EXODUS 20: FREEDOM
THE 52 GREATEST STORIES OF THE BIBLE • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 50:04
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And God spoke all these words, saying,
“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
“You shall have no other gods before me.
“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.
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,
but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
“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.
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Six days you shall labor, and do all your work,
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.
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.
“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
“You shall not murder.
“You shall not commit adultery.
“You shall not steal.
“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
“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.”
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
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.
Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
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.
Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
We should not ask what would Jesus do but what did Jesus do.
We should not ask what would Jesus do but what did Jesus do.
and I shall walk in a wide place, for I have sought your precepts.
Precepts’ is the ‘narrowest’ word in the vocabulary of , covering every minute detail of applying the law of God to daily life. The verse thus voices a striking truth: the psalmist found that the more closely he tied his life to the word of God, the more he found he was enjoying the largest liberty. This is the way we are to think of the Ten Commandments—not as cramping restrictions on a fullness of life that we might otherwise have enjoyed, but as the very gateway to the fullness we seek.
The very fact that it is the law of God should at once show us that it cannot contain anything harmful to man’s welfare. Like everything else that God has given, the Law is an expression of His love, a manifestation of His mercy, a provision of His grace.
He said, “The Lord came from Sinai and dawned from Seir upon us; he shone forth from Mount Paran; he came from the ten thousands of holy ones, with flaming fire at his right hand.
Yes, he loved his people, all his holy ones were in his hand; so they followed in your steps, receiving direction from you,
WHAT IS THE AIM OF THE LAW?
WHAT IS THE AIM OF THE LAW?
SALVATION
SALVATION
THE LAW CAN REVEAL OUR SIN BUT IT CANNOT REDEEM US FROM OUR SIN.
THE LAW CAN REVEAL OUR SIN BUT IT CANNOT REDEEM US FROM OUR SIN.
All a poor man’s brothers hate him; how much more do his friends go far from him! He pursues them with words, but does not have them.
The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple;
Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.
For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
ROMANS 3:19-20
If The Law is heeded it can lead a person to redemptions door but only faith can unlock it.
We use The Law as a means of revealing to man who he is and what he cannot do.
We use The Law as a means of revealing to man who he is and what he cannot do.
In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple.
Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.
And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!”
And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.
And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”
Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar.
And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”
And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.”
Isaiah
SANCTIFICATION
SANCTIFICATION
SANCTIFICATION
SANCTIFICATION
In giving The Law God is not saying, “you better keep them if you want to become my people”. In giving The Law God is saying, “you better keep them because you are my people”.
In giving The Law God is not saying, “you better keep them if you want to become my people”. In giving The Law God is saying, “you better keep them because you are my people”.
The law of the Lord was addressed to those brought out of bondage, and its aim was not to bring them into a new bondage, but rather to establish them in their new freedom. As those who had come out of slavery they needed to be instructed in the behavior and lifestyle of the free. Such is the law of the Lord—it is the true ‘law of liberty’
But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.
The supreme test of love is the desire and effort to please the one loved, and this measured by conformity to his known wishes.
Love for God is expressed by obedience to His will. Only One has perfectly exemplified this, and of Him it is written,
I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.”
But we ought so to walk even as He walked
whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.
. Simple but searching is that word of His, “He that hath My commandments and keepeth them he it Is that loveth Me” (). And again it is written, “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments: and His commandments are not grievous” (). The “waning” of love, then, means departing from, failing to keep, God’s commandments!
Simple but searching is that word of His,
Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”
). And again it is written, “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments: and His commandments are not grievous” (). The “waning” of love, then, means departing from, failing to keep, God’s commandments!
And again it is written,
By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments.
For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.
). The “waning” of love, then, means departing from, failing to keep, God’s commandments!
The “waning” of love, then, means departing from, failing to keep, God’s commandments!
WHAT IS THE AFFECT OF THE LAW?
WHAT IS THE AFFECT OF THE LAW?
The Law was given after man’s creation. It was not given so that man might earn God’s love but to show man how to love God and his fellow man.
WHAT IS THE AFFECT OF THE LAW?
WHAT IS THE AFFECT OF THE LAW?
IT DRIVES US TO CHRIST FOR SALVATION.
IT DRIVES US TO CHRIST FOR SALVATION.
We use The Law as a means of revealing who God is and what He demands.
We use The Law as a means of revealing who God is and what He demands.
We use The Law as a means of revealing to man who he is and what he cannot do.
We use The Law as a means of revealing to man who he is and what he cannot do.
In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple.
Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.
And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!”
And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.
And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”
Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar.
And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”
And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.”
IT DEVELOPS CHRISTLIKENESS FOR SANCTIFICATION
IT DEVELOPS CHRISTLIKENESS FOR SANCTIFICATION
is not the introduction of The Law but the inscription of The Law.
is not the introduction of The Law but the inscription of The Law.
The Law existed in verbal form before it was ever written in visible form. It was not given so that man might earn God’s love but to show man how to love God and his fellow man. The greatest and second greatest commandments have existed since creation.
The Ten Commandments is the Bible’s fundamental statement of ‘the law of liberty’. The Law does not enslave us but sets us free. Prohibitions do not restrict freedom but provide real freedom.
A negative command is far more liberating than a positive one, for a positive command restricts life to that one course of action, whereas a negative command leaves life open to every course of action except one!
We see this, law of liberty, at work in the garden of Eden. The single negative command, ‘You must not eat … of it’ left open the broad prospect that ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden.’
Not onl
The Ten Commandments show what a rounded, perfectly balanced life should look like. This is demonstrated by the way they are presented. We are told that there were two ‘tables’ or tablets of the law, and traditionally the first (commandments one to four) has been spoken of as ‘our duty to God’ and the second (commandments five to ten) as ‘our duty to our neighbour’.
There is one other important connection that we need to make concerning The Law. In Chapter 19 God reaffirms the Abrahamic covenant with His people. History tells us that covenants could only come into force until it was given in written form.
Two identical copies were made, one of which was retained by the king and the other by his servants. It is significant that Israel kept both of the tablets produced on Sinai together in the ark (; ). This shows that Yahweh, the Great King who is the covenant-maker, was also the resident king among his people, and the covenant was his to guard and guarantee. The Lord, wanting his people to enjoy all the benefits of the covenant he had made with them, set his law before them.
This conveniently—if roughly—takes note of the content of the Decalogue, but it is undoubtedly an incorrect understanding of the two tablets. Much study has been made of the Hittite people and especially of the covenants made between the great Hittite kings and their vassals from 1800 BC onwards.8 According to Hittite usage, a covenant could only come into force when it had been given written form. Two identical copies were made, one of which was retained by the Hittite king and the other by his vassal. It is significant that Israel kept both of the tablets produced on Sinai together in the ark (; ). This shows that Yahweh, the Great King who is the covenant-maker, was also the resident king among his people, and the covenant was his to guard and guarantee.9
The keeping of the commandments show my love for God. God’s covenant show His love for me. We love God because he first loved us. We can obey his command because he has kept his covenant.
WHAT DOES THE LAW ACHIEVE?
WHAT DOES THE LAW ACHIEVE?
SALVATION OR DAMNATION
SALVATION OR DAMNATION
-
REFLECTION AND REPRESENTATION
REFLECTION AND REPRESENTATION
We do not have time to go through each commandment in detail. However, Scripture provides for us a commentary on each command. I recommend you read .
As we read each commandment we should ask ourselves, “what does this command teach me about God?” The character of God undergirds everything. God tells them to do something because of who he is.
When we obey His commands we reflect His glory in this world and we represent His will in this world.
When we obey His commands we reflect His glory in this world and we represent His will in this world.
Before the Lord announced his law he pointed to himself with the words, I am the LORD [Yahweh]. helps us to understand the significance of this. There we find an odd and jumbled collection of the Lord’s laws—religious, domestic, social, horticultural, ritual, agricultural and sexual.
is held together by the recurring affirmation, ‘I am the LORD’ (sixteen times in all). In our English translations this sounds like a demand to submit to his authority: ‘Do what I tell you because I am the Lord’. We would, of course, be untrue to the Old Testament if we overlooked this authoritarian note (e.g. ), but ‘the LORD’ is the divine name, Yahweh, and the recurring affirmation is equivalent to the Lord saying, ‘I want you to live this way because “I am who I am” ’ (cf. ). For this reason, begins with a call to the Lord’s people to be like him: ‘Be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy’—you must be what you must be because I am what I am. The law of God reflects the character of God. It is the likeness of God expressed in precepts, and obedience to the law of the Lord ‘triggers’ in us ‘the image of God’ () which is our real nature. In other words, we live the truly human life when we obey the Lord’s law.
If we love our God (1-4) then we will love our neighbor (6-10).
If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.
Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.
For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
The Lord is saying to His people today, “reflect my glory and represent my will in this world by obeying my commands”.
Let those purchased by The Law Keepers blood sing with the Psalmist
Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day.
I am the LORD your God
The Lord is saying to those who are not His people, “you have fallen short of my glory
Before the Lord announced his law he pointed to himself with the words, I am the LORD [Yahweh]. helps us to understand the significance of this. There we find an odd and jumbled collection of the Lord’s laws—religious, domestic, social, horticultural, ritual, agricultural and sexual. The fact that they are in no discernible order may be deliberate, for life itself is a jumble, one thing after another, and the Lord wanted his people to live in every situation, in all the flux and whirl of life, according to his revealed will. But the jumble of is held together by the recurring affirmation, ‘I am the LORD’ (sixteen times in all). In our English translations this sounds like a demand to submit to his authority: ‘Do what I tell you because I am the Lord’. We would, of course, be untrue to the Old Testament if we overlooked this authoritarian note (e.g. ), but ‘the LORD’ is the divine name, Yahweh, and the recurring affirmation is equivalent to the Lord saying, ‘I want you to live this way because “I am who I am” ’ (cf. ). For this reason, begins with a call to the Lord’s people to be like him: ‘Be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy’—you must be what you must be because I am what I am. The law of God reflects the character of God. It is the likeness of God expressed in precepts, and obedience to the law of the Lord ‘triggers’ in us ‘the image of God’ () which is our real nature.1 In other words, we live the truly human life when we obey the Lord’s law.
who brought you out of the land of Egypt
This brings into full focus the grand theological and spiritual significance of all that had happened up to this point. It was the God of salvation who imposed his law on his people; the grace that saves preceded the law that demands. The people were given the law not in order that they might become the redeemed, rather it was because they had already been redeemed that they were given the law. The law of God is the way of life he sets before those whom he has saved, and they engage in that way of life as a response of love and gratitude to God their Redeemer.2 Grace and law belong together, for grace leads to law; saving love leads to and excites grateful love expressed in obedience.
The law of the Lord was addressed to those brought out of bondage, and its aim was not to bring them into a new bondage, but rather to establish them in their new freedom. As those who had come out of (lit.) ‘the house of slaves’ (2), they needed to be instructed in the behaviour and lifestyle of the free. Such is the law of the Lord—it is the true ‘law of liberty’ ().
This is the biblical understanding of God’s law. It began in the garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve enjoyed the liberty, and liberality, of the garden (, ) for just as long, and only as long, as they kept its law (). That law—the single prohibition regarding the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—far from being a restriction on their freedom, was the guarantor of freedom. It was a law of liberty.
So also, the Decalogue (and, more generally, the law of Moses in its entirety or, supremely, the Bible as a whole) is the law of liberty, the gateway to human freedom. We readily say when we see the degrading conditions some people suffer that ‘no-one ought to be obliged to live like that’. Behind that instinctive comment lies a sense of the unique value of humankind and some sense of what might constitute a ‘truly human life’. But if we want to go beyond instinctive reactions, we need a true definition of what ‘humankind’ is. We have to be able to say what human nature is before we can say what human life ought to be. The Bible supplies the definition: ‘God created man[kind] in his own image … male and female he created them’ (). This is the intensely practical importance of saying that each precept of the law expresses some principle, some essential feature, of the divine nature. Each commandment represents some aspect of the likeness of God, and, therefore, obedience to God’s law gives expression to what we really are, beings in God’s likeness, and results in our true freedom. Once more, so to speak, the law preserves for us the delights of the garden.
When we approach the Ten Commandments then, it should not be in a spirit of foreboding, as if we lived under a constant threat. Rather, we must learn to cry with the Psalmist, ‘Oh how I love your law!’ ().
Through the Psalms we look, as through a great window, right into the church of the Old Testament and find at its centre a delighted, exuberant love of the Lord’s word of commandment. We need to recover this for ourselves, to remind ourselves of the grace and goodness of possessing the law of God. We have not been left to fumble around in mist or darkness, we have been given directions. As the Lord’s redeemed, it should be our delight to give pleasure to God our Saviour (), and he has told us how. To us, as to our brothers and sisters in the church of the old covenant, ‘these commands are a lamp, this teaching [law] is a light, and the corrections of discipline are the way to life’ (). If ‘corrections of discipline’ sounds over-threatening, try ‘admonitions of correction’,3 for what the word of God is doing here is exposing some wrong path on which we are about to set our feet and pointing and urging us in a different way—what J. B. Phillips calls ‘resetting direction’ (). By the mercy of his law, the Lord ‘resets’ us in the direction of light and life, or as puts it most strikingly, ‘I will walk about4 in freedom, for [because!] I have sought out your precepts. ‘Precepts’ is the ‘narrowest’ word in the vocabulary of , covering every minute detail of applying the law of God to daily life. The verse thus voices a striking truth: the psalmist found that the more closely he tied his life to the word of God, the more he found he was enjoying the largest liberty.5 This is the way we are to think of the Ten Commandments—not as cramping restrictions on a fullness of life that we might otherwise have enjoyed, but as the very gateway to the fullness we seek.
2. The law is for life, for all life and for the balanced life
The Ten Commandments is the Bible’s fundamental statement of ‘the law of liberty’. The fact that it is in the main a series of prohibitions has led to the unthinking charge that it is negative in tone and purpose. This is to forget that a negative command is far more liberating than a positive one, for a positive command restricts life to that one course of action, whereas a negative command leaves life open to every course of action except one! Once more, the law of liberty in the garden of Eden is the perfect illustration. The single negative command, ‘You must not eat … of it’ left open the broad prospect that ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden.’
Not only do the Ten Commandments function the same way in our lives, but they also show what a rounded, perfectly balanced life should look like. This is demonstrated by the way they are presented. We are told that there were two ‘tables’ or tablets of the law, and traditionally the first (commandments one to four) has been spoken of as ‘our duty to God’ and the second (commandments five to ten) as ‘our duty to our neighbour’.7 This conveniently—if roughly—takes note of the content of the Decalogue, but it is undoubtedly an incorrect understanding of the two tablets. Much study has been made of the Hittite people and especially of the covenants made between the great Hittite kings and their vassals from 1800 BC onwards.8 According to Hittite usage, a covenant could only come into force when it had been given written form. Two identical copies were made, one of which was retained by the Hittite king and the other by his vassal. It is significant that Israel kept both of the tablets produced on Sinai together in the ark (; ). This shows that Yahweh, the Great King who is the covenant-maker, was also the resident king among his people, and the covenant was his to guard and guarantee.9
The Lord, wanting his people to enjoy all the benefits of the covenant he had made with them, set his law before them. Our study of the Decalogue so far, pending consideration of the fifth commandment, offers a provisional pattern:
A1 God
a1 Thoughts (commandments 1–2)
b1 Words (commandment 3)
c1 Deeds (commandment 4)
A2 Society
c2 Deeds (commandments 6–8)
b2 Words (commandment 9)
a2 Thoughts (commandment 10)
The Decalogue begins and ends (a1, 2) with the interior aspect of our obedience—how we are required to think about God and about our relationships with other people. It is thus quite wrong to think of it as a list of rules to which we simply conform and that it awaited the teaching of Jesus to extend obedience to the heart (). To the contrary, in each of the great areas of obedience there is a call for purity of mind and heart.10
The first commandment takes account of the fact that we Christians, as God’s Israel in the present day, live in a world where there are ‘many “gods” and many “lords” ’ () and requires of us undivided loyalty to the only God. The second commandment adds the requirement that this only God be thought of in spiritual, non-physical terms. It brings us to the place of worship and states that the use of visual representations of the Lord are personally offensive to him and provoke his judgmental wrath to the fourth generation.11 As we shall presently note, the thrust of the second commandment is that the Lord is to be worshipped without the aid or interposition of visible representations. Behind that rule, so sternly expressed and enforced, however, lies a theology, a doctrine of God, that he is spiritual and self-revealing and, when we turn to worship him, we must fill our minds and our imaginations with what he has revealed and the word he had spoken (, , ).12 If we are to worship God as he would have it, in spirit and truth (), then his word must dwell within us in all wisdom, for this is the root of true and acceptable worship ().
a. Guarding the tongue, ordering the programme
The third commandment deals, says Kaiser, with ‘the profession of the mouth in true adoration’.13 That is a sufficient statement of its meaning for the moment. It concerns our words and in particular the way we speak the Lord’s name.14 Alongside it, the Sabbath commandment focuses on the one day in seven that was to be a day of rest—that is to say, free of unnecessary work and of the gainful employment that rightly occupied the previous six days. But we have already seen () that the Sabbath cast its blessed shadow before it in that if it was to be a day of holy rest, it required thoughtful preparation and pre-planning. Because of this, we can summarize by saying that the Sabbath commandment is concerned with how life as a whole is to be ordered under God. It may even be that in the increasing complication of modern life, if the Lord’s Day is to be kept ‘special’, ever more and more organization of life—business, shopping, homework, whatever—becomes necessary so that this unique day dominates the pattern of the ordinary days. In any case, this is one aspect of the Sabbath law. It encapsulates our life with God, summed up by the word ‘deeds’ in the diagram above.
b. Life around
When we turn to the community aspect of God’s law, the same three areas are covered. Commandments six to eight concern our conduct towards other people, our ‘deeds’; the ninth commandment requires truth in what we say about others, our ‘words’; and, as we have seen, the tenth commandment ‘internalizes’ this aspect of the law, like the first commandment and our ‘duty towards God’. It is not enough that we do the right and avoid the wrong in deed and word, we have to ask ourselves if our thoughts about others respect them and their inalienable rights.
In this way, we see that the Decalogue is a comprehensive survey of our life with God and our life with other people. Thoughts, words and deeds encompass the whole of life; there is nothing else. Everything is to be covered by, and expressed in, obedience to the law the Lord has spoken. It is what he is, and we are to be what it directs.
c. The fifth commandment
We can now offer another diagram of the Decalogue that takes into account the fifth commandment and in so doing highlights its central and unique place in the law of God. It can be stated like this: our first duty after our obedience to God (commandments 1–4) is within the family and, in the same way, this is our primary area of obligation before we consider our obligations to other people (commandments 6–10). The fifth commandment belongs neither in the first group nor in the second, but in its distinctiveness it recognizes our first and primary earthly obligation.
A1 Our duty to God (commandments 1–4)
a1 Our hearts (commandment 1)
a2 Our deeds (commandments 2–4)
B Our family obligations (commandment 5)
A2 Our duty to our neighbour (commandments 6–10)
a2 Our deeds (commandments 6–9)
a1 Our hearts (commandment 10)
So then, if we are to think biblically about the Ten Commandments, we do not have two ‘tables’ or sections but three. God comes first, the family comes second,15 and the community around us third. When we come out from God’s presence, our primary obligations are towards our families, and our obligations to the world around us are secondary. The command to ‘honour’ is hugely demanding and also tantalizingly vague, but there is no better way to seek to spell it out than in the three categories of thoughts, words and deeds.
The whole sphere of life is to be found in the Decalogue: God, the family and the world. There is nothing else. And the whole course of life is there too, because there is nothing else other than thoughts, words and deeds. The balanced nature of the presentation—thoughts, words, deeds … deeds, words, thoughts—is surely deliberate, depicting a complete, ‘rounded’ law, the law of God, designed by him to ‘trigger’ into action every aspect of our true human nature and our redeemed persons ().
3. The law written on the heart
At this point, we must turn forward in our Bibles to consider what the New Testament has to say on the subject. We must not fall unthinkingly into the mistaken and misleading ‘slogan’ that the Old Testament is the book of law and the New Testament is the book of grace. We have one Bible, and it is our task to trace the great biblical truths and principles right through both Old and New Testaments.
So then, when the author of the letter to the Hebrews wishes to state the essence of the new covenant and the supreme accomplishment of Christ and the cross, he picks up Jeremiah’s prophecy that the Lord will write his law on the hearts of his redeemed.16
From a passage so full of teaching we can pick out only three points. First, there is the failure of the old covenant. Jeremiah uses the marriage covenant as his basic model. The Lord, the ‘husband’, fulfilled his role and obligations: ‘I was a husband to them’, but (lit.) ‘they on their side broke’ my covenant (). Secondly, there is an additional aspect in the new covenant. When the Lord’s people cannot rise to his requirements, he does not lower his standards but rather he lifts up his people. In this case, the law remains the same, but now it is written on their hearts (). This is another way of expressing the truth of regeneration, God’s gift of a new nature and in particular a new ‘heart’, a whole personality, fashioned to match the precepts of his law. The inner, true reality of the Christian believer is that our new nature has been fashioned for obedience. Thirdly, there is the way in which this is all accomplished. Sin is dealt with so completely and finally that all memory of our sinfulness has been blotted out even from the mind of God ().
In other words, the values of Sinai are carried over into the lives of New Testament people, for whom the absolute requirement of obedience as a sign of covenant membership remains the same but is now met by the completed and regenerative work of salvation in Christ.17
4. God first
An obvious feature in the composition of God’s law is that while there is plainly no forgetfulness of social duty—far from it, it occupies six commandments out of the ten—our duty to God undeniably comes first, over and above all our other duties. It is not the same as, or to be confused with or merged with, any duty we owe to other people, to family or to the world around. We must keep apart what God has kept apart. If any should say that their religion is reaching out to the needs of others, the only clear-thinking reply is that that is not religion, it is humanitarianism or social conscience. It has lost touch with biblical priorities. The service, love and obedience we owe to God is a distinct thing and comes before everything else. However closely the ‘first and greatest commandment’ and ‘the second’ may be linked—here, throughout the Bible, and in the mind of Jesus—they are not the same thing. Love of God is a distinct thing and must always come first.18 This priority has several different aspects.
a. Sole loyalty
The reference to other gods in the first commandment is not an affirmation of the existence of other deities besides Yahweh but an acknowledgment of their allure—and their menace. Similarly, Paul, the dedicated monotheist, knew that ‘there is no God but one’, but he also knew that he lived in a world where the existence and worship of other ‘so-called gods’ abounded and that this worship exercised a potent and, in many cases, an understandable fascination (). Like every other aspect of our faith, monotheism never goes untested, and so it was for the Israel of the Old Testament. When we think of the crudity, cruelty and infant sacrifices that went with worshipping, for example, Molech, we might say, ‘How could they have fallen for that?’ On the other hand, Baalism, whatever else there was about it, offered the promise of material prosperity and a religion in which sexual experiences were integral to worship, and the allure was understandable. While Baal does not exist, Baalism certainly does.
The phrase before me (‘al-pānāy, ‘upon/to/at my face’) is used in two ways in the Bible, covering both time and space. says (lit.) ‘and Haran died upon the face [‘al-pĕnê] of his father’, and the NIV rightly understands this to mean ‘while his father was still alive’.19 The other, and rather more obvious, usage is ‘in my presence’. So the commandment says, as long as the living God lives and as long as the ever-present Lord is present, no other religious loyalty is permissible. And what a necessary word this was, for Israel would not always be an isolated people, living alone at Sinai. Once they were established in Canaan, surrounded by many other nations, how easy it would have been for them to have said that the passing of time had brought the need for fresh thinking and that new situations demanded new solutions. There would have been the temptation to adopt the customs and values of the peoples among whom they were to settle and to look for fresh ‘insights’ and to develop a religion compounded of what others had found ‘helpful’ or ‘practical’ and what they thought was more relevant to their new settled existence. This was not to be. While the living God lives and the ever-present Lord is present with his people, no matter what the time or where the place, there is to be only one God, one sole loyalty, the total capture of the heart.20
b. Worship must be governed by God’s word
With Egypt fresh in their memories, Israel was aware that ‘other gods’ were worshipped with the help of idols. The second commandment, however, does not refer to the worship of alternative gods—that had been dealt with in the first commandment—but to the worship of the true God in a false way, and it lays down an absolute prohibition of the use of visible representations as an adjunct to worship. God is not to be represented by any human contrivance (idol), nor identified with any aspect of the visible created orders.21 The commandment insists that such representations provoke the Lord to jealousy,22 which must mean that in his eyes they cannot but involve alternative objects of worship, giving to others what is due only to him. The first commandment, though it does not mention love, is concerned with our loving loyalty to the Lord; the second commandment, with its reference to his jealousy, raises the topic of his love to us, for ‘jealousy’ is part of the essence of true love, and the Lord so loves us that he cannot bear it when our desires and loyalties go elsewhere.
Calvin offers some helpful summary statements. Of the commandment in general and the ease with which mild disobediences might be justified on seemingly allowable grounds (like ‘helpfulness’) he says, ‘Let this be our wisdom, to acquiesce in what God has chosen to decree in this matter.’ And on the bearing of the commandment specifically on how we worship, he remarks, that if people should think that ‘zeal for religion … is sufficient’ they have not realized that ‘true religion ought to be conformed to God’s will as to a universal rule’,23 which is no more than was first written in . Sinai brought no vision to the eyes, only a voice to the ears. Everything in worship must be ordered according to the word of God—a truth Jesus reiterated in .
c. Reverence for God as he has revealed himself
The third commandment arises from the self-declaration of God, I am the LORD [Yahweh], with which this whole great statement begins (2). The Lord’s name is shorthand for all that he has revealed about himself with, of course, particular reference to the central revelations made through Moses and confirmed in the events of the exodus. ‘I AM WHO [WHAT] I AM’ () is like an ample container into which the great truths revealed by Moses and through the exodus have been packed: the Holy One, the God of the covenant, the Redeemer, Deliverer, Judge, the caring God of daily providence, the God of reconciliation who brings his people to himself. Any particular misuse of the divine name would deny or scorn any one of these great fundamentals. But since each is an aspect of what God is, any misuse of his name is a personal insult to him.
Misuse the name of the LORD (traditionally ‘take the name in vain’) is (lit.) ‘lift up the name … to emptiness [šāw’]’.24 The most obvious meaning of ‘lifting up the name’ is that ‘lift up’ is an abbreviation of ‘lift up upon one’s lips’. The use of the noun ‘God’ or the name of Jesus or the title ‘Christ’ as an expletive would certainly fall within this condemnation and, on a more serious level, so would the giving of one’s loyalty to, or taking one’s oath by, a false god—though this (supported by Currid) would be an extension of the primary meaning.
The third commandment is one of four commandments (the second, third, fourth and fifth) with some added comment. There is no ground for the common assumption among specialists that these comments were later additions and that all of the Ten Commandments were originally composed of no more than the succinct words with which they open. Indeed, it is of no small interest to note that these are the commandments most lightly flouted today—and why should we not assume that, in the unchanging realities of human nature, they were just as easy to belittle and just as much in need of reinforcement when they were first promulgated? At any rate, the third commandment is given the support of a most striking sanction, all the more frightening in being left vague: the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless.25 The implication is that the Lord’s name is intensely precious to him. It is he who notes its misuse and who matches the punishment to the crime in each and every case.
d. An imitative life
Our responsibility to live our lives in imitation of God is the heart of the fourth commandment, for did not the Creator perform his perfect work of creation—the work which he pronounced ‘good’ ()—by working six days and resting one day? What is then the perfect life pattern for humans in the image of God? Is it not to work for six days and rest for one? This has nothing to do with Christians attempting (as they are so often accused of doing) to impose their standards on others who do not share their convictions. Far from it. When a doctor prescribes a certain course of treatment, the sick person does not round on him by asking what right he has to impose his doctor’s convictions on someone who is not a doctor. In such a case the doctor would reply, ‘Don’t be so foolish! I’m not imposing my standards on you. I’m telling you what to do because you’re human, because you’re a person and this is the way human beings “work”.’ In exactly the same way, the Creator prescribes his pattern of working and resting for us because we are made in his image and this is our proper functioning procedure. It is ours because it was his. Our calling is to live out his pattern, to make his example the way we order our lives, to reflect what we are—beings created in the image of God.
Exodus concentrates on the Sabbath as a day free from work, with obvious reference to the gainful employment of the previous six days, the wage-earning days which provided an economic basis for family life.26 The loss of one day’s financial gain cut deeply into the commercially ambitious, as shows. The businessman in the Amos passage happens to be unscrupulous, but many an honest shopkeeper, or self-employed farmer, must have faced the fact that losing a day’s income out of obedience to the commandment was costly. In this way, faith and obedience join hands in the assumption that the Lord will look after those who put him first, and the fourth commandment is pre-eminently a call for the obedience of faith. Incidents like those recorded in and show, both negatively and positively, that the freedom to be enjoyed on the Sabbath imposed a duty of careful forethought.
The cessation of work is not, however, an end in itself but, so to speak, ‘clears a space’; as Childs puts it, there was to be ‘the cessation of normal activity … in order to set aside the Sabbath for something special’.27 What that ‘something special’ was is left vague by the commandment, but three principles are clear. The Sabbath was to be a day of holiness, that is, a different day, a day set apart from all other days (8), a day belonging in some special way to the Lord and therefore to be lived uniquely for him (10) and a day essential to our imitation of him (11). The vagueness is doubtless deliberate, leaving room for individual choice and personal preference, but the one thing that is common to all three principles is that it was to be a different day. And that surely remains true today: Sunday should be not a second Saturday every week (as the term ‘continental Sunday’ is found to mean), nor an idle nothing (as ‘Sunday observance’ has so often turned out to be), but a day positively different because it is being lived specially for God.28
5. Essential relationships
There is, however, no such thing as a concern for God that ignores our relationships with people. Think of the way the Decalogue is structured: responsibilities towards God—thoughts, words, deeds; responsibilities towards people—deeds, words, thoughts. It belongs together as one rounded, indivisible whole which cannot be sundered. It is the law of God. And, if we were to follow this through the Bible, we would have to say that our attention to the outward and visible realities of the second section of the law reveals how seriously we take the spiritual realities of the first. As John puts it, ‘anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen … Whoever loves God must also love his brother’ ().
In this way, our ‘vertical’ relationship to God and our ‘horizontal’ relationship to those around us must be in harmony. The second ‘great’ commandment, said Jesus, is ‘like’ the first (), and therefore obedience to the first must be reflected in obedience to the second. Relationships matter as deeply as that. But one set of relationships in particular take precedence. The fifth commandment is deliberately linked with the fourth by its positive form, so that the passage from the first half of the law to the second is seamless. The fourth commandment deals with the ordering of life in imitation of God, the fifth deals with achieving security of life by the honouring29 of parents. The life ordered according to God’s priorities will receive his blessing (11); the honouring of parents is the key to social stability and security of tenure in the land.30 When we step out of the arena of ‘duty to God’, we step into the arena of duty within the family, our foremost area of obligation in the world.
The fifth commandment is addressed to children, and this is significant. Covenant law has regard to the family born within the covenant and imposes its obligations on the children of covenant parents. It treats such children as members of the covenant people, having just as much been ‘brought out’ by the blood of the lamb as their parents. It makes its promises to them and imposes its obligations upon them. Just as children, from infancy, come within the circle of covenant blessing (; ), so from childhood they must be taught to follow covenant ways and obey covenant law. We note also the equality accorded to both parents, for an identical attitude is required towards the father as towards the mother.31
a. Sins and crimes
Pretty well every society, notes Cassuto, counts murder, adultery and theft as forbidden acts, and to this extent the Decalogue contains nothing new. It is unique, however, in making their prohibition into ‘fundamental, abstract, eternal principles, which transcend any condition … circumstance … definition’. It is also typical, we might add, of the Old Testament to make no distinction between crimes (committed against people) and sins (committed against God). The origin of the social prohibitions here is the will of God, reflecting the character of God and expressing the fundamental rule, ‘You must be what you must be, because I am what I am.’32
We can see this principle plainly at work in commandments five, six, seven and nine, where a biblical link is forged with the thought of the image of God. In we are reminded that Adam was in the likeness of God, and verse 3 proceeds to tell us that he ‘had [lit. begot] a son in his own likeness, in his own image’. In other words, the image of God (note the coincidence of wording with ) continues down the generations—defaced and diluted, undoubtedly, but continuing. Is it for this reason that Paul teaches that ‘all fatherhood’ derives from God the Father ()?33 The conclusion to be drawn, therefore, in relation to this commandment is plain: children must look on their parents (and, by implication, parents on their children) as bearing the image of God and must treat them as such.
makes the fact that humankind bears the divine image the reason why murder is both a crime and a sin, and it is, indeed, the ground of the rightness, and justice of the death penalty. finds the image of God reflected in the first man and woman united in marriage, who in their togetherness bear the name ‘man’ (Heb. ’ādām) with all that that implies. It is for this reason that the offence of adultery disrupts and defiles the image of God. We ought also to recall that the Old Testament defines marriage as a covenant and even uses it as an illustration of the Lord’s covenant with his people.34 It is in this way that the seventh commandment, like all the others, reflects the divine nature, for at Sinai the Lord had pledged his covenanted word to his people. As Jeremiah insisted, he ‘was a husband to them’ (), that is, he was undeviating in faithfulness and committed to keep and do what he had undertaken. Marital infidelity involves going back on one’s pledged word and therefore is a departure from the image of God.
Finally, in illustration of the image of God as the foundation on which the Decalogue rests, observes that the remembrance of the divine image in other people should control our words about them, as the eighth commandment requires. In his blunt, practical way, James asks how it could be possible for the one tongue to bless and curse the same thing—God himself and his image in other people.35 In this way the two ‘sides’ of the law are bound together. We are drawn in devotion and honour, sole loyalty and imitative life, to God because of what he is and has revealed himself to be, because of the glories of his nature. But the glories of that nature are reflected, however imperfectly, with however many blemishes and stains, in those created in the image of God. Therefore, we are called to a great derivative concern for how we live among other people.
b. Property, truth and the heart
The Decalogue does not go in for a ‘league table’ of sins—as is evident by the way in which it puts an offence against property alongside offences against life, marriage and truth. Currid notes ‘the lack of specifics’ following the prohibition of theft; the command ‘simply transcends any conditions or circumstances’, whether it is a matter of carrying off goods or kidnapping people and whether the thing stolen is valuable or trivial. In a word, Scripture respects private property and demands integrity over the whole range of personal, economic and commercial relationships.36
In a similar way, the ninth commandment, (lit.) ‘you shall not answer in the case of your fellow [as] a false witness’, has both private and public aspects. The primary reference may be to an answer under oath at a formal court hearing. In this case the thrust of the commandment is to treasure the integrity of the judicial system. Once again, however, we notice that the command is nonspecific. On which side of the case is one envisaged as bearing witness, for the prosecution or the defence? Does the witness hold the accused innocent or guilty? Would a truthful word have unwanted side-effects and a small lie foreseeable benefits? No such considerations are relevant. Telling the truth in court is, of course, sacrosanct, but it would be hard to prove—or even imagine—that the more general notions of tale-bearing, innuendo and direct ‘character-assassination’ are not equally prohibited. In imitation of the ‘God, who does not lie’ (), his redeemed should be people of the truthful word.
The tenth commandment is where the Decalogue ends, but it is, in fact, the point at which every breach of the law begins—when by our ‘own evil desire’ we are ‘dragged away and enticed’ (). King David violated the sixth and seventh commandments (), but his sin began with the lust prohibited by the tenth (): possibly he could not have helped seeing Bathsheba, but he could have helped looking! King Ahab (more than ably assisted by his wife Jezebel) sinned comprehensively against the sixth, eighth and ninth commandments (), but the root of the evil was in his covetousness (vv. 1–4). ‘Improper desire’, says Murphy, ‘is the root of all evil. It can seldom be reached by human legislation, but it is open to the Searcher of hearts. The intent is that which, in the last resort, determines the moral character of the act. This last “word” is, therefore, the interpreting clause of the whole Decalogue ().’
We should note that, unlike the case of commandments six to nine, the verb covet is here provided with a wide selection of possible objects and, indeed, is itself repeated. The intention is not to limit the scope of the commandment to these precise objects, but by heaping one possible object of coveting on another to drive home the seriousness of the sin of covetousness itself. Its target is, specifically and comprehensively, the contemplative sin—as is made all too clear by the way in which Jesus drew out its meaning and significance in . It is true, as Cole points out, that binds together feeling and action, but it is the function of the final commandment to make explicit the internalizing of the whole law and the dire reality of sin in the heart.
Motyer, A. (2005). The Message of Exodus: The Days of Our Pilgrimage. (A. Motyer & D. Tidball, Eds.) (p. 213). Nottingham, England: Inter-Varsity Press.
Motyer, A. (2005). The Message of Exodus: The Days of Our Pilgrimage. (A. Motyer & D. Tidball, Eds.) (p. 213). Nottingham, England: Inter-Varsity Press.