Christ's ethics based on the Ten Commandments

The ethics of Jesus is based on the ten commandments. These commandments were broken all the time by the religious leaders of his day. No doubt they are in fact broken by all mankind everywhere, but the religious leaders had a pertinent zeal for God's word that said "because I don't do x, y, and z, I have favour with God." These men, as long as they didn't commit murder or adultery were assured of their heavenly state; so to not break the law they placed around about it certain institutions to keep from having to break them. Of course, Jesus calls them whitewashed tombs. Outside they look clean but inside they were far from it. Today, we might see this very same thing in the world and amongst the professing Christian Institutes. As long as they don't do x, y, and z they are fine. Perhaps they have a certain positive change as well. They even perhaps give on occasion. But, these men have missed it as the proverbial horse and cart goes. Instead, Jesus says even if you lusted in your mind you have committed adultery. Even if you hated someone in your mind you have committed murder. Many false churches further teach some sort of rule as long as you desire to do x, y, and z you're fine. But these churches seem to have missed the point of the law. The law commands what is supposed to be done and what is not to be done. We are commanded not to worship idols but to worship God alone. What is commanded is both in the negative and positive light. So desiring to do x has no bearing at all. Sin is law breaking. All have sinned and have fallen short of God's glory, therefore the only hope for salvation is found in Christ work on the cross alone on behalf of his chosen sheep alone.

God alone is our teacher and we do not go beyond what he has commanded.

"Teaching and doing are two things. I say, furthermore, that one should separate teaching and doing as far from each other as heaven from earth. Teaching belongs only to God. He has the right and the power to command, forbid, and be master over the conscience. However, to do and refrain from doing belong to us so that we may keep God's commandment and teaching. Where doing or to refrain from doing is in question, and concerning which God has taught, commanded, and forbidden nothing, there we should permit free choice as God himself has done. Whoever though goes beyond this by way of commandments or prohibition invades God's own sphere of action, burdens the conscience, creates sin and misery, and destroys all that God has left free and certain. In addition he expels the Holy Spirit with all his kingdom, work, and word, so that nothing but devils remain." - Martin Luther, Against the heavenly Prophets, Pg. 207

"Now, dear sirs, we are speaking of minor matters, insofar as the doing is concerned. For what does it mean to elevate the sacrament? But when the teaching is taken into account we are dealing with the most important matters. The factious spirit is too frivolous and meddles all too impudently in this matter. He has such a low regard for teaching and such a high regard for the doing that he does not see the beam in his own eye, and is too much concerned with the splinter in our eye [Matt. 7:5]. For with teaching he manhandles conscience, which Christ has won with his own blood, and kills souls, which God has dearly purchased, with commandments and sins. For thereby the kingdom of Christ will be destroyed and everything that the gospel has brought us exterminated. For Christ cannot remain in the conscience that goes whoring after alien teaching and the commandments of men. There faith must perish. Therefore let everyone know that Dr. Karlstadt has a spirit which is hostile to faith and to the whole kingdom of God, which be in turn would destroy with his conceit and human nonsense, as you may well understand from this part of the discussion and concerning which you will hear more later." - Ibid, Pg. 209

Christian Liberty where the commands of God do not clearly communicate

"Already, at an early date, we have taught Christian liberty from [the writings] of St. Paul. There is to be freedom of choice in everything that God has not clearly taught in the New Testament, for example, in matters pertaining to various foods, beverages, attire, places, persons and various forms of conduct [Rom. 14:2-6; 1 Cor. 8:8-10]. We are obligated to do nothing at all for God, except believe and love. Now tell me, where has Christ forbidden us to elevate the sacrament or commanded us to elevate it? Show me one little word, and I will yield. Yet Dr. Karlstadt ventures to burst out and say that it is forbidden by Christ, and considers it a sin as great as the denial of God. He is unable to prove this. Nor is it true. Is it not a woeful, pitiable blindness, so to burden souls with sin and murder them, and make laws where none exist?" -Martin Luther, Against the Heavenly Prophets, Pg. 205-206

What is the purpose of the commands of God?

"A good tree needs no instruction or law to bear good fruit; its nature causes it to bear according to its kind without any law or instruction. I would take to be quite a fool any man who would make a book full of laws and statutes for an apple tree telling it how to bear apples and not thorns, when the tree is able to by its own nature to do this better than the man with all his books can describe and demand. Just so, by the Spirit and by faith all Christians are so thoroughly disposed and conditioned in their very nature that they do right and keep the law better than one can teach them with all manner of statutes; so that they themselves are concerned, no statutes or laws are needed.
You ask: Why, then, did God give so many commandments to all mankind, and why does Christ prescribe in the gospel so many things for us to do? Of this I have written at length in the postils and elsewhere. To put it here as briefly as possible, Paul says that the law has been laid down for the sake of the lawless [1 Tim. 1:9], that is, so that those who are not Christians may through the law be restrained outwardly from evil deeds, as we shall hear later. Now since no one is by nature Christian or righteous, but altogether sinful and wicked, God through the law puts them all under restraint so they dare not willfully implement their wickedness in actual deeds. In addition, Paul ascribes to the law another function in Romans 7 and Galatians 2, that of teaching men to recognize sin in order that it may make them humble unto grace and unto faith in Christ. Christ does the same thing here in Matthew 5[:39], where he teaches that we should not resist evil; by this he is interpreting the law and teaching what ought to be and must be the state of temper of a true Christian, as we shall hear further late on." - Martin Luther, Temporal Authority, Pg. 279-280