The Scriptures, in some passages, clearly call the tablets of stone, or Ten Commandments, a covenant and treat them as a distinct covenant document. We have already seen this spelled out clearly in several texts of Scripture. However, despite the abundant textual evidence in the Scriptures for this fact, some theologians still cannot admit that the Ten Commandments are a covenant document. Their basic presupposition that there is only ‘one covenant with two administrations’ makes it impossible for them to think or speak of the Ten Commandments as a distinct, separate, and totally different covenant document. To do so would destroy the very foundation of their system of theology. In that system, the ‘Mosaic arrangement’ or ‘Mosaic administration’^[1] could not possibly be a separate covenant document, especially a legal covenant document. The ‘Mosaic transaction,’ a favorite expression used by Covenant Theologians, has to be an ‘administration of the one covenant of grace’. However, the Word of God is quite clear that the Ten Commandments were the specific legal terms of a distinct legal covenant document. Here are several verses that clearly establish this point:

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. (Deut. 4:13 NASB)

When I went up on the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that the LORD had made with you …The LORD gave me two stone tablets inscribed by the finger of God …the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant. (Deut.9:9-11 NIV) 

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.” Moses was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant–the Ten Commandments. (Exod. 34:27, 28 NIV)

Is it possible to read the above verses, be honest with the words used, and then deny that the Ten Commandments were the very words, or terms, of a distinct and specific covenant document? A system of theology built on non-biblical terms that refuses to use biblical terms should be suspect. When a person uses terms that are peculiar and essential to his particular system of theology we should be wary of both the man and his system.

It is impossible even to begin to understand the place and function of the Ten Commandments in redemptive history until we begin where God’s Word itself begins. We must start by using the terminology that the Holy Spirit has been pleased to use. When we do this, we will automatically think and speak of the Ten Commandments primarily as a distinct covenant document. If our theological system forbids that, or even makes it unnatural or difficult, then it should be obvious that our system is not biblical at that point.

The emphasis in the Word of God is always on the fact that the tablets of stone contain the terms of a covenant.

In chapter 1, we established that the Bible treats the ‘Ten Commandments’, the ‘tablets of the covenant’, and the ‘words of the covenant’ as equivalent and interchangeable terms. It is clear from all of the biblical texts quoted in that chapter that God wants us to think covenant when there is a reference to either the words ‘Ten Commandments’ or any of the five synonymous terms used to describe them. To think of the Ten Commandments as something separate from the ‘words of the covenant’ written on the tablets of stone is to think non-biblically. Nowhere in the Bible are we instructed to think of the Ten Commandments in terms of the eternal, unchanging moral law. Review the biblical texts that refer to the Ten Commandments and see how clearly this truth is set forth in every text. This principle is not limited to the original tablets; it is just as striking when the second set was made after the first were smashed. It is not possible for the Bible to state any more clearly that the Ten Commandments are the exact words, or terms, of a covenant than it does in the following verses:

When Moses approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, his anger burned and he threw the tablets out of his hands, breaking them in pieces…(Exod. 32:19 NIV)

The LORD said to Moses, “Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke.”… Then the LORD said: “I am making a COVENANT with you.”… Then the LORD said to Moses, “Write down these words, for in accordance with them I have made a COVENANT with you and with Israel.”… And he wrote on the tablets the words of the COVENANT—the TEN COMMANDMENTS. (Ex. 34:1, 10, 27, 28 NIV)

Summary

The concept of the Ten Commandments as a covenant document is not a series of theological deductions derived from my particular system of theology; it is a statement of biblical fact. It is demonstrated in the texts of Scripture that we just covered. The Bible teaches that the Ten Commandments are a distinct and specific covenant document! The Bible teaches that the Ten Commandments are the terms of the Old Covenant! The Bible uses the terms ‘Ten Commandments’, ‘tables of stone’, ‘tablets of testimony’, ‘words of the covenant’, and ‘tablets of the covenant’ as interchangeable terms. According to the Bible, all of these terms mean exactly the same thing. I found the basis for each one of the statements in the previous paragraph in specific Bible verses. Not a single phrase or statement in that paragraph is ‘deduced’ from theology. If our theological system cannot agree with the explicit terms and statements used by the Holy Spirit himself, it is time to discard our theological system.

If our system of theology did not teach us to think about the Ten Commandments as a distinct and separate covenant document, then it did not teach us to think scripturally! If we were taught to think of the tablets of stone as the ‘unchanging moral law of God’, then we were taught to think only in theological terms that were created by men. Regrettably, we also were taught, by default, to ignore the words and terms used by the Holy Spirit himself. We may have done it unconsciously, but we nonetheless substituted theological words in the place of biblical words. Even worse, if we were taught that the Ten Commandments simply could not be a separate distinct covenant document, but only a different administration of the so-called Covenant of Grace, then we were taught to actually contradict the very words found in the Word of God when those words would not fit our system. We ought to seriously examine our theological system if that system cannot accept and use the clear biblical terms used by the Holy Spirit himself. If our theology cannot accept the fact that the Holy Spirit always connects the Ten Commandments, when considered as a unit, with the ‘words of the covenant’ that were written on the tablets of stone at Mount Sinai, then something is wrong with our theology.

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