The Ten Commandments| G. Campbell Morgan 

About the Book: 

The Teaching of Christ by G. Campbell Morgan, D.D. is a rich, thoughtful, and deeply reverent exploration of what Jesus actually taught. Rather than treating Christ’s words as scattered sayings or isolated moral lessons, Morgan presents them as a living, coherent, and authoritative revelation—one that speaks to the deepest questions of life, truth, God, the Kingdom, human nature, discipleship, judgment, redemption, and eternal hope.

What makes this book so compelling is Morgan’s unusual combination of spiritual warmth, biblical seriousness, and intellectual clarity. He is not content with surface-level reflection. He listens carefully to the words of Christ, traces their inner unity, and helps readers see how profoundly they speak not only to theology, but to everyday life. Again and again, the book brings us back to the central conviction that the teaching of Jesus is not optional, secondary, or merely inspirational—it is foundational.

This is a book that invites slow reading. It rewards meditation. It challenges the mind, stirs the conscience, and strengthens faith. Morgan writes with the gravity of one who believes that Christ’s words are not passing opinions, but enduring truth. At the same time, his writing carries a pastoral force that makes the book spiritually searching rather than merely academic.

Why This Book Is Worth Reading

One of the great strengths of The Teaching of Christ is its focus. Morgan keeps the reader close to Jesus Himself. He does not get lost in unnecessary speculation. He returns again and again to the actual words of Christ and asks what they reveal. That gives the book a freshness and spiritual weight that many readers will find deeply refreshing.

The book is also remarkable for the breadth of its vision. It helps readers see that Christ’s teaching touches every part of life: our understanding of God, our moral choices, our relationships, our view of the Kingdom, our calling, and our final accountability before Him. It does not present Christianity as a vague sentiment, but as a life ordered under the rule of Christ.

Readers who appreciate serious Christian classics will especially value the book’s depth. Morgan does not simplify the truth into slogans. He thinks carefully, argues reverently, and writes with conviction. Yet for all its substance, the book remains devotional in spirit. It is the kind of book that can be studied with a pencil in hand and a prayerful heart.

Who Should Read This Book?

This book is especially well suited for readers who want to go deeper in their understanding of Jesus and His message. It will be valuable to pastors, teachers, Bible study leaders, theology students, and thoughtful Christians who want more than brief devotional thoughts. It is also an excellent choice for readers who love classic Christian writing and want a serious, Christ-centered work that remains spiritually relevant.

Those who are asking questions such as What did Jesus really teach? How should His words shape life today? What is the meaning of the Kingdom of God? What does Christ reveal about God, man, salvation, and judgment? will find this book richly rewarding.

It is also a meaningful book for believers who feel the need to return to the center—to move away from distraction, noise, and superficial religion, and to listen again to the voice of Christ with renewed seriousness.

What Readers May Gain from This Book

Readers of The Teaching of Christ may come away with a deeper reverence for the authority of Jesus, a clearer understanding of the unity and force of His teaching, and a renewed desire to live under His rule. The book has a way of enlarging one’s vision of Christ while also making discipleship feel more urgent and personal.

Above all, this is a book for those who do not want merely to admire Jesus, but to hear Him, understand Him, and follow Him more faithfully.

About This Modernized Edition

This modernized edition of The Teaching of Christ has been prepared with deep respect for the original work of G. Campbell Morgan, D.D. The goal of this edition is not to revise the author’s theology, alter his message, or replace his voice, but to present his writing in a form that is clearer and more accessible for today’s readers.

The original text carries great spiritual depth, careful biblical reflection, and a strong devotional and expository power. At the same time, like many older works, its language, punctuation, formatting, and printed style can be difficult for modern readers to follow. This edition seeks to remove those barriers while preserving the substance, structure, tone, and argument of the original commentary.

In preparing this edition, the language has been gently updated for clarity and readability, especially in places where older phrasing, archaic sentence flow, or scanned-text irregularities might hinder understanding. Obvious typographical, spacing, and OCR-related errors have been corrected. Scripture references have been standardized into a more familiar modern format for ease of reading. Paragraphing and headings have also been carefully organized to support both comfortable reading and clean presentation in print and eBook formats.

Great care has been taken to preserve the author’s commentaries, theological emphasis, line of reasoning, and spiritual burden. Nothing essential has been removed from the exposition. The intention throughout has been to remain faithful to Morgan’s original work while making it more approachable for contemporary readers who want to benefit from this classic study of Christ’s teaching.

This edition is therefore especially valuable for readers who love older Christian writings but prefer a clearer reading experience, for pastors and teachers who want to use the book for study or teaching, and for modern believers who may be encountering G. Campbell Morgan for the first time.

It is our hope that this modernized edition will help a new generation of readers engage more readily with Morgan’s rich insights, and through them, listen more carefully to the words of Christ Himself.

About the Author: G. Campbell Morgan (1863–1945) — The Prince of Expositors

G. Campbell Morgan, D.D. (1863–1945) was one of the most respected Bible teachers and expository preachers of his generation. A British evangelist, pastor, and prolific Christian author, he became especially well known through his ministry at Westminster Chapel in London, where his preaching and Bible teaching drew wide attention in Britain and beyond. He was also an influential mentor to later preachers, including Martyn Lloyd-Jones, who eventually succeeded him at Westminster Chapel.

Morgan’s enduring reputation rests on his remarkable gift for opening Scripture with clarity, reverence, and spiritual force. He was known not merely as a preacher of stirring sermons, but as a careful expositor who helped readers and hearers see the unity, depth, and practical power of the Bible. His ministry also reached a broad international audience through repeated teaching visits to the United States and through his many published works.

He was an exceptionally productive writer. Among his best-known books are The Crises of the Christ, The Parables of the Kingdom, The Spirit of God, God’s Methods with Man, The Bible and the Cross, Discipleship, and The Practice of Prayer. The Teaching of Christ stands naturally among these important works, and is especially valuable for readers who want to understand the words of Jesus in a deeper, more connected, and more life-shaping way.

What has made G. Campbell Morgan memorable to generations of readers is his rare combination of biblical depth, devotional warmth, and expository clarity. He had the ability to take profound truths and unfold them in a way that was both intellectually serious and spiritually compelling. For readers who may not yet know his name, Morgan is the kind of author who quickly earns trust: thoughtful without being dry, reverent without being vague, and deeply rooted in Scripture throughout.

Readers who come to The Teaching of Christ for the first time are meeting not just a historical Christian writer, but a major Bible teacher whose work has helped shape generations of evangelical preaching and Bible study. His writings continue to attract readers because they consistently direct attention away from the commentator and back to Christ Himself, His words, and His Kingdom. 

Contents

About the Book 4

About This Modernized Edition 7

About the Author 9

Chapter 1. The Claim of Christ as to the Value of His Teaching 11

Chapter 2. The Teaching of Christ Concerning Personalities 24

I. Concerning God 25

II. Concerning Himself 37

III. The Spirit 52

IV. Concerning Angels 79

V. Satan and Demons 93

VI. Man 109

Chapter 3. The Teaching of Christ Concerning Sin and Salvation 123

I. Sin 124

II. Salvation 136

III. His Saving Mission 148

IV. Human Responsibility 163

V. Sanctity 173

Chapter 4. The Teaching of Christ Concerning the Kingdom of God 185

I. The Fundamental Conception 186

II. Different Phases of the One Fact 198

III. The Existing Anarchy 213

IV. The Redemptive Processes—The Cross 227

V. The Redemptive Processes — The Church 240

VI. The Redemptive Processes—The Conflict 254

VII. The Crisis 269

VIII. An Individual Application 283

Chapter 1. The Claim of Christ as to the Value of His Teaching

“ Never man so spake." John 7:46

The statement placed at the head of this introductory study was made by impartial, and probably indifferent, men after listening to some of the things Jesus said.

Earlier in the chapter we read:

“The Pharisees heard the multitude murmuring these things concerning Him; and the chief priests and the Pharisees sent officers to take Him.” (John 7:32)

The result was:

“The officers therefore came to the chief priests and Pharisees; and they said unto them, Why did ye not bring Him? The officers answered, Never man so spake.” (John 7:45–46)

I use these words of the officers, whatever exactly they meant by them, as an expression of my own conviction that the words of Christ were not the words of a merely human teacher.

My purpose in this series of meditations is to consider His teaching on some of the great themes of deepest interest to humanity, and I intend to do so in the simplest way possible.

Let it be clearly understood that we begin with the assumption that the New Testament view of the Person of Christ is true. I am not proposing a study of the words of Jesus in order to lead men to Christ. Rather, I desire to lead those who have already found Christ into a study of His words.

In this first meditation, I propose to examine the claims Christ made concerning His own teaching. I take up the writings of other men, all of them valuable in greater or lesser degree, and it is always interesting to notice a man’s estimate of the value of his own words. What I have observed is this: the greatest human teachers have always been reserved about the final authority of their teaching. They have always admitted that there is room for interpretation, for question, for further investigation.

That note is entirely absent from the teaching of Christ. There is no apology. He never said, “It is natural therefore to suppose,” or “It may probably be,” or “Consult the authorities.” Scattered throughout the Gospels are many statements He made concerning His teaching, some incidental, others prominent, specific, and definite. It is neither possible nor necessary for our present purpose to deal with all of them. I propose to refer to the principal statements I have described as prominent, specific, and definite. In doing so, we shall find two words used in reference to His teaching which it will be helpful to consider at once.

Jesus sometimes spoke of “My words,” and sometimes of “My sayings,” of “these words of Mine,” and “these sayings of Mine.” We must not, however, place too much emphasis on this distinction, because our translators have not consistently preserved the difference between the Greek words to which I refer. Those who read the New Testament in Greek will be careful to distinguish between the words logos and rhema, for that distinction may make all the difference in the interpretation of a particular passage. While, in considering His claims as to the value of His teaching, we need not linger long over such an examination, it is important that we recognize the distinction.

John’s Gospel opens with statements marked by awe-inspiring sublimity, and we are conscious of our inability fully to express their meaning. The suggestion of the opening statement is too mysterious, too lofty, too glorious for human grasping, too profound for human fathoming: “In the beginning was the Word.” (John 1:1) In that declaration, John used the particular word to which we must first give our attention. It is the word logos, translated here “Word.” The root from which the word is derived means to lay side by side; therefore to collect and to set in order. Consequently, it suggests words arranged and framed so as to express thought; and therefore it refers to thought itself, orderly and sequential, which is gathered together and expressed. Whenever we come to the word logos, therefore, we must remember its two values. The first is that of a method of expression, and the second is that of the truth which is expressed. That is the word which most often appears as we examine what our Lord had to say about His own teaching.

The word rhema simply means articulate speech, something more than a mere sound; a sound that is a method of expression, or a sound that conveys meaning. I do not mean to suggest that when Jesus spoke of His own sayings and described them by the word rhema, He meant they were unimportant, for none of His sayings could in any sense be unimportant.

In this study I shall indicate the distinction between logos and rhema by translating the former as word or words, and the latter as sayings.

I propose, then, first to gather together the passages that reveal to us our Lord’s estimate of the value of His own teaching. Having read these passages, we shall draw certain conclusions as a preliminary to our larger study.

Having first referred to the passages as they occur in the four Gospel narratives, I shall then group them, as far as possible, in the order in which they were spoken by the Lord. Finally, I shall attempt to draw from them the conclusions necessary for our later studies.

In Matthew there are two principal statements of our Lord concerning His own teaching:

“Every one therefore which heareth these words of Mine, and doeth them, shall be likened unto a wise man, which built his house upon the rock; and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not; for it was founded upon the rock. And every one that heareth these words of Mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand; and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and smote upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall thereof.” (Matthew 7:24–27)

“Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away.” (Matthew 24:35)

The first statement concluded the Manifesto on the Mount. The final word was spoken in the midst of the great declaration concerning the ultimate movements of His Kingdom, the prophecy on Olivet.

In the Gospel of Mark we find two principal declarations:

“Whosoever shall be ashamed of Me and of My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man also shall be ashamed of him, when He cometh in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.” (Mark 8:38)

“Heaven and earth shall pass away; but My words shall not pass away.” (Mark 13:31)

In the Gospel of Luke we find the record of four great central claims of Jesus concerning His teaching:

“Every one that cometh unto Me, and heareth My words, and doeth them, I will show you to whom he is like; he is like a man building a house, who digged and went deep, and laid a foundation upon the rock; and when a flood arose, the stream brake against that house, and could not shake it: because it had been well builded. But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that built a house upon the earth without a foundation; against which the stream brake, and straightway it fell in; and the ruin of that house was great.” (Luke 6:47–49)

“For whosoever shall be ashamed of Me and of My words, of him shall the Son of Man be ashamed, when He cometh in His own glory, and the glory of the Father, and of the holy angels.” (Luke 9:26)

“Heaven and earth shall pass away; but My words shall not pass away.” (Luke 21:33)

“And He said unto them, These are My words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, how all things must needs be fulfilled, which are written in the law of Moses, and the prophets, and the psalms, concerning Me. … And He said unto them, Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer, and rise again from the dead the third day; and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name unto all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. Ye are witnesses of these things.” (Luke 24:44–48)

In the Gospel of John we have three great central statements:

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth My word, and believeth Him that sent Me, hath eternal life, and cometh not into judgment, but hath passed out of death into life.” (John 5:24)

There are two other statements in the course of the controversy that followed which I desire to connect with this first declaration:

“The sayings that I have spoken unto you are spirit, and are life.” (John 6:63)

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep My word, he shall never see death.” (John 8:51)

Notice in each case the repetition of the thought of life.

The second of the great central statements of this Gospel reads:

“If any man hear My sayings, and keep them not, I judge him not; for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. He that rejecteth Me, and receiveth not My sayings, hath one that judgeth him; the word that I spake, the same shall judge him in the last day.” (John 12:47–48)

Speaking in the upper room, and under the shadow of the Cross, to His Father, our Lord said:

“The sayings which Thou gavest Me I have given unto them.” (John 17:8)

I readily confess that, to my own heart, the mere reading of these passages brings us into an atmosphere in which we become conscious of the majestic sublimity of Christ’s conception of the value of His own teaching. My own conviction is that there is not one of these passages that we can believe to be true if we deny the Deity of our Lord. If that statement is questioned, then take any of these claims and place them in the mouth of any other teacher, and it will immediately become clear how entirely out of place they are. They are words claiming full and final authority for the One who spoke them.

Now let me group them in chronological order. I do not place very great value upon this arrangement, but it is at least interesting to see, as far as possible, how His disciples heard His growing claim concerning His own teaching.

I think the first in order is that recorded in the fifth chapter of John, in which He declared that His word, when believed, leads to the Father and becomes the medium of age-abiding life.

Next in order came the word at the close of the great Manifesto, in which He clearly and deliberately claimed that His words are the foundation upon which men must build, unless, under the pressure of storm, their building is to be destroyed; or, in other words, that His teaching is the foundation of character.

Next in order came the words recorded by Mark, and also by Luke, in which our Lord declared that His words are the test of the inspiration of life, and therefore the test of nobility for today and forever. Whosoever is, here and now, “ashamed of Me and of My words,” the Son of Man also shall be ashamed of him when He comes “in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”

The man who today is ashamed of the teaching of the Lord, who does not accept His ideal, who turns his life away from the revelation of character and nobility contained in His words, ensures the inexorable result that in the day of glory, when the ideals of Christ are vindicated, Christ will be ashamed of him. Why? Because that man has turned his back on the true ideals of nobility, and has devoted himself to what is base and low and mean. Christ thus claimed that His words are the true inspiration of life, making for nobility of character.

Next in order came the declaration recorded by John, that His word is to be the Divine standard of judgment; that by the word He has spoken, men are to be judged in that final day to which He so often referred.

Then we come to that supreme declaration recorded by Matthew, Mark, and Luke: “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away.”

My memory goes back thirty-nine years to a morning when I received one of the earliest and deepest impressions of my life. It was created by that poet-preacher, Thomas Jones. I was a boy in Walter’s Road Church in Swansea, and I remember the occasion as though it were yesterday. He gave out the text, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away,” and then, in his own inimitable way, began, leaning upon his pulpit, “And who is this young man that says this? Is not this the carpenter?” Then he led us on, and I saw the Lord that morning. I have never forgotten, from that day to this, the tremendous importance of this statement.

That impression comes back to me now through the years, together with the accumulated testimony of whatever attention I have been able to give to the teaching of Christ, and I believe the tremendous declaration that His word is the central and final authority: “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away.”

Next in order we have His word in the intercessory prayer, spoken not to men, but to His Father, in which He said, “Father, I have given them the sayings that Thou gavest Me,” which was His claim that the things He had spoken, though they may at first seem fragmentary and broken and scattered, yet in that very brokenness and scattering contain a great system, and together constitute the complete testimony of God to men.

Last in order comes that word spoken after His resurrection, in the exposition of redemption, in which He declared, “These are My words.” Everything in the Old Testament Scriptures—the Law, the Prophets, the Psalms—all the teaching foretelling death and resurrection, the promise of repentance and remission of sins, He claimed as finding fulfillment in Himself and as constituting the sum of His teaching.

In conclusion, let us make a declaration of values.

First, our Lord distinctly claimed that His teaching was Divine in authority, and He made that claim in most remarkable words:

“I spake not from Myself; but the Father which sent Me, He hath given Me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. And I know that His commandment is life eternal; the things therefore which I speak, even as the Father hath said unto Me, so I speak.” (John 12:49–50)

That was His own estimate. He declared that what He said was from God, that what He said was plainly spoken to men, and therefore that what He said should become the basis of judgment. This is a very high claim, a claim made by no other teacher with the same precision.

There is no apology here. There is no appeal to men merely to consider. There is no suggestion that if men will hear Him, they may afterward form their own conclusion. He stands in the midst of humanity and says that His teaching is Divine in authority. That is true, or it is not true. We shall assume it to be true as we go forward.

If, however, any are not able to assume that it is true, then there is a test—a test permitted, indeed given, by Jesus:

“If any man willeth to do His will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it be of God, or whether I speak from Myself.” (John 7:17)

Now that is the full passage. We constantly quote that verse only in part, as though Christ had said, “If a man shall do His will, he shall know.” We have no right to stop there; we must hear Christ through. That may be true in certain senses, but Christ declared that he who wills to do His will shall know of the teaching whether it is of God. Thus Christ said that the only way in which we can test His teaching is by obeying it. Not by our own intellectual cleverness can we test the truth of His teaching; not by any philosophy, wit, or wisdom of our own; but if we do what He says, then in the doing we shall come to certainty as to whether or not the thing spoken was speech from God.

That test is, if possible, a still greater claim. It is Christ’s perpetual challenge to the race. He claims that His teaching is from God. He gave that challenge in the days of His flesh, and He publishes it anew at this very hour, in the midst of all our complex life, and to all men. The test of the Divinity of His teaching is obedience to it. I will make this affirmation, which may be challenged, but I will make it and leave it: no man ever tried and tested Christ’s teaching in that way and concluded that it was false. Or, to put it positively: every man who has obeyed the teaching of Christ has at last been compelled to say, This word that He spoke to my soul was the Word of God. His first claim, then, was that His teaching is Divine in authority.

The second claim our Lord made for His own teaching was that, being Divine in authority, it is intended for human government. Again, passages we have already quoted must be repeated. Take that first word at the close of the Manifesto: “these sayings of Mine” are rock foundations for character, and in preparation for character, for conduct; and in preparation for conduct, for conception. That is a claim that if a man will make the words of Jesus the ruling conceptions of his life, and shape his conduct by those conceptions, then his character will be strong enough to stand the stress and strain of every storm that ever blows from earth or hell.

A man, did I say? Yes, Christ always begins with the individual, but He does not end with the individual. Nevertheless, He does not deal with society to the neglect of the individual, and He never suggests the folly of incorporating into the new and ultimate society men who are anything less than men of perfected character. He always begins there. But He is also challenging the statesmen of today with the same words: build on My words, and you build well and forever. Build, however fairly and beautifully, with apparent refinement, upon anything else, and when the storm comes, all will be swept away. That is His own conception of the value of His teaching.

He claimed more than that. Not only is the foundation of character found in these words of His, they also constitute the very medium of life. For if a man hears His word, it is the word that reveals the Father; and the man receiving it will believe the Father; and so the word will become the medium through which he receives life. It not only gives the vision of truth; it supplies the virtue that makes victory possible.

He also claimed that for human government His words are the test of inspiration. What are our inspirations today? What are we dreaming about? What ideals formed in our hearts are we answering? Let us bring them into the light of Christ’s teaching. Are we ashamed? If we follow that unworthy inspiration, there will come a day of great glory and revelation when He will be ashamed of us.

These are supreme claims. The most monstrous fraud the world has ever known was this Jesus; or else, in ultimate, supreme, final truth, He was very God as well as very man.

In the third place, He claimed that His teaching was for the proclamation of redemption. It is not without significance—a significance with which we cannot now pause, but to which we shall return in the course of our studies—that the word He spoke beyond the Cross and beyond the grave about His words was the word in which He declared that all the Old Testament Scriptures were of value as they led up to Him; and that the central facts of all His ministry and revelation were those of His death and resurrection; that the deepest and most profound passion of His heart, and the highest joy of His soul, was that He came into human history to preach the evangel of repentance and remission of sins. He claimed that His words are the words that proclaim redemption for lost men and women.

The last claim is that His teaching is final. Heaven and earth pass away, but His words remain. Nor do they only remain; they are complete, as He said to His Father: “I have given them Thy word.” That is what the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews meant when he said, “God, having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners, hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in His Son.” (Hebrews 1:1–2) In that speech everything was said that man needs to hear.

These are superlative claims. We begin the present series of meditations by accepting them as true. From this point we shall go forward, desiring to hear what He has to say.

It seems as though, out of the overshadowing glory of this mount of worship, I again hear the voice that spoke to Peter, James, and John on the holy mount long ago; and this is what it says: “This is My Son … hear ye Him.” (Luke 9:35)

We began with the confession of impartial and indifferent men, “Never man so spake.” We close with the declaration of God, “This is My Son … hear ye Him.”

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