The Ten Commandments 20 And God spoke all these words, saying, 2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 3 “You shall have no other gods before me. 4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. 7 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. 8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. 12 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. 13 “You shall not murder. 14 “You shall not commit adultery. 15 “You shall not steal. 16 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. 17 “You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's.” 18 Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off 19 and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.” 20 Moses said to the people, “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin.” 21 The people stood far off, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was. Alright, here it is. One of the most well-known passages of the entire Bible--or at least people claim or think they know it, but the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, 6, and 7 point out that we really missed the mark on what the purpose of the Law was. If you are not familiar with it, search for "The Way of the Master" on YouTube or Facebook and watch some of the videos there on the evangelistic presentation that uses the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount as a starting point to show people that they are in need of the gospel.
Most of the commands are pretty clear, so let's spend our time pointing out some of things that people usually miss or skip by focusing completely on the "shall" and "shall not" commandments. Without understanding who God is and who God has called us to be (see the last blog as that is the context of this covenant), then the rules can be construed to be something they are not--they are not a system of rules by which we earn or lose favor with God and somehow earn our own salvation. While the commandments stand on their own as individual moral statements and commandments, the purpose of the commandments is not revealed within the commandments themselves. First, God starts off, like He does with every covenant agreement, reminding the people of who He is and what He has done for His people. It is on this basis as well as the entirety of Genesis and Exodus to this point that God establishes the Mosaic Covenant with His people. As we've already seen, becoming a new people and their redemption and reconciliation preceded the commandments. We like to put the cart before the horse and think the commandments are what made the people special, but God gave them the commandments because He had already made them new and special. See the difference? Were they perfect? Of course not, but we too go through a process of sanctification as we live life here on earth and that's supposed to in part prepare us for life in the "Promised Land" of heaven. What we'll see though is most of the nation rejected that call to be a new an unique people that would be a holy priesthood and they refused to live life in light of who God is and what He had done. They constantly lived live "under the circumstances" and "did what was right in their own eyes" instead of what God told them was right in His perfect Law. For those that have never studied the Ten Commandments before, there are two main sections. The first four commandments deal directly with our relationship with God and the last six deal with our relationships with others. We know that we cannot say we love God and mistreat other people, so all of these are sins against God, even when we sin against God, but we like to focus more on the last 6 because they are more visible and easier to claim credit and moral superiority for. Jesus addresses most of these in the Sermon on the Mount, but doesn't spend much time on the first four--but the apostles and the other authors of the New Testament spend quite a bit of time on them. People like to say that every command here is repeated in the New Testament with the exception of the 4th commandment and they think that somehow exempts them from keeping it--that's actually not true. The 4th commandment it talked about rather extensively by both Paul and the author of the book of Hebrews and we are still commanded to keep the Sabbath, but we are given permission to celebrate it on Sunday instead of Saturday. This was out of necessity at first because the only place of meeting was the synagogue and you couldn't have Jews and Christians worshiping together in the same house of worship--they tried that and it was like the parable of the new wine in the old wineskins (though I really think that's about putting a new Spirit (the Holy Spirit) inside of the old man. God must first make all things new before you are ready to be filled with the Holy Spirit and receive the gospel. These two sections parallel the two "greatest commandments: Matthew 22:36-40 English Standard Version36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” I also want to point out another reason that I think some people don't like to teach and preach the 4th commandment anymore. I know this will ruffle a few feathers, but the Ten Commandments are clear where people seem to make Genesis 1 and 2 out to be vague (though it's not). Clearly God tells the people that the reason they rest on the seventh day is because God set a pattern in that He created heaven and earth and all that is in them in six literal 24-hour days and on the seventh literal 24-hour day, He rested. There is no symbolic or metaphorical interpretation to this passage. These days cannot mean to be anything other than 24-hour calendar days (though they started at twilight instead of midnight or sunrise). This reasoning is repeated again in Exodus 31:17. This flies in the face of the day-age theory, theistic evolution, and many other ways that people try to read evolution into the account of creation--it doesn't work. God miraculously created everything by the word of His mouth--the same power that is called the Word (Greek work logos which is used to refer to both the living Word of God, Jesus, and the written Word of God, the Bible). By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host. (Psalm 33:6, ESV) So, now comes the important question. Is this God's definition of what makes someone morally good? No! We know that no one is good except God alone. (See Mark 10:18 and Luke 18:19). So then what then is the purpose of the Law? For the answer to that question, I suggest you read Galatians 3 specifically, but all of Paul's epistles generally because he spends much time talking about the Law and while the power of the Law is broken when we are saved because it reveled to us that we were sinners who stood condemned in need of forgiveness and there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, the Law itself is perfect (see everything said about the Law, commandments and statutes of the Lord in Psalm 119). Jesus said He did not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it and that not one jot or tittle would pass away from the Law 18 For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. (Matthew 5:18, ESV) Perhaps we get it wrong when we teach hyper-grace and teach people to ignore the Law of God and his commandments, statutes, and precepts, because we are told in them we find life, not death. They are there for our protection and to remind us of the people that God has called us to be--a people that are holy unto the LORD and royal priesthood--we live by a different code of conduct as both royalty and priests. Once again we see the the people did not understand the words of God and only saw His great power and feared Him and stood a far way off. It is one of the great things Christ has done that He has brought us near to God and brought God near to us. That's it for today, but please stay tuned as we'll have much more to say about the Law as we study the Torah.
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Daniel WestfallI will mostly use this space for recording my "journal" from my daily devotions as I hope to encourage others to read the Bible along with me and to leave a legacy for others. Archives
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