Our first scripture passage should be very familiar to all of us because I read it last week and added a little bit more this week. But please turn with me in your Bibles to Exodus. We’re actually going to start a little bit further back in chapter 19, with the third verse. And yes, what I am reading sounds different than it looks on the screen because I am reading this, as I did last week, from the King James.
“And Moses went up unto God, and the Lord called unto him out of the mountain, saying, Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob and tell the children of Israel, ‘You have seen what I did unto the Egyptians and how I bare you on eagle’s wings and brought you unto myself. Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people; for all the earth is mine. And you shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.’”
And Moses came and called for the elders of the people and laid before their faces all these words which the Lord commanded him. And all the people answered together and said, “All that the Lord hath spoken we will do.” And Moses returned the words of the people unto the Lord.
And the Lord said unto Moses, “Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud that the people may hear when I speak with thee and believe thee forever.” And God spake all these words, saying: “I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven 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. Thou shalt not bow down to thyself to them nor serve them; for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the fourth and third generation of them that hate me and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.”
“Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it, thou shalt not do any work; thou nor thy son nor thy daughter, thy manservant nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day. Wherefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.”
“Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house; thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor’s.”
And all the people saw the thunderings and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet and the mountain smoking. And when the people saw it, they were moved and stood afar off. And they said unto Moses, “Speak thou with us and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.”
And Moses said unto the people, “Fear not; for God has come to prove you, and that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not.”
From Exodus, we turn to the book of Romans to Paul’s letter, chapter 2, where he writes: “Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges, for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Do you suppose, O man, you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.”
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Let us pray. Father God, you’ve given us your word, your word which does not change, your word which you set in stone by your very finger. We thank you for it, and we just ask that you illuminate our minds, that you open our hearts, make us malleable and receptive to how your law commands our lives, how we should live, how we should respond to the grace you have given to us. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.
So this morning, we are continuing to talk about God’s moral law, the Torah. The moral law is also God’s covenant law, stipulations of the eternal covenant concerning what the Lord, what Jesus, has done on behalf of all his chosen people and how we are to live our lives in grateful response to Him.
The Bible tells us that after God spoke the words of his covenant to the people of Israel, all of Israel responded, declaring, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do.” They answered him not only for themselves but also for all of their descendants, particularly the God-man, Jesus Christ. They agreed to all of God’s terms, but this was no mere gentleman’s agreement; this was a covenant.
And then Moses went up on the mountain to receive the two tablets of the testimony upon which God had written his covenant, a permanent copy carved in stone, an agreement forever unalterable and without an expiration date. Eternal security for the people and perpetual obedience to the Lord’s covenant.
Now, that is a word that I’ve used a few times recently, and I have not yet paused to define and explain just what a covenant is, so I apologize for not explaining why this is such an important term. Because it may well be the most important term and expression used within scripture.
So, offer a short explanation. By comparison, modern contracts and other legally binding agreements are like a covenant in that they consist of multiple parties who agreed to do or not to do one thing or another. Historically, covenants were made binding upon the parties by their oath, swearing by their respective deity to witness and hold them to account. Sadly, today we do not consider oaths to be sacrosanct like they once were. Now, they seem to be mere empty words spoken for show, with one hand on a Bible, without any fear of consequence or retribution for lying.
However, unlike our modern contracts, covenants also offered no provision to get out of the contract. They also had the most severe penalty for violation or breach of contract: a fatal penalty. For example, Joshua and the Israelites made a covenant of peace with the Gibeonites during the conquest of Canaan under the Gibeonites’ false pretenses, but then later King David had to atone for King Saul’s attempted extermination of the Gibeonites in violation of that earlier covenant. David had to hand over seven of Saul’s sons to be killed as a matter of justice.
Bari is the Hebrew word for covenant, and the expression used for making a covenant is karate bari, and the literal meaning of this is to cut a covenant. There are several different thoughts as to what exactly is meant by that, whether it was symbolic or merely referring to the inscription of terms carved into stone. But from the study of other recovered ancient Near East covenant treaties, along with the examples found here in scripture, such as the covenant God made with Abram in Genesis 15, we find that cutting a covenant was as gruesomely literal as it sounds.
When a covenant was made, an animal would be sacrificed and divided into two parts. Then the parties would walk between the parts, swearing upon their divine oath their agreement to the terms of the covenant. And so, by the symbolic act of walking between the pieces, they would be swearing their affirmation to the penalty of “let it be done to me as it is done to this sacrifice if I break this covenant.” A penalty of death and dismemberment as the consequence for breaking covenant.
After the oaths, the parties would then share a meal together, eating the sacrifice as a final symbol of their unity and agreement. Later, upon the death of either party, instead of the covenant being declared null and void, the survivor and the heir would meet together and renew those covenant terms.
So ultimately, terms of a covenant became the law which governed and guided all future relations between these parties. We see this process of cutting a covenant over and over again in scripture: the fire pot theophany of the Lord in Genesis 15, the circumcision of male children, the sprinkling of blood upon the Israelites by Moses in Exodus 24, ratifying their oath from chapter 19, the renewal of the Sinai covenant by the people of Israel before Moses died, and again before Joshua died.
Most importantly, we see the same covenantal system used during the institution of the Lord’s Supper when Jesus said, while taking the bread, “This is my body, broken for you, and this is the cup that is poured out for you in the new covenant of my blood.” A sacrificial death, a division, and a meal together ratifying a covenant.
So during our celebration of the Lord’s Supper, when we eat the bread and drink the cup, we are united by the unbreakable bond of covenant to Christ and his death, physically and spiritually. By remembering this, we know and believe that we are truly united in Him and with Him, both physically and spiritually, in his resurrection as our hope of the resurrection life to come.
But why was God’s covenant law inscribed on two tablets? Like covenants between men and nations, both parties to the covenant needed a copy: one set for the Lord to be kept inside the ark of the covenant, which was stored within the holy of holies within the tabernacle, and one set for the people of Israel to be kept in their midst. Their copy also happened to be stored in the ark of the covenant.
The ark of the covenant was the most protected and highly valued object to all of the people of Israel because it stored these tablets of the testimony and other items which demonstrated God’s faithfulness. The ark became God’s mobile throne on earth, and within it was the people’s declaration: the declaration of the people’s only right and reason to come worship the Lord. The tablets of the testimony contained God’s holy law and his covenant with the people whom he had claimed for his own.
Not only was the covenant and the ark the symbol of Israel’s identity, it contained the source of their identity as the people of God: those two tablets, the Ten Commandments, God’s holy law and covenant. Because not only does the Ten Commandments tell us what we are to do and not to do, it tells us who we are: God’s chosen people.
Considering all of that, then our whole understanding of the Ten Commandments should take on a different tenor. Our idea for its importance in our lives and the weight of power behind it becomes stronger because the tablets were not written just as a list of ten things for us to do or not to do. These are not ten suggestions. Exodus 20 begins with the words, “And God spoke all these words, saying.” The Ten Commandments are not even really commandments; they are the 10 Davarim, 10 words, 10 statements of absolute fact, 10 declarations which carry all the weight and authority of the one who made these proclamations behind them.
They’re not simply “do this” and “don’t do that.” They are more like a parent saying to their child, “Don’t touch the stove because it’s hot,” or “Put on your jacket because it’s cold outside.” It’s like that, but stronger. They are imperatives; they are declarations which must be obeyed immediately and obeyed to the fullest, clearest effect. They are divine imperatives.
Imperatives like a father telling a son, “You will,” or a mother saying, “You will clean your room,” or “You will eat your dinner.” You know those kind of imperatives which make a person believe their name has been changed to “will” because of the emphatic force: thou shalt and thou shalt not. Imperatives leave no room for argument, discussion, or dissent. There is no room for disobedience.
These imperative declarations put the fear of God into a person, for good reason. 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 stood far off and said to Moses, “Yes, make for us, and we will listen, but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.”
See, these are rules which we must obey. We must obey them because they are the standard against which we will be, and are judged. We must obey them because they are the standard which we will get to use to judge the world under Christ’s authority. Because all people will be judged, even those who do not accept God’s law, as well as those who actively deny it, like our culture does daily.
For even our modern civil law holds to the principle of ignorancia juris non excusat, meaning ignorance of the law is no excuse. Although us, as professing and believing Christians, we are under grace. The grace we have received, the forgiveness for all of our lawlessness and law-breaking that we have been given is not licensed to continue in our sin but has been given to restore us, out from under the burden of our sins and guilt, to restore us to repentance and to holiness in Christ.
Being forgiven must lead to our obedience because our union with Christ as his bride is such a beautiful thing. He has now made us spotless and without blemish, clothed in the purest white garments. And if we believe that, if you truly believe that you are united with Christ, and if you honestly acknowledge and confess the depth of your prior wretched, filthy, sinful condition and state of being, then how could you or anyone, how could any believing Christian want to soil themselves with sin again?
We are charged to be what Christ has declared us to be: clean, holy, pure and obedient. Now, that’s not to say that we will not get messed up. Accidents happen, and unfortunately, we do still sin against God despite our redeemed hearts’ desire not to. We still sin and get those spots of scarlet on our white clothes, like spaghetti splatters from a red sauce on a clean white shirt or blouse, and Jesus keeps cleaning us off.
But to continue in sin is not the intent or goal. However, we must also avoid an extreme swing to the opposite direction. Away from the antinomianism I mentioned last week, we must also avoid legalism. We must not make our obedience to the law a requirement for salvation or the source of our confidence because the law guides us and guards us, defining the lanes of obedience to Christ.
Well, grace is like the round gutter bumpers we find when bowling, you know, which keep us inside those lanes. But even though sometimes we might be skillful or we might just get lucky and bowl a turkey or two, only Jesus Christ bowls a perfect 300 game every time. Always.
As sinners redeemed by grace, we want to follow the law now. We want to obey; we want to stay under the speed limit, but sometimes the lead foot of our sinful nature causes us to slip and fail and drive much faster than 55 until we crash through the guardrails. But now we see the value of the law. Now we understand why the Lord God has given it to us: our benefit, our well-being, and our good. He alone knows what is truly best for us because he is the one who made us and all the creation in which we live.
Now, notice the Lord did not give Israel the law before he brought them out of Egypt. He gave it to them afterwards. The Lord’s work of salvation has never been conditional based upon our obedience, and that is the flaw which legalism promotes. Legalism is believing and acting as if I must do x, y, or z so that then God will love me. Legalism is thinking that we must be perfect people before we can be accepted into the church, that we must have it all together before we can come to Jesus.
And if you talk to folks around here this week, I’ve been a hot mess all week. I have not been perfect. But Jesus, he came for the broken, damaged, and absolutely not perfect people, calling them to faith and repentance, saying, “For I came not to call the righteous but sinners.” Jesus calls to us as we are. He calls to us when we are in our deepest and our dirtiest mess, and he does not leave us there. First, he calls us out from there, then he changes us. He fixes us so that by his grace we may be kept clean.
Then we respond to his grace by walking away from what we were: sinners, to live instead as who he says we are: saints. His law teaches us how to live good lives, and the law does not restrict us from what is good; it guides us towards the good.
Because the law no longer holds a coercive power over our lives, yet the law still instructs. The law cannot grant us salvation by our obedience because all it can do is condemn us because we are not obedient. But now we can and should still try to obey the law in love, because we have been saved. We are saved; it’s a done deal, and you didn’t have to do anything to earn it because Jesus did all the work necessary. Isn’t that good news?
See, God did not tell the Israelites that if they kept these ten rules, then he would bring them out of bondage in Egypt. First, God brought the Israelites to Mount Sinai from Egypt; then he gave them the law. He said, “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” Just as God saved Israel from Egypt, so too, God has redeemed all of his elect from our bondage to sin and death.
Now we are allowed to and able to obey him. Now we can obey, not out of fear of retribution or punishment for our failures, but instead from love and gratitude for what God has done for us, just as he always intended. Just as Adam was meant to obey the Lord by living and working in the garden, our faithful obedience is worship because it glorifies God.
So how do the Ten Commandments tell us about our lives? How are we to live according to God’s law? Firstly, before the law even tells us what we are to do or not to do, it tells us who God is and who we were and who we now are. R.C. Sproul used to say that the greatest problem we have as people is that we forget who God is and who we are.
Fortunately, the Ten Commandments begin by answering those two questions: “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” The Lord is our redeemer and savior. He is our rescuer, our chain breaker. He is greater than the greatest worldly power; he is certainly greater than we are; otherwise, why would we need him?
We were slaves to a master more powerful than ourselves. We were slaves to our sin. We needed to be rescued. We needed, and need, a savior. We needed to be purposefully, intentionally, and powerfully removed from the place of bondage to a place of freedom. Now we are God’s chosen people, his elect. Now we are free from our sin, free from our past. We are now not who we once were.
And it’s no wonder that our culture has forgotten who God is and who we are since it has removed all mention of his law or himself from the public sphere. Because his law is the foundation of all morality. The knowledge of who God is and who we are in relation to him should govern all of our relationships. It is written on our hearts, but our sinful nature causes us to ignore it and suffer condemnation.
The law defines what is right and what is wrong because God is the only judge and arbiter of what is right. “You shall have no other gods before me.” Having no other gods before God does not create a ranking system; the Lord is not first among many. The word before here is not first then before the second before the third. It is more a “before me,” as in standing right there before me. We must have no other gods in the Lord’s presence, for the whole earth is his. And as there are no other true gods, much less any who rival him in power or might or majesty, and no other god has rescued us and redeemed us, then we must worship him alone.
We must remove all of our other gods and keep them far from our hearts and minds. “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.” We are not to worship anything created in place of our holy Lord. We may have no other objects of devotion and worship in his place.
He did not create other gods, but man, us. We have elevated different creatures and generated other idols from our imagination to be rival gods. Whether we worship idols of stone or wood, or golden images of things real or imagined, or even abstract ideas, those things cannot hear us, they cannot answer us, and they certainly cannot save us.
No, nowadays this commandment against images may seem strange to us because we’re so much more sophisticated than those ancient peoples were, right? Of course, everyone knows that statues are not really gods or deserving worship. But our idols today just simply take on different forms and likenesses. Our idols are found in places like politics, whether party or individual politicians, in sports, professional, college, or even kids’ sports, in our entertainment, TV shows or movies, online streaming, or even the actors themselves, in our possessions and our collections of stuff.
Everywhere we look at the world around us, we find things that either are or may become idols because our sinful hearts and minds want to worship anything but the holy sovereign Creator Lord, because he requires far much more than our sinful flesh could bear. John Calvin said, “The human mind is a perpetual forge of idols.” Idol worship is something we are all guilty of, something we often do without even realizing.
We all love to talk about the things we love, right? So we love to talk about our many idols. That’s one reason another reason why the Shema, the great commandment, was so important and recited by the Jews three times daily—to remind them and refocus them towards the one true God.
It immediately follows the giving of the Ten Commandments in the book of Deuteronomy and continues with: “And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children. You shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down and when you rise.” God in his word is to surround us and to always be on our minds. It is to be in our every conversation, with every person, in every place we go.
We are not to let anything else take his place in our hearts and minds. As Christians indwelt by the Holy Spirit, the Lord is seated upon the throne of our heart, so we must constantly strive to keep our sinful selves and our sinful desires from crawling up there to try and take his place. Every one of us is a theologian. We’re told to love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. Therefore, he should be foremost in our mind at all times.
And being the one person who should be the most important to us, we should always desire to talk about him, his word, and his. But the question becomes, what God do we most often talk about, the Lord or our idols? What idols do you and I need to repent of?
“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.” This is not a generic prohibition on cursing or foul language, as commonly assumed. This is a positive command to keep the Lord’s name holy because he is holy. We do not do this by forgetting it or replacing it with a substitute or representative stand-in word. This commandment is not about his name itself but about who and what the name represents.
This declaration is regarding oaths, especially whatever is sworn by the Lord or his name. He will surely keep to account whatever is done in his name, and it must be done for his glory alone. So if sworn, it must be done, and it must not be anything sinful, wrong, or evil because his name is to be kept holy.
The English word vain used here carries the older understanding of the word as being empty, valueless, insubstantial, and fruitless. God’s name is anything but insubstantial or valueless; his very name, told to Moses, was, “I am who I am.” His name is a declaration of his being. Speaking to the people of Israel, the prophet Hosea said, “They utter mere words; with empty oaths they make covenants.”
So judgment springs up like poisonous weeds in the furrows of the fields because judgment and wrath is the result of taking the Lord’s name in vain. He will be vindicated. Then James says, “But above all, my brothers, do not swear either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath, but let your yes be yes and your no be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation.”
An oath should never be needed, especially among Christians. A person’s word should be their bond; it should be good enough. But because we do not trust one another, people swear things on oath. So oaths, things sworn by the Lord who alone is faithful and true, must not be proven false and should never be made flippantly.
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” Every day, every moment of our lives belongs to the Lord and should be devoted to him, his worship, and his glory. But especially one day in seven is to be devoted to him alone, and the rest of the week is given to handle all of our needs and wants. But the Sabbath is given for God’s desire; God desires good for us. So he provided the example and modeled it for us by resting on the seventh day—not because God gets tired, but because we do.
Physical rest is good for us; it is needful. But especially on the Sabbath, our resting is meant to be in and with the Lord because in him we live and move and have our being. This is our time together to fellowship with God and grow in our relationship with Christ.
“Honor your father and mother.” The honor to be given is not limited just to our earthly parents but also applies to our heavenly Father. This honor applies to our parents and to all other persons who hold authority over us because they have been appointed to that role for our good by the Lord. We honor them by giving respect, heeding their words, and obeying their commands promptly, without complaint, and responding as if their command came directly from God.
“You shall not murder.” This command prohibits all intentional and willful violence against anyone made in the image of God. Murder and violence elevate oneself and your assumed good over the good, benefit, and well-being of your neighbor. It also assumes the power and authority of God by the taking of a human life without being able to create or give life.
However, this commandment does not promote necessary violence—violence performed on behalf of or in defense of those unable to protect themselves. That still is a godly service to one’s neighbor, but still, violence is never to be the first or principal recourse.
“You shall not commit adultery.” Adultery is more than just the violation of the marriage covenant; adultery is the faithlessness demonstrated when transgressing any covenant. This expression was particularly applied against the people of Israel for their faithlessness to the Lord by going after the many gods. Adultery is faithlessness.
“You shall not steal.” Like the prohibition against murder, this is also violence against the image of God and violence against God whom they represent. The theft of property from others raises our own self-evaluation and elevates ourselves to an assumed position of lordship, trying to topple God from his throne in sinful rebellion.
“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” Truth—Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me.” Truth is important in all aspects of our lives. We believe and accept all of God’s word as being the truth. We believe that Jesus is God’s word made flesh, and that Christ lives inside of us.
So lying, speaking, and spreading falsehoods is naturally dishonoring to the Lord and the Spirit of Christ within us. Bearing false witness is blatant, disrespectful sin against both man and God. So our lies offer testimony and evidence against us, declaring that the truth that Christ is not in us.
“You shall not covet anything.” To covet is to indulge in an inordinate, ungoverned, selfish desire. Selfish desires elevate yourself over and against your neighbor’s needs, wants, or property rights. Now, mind you, it’s not sinful to desire or want something new, but that sin grows when you desire and want someone else’s something. You might want a new car, a new dress, or a new set of golf clubs. So then go and buy them; buy whatever you want. That’s not sin.
But coveting is wanting Bill Wyatt’s golf clubs or my car or Miss Dana’s outfit—not wanting one like ours, but wanting our particular possessions.
So responding to the Pharisees’ question, Jesus summarized the whole law with, “Thou shalt love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and with all your mind, and thou shalt love your neighbor as yourself.”
And after the Lord had spoken these words to Moses and the Israelites, they trembled in fear. They demanded that Moses speak to God for them, that he would mediate and intercede for them because they knew and understood what was being demanded and required of them: total obedience. And it terrified them.
Surrendering our autonomy to another person, being obedient to someone over whom we have no control, is terrifying. They wanted an excuse to conveniently not understand. They wanted someone else to blame for their failure to obey and someone else to suffer God’s wrath for their sin. They wanted a scapegoat. And so the Lord gave us one: Jesus.
Moses told them, “Do not fear; for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin.” The Lord gave us the law because he wants us to be holy as he is holy. He doesn’t want us to sin, so he defined what sin is and then provided us with the choice. But because of our fallen nature, we could only choose to sin.
We need the offspring of the woman. We need someone to make the correct choice for us, to choose to obey God’s law and live free and not disobey his law and face destruction, the promise and the punishment both fulfilled in Christ Jesus.
Our flawed works of holy and reverent obedience matter to God. He knows that we cannot measure up on our own, which is why he gave us his Son, Jesus, to be obedient for us. Although Jesus did it perfectly for you and for me, that still does not remove our obligation for obedience.
The Apostle Paul wrote, ‘He will render to each one according to his works. To those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.”
The why of what we do matters—not our perfect fulfillment or ability. We are to be imitators of Christ. We are not Christ himself. Meanwhile, we patiently seek glory, honor, and that immortality.
So thou shalt do well living and working for God’s glory. Thou shalt be righteous by faith in Christ alone. Thou shalt not be self-serving and disobedient to what and who is true. Thou shalt not live as the unrighteous because the Lord your God brought you out of the house of slavery. But you were bought with a price. So glorify the Lord by being obedient children. You are his most treasured possession. Amen.