Regarding Christians and the Ten Commandments
Posted: Wed Nov 04, 2009 1:25 am
I have felt for some time that Christians who engage in lawsuits over the Ten Commandments being posted in public places come perilously close to disrespecting Christ. Why aren't they arguing for the Sermon on the Mount? Anyway, as an apology for my position, I put together the following. I seek any comments and/or criticisms from any who may have them, or any suggestions for improvement(s).
Regarding Christians and the 10 Commandments
2 Corinthians 3 (New King James Version)
1. Do we begin again to commend ourselves? Or do we need, as some others, epistles of commendation to you or letters of commendation from you?
2. You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men;
3. clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart.
*Here we have an allusion to the Ten Commandments and that which was written by the Spirit, through Paul, on their hearts. See Jeremiah 31:33
4. And we have such trust through Christ toward God.
5. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God,
6. who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
*Another reference to the Ten Commandments and the Spirit, as in v.3. The Law kills; it can not give life.
7. But if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away (#2673, see below),
*Here Paul explicitly refers to the Ten Commandments as the "ministery of death", and hints that it is passing away.
8. how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious?
9. For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory.
*Though the Ten Commandments were glorious, the ministry of the Spirit is much more so.
10. For even what was made glorious had no glory in this respect, because of the glory that excels.
11. For if what is passing away (#2673)was glorious, what remains is much more glorious.
*As Paul was writing to the Corinthians, the Ten Commandments were passing away.
12. Therefore, since we have such hope, we use great boldness of speech—
13. unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away(#2673).
14. But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away (#2673) in Christ.
*The vail of the Law is taken away in Christ.
15. But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart.
16. Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away (#4014).
17. Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
18. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
# 2673, Katargeo
to render idle, unemployed, inactivate, inoperative
to cause a person or thing to have no further efficiency
to deprive of force, influence, power
to cause to cease, put an end to, do away with, annul, abolish
to cease, to pass away, be done away
to be severed from, separated from, discharged from, loosed from any one
to terminate all intercourse with one
King James Word Usage - Total: 27 destroy 5, do away 3, abolish 3, cumber 1, loose 1, cease 1, fall 1, deliver 1, miscellaneous 11
B. The 10 commandments were the first/old covenant! [The Ten Commandments were at least a synechdoche for the whole old covenant, if not the covenant itself. (Old Covenant = Old Testament)]
To demonstrate this all we need to do is quote the Bible without comment:
The tables are part of the abolished first covenant:
Heb 8:13, When He said, "A new covenant," He has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear.
Hebrews 9:1,4 "Now even the first covenant had ... the tables of the covenant"
Exodus 34:27-28: "Then the Lord said to Moses, "Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel." So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he did not eat bread or drink water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments."
Deuteronomy 4:13: "So He declared to you His covenant which He commanded you to perform, that is, the Ten Commandments; and He wrote them on two tablets of stone.
Deuteronomy 9:9: "When I went up to the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant which the Lord had made with you, then I remained on the mountain forty days and nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water.
Deuteronomy 5:2-3: "The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Horeb. The Lord did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, with all those of us alive here today."
1 Kings 8:9,21: "9. There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets of stone which Moses put there at Horeb, where the Lord made a covenant with the sons of Israel, when they came out of the land of Egypt." ... 21. "And there I have set a place for the ark, in which is the covenant of the Lord, which He made with our fathers when He brought them from the land of Egypt."
2 Chronicles 6:11: "And there I have set the ark, in which is the covenant of the Lord, which He made with the sons of Israel."
In 2 Corinthians 3:2-11, the abolished Old Covenant was the 10 commandments!
Hebrews 8:7-13 speaks of the Old Covenant being replaced and v.13 says the same thing as 2 Cor. 3:11:
Hebrews 8:7-13(NAS)
7. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion sought for a second.
8. For finding fault with them, He says,
"BEHOLD, DAYS ARE COMING, SAYS THE LORD,
WHEN I WILL EFFECT A NEW COVENANT
WITH THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL AND WITH THE HOUSE OF JUDAH;
9. NOT LIKE THE COVENANT WHICH I MADE WITH THEIR FATHERS
ON THE DAY WHEN I TOOK THEM BY THE HAND
TO LEAD THEM OUT OF THE LAND OF EGYPT;
FOR THEY DID NOT CONTINUE IN MY COVENANT,
AND I DID NOT CARE FOR THEM, SAYS THE LORD.
10. FOR THIS IS THE COVENANT THAT I WILL MAKE WITH THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL
AFTER THOSE DAYS, SAYS THE LORD:
I WILL PUT MY LAWS INTO THEIR MINDS,
AND I WILL WRITE THEM ON THEIR HEARTS.
AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD,
AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE.
11. AND THEY SHALL NOT TEACH EVERYONE HIS FELLOW CITIZEN,
AND EVERYONE HIS BROTHER, SAYING, 'KNOW THE LORD,'
FOR ALL WILL KNOW ME,
FROM THE LEAST TO THE GREATEST OF THEM.
12. FOR I WILL BE MERCIFUL TO THEIR INIQUITIES,
AND I WILL REMEMBER THEIR SINS NO MORE."
13. When He said, "A new covenant," He has made the first obsolete But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear.
There is one Old Covenant (Law) that was never divided up by the Jews and Apostles, as the moderns do, into moral, ceremonial, judicial, etc. categories, wherin they argue that this or that part has been done away. The writers of the bible knew of no such divisions.
The Ten Commandments and ceremonial laws are mixed together with no distinction in Leviticus 19:1-37
The Ten Commandments are referred to as "statutes", "ordinances", "commandments", "judgements", and "testimonies" without distinction in Deuteronomy 5:1-6:25. 5:2 refers to the Ten Commandments as the covenant.
Paul said of the "old" law and "new" law:
1 Corinthians 9:20-21:
"20. To the Jews I became as a Jew, so that I might win Jews; to those who are under the Law, as under the Law though not being myself under the Law, so that I might win those who are under the Law;
21. to those who are without law, as without law, though not being without the law of God but under the law of Christ, so that I might win those who are without law.
From which we conclude:
1. Paul is not under the Law of the Jews (Old Covenant, which included the Ten Commandments)
2. Paul is not without law.
3. Paul is under a different law.
4. Paul is under the Law of Christ
Romans 7:1-7:
1. Or do you not know, brethren (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives?
2. For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living; but if her husband dies, she is released (#2673) from the law concerning the husband.
3. So then, if while her husband is living she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress though she is joined to another man.
4. Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.
5. For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.
6. But now we have been released from the Law, (#2673) having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.
7. What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, "YOU SHALL NOT COVET."
Conclusion:
1. We have been released from the Law.
2. We are adulterers if we are under both the Law of Moses and the Law of Christ simultaneously (v. 3).
2. The Law Paul had in mind included the Ten Commandments, "You shall not covet" (v. 7).
The Old Covenant, including the Ten Commandments was nailed to the cross:
Colossians 2:13-14:
13. When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions,
14. having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.
There is not one statement in the New Testament that changes the Sabbath to Sunday. We are not obliged to keep the Sabbath; and it was as much a part of the Ten Commandments as any of the other nine.
God bless and thanks for your feedback, Homer
Regarding Christians and the 10 Commandments
2 Corinthians 3 (New King James Version)
1. Do we begin again to commend ourselves? Or do we need, as some others, epistles of commendation to you or letters of commendation from you?
2. You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men;
3. clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart.
*Here we have an allusion to the Ten Commandments and that which was written by the Spirit, through Paul, on their hearts. See Jeremiah 31:33
4. And we have such trust through Christ toward God.
5. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God,
6. who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
*Another reference to the Ten Commandments and the Spirit, as in v.3. The Law kills; it can not give life.
7. But if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away (#2673, see below),
*Here Paul explicitly refers to the Ten Commandments as the "ministery of death", and hints that it is passing away.
8. how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious?
9. For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory.
*Though the Ten Commandments were glorious, the ministry of the Spirit is much more so.
10. For even what was made glorious had no glory in this respect, because of the glory that excels.
11. For if what is passing away (#2673)was glorious, what remains is much more glorious.
*As Paul was writing to the Corinthians, the Ten Commandments were passing away.
12. Therefore, since we have such hope, we use great boldness of speech—
13. unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away(#2673).
14. But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away (#2673) in Christ.
*The vail of the Law is taken away in Christ.
15. But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart.
16. Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away (#4014).
17. Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
18. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
# 2673, Katargeo
to render idle, unemployed, inactivate, inoperative
to cause a person or thing to have no further efficiency
to deprive of force, influence, power
to cause to cease, put an end to, do away with, annul, abolish
to cease, to pass away, be done away
to be severed from, separated from, discharged from, loosed from any one
to terminate all intercourse with one
King James Word Usage - Total: 27 destroy 5, do away 3, abolish 3, cumber 1, loose 1, cease 1, fall 1, deliver 1, miscellaneous 11
B. The 10 commandments were the first/old covenant! [The Ten Commandments were at least a synechdoche for the whole old covenant, if not the covenant itself. (Old Covenant = Old Testament)]
To demonstrate this all we need to do is quote the Bible without comment:
The tables are part of the abolished first covenant:
Heb 8:13, When He said, "A new covenant," He has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear.
Hebrews 9:1,4 "Now even the first covenant had ... the tables of the covenant"
Exodus 34:27-28: "Then the Lord said to Moses, "Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel." So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he did not eat bread or drink water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments."
Deuteronomy 4:13: "So He declared to you His covenant which He commanded you to perform, that is, the Ten Commandments; and He wrote them on two tablets of stone.
Deuteronomy 9:9: "When I went up to the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant which the Lord had made with you, then I remained on the mountain forty days and nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water.
Deuteronomy 5:2-3: "The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Horeb. The Lord did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, with all those of us alive here today."
1 Kings 8:9,21: "9. There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets of stone which Moses put there at Horeb, where the Lord made a covenant with the sons of Israel, when they came out of the land of Egypt." ... 21. "And there I have set a place for the ark, in which is the covenant of the Lord, which He made with our fathers when He brought them from the land of Egypt."
2 Chronicles 6:11: "And there I have set the ark, in which is the covenant of the Lord, which He made with the sons of Israel."
In 2 Corinthians 3:2-11, the abolished Old Covenant was the 10 commandments!
Hebrews 8:7-13 speaks of the Old Covenant being replaced and v.13 says the same thing as 2 Cor. 3:11:
Hebrews 8:7-13(NAS)
7. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion sought for a second.
8. For finding fault with them, He says,
"BEHOLD, DAYS ARE COMING, SAYS THE LORD,
WHEN I WILL EFFECT A NEW COVENANT
WITH THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL AND WITH THE HOUSE OF JUDAH;
9. NOT LIKE THE COVENANT WHICH I MADE WITH THEIR FATHERS
ON THE DAY WHEN I TOOK THEM BY THE HAND
TO LEAD THEM OUT OF THE LAND OF EGYPT;
FOR THEY DID NOT CONTINUE IN MY COVENANT,
AND I DID NOT CARE FOR THEM, SAYS THE LORD.
10. FOR THIS IS THE COVENANT THAT I WILL MAKE WITH THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL
AFTER THOSE DAYS, SAYS THE LORD:
I WILL PUT MY LAWS INTO THEIR MINDS,
AND I WILL WRITE THEM ON THEIR HEARTS.
AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD,
AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE.
11. AND THEY SHALL NOT TEACH EVERYONE HIS FELLOW CITIZEN,
AND EVERYONE HIS BROTHER, SAYING, 'KNOW THE LORD,'
FOR ALL WILL KNOW ME,
FROM THE LEAST TO THE GREATEST OF THEM.
12. FOR I WILL BE MERCIFUL TO THEIR INIQUITIES,
AND I WILL REMEMBER THEIR SINS NO MORE."
13. When He said, "A new covenant," He has made the first obsolete But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear.
There is one Old Covenant (Law) that was never divided up by the Jews and Apostles, as the moderns do, into moral, ceremonial, judicial, etc. categories, wherin they argue that this or that part has been done away. The writers of the bible knew of no such divisions.
The Ten Commandments and ceremonial laws are mixed together with no distinction in Leviticus 19:1-37
The Ten Commandments are referred to as "statutes", "ordinances", "commandments", "judgements", and "testimonies" without distinction in Deuteronomy 5:1-6:25. 5:2 refers to the Ten Commandments as the covenant.
Paul said of the "old" law and "new" law:
1 Corinthians 9:20-21:
"20. To the Jews I became as a Jew, so that I might win Jews; to those who are under the Law, as under the Law though not being myself under the Law, so that I might win those who are under the Law;
21. to those who are without law, as without law, though not being without the law of God but under the law of Christ, so that I might win those who are without law.
From which we conclude:
1. Paul is not under the Law of the Jews (Old Covenant, which included the Ten Commandments)
2. Paul is not without law.
3. Paul is under a different law.
4. Paul is under the Law of Christ
Romans 7:1-7:
1. Or do you not know, brethren (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives?
2. For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living; but if her husband dies, she is released (#2673) from the law concerning the husband.
3. So then, if while her husband is living she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress though she is joined to another man.
4. Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.
5. For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.
6. But now we have been released from the Law, (#2673) having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.
7. What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, "YOU SHALL NOT COVET."
Conclusion:
1. We have been released from the Law.
2. We are adulterers if we are under both the Law of Moses and the Law of Christ simultaneously (v. 3).
2. The Law Paul had in mind included the Ten Commandments, "You shall not covet" (v. 7).
The Old Covenant, including the Ten Commandments was nailed to the cross:
Colossians 2:13-14:
13. When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions,
14. having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.
There is not one statement in the New Testament that changes the Sabbath to Sunday. We are not obliged to keep the Sabbath; and it was as much a part of the Ten Commandments as any of the other nine.
God bless and thanks for your feedback, Homer