Lee, Jeong W. “Introduction to the Ten Commandments,” Kerux
12.1 (1998) 23-34.
Copyright © 1998 by
Northwest Theological Seminary. Cited with permission.
Introduction to the Ten
Commandments
Exodus
20:1-3; Luke 12:48
Jeong
Woo (James) Lee
Something quite unprecedented is
happening in our text. Never
has God so clearly, comprehensively and
categorically expressed the
duties he requires of his covenant people in all the
areas of their lives
until now. Beginning from this section and continuing
through the end of
the Book of Deuteronomy, God will set down specific
laws and regula-
tions as guidelines for
various aspects of
zens of a new theocratic
nation; specific laws and regulations concern-
ing their relationship with
God as well as specific laws and regulations
concerning their relationship with one another and
with other nations.
Through
the law,
public and private arenas; how to build the
tabernacle, ordain priests
and offer sacrifices; what religious festivals and
holidays to celebrate
and how to do so; how to deal with one another as
fellow citizens through
codes of private, socio-political, judicial and
religious ethics--codes cov-
ering everything that happens
between the birth and the death of man both
socially and individually.
The laws given at
are usually divided into three categories: the
ceremonial, the civil and the
moral. The ceremonial laws are those which are
connected with the Old Tes-
tament worship at the
tabernacle and temple. They include those regulations
23
24 Lee: Ten Commandments
concerning all types of animal and grain sacrifices
and temple rituals per-
formed by the Levitical
priests. The civil laws are those which are particularly
connected with the government and maintenance of
the theocratic nation that
unique and applicable only to
ing the ancient Jewish
civil laws in modern non-theocratic nations. The unique-
ness of these civil laws stems from the fact that
in which the state and the church were united.
Thus we see in the Mosaic laws
many penal codes imposing corporal punishments upon
"religious" and moral
offenses as well as criminal offenses. We also
see provisions made for the
executive branch of the government to oversee
cultic practices and even to
initiate religious reforms. Both the priesthood
and the imperial court had the
Mosaic
laws as their common standards.
The third category of the Mosaic law is the moral laws. What distin-
guishes these from the
ceremonial and civil laws (which were temporary in
nature) is their permanent and universal application:
they are not unique to
however, must be divided into two categories:
there are some which are per-
manent temporally; there are
others which are permanent eternally. The former
deal with human relations; the latter deal with
man's relationship with God.
For
example, the commandment to love God and worship him alone is eter-
nally true, abiding and
effective, since our relationship with God is eternal.
However,
the commandments to honor our parents and love our spouses will
not be in effect in heaven because those human
relationships, being tempo-
rary and temporal in nature,
will not be present there: we will all be brothers
and sisters. And yet we can talk about even these
temporal moral laws as
being permanent because they remain valid for all
people (whether they are
Jews or not) so long as this world continues.
However, we must remember a very important fact.
The moral, ceremo-
nial and civil laws are not
completely separate, unrelated categories of law.
As
they all come from the same divine Lawgiver, they are all interrelated.
And
they are interrelated in this way: the
ceremonial and civil laws are tem-
porary, situational applications of the eternal moral laws to the
specific reli-
gious and social context of the theocratic
laws are concerned with our relationship with God--more
specifically, how
24
Kerux 25
we may approach our holy God. Our relationship
with God is the central
concern also of the moral laws (namely, the
first four of the Ten Command-
ments). Yet, the Mosaic
ceremonial laws were temporary in nature because
they revolved around the physical temple which was
only a type and shadow
of the eternal, heavenly temple. This is true for
the civil laws as well. The civil
laws deal with our relationship with one
another--also the main concern of
the moral laws (namely, the latter six of the Ten
Commandments). The
saic civil laws were
temporary because the context in which they were ap-
plied (the theocracy of
also a type/shadow of the eternal
What must puzzle you at this point is how God's
laws can be subject to
situations and be only temporarily applicable. This
may sound to you very
much like situational ethics. However, there is a
fundamental difference be-
tween situational ethics and
what we are talking about. Situational ethics does
not believe in any absolute standard for human
morality. Each situation calls
for a different code of ethics, fully determined by
pragmatic concerns of that
particular time and situation. What we are talking
about, however, is differ-
ent. We are not talking
about changes; we are talking about a progressive
revelation of God's law. And this progression we
are talking about is not an
evolutionary process--a gradual
process of the formation, maturation and
perfection of ethical codes and principles through
trial and error. The pro-
gression we are talking about is
of an organic nature--like a butterfly going
through different stages of organic growth--going
through the egg, the cater-
pillar and the larval stages to finally become a
beautiful butterfly. In each
ensuing stage, the preceding manifestation of
life is replaced by the new through
a wondrous metamorphosis. However, through all
the different stages and
forms, the essence of the butterfly remains the same.
Such is the nature of the
progressive revelation of God's law in redemptive
history. The eternal law of
God
is given to his people in different organic stages. Even the displacement
or replacement of certain portions of the law
(such as the ceremonial laws)
does not indicate any change in the fundamental
principles. This is so because
the law of God is not merely a code of ethics
arbitrarily devised by God just
for man. The law of God is more importantly God's
own self-expression of
his holy character given in the form of
commandments to his covenant people.
As
such, the law of God, though given in a progressive manner, is firmly
25
26 Lee: Ten Commandments
anchored in the absolute, eternal holiness of the
unchangeable, immutable
God. As God cannot change in his holiness, neither
can the eternal principles
from which God's commandments come. And these
eternal, immutable prin-
ciples, emanating from God's
holy character, manifest themselves progres-
sively throughout redemptive
history. We can say then that the nature of this
progression in the revelation of God's law does not
consist in any change in
essence and principle, but in the increasing
clarity of expression and the height-
ening demand of obedience.
Why such a progression in the first place? you might ask. Why didn't God
give us his eternal law from the very beginning?
This is a legitimate and im-
portant question. This question
can be answered only when we reaffirm the
law as a divine self-expression of God's holy
character. We realize that the
full, unrestrained self-expression of God's holiness
was impossible in the fallen
world, without destroying sinful humanity. We all
know too well the destruc-
tive power of God's holiness
in relation to sinful man. Many, who encoun-
tered the theophany
of God throughout redemptive history, cried out with
fear and despair, "Woe is me, for my eyes have
seen the King, the Lord of
hosts!" Due to this total incompatibility
between God's holiness and man's
sinfulness, the divine self-revelation of his
holiness had to be keeping in step
with his redemptive work. And the divine redemptive
program was progres-
sive in nature--to go
through the process of promise and fulfillment--the
typological fulfillment first and then the real
fulfillment in the end. Thus, the
self-revelation of God and his holiness
through the law had to come in a pro-
gressive manner. There is indeed
an intimate and directly proportional rela-
tionship between the law of God
and the redemptive work of God. The
degree
and extent of the revelation of God's holiness through the law
is directly pro-
portional to the quality and magnitude of God's redeeming work.
Therefore, we are not surprised to find this
relationship at work at the
beginning of the Ten Commandments. In v. 2, we
have what we call the pre-
amble to the Mosaic law: "I am the Lord your
God, who brought you out of
the
historical background and the theological rationale
for the giving of the law
and for the obedience required of God's people.
26
Kerux 27
Notice, first of all,
the redemptive-historical character of this preamble.
The
Lord declares that he redeemed
in
their Redeemer-Lord. Second, notice the causal
relationship between God's
redeeming work and the giving of the law: it is
because the Lord redeemed
Mosaic
covenant, it is made clear that redemption is given freely by God's
grace and not by man's own meritorious works.
mandments because she was already
delivered by God, not in order to be
redeemed by God.
In the light of this causal relationship between
God's redeeming work
(the cause) and the giving of the law (the consequence), we
may assert that
such a clear, comprehensive elucidation of God's
will for his people (given
through the law) was possible only because of
the great redemption which
God
accomplished in the exodus of
difficult to see. The law had always been present
in God's covenantal dealing
with man-even in the garden of Eden. There, the
cultural mandate to popu-
late the earth and rule over other creatures was
given. Also, a prohibition
concerning the fruit of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil was de-
creed. Although in the garden
of Eden before the fall, God's redemption from
sin (per se) was not necessary as a provision for
the giving of the law, the
"law" and its sanctions were given in the garden in
accordance with the sinless
condition in(to) which God created man.
We also know from God's words to Abram that a
certain moral standard
was imposed on him (even before the giving of the
law at
God
Almighty; Walk before Me, and be blameless" (Gen. 17:1). Though God's
specific act of redemption is not clearly stated
here, we know from the con-
text that God's demand for Abram to walk before God
in a blameless manner
was indeed based upon his act of redemption--calling
Abram out of
Chaldeans. Yet God's redemption
for Abram--the fulfillment of God's prom-
ises--was limited, though a
son was given in his late age. Abram did not
come into the possession of the land in his life
time; Abram did not see his
descendants become as many as the stars in the sky;
Abram did not see all the
families of the earth being blessed because of
him. This limited fulfillment of
27
28 Lee: Ten Commandments
God's
redemption in his life was the very reason why Abram received a ver-
sion of the law which was
sketchy at best, falling far short of the comprehen-
siveness of the law given at
other hand, experienced a far greater redemption of
God: their number be-
came as many as the stars in the heavens; they were
delivered out of the bond-
age of slavery in
receive the promised land as their inheritance,
etc. Through God's redemp-
tion, the conditions
necessary and conducive for a higher level of spiritual
living were created; accordingly, a higher and greater
demand for covenant
obedience is placed upon the redeemed people of
God through the fuller rev-
elation of God's law.
Thus, the law begins with a clear affirmation of
God's great and mighty
work of redemption: "I am the Lord your God,
who brought you out of the
declares that the conditions for the next stage
of redemptive history have been
prepared by his redemption. Then he proceeds with
the giving of the law,
starting with the first commandment. We may
paraphrase the beginning of
the Ten Commandments in this way: "Because I
have brought you out of the
Egyptian
bondage, you shall have no other gods before Me."
However, it is precisely this inseparable
connection between God's re-
demption and the self-revelation
of God's holiness through the law, which
makes the Mosaic law far from being a complete
expression of the holy stan-
dard of God. Here, we are
not only referring to the imperfections and limita-
tions of the ceremonial and
civil laws, but also of the moral laws represented
by the Ten Commandments. The exodus of
ultimate, full redemption of God for his people.
The ultimate salvation could
not be just an external liberation from physical
bondage, as the exodus of
inner, spiritual corruption of man. For the external,
political bondage to which
only a physical indication of the inner, spiritual
bondage to sin and death.
Indeed,
this problem of sin was fully dealt with, man could
never experience the true
redemption. And this ultimate redemption was what
was in God's mind from
28
Kerux 29
the very beginning. All of the redemptive acts of
God in the Old Testament,
with all of their externality and attending
limitations, pointed to the ultimate,
perfect salvation to be brought to God's people
in the fullness of time. There-
fore, the Mosaic law, connected with the imperfect,
merely typological salva-
tion of
of his holy demand from his people. The full
expression of God's holiness had
to wait until the fullness of time when God's full
redemption of his people was
accomplished.
Many hundreds of years later, Paul triumphantly
declared in Romans
8:3-4,
"What the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did:
sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful
flesh and as an offering for sin,
he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the
requirement of the law might
be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to
the flesh, but according to the
Spirit." In the atoning death of
Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, the
requirement of the law was fulfilled for us. And we
know that the requirement
of the law, which was fulfilled in Jesus Christ
goes far beyond the require-
ment imposed by the Mosaic
law. All that the Mosaic law requires for the
forgiveness of our sin is the sacrifices of bulls
and goats. This should have
been a clear indication of the terrible limitation
of the Mosaic law. For the
atoning death of Jesus Christ clearly tells us
that our sins require something
far greater than mere sacrifices of animals.
Doesn't the sacrifice of Jesus
Christ--God
of God, Light of Light, very God of very God--show us what
the ultimate law of God requires for the
forgiveness of our sins? Did Jesus
himself not say that he did not come to abolish
the law but to fulfill it? He
meant more than meeting the requirements of the
Mosaic law. In Jesus Christ,
the full expression of the law of God in all of its
holiness was given--far
beyond the Mosaic law. Isn't it clear that the Sermon
on the Mount outshines
the Mosaic law in its surpassing righteousness?
Isn't it clear that Jesus on that
mountain is the One who is far greater than Moses
at
quently, what Jesus had to deal
with was not the demands of the Mosaic law.
He
had to deal with what the Mosaic law was a faint reflection of--the abso-
lute standard of God--without any compromise or
diminution.
That is why the true nature of our sin in all of
its ugliness and repulsive-
ness could not be exposed until the death of Jesus
Christ. The first function of
29
30 Lee: Ten Commandments
the law is to bring in the knowledge of sin. Yet,
the knowledge of sin brought
out by the Mosaic law was not complete. It gave an
impression that all that
was required for the atonement of our sins was
animal sacrifices. However,
the death of Jesus Christ on the cross showed that
sin, being an offense against
an infinitely holy God, is a crime deserving an
infinite, eternal damnation. No
blood of bulls and goats--though they may be
thousands and tens of thou-
sands in number--can atone for our sins. Not even
myriads of angels with
their deaths could pay for a single sin of ours, for
they are finite beings and as
such insufficient payment for our infinite sin.
Nothing less than the blood of
Jesus
Christ, the infinite God himself, can pay for our infinite sins.
On the other hand, we must understand that the
death of Jesus Christ
acquired the full remission of our sins. None of
the judgments of God in the
Old
Testament--as terrible as they might have been--were ever a full expres-
sion of God's wrath. That
means that there could not have been a full remis-
sion of sins in the Old
Testament. (This doesn't mean that no one in the Old
Testament
was saved. Though they were not saved by the sacrificial system
of the Old Testament, they were saved through
their faith in the coming Mes-
siah, represented in the
sacrificial system.) For the divine justice requires the
full punishment of our sins for their perfect
forgiveness. The horrible death
that the generation of Noah died in the flood was
not a sufficient punishment
for their sin against the infinite God; the burning
of
with fire and brimstone from heaven was not even
close to the full punish-
ment which they deserved
from God. Those who perished under the sword of
Joshua
still have to undergo the eternal punishment of God in
hell. The full
wrath of God was never unleashed in the Old Testament
because the full
release of God's wrath would have burned up the
whole universe in its con-
suming fire. This full wrath
of God is reserved for the time of the final judg-
ment and eternal damnation
in hell. But we know that this full wrath of God
against the sins of his people was fully
unleashed upon Jesus Christ hanging
on the cross. What made Jesus pray at the
be passed from him was not the physical pain of
crucifixion--as excruciat-
ingly painful as it might
have been. He knew full well that, for the first time in
eternity, God the Father would look upon him with
eternal wrath and pour out
on him all that the heinous sins of his people deserved!
All of God's righteous
wrath against the sins of his people would be
concentrated upon this Lamb of
30
Kerux 31
God
and Christ would experience, while he hung upon that cross, all the dam-
nation of eternal hell!
In Jesus Christ, the full redemption could be
accomplished because the
full wrath of God was unleashed and satisfied in the
once-for-all sacrifice of
the eternal Son of God. How does this affect the
law? Did Christ's redemption
abolish the law? Of course not! We know that the
ceremonial laws were
fulfilled in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ; as we
come, not bringing bulls and
goats but fully trusting in the all-sufficiency of
Christ's sacrifice for the for-
giveness of our sins, the
ceremonial laws are fulfilled. We also know that the
civil laws administered through the power of the
sword are replaced with the
laws of church discipline administered by the moral,
spiritual authority of the
church. But then, what about the moral law?
The Sermon on the Mount shows clearly what is
demanded of those who
received their salvation in Jesus Christ. And
there we find that far greater is
God's
demand for New Testament believers than for Old Testament believ-
ers. The reason is very
simple: the greater the grace, the greater the demand.
Because
God's grace abounded to the fullest in Jesus Christ, God's demand
for holiness from his people becomes perfect as
well. Jesus himself said in
Luke
12:48, "And from everyone who has been given much shall much be
required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him
they will ask all the more."
This
must be understood in terms of redemptive-historical progression, not
just in terms of individual gifts. No matter what your individual spiritual gifts
may be, all the believers of the New Testament have
been given much much
more than the believers of the Old Testament--because
of Jesus Christ. All of
you are to live in a manner worthy of the calling
with which you have been
called: to be perfect as your heavenly Father is
perfect.
There is a radical reversal in Jesus Christ,
however. First of all, a higher
demand of holiness does not come any more through a
greater volume of
commandments. Our life is no longer
to be tied up in the web of rules and
regulations. Christ told his disciples in John
15:15, "No longer do I call you
slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is
doing; but I have called
you friends, for all things that I have heard from
My Father, I have made
known to you." We can no longer mindlessly
follow the commandments out
of fear; now we are called to understand the very
heart of God and live in
31
32 Lee: Ten Commandments
union with him and his will. This, of course, does
not mean that we do away
with the law. The law provides for us a framework
and boundaries so that we
do not become antinomians and heretics. (The
antinomians would say that, as
long as they have good motives and sincerity,
whatever they do for God is
good and acceptable. Not so! Our sincerity is not
enough unless what we do
out of sincerity of our love for God is also
according to God's own way pre-
scribed for us in the law. The law provides the
boundaries for our actions.)
However,
when Christ calls us friends, he is calling us to a relationship of
love and understanding which no law can express
perfectly nor do full justice.
A
slave does what is required of him--no more nor less.
That is why clearer
and more detailed directions need to be given to
insure that the assigned task
be properly executed. A friend motivated by love
and understanding, on the
other hand, will use all that is at his disposal to
bring pleasure and delight to
his friend beyond what is required of him. In the
same way, if we love our
Lord,
we will obey his commandments--this is the least we would do for the
Lord
whom we love dearly. However, to love the Lord is more than just obey-
ing his commandments--that
is what slaves do. We go an extra mile to fulfill
the spirit of the law.
Second, the demand was already perfectly met in
Jesus Christ through
his perfect righteousness. The death of Jesus
Christ did not just bring us back
to the garden of Eden for a second chance. Through
faith, we have been brought
into a union with Jesus Christ. We now live by the
very resurrection power of
Jesus
Christ--to die to sin and to live to God. In Jesus Christ, God's promise
given through Ezekiel is fulfilled: "I will put
My Spirit within you and cause
you to walk in My statutes." (Ezk. 36:27). The difference of the new covenant
from the old is not the absence of the holy demand
from God, but the presence
of God's effectual help for you to walk in the law--God's
effectual and gra-
cious help in Jesus Christ
(in his perfect righteousness) and in addition through
the Holy Spirit (for our sanctification).
However, we must remember that the law itself has been perfected in
Jesus Christ. The Ten Commandments,
given in the context of the theo-
cratic
inseparable relationship between the law and the
environment in which
the law must be executed. The law of God could be
given its full ex-
pression only with the
inauguration of the true, heavenly kingdom of
32
Kerux 33
God. This kingdom is the
1:13).
That is why the true meaning and the full extent of
the Ten Command-
ments can be seen only in and
through Jesus Christ. This is exactly what Paul
meant in 2 Corinthians 3:15-16 when he said,
"But to this day whenever Moses
is read, a veil lies over their heart; but
whenever a man turns to the Lord, the
veil is taken away." Apart from Jesus Christ,
the Ten Commandments can no
longer stand as some kind of independent, absolute
moral standard: without
Christ,
there can be no true understanding of the Ten Commandments; neither
can there be true obedience without Christ. That
means that even the most
pious Jews cannot obey the Ten Commandments. Here, we
are not just talking
about their inability to perfectly obey the
commandments. No one can. But
the Jews, to whom the Ten Commandments were
originally given, cannot
even begin to obey them. As a matter of fact, their
very (genuine) efforts to
keep the commandments result in sin. We know this to
be true with regard to
their sacrificial system: offering any cultic
sacrifices would be a downright
rejection of the all-sufficiency of Christ's
atoning sacrifice. But this is true
even in the moral law. Take the first commandment,
for example. The mono-
theistic faith of the Jews in YHWH is now
terribly deficient. No one can come
to the Father except through the Son (Jn. 14:6) because the full revelation of
God
came through Jesus Christ (Heb. 1:2). It is impossible to observe the first
commandment without knowing God as the Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ.
To
continue to worship YHWH without acknowledging Jesus Christ is noth-
ing less than idolatry.
Brothers and sisters,
let us rejoice that the
upon us. And in and through Jesus Christ, we have
been brought into the
means that we have been given a call to holy living,
worthy of being citizens
of the heavenly
mony to the great redemption
accomplished in Jesus Christ, which makes our
obedience possible and real. So we may compose a
new preamble for the new
covenant.
"I am the Lord your God who brought you out
of the bondage of sin and
death. ‘Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal
body that you should
obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the
members of your body to sin
but present yourselves to God as those alive from
the dead, and your members
33
34 Lee: Ten Commandments
as instruments of righteousness to God .... Present
your bodies a living and
holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your
spiritual service of worship.’”
(
New
34
This
material is cited with gracious permission from:
Northwest Theological Seminary
www.nwts.edu
Please report any errors to Ted
Hildebrandt at: