I. The covenant is the Law and the Ten Commandments are the Covenant

1. The concept is important because it corrects the error proposed by the Seventh Day Adventists.

a. They claim Christ only terminated the ceremonial part of the Law, its sacrifices and rituals.

b. They try to separate the Ten Commandments for the Law of Moses, and from the Covenant of Sinai.

c. Thus they claim that the Ten Commandments are the moral code for all time and were not abrogated together with the Law and Covenant.

2. The following verses gainsay their view.

a. Exodus 34:28 - “He wrote upon the tables of the covenant, the ten commandments.

b. Deuteronomy 4:13 - “And he declared unto you His covenant,...even the ten commandments; and He wrote them upon two tables of stone.”

c. Deuteronomy 5:2-3 - YHWH our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. YHWH made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, who are all of us alive this day.”

d. Deuteronomy 9:9 - “When I was gone up into the mount to receive the tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant.”

e. Deuteronomy 9: 11 - “ at the end of the forty days and forty nights, that YHWH gave me the two tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant.”

f. I Kings 8: 9, 21 - “There was nothing in the Ark save two tables of stone which Moses put there at Horeb when YHWH made a covenant with the children of Israel...and there have I set a place for the ark, wherein is the covenant of YHWH which He made with our fathers..

g. Nehemiah 8:1 - the “law of Moses” is read to all the people, for it is “the law of God” (verse 8).

h. Luke 2:22 the “law of Moses” is the “law of the Lord” (Verse 39).

I. Romans 7: 7 - “the law said, thou shalt not covet.”

j. Romans 13: 8-10 - the law is the ten commandments which the command to “love thy neighbor as thyself” (Levticus 19:18) is “fulfilled by love.”

II. Romans 8: 1-4 now puts us under the “law of the spirit of life” and frees us from “the law of sin and death.”

A. Not that God has become gentler or better than He was under the law.

1. His moral righteousness remains unchanged under both economies.

2. His judgments against sin are just as severe.

3. His love and grace are just as available under both systems.

B. But because Christ “who is the end of the law” has come - Romans 10: 4; Galatians,3: 24; Romans 7:4.

C. It is because of Christ that the sacrificial system had its symbolic value - as a shadow system both predicting and demanding Christ's finished work at Calvary - the whole book of Hebrews is a demonstration of this fact.

D. It is evident that Christ is the center of both the Old and New Covenant - first in shadow, then in reality.

III. Structure and arrangement of the Law

A. Called the “ten words” - Deuteronomy 4:13; 10:4; Exodus 34:28.

1. Called “the two tables of the testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger

of God” - Exodus 31:18 - see 2 Cor. 3:3-10.

2. “Written on both sides” and “the writing was the writing of God graven upon the tables” Exodus 32: 15-16.

a. These are the stones Moses broke - Exodus 32:19.

b. Moses made two more tables of stone and wrote the words of the law - Exodus 34:1, 27-28.

B. The division seemed to be five and five.

1. The first five all have reasons rooted in YHWH attached to impress upon Israel their importance.

2. The second five have no reasons attached.

3. Deuteronomy 5: 17 begins the last series with, “Thou shalt not kill” and then continues the series, introducing each additional commandment with the negative copulative “neither” commit adultery, neither steal, et. al.

4. Leviticus 19:1-4 classes honor to father and mother alongside the commandments about images and Sabbath keeping.

5. Romans 13: 9-10 list duties to neighbor but does not include the fifth commandment.

6. Anyone who cursed father or mother receives the death penalty (Exodus 21:17; Leviticus 20: 9; Matthew 15:4; - “Let him die that death.”) and anyone who cursed God shall “bear his sin” and “he shall be put to death” (Leviticus 2:15).

16). So the death penalty was the same for cursing God or parents.

C. Catholic addition of the second commandment to the first is gratuitous deception for the reasons well known.

1. They seek to justify the prevalence of images in worship.

2. They divide the tenth into two in order to restore the number (10).

3. But then the ninth would simply reiterate the seventh.

D. Thus each table seems to begin with the gravest duties and descend to the lessor.

1. The First Table - duties to God - later becomes the basis of the sin sacrifice in Leviticus 4.

a. First - Sanctifies God’s unique personality

b. Second - Sanctifies God’s spiritual nature

c. Third - Sanctifies God’s holy name

d. Fourth - Sanctifies God’s holy day.

e. Sanctifies God’s earthly representatives to children–their parents.

1) The very fountain, foundation and sanction of all God’s law to childhood.

2) Duties to parents seem more sacred than those to a neighbor

2. The second Table - duties to neighbor - basis of trespass offering.

a. Sixth - Protects his life

b. Seventh - Protects his marriage and family

c. Eight - Protects his property

d. ninth - Protects his reputation

e. Tenth - Protects his interest in my inner-self and thoughts about all that is his.

E. Basis of this division and structure.

1. Only proper relation between man and man is in each man's relation to God

2. Man’s Wisdom would probably reverse in importance the two tables.

3. The University of Michigan that asked the students to list the Ten Commandments in order of importance and their vision went something like this:

a. First - Don’t kill - sixth on God’s list

b. Second - Don’t commit adultery - seventh on God’s list

c. Third - Don’t steal - eight on God’s list

e. Fourth - Don’t bear false witness - ninth on God’s list

f. Sixth - have no other God’s - first on God’s list

g. Seventh - Don’t take God’s name in vain - third on God’s list

h. Eight - Keep the Sabbath - fourth on God’s list

I. Ninth - Don’t covet - tenth on God’s list

J. Tenth - Don’t make graven images - second on God’s listⁱ

F. Now to the commandments themselves - after God’s arrangement and not man’s.

1. They are presented in the negative form, but they affirm positive truths that must be sought, affirmed and defended.

2. The first five contain the basis of all theology - the reverence and religious service we owe God. The last five form the basis for all ethics - the honor and duties we owe our fellow man.

3. Deuteronomy 6:4 demands love for God as the basis for all duty to Him.
4. Leviticus 19:18 demands love for man as the basis of all duty to Him.

5. The ten commandments are the basis of God’s covenant with Israel as seen in Deuteronomy 4:13; I Kings 8:9.

6. In Matt. 22:35-40 Jesus places love of God as the greatest of all commandments and love for neighbor second to it - for “on these two commandments the whole Law hangs and the prophets."

IV. The Decalogue - from Him who said: I am YHWH your God.”

A. The First Commandment “Thou shall have no other gods before me.” (Besides me, על׳פנ׳)

1. Strict monotheism not only revealed but enjoined, commanded. Literally, “apart from me.”

a. Deuteronomy 6:4 “Hear O Israel, YHWH our God (Elohim) is YHWH one.”
b. Romans 3: 29-30, “If so be that God is one” then He is the God of the Jews and of the Gentiles.

2. Thus God’s own declaration of His own unique nature enjoins upon Israel the obligation to keep all His laws.

a. If He is the only God - then His laws must be kept!

b. “I am YHWH” is frequently repeated in the Torah as the basis for all statutes, Laws and injunctions - cfr. Leviticus 11:44; 18:2, 4, 30; 19:4, 10, 25, 31, and 34.

3. “Thou shalt have no other gods” means: tho “have” as the true God by knowing, confessing and being in the right relationship to Him.

4. But even in the prohibition is a marvelous condescension: “Thou shalt have...Me!

5. “Thou” - each individual is personally responsible, even if it is a national law - Deuteronomy 5: 3.

6. He is God who made Himself known and familiar to Israel by miracle and by delivery - Deuteronomy 5:3.

a. This is the introductory phrase to the whole decalogue.

b. He is mentioned as the reason for all commands to Israel only.

1) See Fifth Commandment - applies the law to people on their way to a land this God had given unto their father Abraham.

2) See Fourth Commandment - it is enforced by reference to Israel’s servitude in Egypt.

7. YHWH wants to be known as a personal God - for no true worship of, right thought about, faith in or obedience to God can exist until He is properly known.

a. Any allegiance to God that does not recognize Him as He has revealed Himself to be is allegiance to a false God.

b. Five great evils in theology are averted when this commandment is fully respected.

1) Atheism - many must be condemned for having no God at all.

2) Polytheism - whether practical or real

3) Pantheism - God is everything and in everything

4) Deism - God created all and left it all

5) Agnosticism - God has revealed himself.

B. The Second Commandment - “Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image.”

1. Again - “unto thee” - thus personalizing

2. Motive - having defined who He is in His uniqueness, He now defines His true nature - spirit.

a. The spirit nature of God revealed and worship conforming to that nature is enjoined - John 4:24; Acts 17: 24-29; Romans 1: 20-25.

b. God is external to all created things and is not conditioned nor contained by them.

c. Psalm 115:8 affirms that those who make dumb images “are like them” in other words - as dumb as their images.

3. Deuteronomy 4:15ff explains: You saw no form...”

a. Deuteronomy 4:16 - “lest you corrupt yourselves by making images. “ Images corrupt our “image of God” that we were given at creation.

b. Exodus 32: 7 - When Israel made the Golden calf to be their God, then God said of them: “they have corrupted themselves.”

c. Psalms 106:20 says that when Israel made the Golden Calf, “ thus they changed their glory for the likeness of a ox that eats grass.

4. Exodus 20: 5 adds: “Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, not serve (Latreuses= LXX) them.”

a. As in prayer or sacrifice or any and all other actions that invoke God through religious ceremonies

b. Additional warnings against materialization and secularization of God enjoined -

1) Deuteronomy 4:12, 15-19, 23-24 warnings before giving the law.

2) Exodus 20:23 warnings after the law was given.

5. “For I am a jealous God”

a. Not only a zealous avenger of sinners - zeal for His law

b. But zeal for self also - who will not allow the transfer of honor belonging only to Him to be paid to another.

c. Such prohibitions are essential to keep man from degrading his concepts of God and thereby debasing Him.

6. There is such a strong influence of evil that if a “father eats sour grapes, his son will also want to eat sour grapes” Ezekiel 18: 1-4; Jeremiah 31:29.

7. But good is stronger - “showing loving kindness unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.

8. By and act of homage men acknowledge themselves inferior to that which they adore; so that every degradation the of object of worship involves a simultaneous abasement of the worshiper.

a. God is jealous for the influence of His people upon the world. Israel was appointed the guardian of the truth, an apostle of the one God, a harbor-light to the nations in darkness.

b. Idolatry is absurd and irrational; for the workman is better than the work; “he who built the house” - Hebrews 3:3.

C. The Third Commandment: “Thou shalt not take the name of YHWH thy God in vain”

1. Exodus 3: 14ff is where God made know His nature, glory and power in His name - “I AM THAT I AM.”

a. He was not known before by that name - Exodus 6: 2-2.

b. Moses is informed that He is the same God who had appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and made His covenant with them but they did not know Him by the name YHWH.

2. Not a prohibition of the use of His name, but of the vain use

a. Moses is commanded to use it: “And God said unto Moses I AM THAT I AM: AND HE SAID thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.” Exodus 3:14.

b. In fact the commandment solicits its properly employ.

3. “In vain”= “shaat” to lay desolate, or lay waste or in disorder and empty .

a. As Isa. 6:11; 37: 26 “to cause cities to crash into ruined heaps”

b. 2 Kings 19:25 and Lam. 3: 47 - devastation and destruction

4. God’s name is not to be voided but the positive norm is to use it properly in worship, invocation, praise, prayer and Thanksgiving.

5. Proper use demanded - “calling upon the name of the Lord”

a. Acts 4:12 - “in no other name”

b. Phil 2:9 - “that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow”

c. Acts 22:16; Romans 10: 8-9 “call upon the name of the Lord”

d. 2 Cor. 1:23 Paul calls God to witness the truth

e. Rev. 10: 6 Angels swear by God

f. Romans 9:1 God’s name confirms Paul’s concern for the lost

g. Mal. 1:6 “a son honors his father...”

6. The Jews seemed to have gone to the access - almost as if God had prohibited the use of His name at all.

a. They never pronounced the name of YHWH says tradition

b. Use of the terms Kethibh and Qere

7. Like graven images debase God’s nature, so to flippantly and irreverently use His name is to degrade His authority and person.

a. So Mal. 2:2 the Priest did not “give glory to my name” and they are accursed.

b. Leviticus 19:12 “You shall not swear by my name falsely, and profane the name of your God: I am YHWH.

D. The Fourth Commandment - “ Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy”

1. Any religious truth perishes if it is not rooted in religious affection and sustained by religious observances.

2. “Remember” suggest previous history as well as legislation

a. The memory is of two things:

1) The six days of creation after which God rested

a. “And on the seventh day God finished His work which He had made, and rested” (Genesis 2:2).

b. “Therefore YHWH blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it “Exodus 20:11.

c. Sabbath means “cessation” from work

d. The command to keep the Sabbath day was first given at Sinai.

e. Ezekiel 20:12 - God gave the exodus people His ordinances and that included “my Sabbaths to be a sign between me and them.

f. Nehemiah 9: 13 - God "came down upon Mt. Sinai...and made known unto them the holy Sabbaths”

2) The years of slavery in Egypt

a. “you were a slave in the land of Egypt; but God delivered you” Deuteronomy 5:15.

b. First given to man as a Law at Sinai, though prevision was made to the people of the Exodus people by the fact that manna didn’t fall on the seventh day, Exodus 16:22-23.

b. Applied to man and beasts - as well as “ any stranger within thy gates.’

1) Numbers 15:32-36 the man stoned for picking up sticks on the Sabbath shows the severity of penalty for disobedience.

2) To work of the Sabbath shows a perversion of Sabbath Typology.

3. Labor, toil, sweat of man’s brow - “in toil shalt thou eat of the ground” thus, the curse because of sin (Genesis 3:17-19).

a. Then God gave this symbol of the future redemption from sin and its consequences

b. It was kind of a foretaste of future “rest” and eternal “Sabbathism” Hebrews 4:10; Revelation 14: 13.

4. The Sabbath is also the basis of other festive seasons and even of the great Day of Atonement - it was a “high Sabbath”

5. Often ignored in this commandment is the fact that work is enjoined for six days

as well as Rest is Commanded on the seventh.

a. Man’s sin has turned work into a curse.

b. Only by working man can enjoy the rest that follows labor.

E. The Fifth Commandment “Honor thy father and mother”

1. The command is not placed on par with duties to fellow men.

a. For duty to parents is classed along with duty to God for they are God’s representatives.

1) Disrespect to parents is tantamount to disrespect for God.

2) The death penalty awaits those who curse either- Matthew 15:4; Leviticus, 24: 15-16.

b. Leviticus 19:1-4 classes honor to father and mother alongside of no images and keeping the Sabbath - “for “ I am YHWH your God.”

c. Also, in Leviticus 19: 2-3 such honor to parents is part and parcel to the command: “You shall be holy, for YHWH your God is holy.”

2. Fellow men and neighbors are to be “ loved as yourself” - Leviticus 19:19

a. But parents are to be “obeyed “ honored feared and reverenced.

b. They are God’s ministers to the child’s needs and the first lessons of obedience to the greater by the lessor is found here.

c. Ephesians 6:12 - Children are to obey their parents.

3. Jesus interprets this to include aged parents Matt. 15: 4-6.

4. “That your days may be long on the earth.”

a. This is the first commandment “ with the promise” - Ephesians 6: 1-4.

b. Really two promises contained in the original commandment.

1) Possession of the land of promise.

2) Long life in that land - Deuteronomy 5: 16; see also Deuteronomy 6: ; 22: 7

5. “Disobedience to parents" is a sign of rampant Gentile sin - Romans 1: 30.

F. The Sixth Commandment - “Thou shalt not kill.”ⁱⁱ

1. The last five commandments are summed up in the one word in Leviticus 19:18, “Love your neighbor as yourself” - see Matthew 22:37-40.

2. The order of the last five commands is obvious - offering protection of life, marriage (family) and property.

a. The transgressions of these are all overt actions and deeds. (b) Generally acts that involve the violation of owner's rights.

3. Then the Law proceeds to the words and thoughts behind the actions themselves - False witness and coveting.

a. Recognizing that deeds are not separated from the disposition or motive of the heart.

b. Romans 13: 8-10 deals with the proper motive - that of live for it protects the Person and privileges of the neighbor against any and all abuse.

4. “Thou shalt not kill” is further amplified in the law.

a. Not only is murder condemned whether by violence or stratagem, Exodus 21: 12, 14, 18.

b. But every act that endangers human life, with or without intent to harm whether it arises from:

1) Carelessness - Deuteronomy 22:8

2) Wantonness - Leviticus 19: 17-18

3) Hatred, anger or revenge - Leviticus 19: 17-18

5. Life is placed at the head for it is the basis of all human live and existence in God’s image - Gen. 9:6.

6. Genesis 9:6 explains that “man is made in the image of God” and that “image” must be honored and protected.

a. The Hebrew word for “kill” is “tiretsah” and it is best translated with the word “murder.”

b. The Hebrew word for killing of the sacrificial animal is “shahat.”

G. The Seventh Commandment - “Thou Shall not commit adultery.”

1. Prohibits either husband or wife from extra-marital relations.

a. For such robs one’s spouse form his or her marriage privilege.

b. It involves the dearest of all possessions - the one chosen to share life, home, body, and family.

c. One Hebrew word for marriage is “Kiddushin” which is also their word for consecration, sanctification and separation.

d. The English word for “husband” from German roots is “hus” = house, and “binder” = band or house binder.

e. The English word for “wife” comes from their Old English word for a "weaver.”

2. Herein is God’s recognition of the sacredness of marriage and of the sanctity of its privileges - Gen. 2:24.

3. The man who violates this union also violates his own body, as seen in I Cor. 6:13-20.

4. Violation not only degrades the total marriage and the neighbors union with the bride of his love, but also degrades the entire human family.

a. Where this law is ignored, then men become as animals that co-habit without restraint - Jeremiah 5: 7-8.

b. Home is the moral and social foundation of society.

5. It is to sin in the face of God’s remedy against it.

a. “To avoid fornication, let each man have his own wife...”

b. It is like the rich that steal, even when there is no need.

c. Adultery is the highest sort of theft - stealing from a man “flesh of his flesh.”

6. This commandment contributes to the development of the Fifth Commandment where the fidelity of the parents encourages the children to honor them.

H. The Eighth Commandment - “ Thou shalt not steal.”

1. Guarantees the sanctity of a man’s property - and assures that possession of property is legitimate in God’s eyes.

a. Prohibits the appropriation of another’s goods whether by open or secret design thereby damage thereto, change found properties, false evaluations or unfair advantage.

b. See Exodus 21: 33, 2:13, 23: 4-5; Deuteronomy 2: 1-4; Leviticus 6:1

2. There are no true Robin Hoods - as such would be prohibited.

a. If a man wants to help his needy neighbor “let him labor with his hands the thing that is good, that he may have whereof to give him that hath need.”

Ephesians 4: 28

b. The temptation to steal springs from indolence, greed, covetousness and vainglory.

3. Refusal to pay debts is stealing! The creation of debts far beyond the ability to pay is stealing. To leave school and not pay your phone bill is stealing. To not return your library books is stealing.

4. If the fruit of my labor is mine, then the fruit of another’s labor is his.

5. There may be an underlying distrust for God’s providence in this commandment.

I. The Ninth Commandment - “You shall not bear false witness.”

1. Literally “ You shall not testify against your neighbor as a false witness.”

2. The command has its roots in the moral nature of God - who is truth - if He were not, He would not be truth.

a. The law which guards truth must be of supreme importance.

b. Colossians 3:9 “lie not one to another; seeing you have put off the old man with his doings, and have put on the new man that is being renewed unto knowledge after the image of Him.

c. You must know take on the nature of Christ, which prohibits all forms of falseness.

3. Here prohibited is conscious lying to falsify truth.

a. To give false testimony is not to give wrong evidence but a wrong witness.

b. Any compromise of truth with half-truths, innuendos, insinuations or suppression of the facts is wrong.

4. This law is evidently designed to protect life, marriage relations and properties of a neighbor.

a. Numbers 35: 30 a man’s life is protected - as in Deuteronomy 17:6 two witnesses required before death penalty inflicted.

b. Deuteronomy 19: 15-21 protects property with the false witness being subject to the judges verification.

1) If a false witness is discovered , then the evil he sought to bring is meted out to him.

2) This is the law of “eye for eye and tooth for tooth, and hand for hand, foot for foot” - Deuteronomy 19:21.

c. Deuteronomy 22:13 prohibits lying about the chastity of his bride.

5. Generally all lies have their roots in something ill gotten, whether property, reputation, claim to innocence to avoid honest judgments.

6. Not only telling lies openly is prohibited but also suppression of truth by which another is defrauded or self is advantaged.

7. To be silent when a witness is needed to truth is wrong - see Leviticus 5:1 - he is guilty.

J. The Tenth Commandment - “Thou shall not covet.”

1. Here is the root form which every sin against God and neighbor has its source - whether in word or deed.

2. Coveting (epithumesis - LXX) proceeds from the heart - Proverbs 6:25 cfr. Matt. 15: 17-20.

3. The law not only given to protect the neighbor and his property but to protect the Israelite from his own ambitions.

a. My discontent with what I have - envy for what another has.

b. Selfishness on my part degrades my neighbor in my heart, for I esteem him less worthy of his possession than I.

c. Setting values on things of this world rather than heavenly things - I John 2:1ff

4. Positive side of rule: “Honor God with they substance, and with the first fruits of all thine increase” (Proverbs 3:9).

H. After the Law was given the people “heard thunderings, and perceived the voice of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking...they trembled” Vs. 18.

A. But now we don not see Israel as blessed because they are doers of the law - by which they lived.

1. They are rather offered blessing as worshipers of God - upon simple altar for sacrifice and devotion.

2. It must not be hewn stones, whereon tools have been raised for such actions pollutes the simplicity of God’s pattern.

3. Not by building great monuments by which to glorify man, but in simple worship and sacrifice to glorify God.

B. And “ I will come and bless you” - Vs 24.

1. God and His worshiping people shall meet at the altar of worship.

2. An admirable type of meeting place between God and sinful man - in Jesus Christ.

3. Where all the claims of Law and justice and conscience are met and find their total answer and satisfaction.

C. This is a fitting introduction to the sacrificial system found in th Book of

Leviticus.