In 1995 an obscure Alabama circuit judge named Roy Moore became a national symbol of controversy. You see, Judge Moore displays a handmade copy of the ten commandments in his courtroom. That’s provoked the wrath of atheist groups and the ACLU, yet Judge Moore has remained steadfast in his right to post the ten commandments.
Then came the terrible tragedy in at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. This national tragedy led to further discussion about posting the ten commandments, this time not just in courtrooms, but also in public schools. Darrell Scott, who’s daughter Rachel was brutally murdered by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, believes posting the ten commandments in public schools could help curb the violence in our nation’s schools. According to a CNN/USA Today poll in 1999, 74% of Americans agree with Mr. Scott and favor posting the ten commandments in schools.
This has led many Christian organizations to put tremendous effort into posting the ten commandments in public places. For instance, an organization called "Operation Save Our Nation" distributes stone tablets engraved with the ten commandments to lawmakers across the nation. The Family Research Council’s "Hang Ten" campaign is designed to get the ten commandments out any way possible. A rash of ten commandments jewelry, tee shirts, wall plaques, bumper stickers, textbook covers and charm bracelets have also flooded the market. An Associated Press article last year suggested that posting the ten commandments in public places has become the most important social issue to evangelical Christians in America.
But very few Christians have stopped to ask whether this new focus on the ten commandments is really consistent with the Christian message. Certainly the ten commandments are found in the Bible: found twice in fact, once in Exodus chapter 20 and once in Deuteronomy chapter 4. However, the New Testament has a lot to say about the ten commandments that some of these activists haven’t really thought through.
How should Christians relate to the ten commandments?
We’re in the midst of a series through the New Testament book of Romans called GOOD NEWS FOR OUR TIMES. Today we’re going to ask how Christians should relate to the ten commandments, as we look at chapter 7 of Romans. Specifically we’re going to find three realities about how Christians should relate to the ten commandments. We must think through these three realities before we lobby to post the ten commandments anywhere.
1. A New Relationship (Romans 7:1-6)
Now you need to know that beginning in chapter 5 Paul has been personifying certain topics as if they were actual characters. Picture the entire human race and all human history as being like a chess board. Paul has been personifying SIN as if it were a king on the chess board that’s opposing God and enslaving the human race. Sin’s co-conspirator in this strategy has been DEATH, which follows sin wherever it goes. Now this doesn’t mean sin and death are actual people, but this is a literary technique Paul is using to describe human history. Another personified character we were introduced to in chapters 5 and 6 was GRACE, as it opposes the power of SIN and DEATH.
Here we’re introduced to a fourth character on the chess board: the LAW. Now the law here isn’t all laws or American law or even the principle of law, but it’s the Old Testament law of Moses. The law of Moses is the ten commandments, the two stone tablets of law Moses brought down from Mt. Sinai to give to the people of Israel. Now Israel had over three hundred other laws as well, but all these other laws are simply specific applications of the ten commandments. Paul is speaking to people who are familiar with the ten commandments here, and he states a general principle from the law: the law only has authority over someone when that person is alive.
To illustrate this principle, Paul gives us an example from the seventh commandment, God’s commandment against committing adultery. All the marriage and divorce laws in the Old Testament were specific applications of the seventh commandment. The principle here is that marriage is meant to be a lifelong covenant relationship, capable of being severed only in cases of death. Now there was provision in the Old Testament for divorce in certain circumstances, but the general principle is that marriage is for life. So if a married woman marries another man, she’s guilty of breaking the seventh commandment, of committing adultery. But if her husband dies and then she remarries, she’s not guilty of breaking the seventh commandment because death has severed her legal relationship with her husband.
In a similar way, Christians somehow die to the ten commandments when they trust in Jesus. Just as we saw in chapter 6, Christians die to the dominion of sin through the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, we also find here that Christians die to the dominion of the ten commandments through Jesus’ death as well. Only by dying to the dominion of the ten commandments can we now belong to Jesus.
Now again, Paul is picturing all this from a historical perspective of life before Jesus came and life after Jesus came. Verse 5 literally reads, "For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies." The phrase "in the flesh" isn’t talking about something inside of us, but it’s Paul’s way of talking about human life in Adam, life before Jesus came to die and rise again.
Sometimes I hear Christians say, "I was really in the flesh yesterday." But this phrase in the Bible describes people who are still in Adam, people who haven’t yet experienced the reality of Jesus in their lives. We’ll find in Romans 8:8-9 that it’s impossible for a Christian to be "in the flesh" although we might be tempted to live the same way we used to live when we were in the flesh. "In the flesh" describes life before Jesus when the ten commandments aroused passions within us. It was a time dominated by the written code of God’s law, but where we lacked the internal power to actually obey the law.
In contrast to life in the flesh, Christians are now "in the Spirit," or as v. 6 puts it, "the new way of the Spirit." We’ve been released from the dominion of the ten commandments. But notice v. 6 doesn’t say, "We have been released from the law to live any way we want to live." We’re released from the ten commandments in order to serve God, and the word here "serve" means "to serve as a slave." But there’s a newness of life that’s being described here, something that’s different than just being enslaved by the law.
According to this passage, all followers of Jesus Christ are somehow released from the ten commandments when they trust in Jesus Christ. Now we’ll have to define exactly what that means very carefully. But we need to realize that this section is saying that something very radical happens when we come to know Jesus. WHEN WE PLACE OUR FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST, OUR RELATIONSHIP TO THE TEN COMMANDMENTS CHANGES.
This change is so radical, Paul describes it as a death. Just as a married woman is different if her husband dies, and is now free to marry again, so also when we trust in Jesus Christ, we die to the ten commandments in some way. We’re no longer in Adam, but now we’re in Jesus. We’re no longer in the flesh, but now we serve God in the new way of the Spirit.
Now imagine God’s eternal law as simply God’s moral character, his personal integrity and holiness. When God created the universe, he set into motion natural law by weaving certain moral realities into the fabric of life. By natural law I don’t mean the laws of nature (like the laws of physics), but I mean the absolutes of right and wrong that God has woven into the universe. Paul mentioned this earlier in Romans, when he said in chapter 2 that people who don’t know the ten commandments have a kind of moral compass within their hearts that tells them what’s right and what’s wrong. This is what many of our founding fathers meant when they said, "It is self evident that all people are created equal, endowed by their creator with inalienable rights." They were appealing to natural law, which is a specific manifestation of God’s eternal law. Natural law can tell us certain things about moral right and wrong, but it can’t tell us who God is, or how to know God, or what kind of worship pleases God. Natural law is true but limited.
Then when God brought the people of Israel out of their slavery in Egypt, he gave the people of Israel the law of Moses, the ten commandments. The ten commandments are a second manifestation of God’s eternal law, this time specifically for the nation of Israel. The ten commandments were more than Israel’s law, but they were the proof of Israel’s special covenant relationship with God. The ten commandments were like a marriage license that defined Israel’s relationship with God. The other 300 laws in Israel are specific applications of the ten commandments to Jewish life. Now there are lots of similarities between natural law and the ten commandments, but there are differences as well. While natural law was vague and general, and only touch on how people should treat each other, the ten commandments are very specific and regulated not only human relationships, but also Israel’s relationship with God. But in their original context, the ten commandments only apply to Israel. God didn’t give the ten commandments to Egypt or to the Canaanites or to the rest of the world, but only to Israel. That’s why the ten commandments are found in the Old Testament, the Jewish Scriptures. We need to realize that other people aren’t under the mosaic covenant, and trying to apply Israel’s law directly to us is like applying someone else’s marriage license to ourselves.
But the New Testament also talks about something called the law of Christ. The law of Christ consists of the moral principles that are supposed to govern followers of Jesus Christ, and we find these moral principles in the New Testament, not the Old Testament. Nine of the ten commandments are reaffirmed as applying to Christians--the only one that doesn’t apply in the same way is the fourth commandment about observing the Sabbath. But Christians are also commanded to do things that were never found in the Jewish law, things like loving our enemies, forgiving people when wronged, and so forth. Instead of giving us hundreds of corollary commandments to define the law of Christ, the New Testament gives us the teachings of Jesus and tells us to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit in how to apply these teachings. So the general principle is that an Old Testament law is only binding on Christians today if it is reaffirmed as applying to Christians in the New Testament. This is why we don’t obey the dietary laws, observe the Jewish feasts, worship on Friday nights, and so forth. The law of Christ comes from the same source, but it’s a specific manifestation of God’s law uniquely given to the Church until Jesus comes again.
This change of relationship to the ten commandments is so radical, Paul describes it as a kind of death. To use the Bible’s terms, we are brought out of the old covenant of Moses and brought into the new covenant of Jesus.
2. A New Role (Romans 7:7-11)
Now why was it necessary for us to be liberated from the ten commandments in this way? That’s what Paul answers in vv. 7-11.
We might be tempted to conclude that the law is really sin in disguise. Do you remember those old episodes of "Mission Impossible," where you thought a character was one person, but at the end of the episode he pulled off a rubber mask and was really someone else? Well maybe the law is really sin in disguise, sin with a rubber mask on that makes him look like a good guy when he’s really a bad guy.
But Paul rejects this claim, insisting instead that sin has somehow taken the ten commandments and turn them into a pawn of sin.
To show us what he means he uses himself as a personal illustration. Paul claims that without the ten commandments he wouldn’t have known what sin was, and he uses the tenth commandment against coveting as an example. To covet something is to intensely desire something no matter what the cost. The tenth commandment is the only one of the ten that just deals with the heart attitude. Worshipping a false god is a behavior, making an idol is a behavior, dishonoring God’s name, breaking the Sabbath, dishonoring our parents, murdering, committing adultery, lying, and stealing are all behaviors. But coveting is a heart thing, perhaps the very thing that leads us to worship false gods, murder, lie, steal, and so forth. Paul says that without the tenth commandment, he wouldn’t be able to label what was going on in his heart as coveting and know it was wrong.
But Paul says even more: somehow sin uses the ten commandments to produce even more sin within us. By knowing that coveting is wrong, sin exploits this knowledge by then using the commandment to produce within us all kinds of coveting.
I thought about this last weekend when I went to the International Motorcycle Show. As I wandered through the Long Beach Convention Center looking at all the 2001 models of new motorcycles, I was coveting. But when I realized I was coveting and realized it was wrong, do you think that made the coveting go away? No, it made it even stronger, as I tried to think of a thousand different ways to buy one of those new bikes.
Sin exploits God’s law to produce even more sin within us.
At one time Paul was alive apart from the law. Now when was this? Most likely he’s thinking of his life as a child before his Jewish bar-mitzphah when he was 13 years old. By application we could say this applies to all people before they reach an age where they’re able to discern right and wrong. But when Paul became aware of the law, able to discern right and wrong, he died spiritually in some way.
Here we find a second reality. WHEN WE PLACE OUR FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST, WE REALIZE THAT THE TEN COMMANDMENTS CAN ONLY EXPOSE SIN.
This is the problem with the ten commandments in themselves; they show us the moral standard, but they don’t provide the resources to meet that standard. The ten commandments are like an x-ray machine that reveals what’s wrong. You can’t blame the x-ray machine for not being able to offer a cure for the medical problem it exposes because x-ray machines aren’t supposed to offer cures. X-ray machines diagnose problems, they don’t offer cures.
Let me give you another example: imagine a five year old boy taking a college entrance exam for Harvard University. Unless that boy is a certified genius, he’d flunk the exam. Now it’s not the exam’s fault that the boy doesn’t pass; the exam is simply doing what college entrance exams are supposed to do. But the exam itself doesn’t provide the five year old any way to get to the point where he can pass the exam. Only a good school can help that five year old grow into the kind of person who can pass the entrance exam.
Paul’s point here is similar: The law only exposes sin, but it doesn’t give us any power to overcome sin.
The people of Israel had begun to think that the ten commandments were a way to earn favor with God, a way to merit God’s blessings. People thought the ten commandments were a sort of stairway to heaven, with the people of Israel trying to climb that stairway one commandment at a time. Many people today view the ten commandments the same way, as a kind of Judeo-Christian moral self-improvement program.
But when we place our trust in Jesus Christ, the only person in human history to have kept all of the ten commandments perfectly, we realize that the law can’t help us know God. It can only expose our sin, showing us what sin truly is. Thus if we rely on the law to bring us to God, the law becomes a pawn of sin to produce even more sin inside of us.
3. A New Appreciation (Romans 7:12-13)
Because the ten commandments are limited in what they can do, some might conclude that they’re really not all that important. But Paul rejects that line of reasoning: the law is holy, righteous, and good. When Paul says the law is holy, he means that the ten commandments come from God and are a reflection of God’s character. The ten commandments are an embodiment of God’s eternal law, which is bound up in God’s own integrity. Even if we’re not under the authority of the ten commandments as they were given to Israel, the ten commandments are still holy, they still give us a window into God’s character. God’s law is righteous, in accordance with God’s integrity. God’s law is good in the sense that it’s beneficial and helpful, intended by God to be a source of blessing to Israel.
Paul’s saying that it’s not the law’s fault that sin has exploited the law to make it a pawn of sin and death in our lives. But God’s purpose is to use the ten commandments to make sin recognizable as sin and to show sin to be utterly sinful. Again, the ten commandments help us define exactly what sin is; they shine the light of God’s holiness into human behavior and expose right and wrong. And sin becomes utterly sinful in the sense that sin runs its course because of the law. Sin is exposed for the destroyer that it is through the law.
So here we find the third reality. WHEN WE PLACE OUR FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST, WE DEVELOP A NEW APPRECIATION FOR THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.
The ten commandments given to Israel are a window into God’s character. Because the ten commandments are a window into who God is, we can learn about God and about his holiness by studying and learning the law. Even though the ten commandments in the Old Testament represent the covenant of Moses rather than the new covenant, we can still benefit from what’s there because they both come from the same God. But we only place ourselves under what’s reiterated in the New Testament as the law of Christ, because we’re under the new covenant not the old covenant.
Conclusion
Romans 7 provides the most in-depth description of the Christian’s relationship to the ten commandments and the rest of the Old Testament law. God gave the ten commandments to the nation of Israel through Moses, and the ten commandments defined Israel’s covenant relationship with God. When we place our faith in Jesus Christ, our relationship to the ten commandments changes drastically because we are incorporated into what the Bible calls the new covenant. When we place our faith in Jesus Christ, we realize that the ten commandments can only expose sin, and yet we also develop a new appreciation for the ten commandments because it provides a window into God’s character.
Now based on what we’ve read here, how should we feel about people putting up copies of the ten commandments in courtrooms, classrooms, and in public places? Well it all depends on what we’re expecting the ten commandments to do. If we’re expecting the ten commandments to make people more moral and godly, then we’re in for a huge disappointment. Paul’s already told us that the ten commandments can’t do that, any more than a college entrance exam can educate a five year old or an x-ray machine can cure cancer. No matter where you post the law, it’s powerless to change the human heart because all it does is declare the standard, but it doesn’t supply the power to meet the standard.
But if we’re expecting the ten commandments to be a reminder of the God who gave the law, then posting the ten commandments can be very helpful and useful. If we’re expecting the law to define sin, to remind us that there is a God who gave Israel a law to live by, and that this God is holy, good, and just, then that expectation will be met.
But let me suggest that even if people forbid posting the ten commandments in schools, even if they ban the ten commandments from courtrooms and public places, God’s natural law is still there, and it will remind people that there is a God, that there are absolute rights and wrongs, that God is holy, just, and good. And there’s not a court in the land that can lock out God’s natural law because it’s accessible everywhere, to all people, at all times. You can’t gag God’s natural law, you can’t ban it, and you can’t silence it.
But the most important thing for Christians isn’t whether nature’s law or Israel’s law is posted in our schools and courtrooms. The most important thing is whether the Christian community is sharing God’s good news, because only that message can give people the ability to live by God’s absolutes. Without the Church doing what the Church is supposed to do, posting the law will only stimulate more sin in the lives of people. This is why the Church is called the light of the world and the salt of the earth, not the ten commandments, because only the Church has the message of the good news, that God himself took on human form at Christmas, that he lived a perfect life of obedience to God’s law, that he died a sacrificial death, and rose from the grave. Only the Christian Church has the message that by trusting in God’s Son Jesus Christ, people are liberated from the dominion of sin and the domination of death, that people are set free to serve God and to live by the law of Christ. Our reason for existence as a church is to share that message, not the message of moral standards, but the message of God’s grace.
