The Wounds of Murder
Notes
Transcript
As our world is gripped in fear concerning the life or death issues surrounding the coronavirus outbreak, it is good that we are looking today at the Sixth Commandment. For in this commandment we discover that God is decisively on the side of life. Moreover, we will discover that our world faces a far greater danger from vice than it does from a virus. With this in view, let us give our attention to God’s Word. First from Exodus 20:13:
“You shall not murder.
And now, from the New Testament, the words of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, as found in Matthew 5:21-26:
“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.
When asked about which of the commandments were greater, Jesus summarizes the law this way: Love God with all our soul, strength and mind; and love our neighbor as yourself (Luke 10:27). These commandments correspond to the two tables of the Law. It is typical for people to place the first four commandments in the first table and the last six in the second table, but if look at the literary structure of the Ten Commandments, it is apparent that God intends us to read the Law as two tables of five. Moreover, the first and the second halves of the Ten Commandments match one another. For example: idolatry is a species of murder and murder is a kind of idolatry. The prohibition found in the sixth commandment is grounded in the fact that humanity is created in the image of God (Genesis 9:6). The first commandment prohibits the worship of any god but the God of the Exodus; the sixth commandment prohibits assaults on the created image of God.
I have stressed the interconnection between the two halves of the Ten Commandments, because not only it is interesting, but also because it drives home to us how serious all sins are and how one sin leads to another. We see the inter-connective nature of sin in the earliest pages of the Bible: Adam’s original sin was idolatry; attempting to become like God (Genesis 3). In the next chapter, Cain, murders his younger brother, Abel (Genesis 4).
In addition, from the violation of any one commandment flows the violation of the other nine. We assault the image of God by killing another human being, by violating marriage, by stealing the property God has entrusted to another, by defiling another person’s reputation through false testimony and finally by coveting become murders. Listen to the wisdom of James, in regards to this:
What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
No wonder James warns us in the same letter:
For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it. For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.
The Hebrew word translated “murder” in our English Bibles also includes the idea of causing the death of someone else through negligence or carelessness. A careful reading of the Old Testament shows us that all shedding of human blood had to be dealt with, either by the execution of murderers, the confinement of manslayers, or a rite of cleansing and atonement. For example, before soldiers went to war, they had to pay “atonement” money to pre-cover bloodshed (Ex 30:11-16). Contrary to popular opinion, the Old Testament was not a more bloodthirsty time than ours. In fact, we moderns are the ones guilty of taking the shedding of human blood far too lightly!
What does this say about God?
It says that God cares deeply for the preservation of human life. Mother Nature cares nothing about life. The coronavirus is proof of this. Those who operate from a naturalistic worldview ultimately care little about life as well. One only has to look at the hundreds of millions of people who have been slathered in the name of socialism or a women’s right to choose an abortion, to see the truth of this. Contrast this to God:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
In this series, we are looking at how the accusation and punishment of our sin fell upon Christ. John vividly portrays this for us in the eleventh chapter of his gospel.
So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council and said, “What are we to do? For this man performs many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all. Nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.” He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. So from that day on they made plans to put him to death.
Notice how cheaply, Caiaphas treats the life of Jesus. This is typical of humanities fallen state—we are willing to sacrifice the individual for what we perceive as the “greater good.”
How different Christ’s attitude is; He sacrifices Himself for us!
Why did Christ make the ultimate sacrifice of us?
It was because “the wages of sin is death.” Earlier I said that vice, not a virus possess the greatest danger to humanity. Viruses, disease, injury and ultimately death all came into this world because of sin.
Jesus died to pay the debt we owe for sin and to free us from the enslaving grip of sin.
Many accused Jesus of undermining the Law of Moses, but Jesus said He came to fulfill it. This is clearly seen in our Gospel lesson from Luke. There Jesus does not water down the Old Testament Law, but rather elevates it to a higher standard—the Law of Love.
In these troubled times, let us be an example of love and faith; pointing people to the One who can heal them in both body and in soul. By His Wounds We are Healed!