, III:423.
3. Brakel, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, III:221.
