“The Law still applies”

“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.’” - Exodus 20.1-2

We had a great sermon from Vaughan last night at St. Ebbe’s. It’s available on the St. Ebbe’s website to listen to HERE. If memory serves me correctly, this is roughly how it went.

The Law of Perfect Freedom

Many people’s attitude to the Ten Commandments are like the attitude of the professor whose study is so full of books that when the next consignment arrives, he instructs his assistant to remove the oldest ones. They’re out of date. Or we don’t like the idea of having to keep certain rules. They’re restrictive. Yet James describes God’s law as ‘the law of perfect freedom’. We ignore the Ten Commandments at our peril. There are two things to see about the Ten Commandments from these opening verses of Exodus 20.

1. Their authority

With the world’s ignorance of God, we are left with a morality with no objective basis. Are we to have a morality based on utilitarianism, the greatest good for the greatest number? If that were the case, then euthanasia of the mentally handicapped and infanticide of weak or ill children would be justified - they’re a drain on society. We rightly baulk at such suggestions. But that feeling comes from the Bible - all people are created in God’s image and so have dignity. Or are we to have a morality based on what makes us feel good?

Into that situation come the Ten Commandments. They have authority because they are come from God - “And God spoke all these words, saying…” These aren’t just Moses’ ideas for a particular time. They are God’s word. He spoke them at Sinai. He will later go on to engrave them on tablets of stone. Some implications of this:

They’re eternal

They are rooted in the character of God. Murder is forbidden because God is the life-giver. Lying is forbidden, because God only speaks the truth. Adultery is forbidden, because God is always faithful to his people.

They’re universal

God is the God of the whole universe, and these laws come from his character. Therefore it follows that they apply not just for one particular group of people, but for everyone.

They’re personal

They’re not like the metal “Keep of the Grass” signs on College Quads, which are faceless, arguably pointless laws. One could be easily tempted to break them. They’re more like a good friend saying, “Don’t walk on the lawn.” We may not understand the reason why, but because our friend has told us not to, we won’t do it.

2. Their purpose

To reveal our sin

“For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse, for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” - Galatians 3.10

Our attitude can be like that of the student to his Finals paper - answer any three out of these ten. They are more like medical exams. Every part of the body should be covered. We don’t want a doctor who says, “I’ve done the eye, but I haven’t covered the heart.” It’s like a bucket held over a well by ten links in a chain [Vaughan said 10 chains but that analogy doesn't work]. How many links have to be broken for the bucket to fall. Just one. We’ve all broken God’s law when we think of the spirit of the law. The Lord Jesus summarised the law in the two commandments, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength,” and, “Love your neighbour as yourself.” We’ve all failed to do that. And so we come under the curse of the law. The law condemns us.

To reveal our saviour

Salvation has always been by faith. It was not the case that in the OT people were saved by trying to keep God’s law, but that didn’t work, and so God sends Jesus so that we could be saved by faith in him. It was always by God’s grace. After all, the Ten Commandments were given to God’s already redeemed people. “Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.” - Galatians 3.23-24. God’s law points us to Christ. It shows us our need of him. It shows us that we are in the prison cell needing rescue. Christ was the one who perfectly kept the law, and was the only one who didn’t deserve condemnation. But Christ took the curse of the law so that all who believe in him are justified.

To reveal God’s standards

That doesn’t mean that we can live how we like. The law points us to Christ, and then Christ points us back to the law and tells us that this is how we must live as God’s redeemed people. “For you were called to freedom brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.”" - Galatians 5.13-14. We’re to love because love is the principle underlying the law. God’s law tells us what that life of love looks like. God’s law, in the OT and the NT, still applies. We have to remember, though that the other OT laws, which apply the Ten Commandments, don’t necessarily apply to us in the same way. We don’t offer animal sacrifices because Christ’s death was the one perfect sacrifice. We don’t keep the food laws, because that marked out Israel as God’s special nation, but now his people are multi-national. The Ten Commandments are his moral law.

Moreover, the law is not just an external code that we have to try and keep. God writes his laws now not on tablets of stone but on our hearts (Jeremiah 31.31). We have a new desire to keep God’s law because he has given us his Spirit, who lifts us up to want to keep God’s laws. And we have a new power. The Holy Spirit enables us to keep God’s law.

Application

Sorry - Say sorry to God for the way we’ve broken his laws

Thankyou - Thank him that in his love he sent his Son to be our saviour

Please - He also sent his Spirit - we need to ask for his help in desiring to and being able to keep God’s law.

Chiasm in Exodus 6

None of the commentators (by which I mean Motyer in his BST on Exodus, T. D. Alexander in the IVP New Bible Commentary, the Tyndale OT Commentary and Davis, a liberal SCM commentator) appear to have spotted this but it seems to be clear:

A I AM YAHWEH (v. 2)

B I appeared to ABRAHAM, ISAAC AND JACOB and established my covenant with them to GIVE them THE LAND of Canaan (vv. 3-4)

C I AM YAHWEH who will bring YOU OUT FROM UNDER THE BURDENS OF THE EGYPTIANS (vv. 5-6)

D I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God (v. 7)

C’ I AM YAHWEH who has brought YOU OUT FROM UNDER THE BURDENS OF THE EGYPTIANS (v. 7)

B’ I will bring you into THE LAND that I swore to GIVE to ABRAHAM, ISAAC AND JACOB (v.

A’ I AM YAHWEH (v.

The point of this block comes in v. 7, which is the refrain of the covenant of grace: “I will take you to be my people and I will be your God. This is in answer to Moses’ complaints in 5.22-23: “Why have you done evil to this people?”; “You have not delivered your people at all.”

God is therefore giving assurance to Moses and to Israel that despite the worsening circumstances they find themselves in, he is going to take Israel to be his people and he will be their God, just as he promised in Genesis 17. This is a miniature of the enlarged (but connected) promises we have in Christ, being heirs of Abraham and members of the covenant of grace and thus true Israel by faith in Christ. In the New Jerusalem, we “will be his people, and God himself will be with us as our God” (Rev. 21.5). The land we await is no less than the new heavens and the new earth. Richard Pratt compares the land which Israel was to occupy with Omaha beach, the starting point for the advancement of the kingdom of God which will expand to fill the whole, renewed earth. We, too, live in a pagan country that is hostile to us and, although I am no prophet or prophet’s son, there will be times when things get horribly worse, both for the church corporately, and by extension for members of the covenant community in their own lives. This therefore, is a message that we very much need to take on board and preach to ourselves and store up for the future. We have the added advantage of being able to look back in the pages of Scripture of the completed Exodus event, as well as the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, which guarantees our own resurrection on that last day if we are in him.

(Can I just preach this to my FOCUS table? It’s far more efficient and I would still - I hope - be modelling good Bible handling to them. I’d let them ask questions and discuss where they wanted to. Peter Masters’ “Bible Studies” at the Metropolitan Tabernacle are sermons, after all.)