Fill the top glass. Romans 5:5 says that “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Because this is so, His love for us fills us. Then love overflows from our hearts toward others.

If you’ve ever been to a wedding or party with a champagne tower, it was probably an elegant and expensive affair. You were probably wearing a nice dress or suit. Maybe Versace. Maybe Armani. There was probably really good food.

Truthfully, you don’t need a lavish party for a champagne tower. You could buy a cheap bottle of champagne for $7 and use plastic glasses from Party City. You can get a 32 count for $17. Not as extravagant but frugal. I recommend you just look it up on YouTube.

Some champagne towers are massive, but the basic idea is to arrange 16 glasses in a four-by-four square making sure the edges of the glasses touch. On top of those glasses, place nine glasses in a three-by-three square – edges touching! Then two by two. Lastly, one glass on top. The idea is to pour champagne in the top glass which overflows and fills the other glasses below it.

Will the top glass be filled if you start by pouring champagne in the bottom glasses? Of course not. You start with the top glass. The Ten Commandments are similar. Aside from the gospel preface attached to the First Commandment, the Ten can be divided into two parts: the first table which includes the first four commandments and the second table which includes the last six commandments. And staying with my champagne metaphor, the first table of the law is the top glass. It gets the show started. If someone doesn’t begin with the first four commandments, he or she will not actually do the last six either. In other words, if a person does not have genuine love for God in their hearts, they most certainly will not have genuine love for others in their hearts either. The ability to love others as God defines love is to have a heart filled with love for God and a lifestyle filled with loving God according to how He wants to be loved.

Zacharias Ursinus said the following about the two tables of God’s law:

The obedience of the first table is chief, and supreme: the obedience of the second falls beneath that of the first, and is depending upon it. Nay it is only because we love God, that we love our neighbor. Obedience to the first table is the cause of obedience to the second. Love to our neighbor grounds itself in love to God; but not contrariwise.^[1]

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