The moment we say, “The Ten Commandments are finished” in any sense whatever, it is impossible for some people to hear what we are actually saying. Their theological receptors hear us saying, “Away with all law in every sense.” It does not matter how often or how loudly we affirm our belief in both moral law per se and specifically the enduring moral principles of nine of the Ten Commandments written on the tablets of the covenant. That is not enough for these people. They insist that we acknowledge that the Ten Commandments as written on the tablets of stone at Mount Sinai are ‘the eternal, unchanging moral law of God’. It is all or nothing. It is impossible to even discuss the clear biblical reasons we have for rejecting such a theological view. “The Creeds and Fathers have spoken and the matter is closed,” is the response.
The amusing thing about the people who have this attitude is that although they insist that the sabbath commandment is binding as a part of the eternal, unchanging moral law of God, they never want to discuss anyone’s actual practice in regard to ‘keeping the sabbath’. It does not matter what a person does, or does not do on Sunday (except attend church services), just as long as he or she theologically acknowledges that the sabbath commandment is part of the eternal, unchanging moral law of God. I have often asked the proponents of this view the following question: “Exactly what would a person in your congregation have to do before you would discipline him out of the church for breaking the Fourth Commandment?” They equivocate for a while and usually wind up saying, “For not attending church.” They usually quote Hebrews 10:26 as a proof text. When they are reminded that such a text has nothing to do with church attendance for an Israelite (Israel did not have Sabbath school at 10:00 a.m. and worship service at 11:00 a.m. in the tabernacle), these people have no response. They have a “clear moral absolute’ that does not carry even one specific infraction that warrants church discipline. Even if church discipline is practiced, it stops far short of the death penalty demanded by the Mosaic law for infractions of the Fourth Commandment. If the sabbath law is eternal and unchanging, how is it that the penalty for disobedience to it has changed?
We sometimes call these people ‘antinominian sabbatarians’. On the one hand, they vehemently insist on laying the Fourth Commandment on the conscience of every Christian as a moral absolute; on the other hand, they refuse to give the Christian any specific rules of what he may or may not do on the holy sabbath day. This view insists that every Christian decide for himself what his own conscience will or will not allow him to do on Sunday. In preaching, the sabbath is one of God’s unchanging moral laws, but in actual practice it is up to the Christian liberty of each individual to decide how he will observe it. We believe this is a bit hypocritical. It may even prove that most of the people who teach this view do not, in their own hearts, really believe the ‘good and necessary consequences deduced’ from their own system of theology. They certainly do not appear willing to put it in into practice. We are not being honest or consistent if we use the thunder and lightening of Sinai to impose the Fourth Commandment on a Christian’s conscience and, in the same breath, tell him to treat that ‘absolute commandment’ as if it were only a ‘relative principle’ that can be applied any way any individual sees fit.
When I say that the Ten Commandments are finished, I mean as a covenant document, or as the tables of the covenant. I am NOT talking about the morality contained in the individual commandments. I am talking about the Ten Commandments considered as a single document, specifically as a covenant document. The moral duties commanded on the tablets of stone did not begin at Sinai, but the use of those duties as the basis of a covenant did begin there. The content of nine of those ten rules was known by men, and infractions thereof were punished by God long before God gave them to Israel as covenant terms at Sinai. Men were punished for violations of every specific duty commanded in the Ten Commandments except the Fourth, or sabbath, prior to Mount Sinai, and likewise, every commandment except the Fourth, is repeated in the New Testament Scriptures.
We may disagree with each other on many things about ‘the law’ but we cannot deny that the Bible clearly teaches the following things:
- Some specific ‘law’ had a historical beginning at Sinai.
- That same ‘law’ that began at Sinai also had a historical end at Calvary.
- The historical beginning of that ‘law’ is always associated with the giving of the tablets of the covenant to Israel at Sinai.
- The historical ending of that ‘law’ is always connected with the coming of Christ and the establishment of the New Covenant.
It is possible that I totally misunderstand exactly what specific law the Bible is talking about, but is it not possible to deny that the above four facts are clearly talking about some specific law in the Bible. I think the Scriptures that have been exegeted thus far in this book make it impossible for that law to be anything other than the Ten Commandments written on the tablets of the covenant and given to Israel at Sinai as the basic covenant foundation of their relationship to God. It cannot possibly refer to the so-called ceremonial law nor can it be talking about the law of conscience. It has to refer to the law covenant at Sinai written on stone. For those who disagree, please show me another ‘law’ in Scripture that fits the four facts listed above and explain the texts that speak of some law ‘beginning’ and ‘ending’.
The historical beginning of the law covenant recorded on the tablets of stone coincided with the beginning of Israel as a nation, or body politic. In chapter 4, we saw these facts set forth clearly in the texts of Scripture that talk about the Ten Commandments.
There is simply no way to understand the following passages of Scripture if we deny that the law has both a historical beginning and historical ending:
For before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law. (Rom. 5:13 NIV)
The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more. (Rom. 5:20 NIV)
What, then, was the purpose of the law? It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come. The law was put into effect through angels by a mediator. (Gal. 3:19 NIV)
So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law. (Gal. 3:24, 25 NIV)
We cannot read the words “before the law,” which in this context cannot possibly refer to anything but Mount Sinai, and then try to say that the law that was given was always there. The words ‘before the law’ mean before the law. Those words mean that ‘law,’ in whatever sense Paul is using the word in this passage, had a historical beginning at Mount Sinai.
The words “the law was added” make no sense if the law was already there. Some law, in some sense, has to, in some way, be added at Sinai, or Paul is writing nonsense. This law that was ‘added’ at Sinai has reference specifically to ‘transgressions’. The ministry of the law that began at Sinai ended when Christ came. There has to be both a historical beginning and ending to some law, or Paul is talking in circles. There was a given point in time when this law ‘was put in charge’ and there was another point in time when those to whom Paul is writing ceased to any longer be ‘under the supervision’ of that same law.
We all agree that Paul cannot mean that man, at Mount Sinai, first became aware of moral duty and conscious that he was to obey those moral duties. How could we explain the behavior of Joseph as a believer and Abimelech as an unbeliever? How could we understand Paul’s argument in Romans 2:14? No, Paul is not talking about the effects of conscience in these passages.
We also agree that Paul is not denying that God, before Sinai, punished behavior that was contrary to the moral duties set forth in the law given at Sinai as a covenant. The flood did not occur because God was in a bad mood that day. That event was the direct consequence of the actions of men and women who were living in a manner that they had every reason to know was displeasing to God. They were living in disobedience to the very laws that were ‘given’ in written form to Israel at Sinai as covenant terms. Law was codified at Sinai and made the terms of a life and death covenant for the first time.
When Paul writes that with the coming of faith, the law is no longer the supervisor of God’s people, he is not saying that after Calvary, God ceased to set forth standards of behavior that were pleasing to him and reflective of his character. Our Lord, through his Spirit-guided apostles, continued to reveal the moral character of God to mankind, and to impress on his followers their responsibility to bear the family likeness to the world around them. Paul is saying, however, that whatever the law was that began at Sinai, it also forever ended at the Cross.
It is obvious to me that Paul, in the verses just quoted, is talking about the Ten Commandments purely in covenant terms. This has to be the meaning of the word ‘law’ in Galatians 3 and 4. Galatians 3:13 and 14 teach that Christ died under the curse of some law and, by his death, delivered those who had lived under that same law from that same curse. That law can only be the tables of stone viewed as a covenant document. The ‘law’ that came four hundred-thirty years after the promise to Abraham has to be, at least on the surface, different in nature from the promise of the gospel given to Abraham, or there is no conflict for Paul to address. Without the conflict, the question in verse 21 of Galatians 3 would be totally unnecessary. The fact that Paul spends so much time answering the problem with a carefully worded argument proves the reality of a problem. The argument is so carefully stated that Paul builds a key point on the use of the singular ‘seed’ instead of seeds (3:16). The question in Galatians 3:19, “What then was the purpose of the law” is unnecessary if there is no difference at all between the promise given to Abraham and the law given to Moses. Why explain in such detail the difference between two things that are really the same?
According to Galatians 3:22, the Scriptures, not the law, declare that the whole world is a prisoner of sin. This is the same message as Romans 3:9-21. All men, without exception, are guilty before God whether they ever had the written law or not. The Jewish ceremonial law alone could never produce that guilt, and the Gentiles did not have the tables of the covenant, or Ten Commandments, to testify against them. This condemnation must be on the ground of the law of conscience. The words in verse 20 can only refer to the giving of the law to Israel at Mount Sinai. The law, in the form of covenant terms, was given to incite and reveal sin. The Jew was put under the law covenant to convict of sin unto justification and also to act as a custodian until Christ came. The law in Galatians 4:4 is the law covenant under which Jesus was born and under which he died. Galatians 4:24 and 25 remove all doubt as to what Paul means by ‘the law’ in this context:
These things may be taken figuratively, for the women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar. Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children. (Gal. 4:24, 25 NIV)
When we see that Paul, in these two verses, is talking about the tables of the covenant on which were written the Ten Commandments, or the basic summary terms of the Old Covenant, it resolves the conflict between the law and the promise, and Paul’s statements about the law immediately fit together in perfect harmony. We see that when Paul speaks in negative terms about the law, its weaknesses, or its final demise, he is referring to the law covenant (Ten Commandments) written on the Tablets of Covenant.
When Paul speaks of the law in a good sense and applies it to us today, he is either speaking of “the law” as (1) special revelation, or the Bible, as in Psalm 19:7 and Psalm 1:1, 2 (see also quotation by John Owen on page 45, or (2) he is speaking of the ethical duties contained in the individual verses which continue after the Ten Commandments, as the covenant document, are finished.
The reader is almost sure to be thinking, “That sounds correct. However, if such an easy answer is so clearly set forth in the Bible, why do many preachers and theologians miss it?” We raised that very question in the preface. We wrote, “Each person finds only that for which he looks.” In the case being discussed, some people cannot hear what Paul is saying simply because it will not fit into the theological system that they have imposed on the Bible. In that system, the Ten Commandments cannot be a distinct and separate covenant made only with Israel. The Ten Commandments written on stone tablets at Mount Sinai simply must be identical in every respect to the so-called ‘covenant of works’ with Adam in Eden. The Ten Commandments cannot begin at Sinai in any sense whatever in that particular system. It is absolutely essential as the ‘good and necessary consequences deduced’ from Covenant Theology that the law did not begin at Sinai, or the whole system is destroyed. I will not take time to cover the other verses quoted. The reader may read the verses and try to fit his view of the Ten Commandments into those clear statements concerning the historical beginning and historical ending of the ‘the law’ and see if they match.
We saw in chapter 7 that the Ten Commandments, or tablets of stone, considered as the covenant document that was kept in the ark of the covenant in the Most Holy Place, were finished when the veil of the temple was rent from top to bottom (Matt. 27:51). Those tablets were instantly as obsolete as Aaron’s priesthood and the sacrifices. Aaron’s descendants were immediately out of a job. The High Priest also needed a complete new wardrobe, even down to his underwear. He would never again wear either those beautiful high priestly robes or the special white linen underwear that he wore only on the Day of Atonement.
The following facts form the basis of Paul’s understanding of the purpose and function of the Ten Commandments today:
One: A new covenant was ratified in the blood of Christ at the Cross. The Old Covenant terms written on the tablets of the covenant at Sinai have been fulfilled and done away. The claims of the Old Covenant have been met; its curse has been endured and removed; and its blessings have been secured by Christ and bestowed on his church.
Two: A new people or nation was ‘born in a day’ at Pentecost. The true ‘holy nation’ of ‘kings and priests’ (the true Israel of God) came into being (Compare Exod. 19:4-6 and 1 Pet. 2:9-11).
Three: A new approach to God was opened the moment the veil was rent from top to bottom. It was the just and holy demands of the tablets of the covenant in the ark of the covenant that had blocked the way into the presence of God. Now the terms of that covenant written on stone have been fully met and we enter boldly into the Most Holy Place (Heb. 10:1-23) robed in the very righteousness the law in the box demanded.
Four: A new status, adult sons of God, with new privileges was given to the ‘grown up’ people of God, comprised of both believing Jews and believing Gentiles.
Five: A new Pedagogue took over in the conscience of the New Covenant believer. The tables of stone were, in themselves, the old Pedagogue in the conscience of an Israelite. That old Pedagogue has been dismissed (Gal. 3:24, 25) and has been replaced by the indwelling Holy Spirit.
Summary
The law, viewed as a covenant document with its content codified for the first time, has a historical beginning at Sinai and a historical ending with Christ. The law covenant did not in any way annul the covenant made with Abraham that promised that all the nations of the earth would be blessed through his seed. This promise was fulfilled in the New Covenant which began when the veil was rent from top to bottom. It is important to see several things. First, even though the law, as codified covenant terms, has a historical beginning at Sinai, the underlying principles all of those laws, except the sabbath, were already revealed to man through the original creation. Neither knowledge of God and his character, nor the reality of known sin began at Sinai. Secondly, even though the law, viewed as a covenant document, ended when Christ established the New Covenant, the unchanging ethical elements that underlie the commandments written on the tables of stone are just as binding on us to day as they were on an Israelite.
The beginning and the ending of the law covenant has nothing to do with the source or endurance of the ethical standards that reveal God’s unchanging character.