Title Page. Lesson Four Exodus 20:3-5 3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me. 4 Thou shalt not...

Title Page

Lesson Four

Exodus 20:3-5

Exodus 20:3-53 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

Exodus 20:6-9

Exodus 20:6-96 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.7 Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:

Exodus 20:10-11

Exodus 20:10-1110 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

Exodus 20:12-16

Exodus 20:12-1612 Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.13 Thou shalt not kill.14 Thou shalt not commit adultery.15 Thou shalt not steal.16 Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

Exodus 20:17

Exodus 20:1717 Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.

Focus Verse

Exodus 20:6And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

Focus Thought

The law was given to be a schoolmaster of things to come and to make sin evident.

Although the law was holy, just, and good, it did not give power to live above

sin. Only the Spirit of Christ resident within the believer can accomplish this.

IntroductionIntroductionIn Exodus 20, God proclaimed the Ten Commandments to Israel. Before announcing these commandments, God had redeemed the people of Israel from Egyptian bondage and had brought them miraculously across the Red Sea (Exodus 12-14). They were encamped at the foot of Mount Sinai when God gave His commandments (Exodus 19:1-2).

IntroductionIt was an awe-inspiring and reverent occasion. The Lord warned Moses that anyone who touched the base of the mountain would pay with his life (Exodus 19:16, 18-19). After the people of Israel had witnessed a terrifying demonstration of God’s power and majesty on Sinai (Exodus 19:17), God again cautioned that only Moses and Aaron could ascend the fiery mountain (Exodus 19:21-25).

IntroductionIn this atmosphere of God’s holy and fearful presence (Exodus 20:18-21), God spoke the Ten Commandments. These commandments, also known as the Decalogue (meaning “ten words”), formed the basis of the covenant agreement into which the people of Israel were about to enter with the Lord (Exodus 24:3-8) and would shortly renew (Exodus 34:10-28).

IntroductionThey had to renew the covenant because they immediately violated it by worshiping Aaron’s golden calf (Exodus 32). Angry at this incident, Moses broke the first set of stone tablets containing the Ten Commandments (Exodus 32:19); he later cut out a new set of tablets (Exodus 34:1-4) and helped mediate a covenantal renewal between Israel—“a stiffnecked people” (Exodus 34:9)—and the Lord.

IntroductionUnfortunately, the golden calf affair signaled only the beginning of the Israelites’ failure to live up to their promise to keep the Ten Commandments. God’s terrifying presence on Sinai coupled with His severe warnings could not cause them to follow His good and holy commandments. What they sorely needed was a Savior who could transform their rebellious natures and write His commandments on their hearts. This Savior, who came to fulfill the law, was Jesus Christ (Matthew 5:17).

I. The Strength of the Law (A)

The Strength of the Law

While it may be tempting to fault the law as the primary culprit responsible for Israel’s failure, the law itself was not to blame. Rather, human sin and rebellion were at fault. As we shall see, the Bible has many positive things to say about the law and its purposes.


The Ten Commandments served as a summation of the various laws instituted by God and elaborated upon later in the Pentateuch, the first five books of Moses. (For example, see Exodus 21-23.) These commandments outlined the requirements to live pleasing and righteously before God. They were divine in origin; God initiated them with a special goal in mind: to lead people to Jesus Christ.


A. The Law Is Our Schoolmaster

The apostle Paul had a great deal to say about the law in his epistles. He had been raised as a Jew and had served as a member of the sect of the Pharisees before his conversion in Damascus (Acts 21:39; 22:3; Philippians 3:5). Paul was well acquainted with the challenges of keeping the law, and after his encounter with Christ, he was forced to rethink his entire approach to it.


The problem of the law was intensified by the inclusion of Gentiles into the church. Were the Gentiles, who were for the most part unfamiliar with the various stipulations of Jewish law, required to keep the law in order to be saved?


This issue was hotly debated at the Jerusalem council (Acts 15), where the apostles decreed that absolute adherence to the law was not required of Gentile converts. However, they admonished them in a letter to “abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication” (Acts 15:29).


In the matter of Gentile Christians keeping the law, Paul became especially alarmed over believers in the region of Galatia who were being enticed by so-called Judaizers to revert to law-keeping as a basis for their justification before God (Galatians 3:1-4). Paul argued that the patriarch Abraham received God’s promise and was justified by faith several centuries before the advent of the law (Galatians 3:5-9, 16-18).


Paul said that the law was given “because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator” (Galatians 3:19).


The divinely inspired law was delivered by the mediator Moses and served a temporary and forward-looking purpose. It was a provisional measure in which “before faith came” the doers of the law “were kept by the law, shut up unto the faith which would afterward be revealed” (Galatians 3:23).


The law was never intended to be a long-term solution to the problem of sin. Rather, Paul explained, the law was a “schoolmaster” (Greek paidagogos; Galatians 3:24)—a teacher or tutor assigned with the responsibility of the oversight of children until they reached maturity. In biblical times, this individual, typically a slave, looked out for the well-being of the children and trained them in the behaviors and skills necessary to become upright and productive members of society.


“A tutor in ancient Greek culture would accompany the children in his care, instructing and disciplining them when necessary. The law was like a tutor because it both corrected and instructed the Israelites in God’s way until Christ was revealed, and such a tutor was no longer needed” (Nelson Study Bible, Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 1997), 1974). Used by permission.


Once Jesus Christ stepped onto the scene and accomplished His transforming work in people’s hearts, the law had essentially performed its purpose.

I. The Strength of the Law (B-E)

B. The Law Declares Sin

The law also served to declare and identify sin. After their expulsion from the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve no longer experienced the presence of and communion with God that they once had enjoyed.


After their separation from the garden, sin ran rampant in the world, and earth became an increasingly violent and immoral place. A means was needed to enlighten people of their sin, for “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).


Paul addressed this very issue when writing to the Romans. By introducing a standard by which to determine right from wrong, the law functioned to draw a person’s attention to his sin. Paul wrote, “I had not known sin, but by the law” (Romans 7:7).


Citing Paul’s example, had it not been for the tenth commandment, “Thou shalt not covet” (Exodus 20:17), Paul would have been ignorant of the sin of covetousness (Romans 7:7). The commandment forbidding this sin acted to highlight the reality, essence, and wickedness of the transgression.


It awakened a profound awareness in the sinner of the seriousness of his offense against God. Again, Paul wrote, “For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died” (Romans 7:9).


Furthermore, this awareness brought on by the law helped to rouse or stir up an even deeper yearning to carry out the very sins it had forbidden. By prohibiting sin, the law created a more intense desire to sin! “But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence” (Romans 7:8).


C. The Law Is Holy and Just

In his exposition on the excellent characteristics of the law (Romans 7:7-12), Paul concluded that the law is ultimately a positive force that contrasted sharply with sin. “Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good” (Romans 7:12).

I. The Strength of the Law (B-E)In effect, the law was a trustworthy device capable

of detecting the presence of sin. The law magnified sin so that it could be seen clearly as the wickedness that it is. The problem was not the law itself, which originated from a holy and just God, but the spiritual condition of peoples’ sin-darkened hearts.


D. The Law Is Good

In writing to Timothy, his son in the gospel, Paul further elaborated on the concept that the essence of the law is good. Paul had assigned Timothy the responsibility of superintending the work in Ephesus (I Timothy 1:3), where false teachers were abusing the proper use of the law.

I. The Strength of the Law (B-E)These instructors aspired to teach the law but did

not understand what they were talking about (I Timothy 1:7). They evidently were teaching and disputing over the law in a legalistic fashion without bearing in mind the centrality of love and faith (I Timothy 1:4-6). Paul reminded Timothy that “the law is good,” provided it is employed “lawfully” (I Timothy 1:8).

I. The Strength of the Law (B-E)The central role of the law was not to instruct

righteous persons (who already knew what was good and right), but to target sinners.

I. The Strength of the Law (B-E)The law was intended “for the lawless and

disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine” (I Timothy 1:9-10).


E. The Law Is Spiritual

Although the Ten Commandments originally were engraved on cold tablets of stone (Exodus 31:18; 32:15-16), Paul pointed out in his letter to the Romans that the law in and of itself was a spiritual entity (Romans 7:14).


Paul reasoned that while it might at first glance seem that a good thing (the law) had turned into a bad thing (death), this was not so. Rather, the law, which is good, enlarged or amplified sin, which is bad, “that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful” (Romans 7:13).


The law revealed to humanity how far mankind was from the righteous God, diagnosing his true spiritual condition. “For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin” (Romans 7:14).

II. The Weakness of the Law (A-C)

The Weakness of the Law

Like radar, the law was able to spot sin, but it could only diagnose the problem. Like some antiviral computer software, the law could detect the presence of harmful “viruses” but was ill-equipped to remove the intruders.


Sin had entered and marred humanity, and the law identified the perpetrator, but the commandments virtually were powerless to release humanity from the grip of sin and eliminate the “disease” that was infecting people and destroying their lives.


A. Lacking in Power

Despite the presence of the law, Jews (along with Gentiles) lived under the bondage of sin until the appointed time when the Son of God arrived to redeem mankind from sin (Galatians 4:1-5). The law was inherently weak and ineffective in treating sin.

II. The Weakness of the Law (A-C)Paul discovered that the very commandments

“ordained to life” ironically resulted in the opposite: “death” (Romans 7:10). Sin took advantage of the law to deceive and slay humankind (Romans 7:11).

II. The Weakness of the Law (A-C)As James Dunn has observed, “Here in a nutshell is

the sharpness of the human dilemma, and the depth of man’s tragedy: were it not for sin the law would promote life with God; but given the power of sin the law in actuality provokes man’s self-assertion and so cuts him off from the life of God” (Romans 1-8, Word Biblical Commentary 38A, 384).


B. External in Nature

If the law was so proficient in identifying sin, why was it so weak and ineffective in curbing sin? The reason is that an external commandment was not able to penetrate to the human heart.

II. The Weakness of the Law (A-C)The scribes and Pharisees scrupulously kept many

of the external requirements of the law (Matthew 23:23-24), but they pathetically fell short in the matter of maintaining the internal spiritual conditions presumed by the law. They appeared righteous on the outside, but they failed to deal with their wicked hearts (Matthew 23:25-28).


Someone could keep the letter of the law by not committing murder (the sixth commandment) but be a murderer in his heart by hating his brother (Matthew 5:21-22; I John 3:15). Likewise, someone may not commit adultery physically, yet he could violate the seventh commandment by committing adultery in his heart (Matthew 5:27-28). A person could keep the letter of the law but break the spirit of the law.


The law could clean up a person on the outside but not on the inside. The issue was how to deal with humankind’s internal, fallen nature. Paul wrote, “I am carnal, sold under sin” (Romans 7:14).


The law simply was inadequate as a means to accomplish a transformed life on the inside. Had it been adequate for the job, there would have been no need of a Savior: “If there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law” (Galatians 3:21).


But the law did not have the power to enable a person to live above sin. Such deliverance was reserved for the advent of the Savior, Jesus Christ, who could transform the hearts of individuals.

Romans 8:3

“For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the

likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh”

(Romans 8:3).

III. Requirements of the Law (A-B)

Requirements of the Law

Since the law was good and spiritual, what did it require? The Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:3-17), which condensed the law into ten brief mandates, may be listed and summarized as follows:


(1) you shall have no other gods before Me, (2) you shall not make a graven or carved image, (3) you shall not take the Lord’s name in vain,(4) remember the Sabbath day, (5) honor your father and your mother,


(6) you shall not murder, (7) you shall not commit adultery, (8) you shall not steal, (9) you shall not bear false witness, and (10) you shall not covet.


These Ten Commandments may be divided further into two categories. Commandments one through four pertained to Israel’s relationship to God and were essentially vertical in nature. Commandments five through ten pertained to the relationship between fellow Israelites and were essentially horizontal in nature. The Ten Commandments were designed especially to set apart and sustain Israel as a sanctified and holy people unto the Lord as they settled in the Promised Land.


A. Toward GodThe God-focused laws were reflected in the first through fourth commandments. The first commandment highlighted the Israelites’ covenant obligation to confine their allegiance solely to the Almighty and to no other. God sternly warned Israel before affirming the covenant that “if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a snare unto thee” (Exodus 23:33).


The second commandment prohibited the making of graven images because He was a jealous God. In disobedience to this commandment, Aaron “fashioned [the gold] with a graving tool” and created a golden calf, which Israel declared to be the deity that brought them out of Egypt (Exodus 32:4). Paul noted that idolatry was a key factor in man’s fall from righteousness (Romans 1:21-23).


The third commandment, which prohibited the taking of the Lord’s name in vain, served to establish and preserve the consecrated and reverential nature of the Lord’s name.


The fourth commandment, to remember the Sabbath, harkened back to the seventh day of creation and upheld the sacred nature of this special day of rest. (See Genesis 2:2-3.)


B. Toward Man

The remaining commandments addressed the need to treat others properly. The fifth commandment addressed the issue of honoring one’s parents, which Paul identified as “the first commandment with promise” (Ephesians 6:2).


God’s promise of long life is associated with the keeping of that commandment. This commandment also could fall under the first category. How respectfully a child treats his parents can indicate to what degree that child respects God, for the family is a God-ordained unit.


The sixth through the tenth commandments, covering murder, adultery, stealing, bearing false witness, and coveting, all have serious implications for the way a person treats his neighbor and thinks in his heart.


As Paul explained to the Romans, loving one’s fellow human being summed up the essence of several of the Ten Commandments: “For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Romans 13:9).

IV. New Testament Teachings Concerning the Law

(A)

New Testament Teachings Concerning

the Lawthe Jewish teacher and miracle worker began His public ministry in Israel, questions loomed in the minds of the people who encountered Jesus Christ.


(A)

What would this Jewish man say about the law? Would He change the law? Would He try to abolish the law held so dear and sacred to the Jewish people? These were critical concerns.


(A)

Jesus and His followers stirred up considerable controversy over the interpretation of the law, and martyrs such as Stephen paid with their lives for their approach to the law. Stephen’s accusers claimed that he “ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against . . . the law” and that he declared that “Jesus of Nazareth . . . shall change the customs which Moses delivered us” (Acts 6:13-14).


(A)

While the accusations were not true, they were serious indictments, for many Jews, such as some of the Pharisees, commanded that the law of Moses must be followed (Acts 15:5). So what did Jesus teach about the law?


(A)

A. Fulfillment of the Law

During His address on the Sermon on the Mount, which echoes Moses’ delivering of the law from Mount Sinai, Jesus unveiled His approach to and interpretation of the law.


(A)Jesus announced that He had no intention of doing away with the law but that He came to present an entirely new understanding of the law. All the requirements and stipulations of the law that God’s people had been trying (and failing) to follow for so many centuries had been satisfied in one person—Jesus the Savior.


(A)Jesus explained, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil” (Matthew 5:17). To their amazement, Jesus was claiming that He was fulfillment of the law! Far from abolishing the law, the law would be realized and accomplished in all its totality and in every minute aspect through Him.

Matthew 5:18

“For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the

law, till all be fulfilled” (Matthew 5:18).


(B-C)

B. The Greatest Commandments

At various times, the Jews approached Jesus with questions about His new understanding of the law. When asked by a lawyer of the Pharisees what the greatest commandment was, Jesus referred to Deuteronomy 6:5 as “the first and great commandment”:


(B-C)“And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.” The second was found in Leviticus 19:18: “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” (See Matthew 22:35-39.)


(B-C)In short, these two commandments mandated love for God and love for one’s neighbor. These commandments were so significant and all-encompassing that Jesus stated, “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:40). By keeping the essence of these two commandments, one could claim to have kept the entire law.


(B-C)

C. The New Commandment

In His farewell address to His disciples in the Gospel of John, Jesus informed them, “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another” (John 13:34). The “new commandment” to love one another would serve as the identifying mark of a true follower of Jesus Christ.

John 13:35

“By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one

to another” (John 13:35).


(B-C)Love was God’s essence, and those who failed to love did not know God (I John 4:7-8, 16). The commandment to love one’s neighbor was so indispensable that failing to keep it signaled a failure to keep the commandment to love God.


(B-C)“If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also” (I John 4:20-21).


(D-E)

D. The Royal Law

In his letter predominantly to Jewish-Christians, James sternly warned them to avoid the sin of partiality or respecting persons (James 2:1).


(D-E)If, for example, they showed preferential treatment toward a wealthy visitor but treated a poor visitor with scorn, they were guilty of partiality (James 2:2-4). Moreover, they were in effect despising God’s chosen people (the poor) and favoring the very people who oppressed their churches (the rich) (James 2:5-7).


(D-E)While they would be doing well to fulfill the royal law, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (James 2:8), to violate this commandment would ensure that the judgmental force of the law would come into effect. “But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors” (James 2:9).


(D-E)

E. God’s Writings in Our Hearts

How can we ultimately keep the law in light of Israel’s long-standing failure to do so? If the law was a schoolmaster leading God’s people by the hand to Jesus Christ (Galatians 3:24), how has Jesus made it possible for us to uphold the essence of the law?


(D-E)

In our coming to Jesus by faith and receiving the new-birth experience (repentance, water baptism in Jesus’ name for the remission of sins, and receiving the Holy Ghost according to Acts 2:38), He transforms us into new creations. (See II Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 6:15.) Consequently, we then are able to keep the spirit of the law. Jesus changes us on the inside!


(D-E)

Jeremiah predicted centuries ago that God would make a new covenant with Israel (Jeremiah 31:31-32). This covenant would entail radical, spiritual surgery on a person in which God would inscribe His laws on the individual’s heart.

Jeremiah 31:33

“I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be

my people” (Jeremiah 31:33).


(D-E)

Rather than learning and attempting to keep all the individual stipulations of the Mosaic law, each person entering into this new covenant would intimately know God for himself and experience forgiveness of sins (Jeremiah 31:34).


(D-E)

Through the new-birth experience, God’s commandments become written on our hearts, and we receive the power to carry them out through His Spirit. Paul employed the metaphor of an epistle to reflect this transformation in the Corinthians.


(D-E)

The Corinthians were able to embody God’s desire for them to be like Christ, not because they were attempting in their own strength to follow the Ten Commandments, but because they were living representatives of the law who had experienced inward regeneration.


(D-E)

Paul wrote to them, “Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men: Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart” (II Corinthians 3:2-3).

ReflectionsThe Ten Commandments summarized Israel’s proper relationship to God and mankind and formed the basis of Israel’s covenant with God. These commandments served to regulate and promote spiritual and moral behavior, to awaken the knowledge of sin, and ultimately to act as a tutor pointing to the need for a Savior.

ReflectionsJesus Christ came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17). Through the Holy Ghost, the essence of the law is inscribed upon our hearts so that we can love God and others, thus fulfilling the Ten Commandments in our lives.

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