0:04
So I I written kind of shorthand the uh the ten commandments and then as soon as I wrote it you know I realized some very important archaeological and clip art uh facts certainly that have influenced
0:15
that you know first of all it's quite obvious that I did not draw them correctly. All right. So I'm going to fix that now because we do know that they did this.
0:27
All right. And we know again that they were one. They were once one tablet, okay? Because that's what Charlton H was dealing with before God split them in
0:37
two. We also know that this is the first known example of Roman numerals in human
0:52
which is neat because it was about 800 years before Romulus. So, but you do know you can't write the uh the Ten Commandments in just regular numbers, right? You got to do it in Roman
1:02
numerals. So, but I've got them up there. And you might notice that I don't have them the way you you probably have seen them. I have them divided evenly. And I've already said I do not believe that they were written on two tablets. I
1:15
personally am convinced that there were two copies um that that were intended to be God's copy as it were and Israel's copy. Um now there there are those who
1:26
don't agree with that and we can't know for sure but that certainly was the manner of such documentation in the 15th century before Christ. So I think that's
1:37
as archa I think we know that at least as well as we know that the tops of the tablets were round. Okay. So I think that's on the same par. But I
1:47
have them up there because I I want to talk tonight about the ten commandments and then Lord willing next week specifically about the fourth
1:57
commandment the Sabbath. primarily as an example both tonight and next week of how systematic theology
2:10
has influenced the way we exedute the way we read the scriptures especially the old testament. The primary focus
2:21
about the ten commandments is how do they apply today? Okay. In fact, um, some of the more modern books that have been written, commentaries on
2:33
the ten commandments, uh, one by Philip Reichen, who is a very well-known and competent scholar, um, he titles his written in stone, the ten commandments
2:45
and today's moral crisis. Okay. Um, Brian Edwards about the same time writes the 10 simply the ten commandments for
2:56
today. Okay. So Okay. So that does betray a typical conservative evangelical approach, certainly a reformed approach that maintains that the ten commandments are abiding in
3:08
their importance and and really in their obligation uh even to believers. Now certainly not everybody has agreed with that and there
3:18
are kind of polar opposite perspectives as to the role of the ten commandments in the Christian life. Certainly the ten commandments are are held up as um
3:33
inviable whereas we don't really like the rest of Torah. There's quite a bit of the law that we kind of finagle around. Some of the things are more clearly not for us
3:45
than other things. And and so the handling, the hermeneutics involved with often are really not even discussed unless you
3:56
get into a commentary on Exodus and Leviticus. You really don't get much on Torah. You get fullblown commentaries on the Ten Commandments. And then of course
4:07
you bring in the sermon on the mount and the way the New Testament uses the ten commandments. But I still think it's it's very um
4:20
applicationbased and we don't spend much time thinking about what the ten commandments were in their own time. What was their purpose? Why is this the only part of the law
4:32
that was spoken directly to Israel by the voice of God? Whereas the rest of Torah is written by Moses at God's direction, we are told in
4:43
Deuteronomy 5 that and in inex Exodus 20 or 19 that God spoke and they heard his voice. Remember they heard his voice but saw no form. Um that's the ten
4:55
commandments. That's the decal. 10 decalogue, the 10 words is what it's literally called in in scripture, the 10 words. Um, words. Um, so they they seem to um
5:08
they seem to be very very central to the religion and life of Israel and yet we don't really know what to do with them in the church.
5:19
Um, so the first question is what what do we do with the ten commandments? Okay. And I'm going to put up some of the standard or at least um conventional
5:31
answers to that question. I'm not going to spend much time on that though because I think that approach is incorrect. I I frankly think that when
5:41
we begin to understand the relationship of the decalogue to the people of God at the foot of Mount Si and the correlation between Torah and
5:52
the tabernacle, the tabernacle, we will begin to see our place in the new covenant and the law's place in our hearts.
6:04
I think we need to remember at all times the ultimate goal of of the Lord was that the law would be written upon our hearts. So for those who think the law
6:18
has lost all significance to believers, they're going to really struggle with the new covenant which both in Jeremiah 31 and then Hebrews 8 has fulfilled.
6:30
It primarily says, "You will have no one, no need of anyone to teach one another because the law will be written on your heart." Ezekiel 36, I will write my statutes upon your heart. I will take
6:43
out your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. So, I think that's that's kind of the bedrock here is that that was that was always that's not some New Testament passage that we kind of
6:54
can say, "Oh, well, you know, they came up with that because they were building a new religion." No, they were quoting the Old Testament. the promise that that God would circumcise our hearts so that we might love him as he requires. Um,
7:06
and then the promise that the law which was written on tablets of stone would be written upon our hearts. So if that's the goal of the Old Testament or the old
7:17
covenant and we believe that Jesus is the promised Messiah of Israel, then we have to believe that in fulfilling God's promises, the law has been written on
7:27
our hearts. our hearts. So, it's still there. And a lot of people, I think, have struggled with Paul because he seems to equivocate. You know, there's times when
7:39
Paul's anti-law, anti-nomeian, and there's other times he's pro-law. You know, it's like he was almost schizophrenic, and some actually have said he was that he he waxed back and
7:50
forth depending on what he was dealing with. He was kind of like a politician. And depending on the church that he's writing to, he takes one attitude to the Galatians and another one to the Romans. Okay? I don't think so. I don't think
8:03
that's a good way to read Paul. If you if you've got an inspired schizophrenic, I don't know what you do with that. Um, so I I think we need to um go back to the original, go back to biblical
8:15
theology, go back to uh as I mentioned that phrase last week, this idea of
8:40
typological ical prophetic history. I want to spend a little just a few minutes on that. We tend to think of prophecy as the the books that we read in the Bible that are the prophets. Um
8:52
we don't even get that quite right because the former prophets from Joshua through second Kings were always numbered among the prophets in the
9:02
Hebrew Bible and the book of Daniel was not. it's it belongs in the writings. Okay. So, we don't really even get the division correct. But we when we do
9:14
that, when we when we focus on, for example, the those prophecies that have the star in the margin proving to us that it's a a messianic prophecy, when we do that, we divorce the history from
9:28
the prophecy. But in fact, all of the history came first and was itself prophetic. But it's prophetic in a symbolic way. It
9:39
it it's real history. It really happened. But in happening, God is is weaving his uh revelation into the actual lives of people. And then the
9:52
prophets are really commentators on the history. Does that make sense? They they don't go off on their own. The last prophet Malachi says, "Remember
10:03
Moses, okay? They don't go off on their own." In Isaiah, it's to the law and to the testimony. For if they do not uh what's the word? If they do not agree
10:14
with these, there is no light in them. So, they're always going back to the the Pentatuk, the books of Moses as the bedrock. So the um it's not like
10:26
uh the whole idea of a messiah and resurrection and whatnot that all comes from the prophets. No, it it doesn't. We can find all of that actually in the
10:37
Pentatuk. So the law and the prophets become a grammar of the Hebrew Bible. So that Jesus uses that phrase that was very common in the second temple era.
10:48
Sometimes it would be the law, the prophets, and the psalms, which was the law, the prophets, and the writings. Um, the Tanakh. That would become a more prevalent three-fold division later on
10:59
after the destruction of Jerusalem in the rabbitic era. We don't even follow that anymore. We have a four-fold division where we've actually separated the law and the prophets as far from
11:09
each other as possible. We've put the we put the Penetuk first, which is where it belongs. Then we call the histories starting with Joshua and running through
11:20
Chronicles. Okay? Then we have the writings with with Job and Psalms and and Ecclesiastes. And then we finally get to the prophets. So what were side by side in the Bible
11:32
for most of history, although some of the books, especially in the 12 minor prophets, shift a little bit, we've now separated as far as possible
11:42
because this is why we do this. At least this is the theory that I've read and I tend to think it's plausible. We see the prophets as leaning into the New
11:53
Testament. Okay, does that make sense? You know, we think that as we read the prophets, we're getting closer to the Messiah and therefore we put them at the end of the Old Testament because we move right into
12:04
the New Testament. There's some merit to that because we end with Malachi where the promise of Elijah coming and the messenger of the covenant coming into the temple. So yes, there there is some
12:15
merit to that, but there's also a cost. And that that cost is we're moving further and further away in our hermeneutic from the very first
12:26
bedrock of Revelation, the books of Moses. and and I think that we would do well I would love to see an English Bible published with the tripartate
12:38
the uh Torah the nim the prophets and then the ketuim the writings I'd love to see that it would end with 2 Chronicles
12:49
which doesn't really lean into the New Testament very well um but that has that also has a lot of merit to end there okay so that's kind of an aside but I want to emphasize as we move forward
13:00
that We need to look at this stuff in the context of the historical events that were taking place. Jonathan
13:14
difference. There is that's a good question. Books of Moses and Pentatuk are the same. The first five books are the books of Moses. So that's that's synonymous. Torah is
13:25
larger than that. It it is that generally. So they're almost they're they're often used as three synonymous words. Torah, but there there are other
13:35
areas of of legal talk elsewhere. Um so Torah can be a little bit more fluid than Pentatuk.
13:46
Okay. But for for the most part when you say Torah, you mean the Pentatuk. You mean the books of Moses. So I I think for all intents and purposes, you can you can equate those
14:04
Well, that's actually inside that. That's not equivalent. It's not equivalent to Torah. It's part of Torah. Very good. Yes. And so we have Torah, Pentatuk,
14:26
It is. Yeah, it is. Because the Jews aren't like the Christians. They did not separate revelation from history. We have We have and that's been a very detrimental
14:38
hermeneutical move is to to jettison history. And and we actually didn't really do that until the Enlightenment when we decided that history doesn't
14:48
matter anymore. Um only thing that matters is doctrine or or ethics. That's where we ended up is ethics. What matters is how do we apply the ten commandments? No, what matters is what
15:00
is it? What do the ten commandments mean in their own day? Most of them were very very common to all of the cultures of the ancient near east. In fact, there
15:11
was no culture in the ancient near east that sanctioned murder or even adultery or theft or false witness. and they had their own um laws
15:24
concerning their deities as well. So that that's a perennial problem with with Christian exugesus is the fact that the Ten Commandments are really not all
15:36
that unique. that unique. And so liberal scholars have said clearly the Jews borrowed from the Babylonians Hamarabi, okay? They borrowed from the cultures around them.
15:48
Um there's no need to say that. There's no need, we talked about this when we talked about the suzaranti treaties that there's no need to think that the that Moses borrowed from the Hittites
16:00
rather at that time this was a standard way of writing covenants you know on two two copies on their own stone tablet you know we don't have to say they borrowed
16:11
but there's still the reality that just about all there's only really one commandment that is unique to Israel
16:28
Sabbath. No, no. I mean, they may have other gods, but they didn't have foreign gods. Even the pagans had their own gods. And those gods were very jealous. So, for example, uh, in Ephesus,
16:39
Athena was the goddess and she needed to be basically at the top. They were not monotheistic. You're right. they were generally not monotheistic. But the
16:49
exclusivity of Judaism was was not even that unique that that they the other pagan cultures pagan cultures um were they had their supreme god
17:03
but then they have other gods. Yes. So you might say that one but really the one that is most unique with regard to um any context is the Sabbath. There's really no precedent or parallel to the
17:16
Sabbath. All right. Now, let me put it this way. They would every other every other religion would have something said about how they relate to their gods. Not
17:28
necessarily you shall have no other gods, but that these are your gods. Those are not your gods. Those are the gods of the Egyptians. We are Assyrians. So, there still would be some. Does that
17:40
make sense? They wouldn't be monotheistic. They weren't monotheistic, although Egypt was for one reign. Um, that didn't work, but they would still have something to say about the gods and
17:51
the people. No one has anything to say about a day. The Sabbath is truly a a unique and archaeologically without precedent in
18:02
the ancient world. Um, okay. So, we're that's why we're going to spend next week talking about the Sabbath because it's also, you know, as you've probably
18:13
experienced and probably have read and have heard, what is the what is the major focus among Christians when they exedute the Sabbath?
18:24
The major question is are we to well Saturday a Sunday or are we to keep it? Are we bound to keep the Sabbath? It's always how do we deal with
18:34
this? What do we do with this? And I'm I'm maintaining that we can't really answer that question if we don't understand it in its historical context,
18:45
realizing that everything we're reading in the Old Testament, as Paul tells us in Romans 15 and 1 Corinthians 10, these things are written for our instruction and for our example. Okay? So there's
18:56
that typological prophetic history, real history real history that was both typological meaning it stood for something else that was
19:08
esqueological. It was prophetic. So when we talk about the tabernacle, we realize that it was actually built. It was a it was a mobile temple which was
19:18
common in the ancient world, especially among Bedawins, nomads to have a a temple that traveled with them. So that's the tabernacle. But we also know that the tabernacle was then kind of
19:30
concretized in the temple. But even that was simply a type of the body of Christ.
19:44
There are analoges to the graven images again going along with who were the appropriate gods of your culture um and what their representations were. Okay. So, it's not necessarily a prohibition.
19:56
I'm just saying that that that each of these and that that is also true about covetousness, although that's going to be more within the philosophies like of of um ancient China and Eastern
20:07
religions. Covetousness has long been recognized as a vice um and not a virtue. So, no, no one else has a ten commandments. So, there's no one toone comparison. Um, but there's there's
20:19
something about each of these in the writings of other there's parallel similarities to to every one of them except the Sabbath. Did these other cultures that had these
20:43
one. So they were secular. They were secular and and ethical and they they were almost entirely almost entirely uh for the the harmony and preservation
21:15
Set aside crime and you don't have to But with God that wouldn't happen. It shouldn't happen. Well, with God himself. Oh, yes. With God, I had it it wouldn't happen. And with God's people, it shouldn't happen. In fact, the
21:25
prohibition against favoritism or or against um an unwarranted compassion. You were not even allowed in justice to favor the poor. You know,
21:35
you're not to favor the rich and you were not to favor the poor. So, you know, you're right. the the arbitrariness of human laws. Um, but then you're you're talking you're
21:47
actually talking from faith that we do believe that this is not simply a parallel ancient neareastern culture and its law code. We believe these to be written as the scripture says by the
21:58
finger of God. Okay. and believing that then we we need to first understand what was God's purpose in giving these laws rather than start with or jump too
22:11
quickly to what does this mean for me? What does it mean for me? And and so much and I've been kind of harping on this I think for years, but we have so moralized Christianity that even in our
22:23
own minds as we read our own Bibles, we can't escape the the thought, what does this mean for me? what am I supposed to do with this? I don't think that's the right I think we need to escape that hermeneutic
22:35
because the Holy Spirit will guide us into all truth. He will lead us into righteousness. And if we trust him, then as as he leads us into the truth of his word, he will
22:47
also guide us into what it means for me, what it what I'm supposed to do with this. If we short circuit that, I don't see how we escape a form of even if it's
22:59
just personal legalism. I don't see how we escape a form of works righteousness. works righteousness. I I just don't I don't think it can be done. And as I read commentary after
23:09
commentary on things like the Ten Commandments, I don't think it is done. I think most of them sound very formulaic, very methodical. Okay, this is what you do with this and and
23:22
something like the Sabbath. How do we vo avoid the minutia of what you are and are not allowed to do on the Sabbath? I mean, how do we avoid the rabbitic? You
23:32
you can walk a threequarters of a mile, but if something that belongs to you happens to be there, then you can walk another threequarters of a mile. All right? So the day before the preparation
23:43
day meant you put a toothbrush threequarters of a mile away and then you put your hairbrush another threequarters of a mile away because the the pub is a mile and a half away. Okay?
23:54
And then you leave them there so you can get back home. All right? That kind of casuistry is inevitable if if we succumb to the hermeneutic of what does what does this mean? What do I have to do
24:04
with this? What do I do? What do I do? And that's really the mentality of of a fallen human beings. What do I do? What must I do to be saved? Okay. Um, what must I do to to keep the Ten
24:16
Commandments in the way as a Christian I'm supposed to? Or should I not even bother because I'm not under law. I'm under grace. What does that mean? Okay. What really what is what does that mean? Especially in Romans 13 when Paul uses
24:29
the the the latter commandments. um he uses as the the uh uh the substance of love.
24:41
So we can't escape the ten commandments if we read our New Testaments. We can't I I don't think that we can do um the things that are normally done with them. I'm going to just I'm just going to read
24:52
some of them. Um and these are actually things that are that are taught and prevalent uh w within evangelical Christianity in the 20th and 21st
25:02
century. and really earlier than that and are also simply common traditions that have uh arisen around the decalogue the ten commandments. So for example one
25:14
view as that the ten commandments represents the righteousness of the millennial kingdom millennial kingdom that this is this is how Israel will live in the millennium.
25:26
Now that view effectively says the ten commandments has nothing to do with Christianity because we are not under law, we are under grace. That view also necessitates
25:37
the ignoring of fairly large portions of the New Testament including things like the sermon on the mount where Jesus takes some of the commandments, right? He says, "You have heard it said, I say
25:50
to you, okay, you have heard it said, you shall not commit murder. I say to you, if you hate your brother in your heart, you are guilty of murder. See, what does it have to do with us and and
26:01
there are those who have taught and do teach it doesn't have to do with us at all. It has to do with the the kingdom of the millennium. So, that's that's a common view. And you may have heard it,
26:13
you may have even thought that. Some people think now, and we're going to talk about this, that it presents a really good moral code. And and that's actually an inevitable
26:24
result of what we're g I'm going to talk about tonight, but I mentioned last week, and that is the three-fold division of the law that is almost universal among modern
26:37
evangelical writers, especially reformed, and that is the ceremonial, the civil, and the moral. And the ten commandments is firmly escconced in the
26:49
moral law. moral law. And we'll talk about that in more detail. But in in that case, what we have then is essentially an enduring moral code. So I'm going to I'm going to
27:00
quote again Philip Reichen. He makes a comment that I just had to write down. I read it and I had to read it again and thought, did you actually say that?
27:11
say that? Where is it? Here. Um that's not the same one. Here it is. The Ten Commandments were written in stone because they would
27:23
remain in effect for as long as time No, they were written in stone because that's what they wrote in back then.
27:34
As if they were going to write it in something else. No, they they they etched it in stone, first of all. Okay. But how many of you have ever been to an old cemetery? old cemetery? What are the tombstones made of?
27:49
Stone. Are they always an eternally legible?
28:02
at the time, Mr. Reichen was senior pastor of 10th Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, which is an extremely old church and has a cemetery of which many of the tombstones are completely
28:12
illegible. Okay. Our place will remember us no more. So the idea that it's written in stone because it endures forever is quaint. It's a very quaint thought, but it's not true. Besides the fact that the
28:24
scripture itself, as I started out, the stone was actually representative of the way things were not going to be. Does that make sense? They were going to be
28:34
the law was to be written in the heart, not on stone. you know, and and to to what he's saying is is that the the writing in stone is God saying that you will always follow
28:46
the Ten Commandments, but that's not what God was promising. He was promising that he would write it on the hearts of his children and they would be then empowered, and I would add
28:58
by Ezekiel 36 by the Holy by his Holy Spirit to obey his statutes and ordinances and commandments. So long as they stayed on stone, they were out of
29:09
our reach. our reach. They were out of our ability because our hearts matched the stone of the
29:19
commandments. So they had to be actually written by the finger of God on our hearts. I I think you know I I read that and I don't know, maybe it doesn't strike you as it struck me, but I think you don't really
29:31
get it. And actually the title of his book is written in stone. I think it would be far better to have titled the book written on hearts. I don't see any
29:43
reason to at this point in the redemptive timeline. I really don't see any reason to emphasize the stonyiness of the ten commandments. I think we should be we're we're under
29:54
the new covenant and we we should keep that in mind. It's the same law that is now written on our hearts but no longer in stone. I think it's interesting that Ezekiel God promises that he will take
30:06
out our heart of stone and he will give us a heart of flesh. You know, so stone is actually representative of the problem, not the
30:19
solution. And if if we want to say the if we want to talk about the enduring nature of the law, then all we have to do is go to the Psalms where we read um thy word is forever settled in
30:32
heaven. Right? We we don't have to say that God's law is um permanent because it was written on stone. It's permanent because it's his word.
30:42
I think it's a max carved in stone. Yeah. Yeah. But He's just using words. Yeah. I don't think he thought last
31:10
that would have been fine if he'd gone there, but he didn't. So, he left it in stone. Okay. I I think that you're right. I don't think he thinks that stone lasts forever. I'm sure he, as all of us have done, he has
31:21
walked through an old cemetery and he's marveled at how illegible, how time I mean, when you walk through a cemetery, it seems to me that you're basically reciting Ecclesiastes as you walk
31:33
through that old cemetery. And I'm sure he he he is a good scholar and and I respect him highly. I think he's mistaken. And that I think his approach is mistaken because he he emphasizes
31:46
more of what we are to do as opposed to what God has done. And and that's part of the whole commentary. So that's not right out of this. I agree with you. I think he's just using it very much in
31:57
the same ph way we do. It's written in stone. Well, it's not written in stone. You know, we're saying it's permanent or it's not permanent. Yes. And I actually say in the notes that clearly that's
32:07
what he's doing. But it just seemed ironic that he would choose that when we we know that the fundamental purpose of God was to write it in our hearts of flesh. That's what I'm saying is that
32:19
yeah, I I know he's not being literal. I I understand that. Um but I think his metaphor falls apart pretty quickly because of what we know about stone, but it's a bad metaphor to begin with
32:30
because of the promise of the new covenant and the fact that we live in that new covenant now.
32:49
lack of life where he says the letter kills well that's the section though isn't it
33:03
negative and that's my objection with the metaphor is that And I think it's misleading that when we think of the enduring nature of the law, we should think of it in in two ways. First of all, it's enduring because it's the word
33:15
of God. Not want, jot or tit of the law shall pass away. Jesus said, I have not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. Okay? So, we we really don't need to
33:25
struggle with the enduring permanence of the law. In my opinion, we do, but primarily because we are struggling with what we're supposed to do with the law. We generally as evangelical Christians,
33:39
we're we're fairly uniform in our belief that in some sense the law still prevails, right? Well, we know it's not salvation, but it never was. Actually, it it never was. Paul's point, there
33:50
never was a law given that could justify flesh. So, we we we're really barking up the wrong tree with that approach. Um we're actually making a straw man like Luther did and then we're knocking it
34:01
down with the sword of grace. Um but it it never really was a means of salvation. They had already been redeemed. Okay. Um but I think we all
34:11
accept but I don't think we need to we need we need to defend its permanence in other any other way. First of all that it is the word of God and then secondly
34:22
that it's now written on the hearts of believers. That that's I think the transition that that we must not deviate from. And I feel like I would put it this way. I think Reichen's metaphor is
34:32
unfortunate. I think as a metaphor itself um it's it's obviously not accurate uh physically naturally accurate. I know he knows that. But I
34:44
think what he's trying to say there doesn't need to be said that way because it seems to detract from the very promise of the new covenant to write the law upon our hearts. The law written on
34:56
stone is of no value to us. certainly because we have it on our hearts. Okay. So, um I mean that's this kind of a
35:07
introductory comment with regard to how the the modern evangelicals really since the reformation how they tend to treat the ten commandments.
35:17
But I think again I think it is so important for us to keep the historical context as we as we talked about we we've now come out of Egypt. We've we've had the
35:29
Passover and then we've been baptized into the sea. The sea has been and then we come out to walk in newness of life on the other side. We have the the mana
35:42
and the water from the rock that Paul alludes to in 1 Corinthians 10. Then we come to the foot of Mount Si which is burning with fire and booming with
35:52
thunder. Okay, this is all very vivid and graphic and it's for a reason because this history is the is is the foundation. It is the u it is the backdrop and the
36:04
context of the revelation. What we do is we take that out of context and we we carve the ten commandments onto the walls of our
36:18
courouses. Okay, that that's that's again kind of the traditional way that we treat the Ten Commandments. I don't have a problem seeing the Ten Commandments in a courthouse, but I think we all understand that's not what they were
36:29
meant to do. Um, basically what they're doing there is, at least when they did it, I doubt they do it in any modern courous today. But the idea of justice
36:43
does flow out of the Bible. It's not something that we come up with on our own. And we will talk about when they talk about the Sabbath. The Sabbath is perhaps um
36:59
one of the most compassionate commandments of of the 10, if not the most compassionate commandment of the 10, is the Sabbath. And the whole complex of the idea of the Sabbath, it's
37:09
not just the weekly Sabbath, but the the high Sabbaths and the sabbatical years and the year of Jubilee. They're all they all form a complex, an idea that is
37:20
both very social as well as very esqueologgical. And we're going to pick that up next week. I think that's as not only the the most unique of the commandments compared to the rest of the
37:31
ancient world. Um it was even more unique in in its content than any other culture in the ancient world. It was the most leveling of all commandments. Okay.
37:42
So we'll we'll deal with that. And I think there's, you know, there was a time in which we we recognized the foundation of of Judeo, basically Jewish law in English common law and then our
37:57
statute law. Again, it's that's not with us anymore, but you still have some of the old courouses that have it carved or now we, you know, we put them on, you know, we put them on our front yard. Um,
38:09
but that I don't think that's what the law was meant to be. So we we don't have it as just a good moral code. Um there are those uh theonomous
38:31
or theonomy. Now this is almost ex I don't know of any dispensational theomist not even John MacArthur was a dispensational theomist. dispensational theomist. uh he was a reformed dispensationalist
38:42
but this is almost entirely and I say almost only because I know of no exception a reformed derivation. This comes out of reformed theology. But the idea is that our um secular laws should
38:56
be patterned after the Mosaic law and that we should work in in the political activism of of our democracy to bring about the change of our local, our state
39:08
and our national laws to reflect biblical laws. Some will go so far as to say things like branding, stoning, um are are all to be brought back and and
39:21
all of the all of the statute laws. That's that again I think hopefully you recognize that's a bit extreme. Um but but that actually flows very logically
39:32
from the three-fold division of ceremonial, civil, and moral. Okay? And the reason we have, we'll get into that three-fold now, but the reason we have
39:42
the three-fold division, anybody have a comment on comment on what I've said so far? We have any Jonathan?
40:05
I believe that yes and no. Uh because I believe that there there really are no other commandments that do not themselves flow out of the ten commandments that as we read the statutes and ordinances uh even such things as not
40:18
plowing into the corners of your field. Um these these are all actually derivative of the ten commandments. Okay. So I can say I think that it one
40:28
thing we could say is that in a sense the ten commandments are written in our hearts but also because the ten commandments are written in our hearts the whole of the law is written in our
40:41
hearts even the sacrificial law which is a really a different type of law by the way u we tend to talk about the sacrificial law but we don't read any sacrificial law in Exodus
40:54
the sacrificial laws or the law are the law of the tabernacle. We've looked at that in Leviticus. Okay? So, um it's still Torah, but remember the word Torah
41:05
primarily means instruction. Okay? So, we we want to make a big deal. One of the reasons that we do the three-fold division is because we think it helps us cut out the ones that no
41:17
longer apply. longer apply. Does that make sense? But we need to fundamentally understand that there's no such division in scripture. This is a framework that has been
41:28
superimposed upon it. But back to your question, um I I do think the ten commandments is a comprehensive summary of Torah
41:39
of Torah and that if we read through the rest of the ordinances and statutes and even we read the prophets as they u rail against oppression uh and mistreatment of the
41:51
alien and the poor and the widow, they're railing against covetousness. They're railing against theft. They're railing against economic and sometimes physical murder. Okay. Frequently, of
42:04
course, they're railing against fornication and adultery, you know, but I mean, just about everything you read is this is everybody disagree with this that that really the ten commandments is
42:14
like the rubric from which we get all of the case law or the statute law I should say, but some of it is case law where if this happens, you'll do this. Okay. Um
42:26
certainly the laws against idolatry flow right out of the third commandment, right? Or second commandment, excuse me. No graven images.
42:40
dietary law we're going to talk about tonight because this is the problem I see and and I I I I would say I've seen this for well certainly since I went to a Presbyterian seminary
42:51
and that is although almost every commentator that I read uses the three-fold division three-fold division nobody puts the same ones in the same
43:03
division they they don't agree on now they're pretty much in agreement with the sacrifices you know, we say Jesus fulfilled all of those and we don't do those anymore. Okay. Um and then they want to find out,
43:14
you know, of course, how does that apply? You know, we read it, we know that it's it's beneficial for us. It's instructive for reproof for for training in righteousness. How so? Um but this
43:46
What we're really doing here is dividing and cancelling. and cancelling. We're doing this and and this is this is something that's been done at least since the reformation but primarily uh among the Puritans and then into modern
43:56
reformed. Now you can understand why it's not as prevalent in for example dispensational writing dispensational writing because they don't believe the law is is active during the age of grace anyhow.
44:09
So there really is not much reason to spend a lot of time dividing the laws up into the different categories. But for those who believe the law is enduring and permanent in some sense, we need
44:20
some type of criteria or criterion by which we can say, okay, this one is still in force and that one isn't. And the way we do it is we separate, oh,
44:43
Does any of the ceremonial law apply to Christians today? Does that include the feast days? Oh, I don't know. Yes, according to
44:56
some. No, according to others. Okay. Um, but that's a very good question. Where do we put the dietary laws?
45:11
We know that the dietary laws are themselves a part of the overall teaching with regard to clean and unclean. Correct? unclean. Correct? Because some of the animals are clean
45:21
and some of the animals are it's all within that rubric of clean and unclean. Well, where do we put that? Well, okay, that's ceremonial. that's ceremonial. Okay. Well, is it really
45:34
ceremon? Uh or the tabernacle. Yeah, but it does have to do with the they can't do that anymore. Oh, but but there are there are some parts of the ceremonial law that we can
45:44
say we don't do that anymore. That that's not my argument. I mean that there certainly there certainly Jewish person oh lot of things
46:01
we'll talk a little bit about that next week. Um but I found I found it very intriguing that among Jewish writers from the rabbitic period on uh to a large extent when they lost sacred space
46:12
sacred space they've replaced it with sacred time they've replaced the temple with the Sabbath. It's very interesting. Yeah. And it really happened pretty much immediately
46:24
in AD.70. And it's what really interesting is that the whole idea of the Sabbath bifrocated between Christianity and rabbitic Judaism.
46:36
And we'll we'll talk about that next week. I find it it's fascinating what what's been written about the Sabbath, not only in scripture, but in in commentaries throughout the last 2,000
46:46
years. Um, we're not talking about the Jews because the Jews never did this. Jews never did any three-fold division. There's no Jewish writer where you'll find this. They saw no distinction among
47:01
the laws. And in this they are more biblical than Christians because again there is no such distinction or three-fold division in the scriptures. This is something that that we have kind
47:13
of manufactured as a framework. Now remember we've talked about dispensationalism. We've talked about covenantalism. These are hermeneutical
47:24
frameworks that once we build them, we pretty much channel our exogesis into that framework, right?
47:34
Well, what if we're wrong? Then our interpretation and our conclusion will also be wrong. So any framework that is not
47:47
fairly clearly fairly clearly elucidated in scripture should be treated with a great deal of suspicion.
47:57
That's across the board. I think that that's that's should be our hermeneutical approach is okay. I'm reading this three-fold division in my commentary by Thomas Watson, you know,
48:10
great Puritan reformed scholar. But am I reading about this three-fold division in Moses, a great Jewish scholar?
48:22
No, I'm not. And so, you know, that's covenantalism. That's the reformed perspective. But as I've said many times, you know, I'm reading in my my book, my biblical
48:33
theology book or my introduction to the New Testament, I'm reading about the dispensation of Abraham and I'm reading about the dispensation of human government and I'm reading
48:44
about the dispensation of the law. But do I read any of that in the scriptures? Nope. I read the word dispensation, but I don't read about seven of them. And I
48:56
certainly don't read any division between Abraham and Moses or between Abraham and Christ. So if if we're reading something in a book that is
49:06
trying to teach us basically how to interpret our Bible and we don't read that in the Bible, it may or may not be right. And frankly, I would venture to say it's mostly
49:19
wrong. I think it's it's especially as time goes on the the hermeneutical approach the framework becomes in a similar way to way tradition took a
49:32
primary role within Roman Catholicism. I think that's what happens to systematic theology. systematic theology. I think that's what happens to isms like dispensational ism, covenantalism.
49:44
it kind of replaces the scripture itself. And those who are immersed in those things, they just can't see it any other
49:55
way. I don't I I can understand that. Um but I think we we can do better than that. We can just read the scripture and then let the commentators help us where they may, but let them not guide us into
50:07
error because they just happen to be the same ism that we are. So the idea of of three-fold division and I I'll I'll be glad to admit if one of you can produce
50:17
some passage in scripture where you can find the law u divided into three different categories. But even so even if we grant that there's also the problem that those
50:29
who maintain the three-fold division are not consistent in where they put certain laws. certain of them. I mean, nobody is going to put the burnt offering
50:39
in the civil code. Okay? Because the civil code, also known as the judicial,
50:54
this is the modern term, this is the 17th, 16th century term, but it means the same thing. And then there's the moral
51:08
Okay. So, I'm I'm not able I'm not doing a commentary on the Ten Commandments. Um, and so I'm not going to go deep a deep dive on these. I'm going to give more of a of an overview. Um, because that would take us too far a field
51:19
trying to get into the weeds of of uh which I'm going to give you some examples though of statutes that don't seem to fit clearly
51:33
anywhere. So the first one, of course, this is typically Oh, wow. That's bad. Um, I'll just go back to the black. This is associated with the tabernacle.
51:45
Okay. And of course, tabernacle sacrifices. Okay. Again, that that's that's nice. It gives us a All
51:55
right, we those are fulfilled in Jesus. We don't deal with them anymore. All right. I don't have an argument with that. I don't think we should restart animal sacrifices or or anything lustrations or uh drink offerings or
52:08
whatever. Maybe a drink offering, but uh let me say if you offer me a drink, I may not turn it down. Um but I don't think they have anything to do. I mean that's fine. But there are other
52:18
statutes that want to get into the but we put them in the civil. Did you have a comment? Okay. All right. the
52:28
civil then this this has to do with the the uh theocracy. Okay. And that's really the the fundamental thing is okay they were a theocracy and so these were the civil
52:40
and judicial statutes that we often read for example in Leviticus then the moral well that's basically the ten commandments. That's what it boils
52:52
down to. What we want to be left with is the ten commandments. We want to be able to get out of all the rest of them and be left with the Ten Commandments, even though we really don't know what to do with them. But we
53:03
we want to get back to the Ten All right. So, I want to so that we don't run out of time, I want to kind of
53:14
give the punch line and then we'll go back and and I'll give you the joke. Um,
53:28
is disobedience to God's law moral or immoral? Yeah. In fact, can God give a law that isn't moral? isn't moral? We may not understand the basis of the
53:40
morality, but there's morality in the ceremonial law. And that is how can an unholy people dwell in the presence of a holy God. If you don't have sin, you
53:52
don't have sacrifices, right? But sin is a moral category. It's not a civil one. And and to say that these things are ceremonial is
54:03
essentially saying they were kind of arbitrary like other gods set up how you are to approach and how many hecatome you're burn you know. Yeah. Is that all this is? When we read about all these
54:15
sacrifices and the morning sacrifice and the evening sacrifice and the guilt offering and the wave offering and the peace offering, were these just
54:25
administrative? Some people believe so. Some people think they they were simply set up by the priests during and after the exile in order to to kind of corral the Isra the Israelite people upon their return
54:37
and control them. We talked about that when we looked at a little bit the first u how many how many chapters have we done? Uh however many we've done 16 I think 17. We did 17. Uh so that the
54:49
first 17 chapters of of Leviticus are simply a post exilic power play. Okay. No, they're all founded on the principle and
55:00
the reality of sin. Right. And how is that sin then portrayed? Well, fundamentally clean and unclean, holy or profane. Remember those distinctions?
55:13
Those distinctions were ceremonial. Okay. But were they just ceremonial? The dietary laws, did they really
55:25
pertain to the tabernacle? Actually, they didn't pertain much to the tabernacle at all. They pertain to the Israelites daily
55:35
life, did they not? Their civil life. H how about the the law for the leper? Was that ceremonial or civil?
55:50
Well, certainly you could not come to the tabernacle, right, as unclean. But we saw in that section of Leviticus that sometimes you could not even go home and sometimes you could not even enter the
56:03
camp, right? That's civil. So there's a lot of overlap with this regard. One classic example here is the
56:21
Talionus. Now, you may have heard that in the Latin, but what it means is it's the eye for an eye law. And and what it means, you know, some people say that's horrible, you know, pluck out people's eyes. That's not what
56:33
it means. It fundamentally means that the punishment should fit the crime. Yeah, that's what it means. They didn't they did not blind people. That that was it's it's graphic, but it's also used in
56:45
other ancient uh cultures. this concept of an eye for an eye. Is this law limited to the theocracy of
56:56
Israel? No. In fact, it's a fundamental law and just about every culture we've ever exumed, every ancient culture has this concept of lexalonus.
57:07
So there there are quite a number in fact this is one place where a lot of conservative scholars struggle because on the one hand they say the civil law pertain to the theocracy of Israel and
57:17
on the other hand we we don't we don't want adultery you know we we want to ban it right we want to we want to we want laws against murder right we actually
57:27
don't want stores to be open on the Sabbath for example some of us is like no we don't do that we used to not do that although we think that the the the Sabbath itself, we don't really know how
57:39
it fits in Christianity. Is it civil? Is it is it mo how is it moral? How is the Sabbath a moral commandment in in the same sense, for example, as
57:50
thou shalt not murder? I mean, who doesn't know that murder is immoral? Well, not keeping the Sabbath doesn't seem in I think most people's minds to
58:02
be on the same level as murdering people, especially on the Sabbath. So, the point I'm trying to make is twofold. One,
58:14
twofold. One, this division was this three-fold division was developed for a purpose, not from the scripture. The purpose being to try to give us a
58:24
rubric by or an overlay by which we can go to the laws of Exodus and Leviticus and we can overlay this three-fold and somehow it's it's kind of like the
58:36
multicolored rainbow Bible. Some of them will show up in the color of ceremonial. We can safely get rid of those. Some of them will show up in civil. Yeah, you know, we may see the wisdom of them, but
58:47
you know, they're not really they're not really they don't pertain to us anymore because we're not a theocracy. And then whatever's left, we say that's moral and that's still that still pertains to us.
58:59
It does successfully take out some of the things that are no longer pertaining to us, to us, but it's doing so, I think, in an invalid way, an illegitimate way.
59:13
I I don't for example I don't think we need the three-fold division in order to see from scripture that the ceremonial sacrifices have been abolished.
59:24
Do we Do we can we can we not see that from the New Testament that the ceremonial sacrifices of the Levitical priesthood have been fulfilled in Christ and they're done? We
59:37
don't need this to do that. And what what we then struggle with is where to put such things as the dietary laws and the whole but the dietary laws
59:48
as I said themselves represent a paradigm that is at the center of it all and that's the idea of profane and holy or
1:00:00
of unclean and clean the dietary laws are themselves I think I said when we went through that themselves somewhat arbit arbitrary. And
1:00:10
remember, we spent time talking about how attempts have been made to explain why this or that animal was clean or unclean. But in every case, there are
1:00:21
exceptions and we don't understand why grasshoppers are okay. You know, the idea of that that that they can jump and fly, you know, that a lot of reasons are
1:00:31
given which I frankly I think God was not necessarily saying there was anything particularly wrong with that animal. Okay. but rather that there was something that would distinguish Israel
1:00:44
from the other nations. Now, I'm going to put a couple words up and and this is actually um a foretaste of things to come. My plan is
1:00:56
for three more lessons from tonight and then Lord willing when we pick up the third session we're going to spend a great deal of time focusing on the kingdom of God which I think is far too
1:01:07
pervasive and important to give just one or two lessons but I want to finish this session with what I think is the proper rubric
1:01:20
for determining between what applies and what doesn't. Okay. And these two words I think are at the center of it. The first one is
1:01:32
that or now what I'm trying to do here is I'm trying to use the New Testament and how
1:01:44
the New Testament reads the Old Testament so that we can understand why someone like Paul would say you no longer circumcised. Circumcision is now
1:01:57
meaningless. Okay. How can you say that? Or or how can the writer of Hebrews say that the entire Levitical ministry of the temple is obsolete and soon to pass
1:02:10
away? And I find that there's two criteria that pervade the New Testament. And by this rubric, we can pretty much overlay the law and it's going to block out
1:02:22
those things that no longer pertain. In other words, anything that had anything to do with a human mediation between man and God and God is out of the way.
1:02:53
Many of these statutes like the dietary law and circumcision were established not because there was something especially healthful in circumcision or in the foods that were
1:03:04
declared clean or as I said back then that God didn't know how to teach the Israelites how to cook pork so that they wouldn't get tinosis. Okay, that's a
1:03:15
very common uh interpretation of that dietary law, but then that doesn't apply to um camels, you know. Yeah, I guess you can have
1:03:25
your camel rare. I don't know. Can you? Oh, you don't know? Okay, I thought you were the expert. Um no, these were Okay, Cityorn. There you go. He went and just got got his camel
1:03:37
at McDonald's. at McDonald's. Yeah. Yeah. You always Yeah. The the bun looked like this.
1:03:52
Two humps. One hump. Oh, that's a dramadary, isn't it? Um, it? Um, all right. No, these were laws that distinguished Israel from the other
1:04:05
nations. We don't have that anymore. There is now no difference. No difference between a Jew and a Greek, right? A slave or free, a a male or female. See, these distinctions, they
1:04:17
they've not been changed ontologically. We're not saying that men are women and women are men, as so many say today. We're saying in the in the redemptive sense, in the essential sense of the new
1:04:27
covenant, these distinctions don't matter. That God is calling to himself a people from every tongue, tribe, and nation. And he's making no physical visible distinction among them.
1:04:40
We are Christians. We have to talk about that. Yes, we are to be separate but not that way. We are to be separate in holiness. That's the next passage in 2 Corinthians 7 that our
1:04:52
separation is holiness which which involves the commandments. So the commandments written on our hearts enable us to be separate in the way
1:05:04
God's people are to be. And yet we're separate in the midst. We're not separated into a nation as they were. We are not forbidden, for example, to marry
1:05:18
other ethnicities. other ethnicities. We're only we're supposed to marry in the Lord. So there are there are there are statutes that remain, but they're not there for the same purpose. We're
1:05:30
not doing anything. We're not to do anything that declares a separation on a an ethnic basis. Those have all been and really they're basically there is the
1:05:42
Sabbath, circumcision, and the dietary laws. Those were the ethnic markers of ancient Israel. ancient Israel. So the idea of medi mediation and the
1:05:54
idea of distinction are the two criteria that I would say will help us to discern which laws pertain and which do not. And I think
1:06:07
the important thing is not that we have this criteria or this rubric that help but that it's confirmed in the New Testament. Okay? Okay, we have to be able to look
1:06:17
to the New Testament and read Paul saying there is now no difference between these different groups. When he says that in Ephesians when he says that you were once outside the commonwealth
1:06:29
of Israel without God and without hope but he has made you the two into one man. See that's what I'm saying here. That distinction that existed remember
1:06:41
there were only two peoples in the world according to a Jew. a Jew and the Gentiles, right? Does that make sense? Everybody agree with that? That doesn't even
1:06:52
pertain anymore. Actually, the two the two separations now are believers and unbelievers. But distinction. What? It is still a distinction, but we but it's no longer a physical one. We're
1:07:05
still we're still I mean, you're not physically different from your unbelieving neighbor. And you don't do anything physically in order to be different from your neighbor. You're not
1:07:16
required to be circumcised, for example, or or to have any um particular dietary laws or even to observe days that were
1:07:26
meant solely for the purpose of making a distinction between Israel and the nations around. nations around. Isn't that a distinction gives life to
1:07:37
Saul? No, no, no. You're not you're not hearing me. That distinction is a distinction of righteousness, the distinction of of holiness. Yes, that's that's what we are now. But it's
1:07:47
not a distinction of being circumcised. That's been okay. It's not a distinction of dietary laws. There is no rubric from the New Testament that would erase the
1:07:59
requirement of holiness from the Old Testament. I'm not doing that. I'm saying physical visible distinctions have been erased.
1:08:11
They've been they've been literally erased in the New Testament. Circumcision now is meaningless. But its only meaning before was distinction.
1:08:22
You're not you're not hearing you're not getting what I'm saying. But let me go let me go to Abigail and then Erin. I think the prophets help with that because you start to
1:09:04
those distinctions the the dividing wall between the Jews and the Gentiles has been taken down.
1:09:19
And they were and and Okay. Um it's not like they were exclusive. Well, they they were pretty much, but but you said last week that they were ethnosentric. They were They were they were prideful, right?
1:09:31
Not what No, they were intended to be a witness, but part of that witness was their visible physical emblems of distinction.
1:09:43
We have the same thing. No, we don't. We have no physical visible emblem of distinction. We have none. No. In how we live. No, that's that's not what I'm talking
1:09:55
about. Please, I I'm I wish I could get this across because how we live is holiness. That hasn't changed. They were just as required to be holy as we are.
1:10:05
In fact, it was because of their unrighteousness that their circumcision became uncircumcision to them. That was always more important than the visible
1:10:15
distinctions. I'm only talking about how we discern which elements of Torah no longer apply. I'm not talking about how we're supposed to live in the world. We
1:10:26
are just as called to be holy as they were. They were called to be holy as we are. There's no you shall be holy for the Lord your God is holy. Okay? You shall be your righteousness if it
1:10:38
doesn't exceed that of the Pharisees, you will in no wise see the kingdom of heaven. So you're taking me a little you're taking me a lot farther than I intend to go. I'm simply saying we're looking at Torah. We're looking at
1:10:50
certain laws. I think that trying to discern them this way is biblically illegitimate and not helpful. But if I'm looking at the law, you shall
1:11:00
circumcise your sons on the eighth day. Do I apply that or not? I say no. Because it was a visible physical symbol
1:11:13
of separation. of separation. We don't have that visible symbol of separation at all. What to call our behavior visible
1:11:24
behavior visible is is not what I that's that's really kind of figurative speech because I'm talking about actual physical things we're doing. We don't eat pork, for example. Why? Because we're distinct,
1:11:36
but we're not distinct in that way anymore. The veil has been torn down and the law has gone forth from Zion. So, as Christians, we don't I mean, we do have
1:11:48
these things. We have how long a man's hair is allowed to be, whether he's allowed to have facial hair, whether a woman's allowed to wear slacks, do we not? That's what I'm talking about. That
1:12:00
we have actual physical things that we do to ourselves like circumcision or what we eat as a distinction between us and other nations. That's what I'm
1:12:11
saying has been abolished. That wall has been torn down. And now the gospel goes out into all the nations without any such requirements. So that the apostles
1:12:23
agreed even James and Peter that the Gentiles should not be circumcised. Okay. Um I I don't want to I I I feel
1:12:34
like I'm going to be misunderstood here into saying is that we're not required to be holy. That's not that was never that was always the requirement. That was the requirement of Adam. That's never not
1:12:45
been the requirement. But I I don't want to call that I don't want to I I don't want to let you think that I don't know how to just say this. We're just talking about three
1:12:57
things really. Circumcision, dietary laws, and the Sabbath. I guess the word physical distinction
1:13:08
distinction. Yeah. Well, you know, 2 Corinthians 6 quotes, "Come out from among them and be separate." But then you go right into chapter seven where it says you're to be holy. Holiness has always been the
1:13:19
fundamental requirement. In fact, the most moral aspect of the law which applies to all of them is obedience.
1:13:30
That's the problem with this is that in every case if you did not obey that was immoral and you were cut off from among your people. So I'm I'm trying to say this is
1:13:41
this is not a valid criteria. But if we look at these two, yes. Now, if I want to, you know, put the word physical up there. Okay. And
1:13:52
really, it only applies to what we're reading in the Old Testament. Does it still apply today? And holiness was never simply a
1:14:04
distinction of Israel. Holiness was requirement by God of man.
1:14:36
Yes. Even the even the sacrificial law in Isaiah, we read the Lord saying, "I I am tired of your feasts and your burnt offerings." He's tired of the things that he actually commanded them to do
1:14:48
because he says, "These people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me." So, uh, I'm I'm not making a blanket statement that Christians are not to be separate or distinct. I think
1:14:59
we absolutely are to be in our behavior. But I am saying that there is no physical thing that we do
1:15:10
that we do to ourselves or that we do in in our normal daytoday life that we do because we're Christians. And
1:15:20
I think that when we do incorporate those things, okay, like uh like length of hair or dress or the do we not all
1:15:44
No, Sabbath needs its own day. Yeah, I I know it's it's a tough one, but I will give you a little bit of a heads up as where I'm headed and um then it's very very small. Um but first of all, there
1:15:57
is only one Sabbath and it's Saturday. In fact, in Exodus, that's pretty explicit. So when we talk about the Sabbath, we're
1:16:07
again doing something to scripture that scripture doesn't do itself. The church did meet in the first day of the week which actually also reinforces
1:16:19
the seven days of creation. And that is in itself very significant. But we cannot call the Lord's day the Sabbath. The Sabbath is what the Sabbath has
1:16:31
always been and scripture never changed that. So that so that Paul on the Sabbath went into the synagogue. What day was that?
1:16:41
it was Saturday. Okay. So again, once again, we're doing something to the scripture, to the history in order to achieve an understanding that we want to
1:16:52
achieve and we can't do that. But I do think the Sabbath is absolutely abiding for us because we have entered in
1:17:03
to God's rest. Okay. So I yeah it's it's no I I I I I will say very briefly and and summarily I do not think the Sabbath
1:17:14
is abiding or enforced upon Christians. I really don't. Again as I said if it was then it would be from the evening on Friday to the evening on Saturday. That
1:17:25
is the Sabbath. The Sabbath has never been anything other than the than the seventh day. To make it the first day is not something that's biblically done. Okay. The Lord's day is its own thing
1:17:37
and it's very important and it has its own significance. But I think it's the same. It's that replacement hermeneutic. We have to replace, right? Remember we talked about we have to
1:17:48
replace Passover. Oh, we got the Lord's supper. We have to replace circumcision. Oh, we got baptism. We have to replace the Sabbath. Oh, we got Sunday, the Lord's day. You see, we had this idea
1:17:59
that somehow we have to replace when what God has done is fulfilled. And so what we now have is not replacement but fulfillment.
1:18:10
Jon Jonathan, Jon Jonathan, that's okay. I just saw a hand back there. All right, let me let me quickly um for time's sake go into the second hermeneutical approach and it kind of
1:18:21
goes handinhand with the first um and that is and you've all seen this before the vertical the vertical horizontal division, right?
1:18:37
Right. The first table is vertical. The second is horizontal. All right. All right. How is the second not vertical when they are commands of God?
1:18:49
Again, they're all vertical in that sense, right? Just as they're all moral in that sense, they're all vertical. and and actually and actually the laws are frequently uh suffixed by I
1:19:02
am the lord your god right it's like okay you shall do this I am the lord your god okay that's vertical so there's a lot of vertical but then we have a
1:19:13
couple of couple of uh difficult placements we can look at these five and we can say oh yeah
1:19:24
they're horizontal although But what is the biblical justification for not Man is made in the image of God. The hat's vertical,
1:19:34
hat's vertical, right? Um how about covetousness? It's the Lord's to give. Yeah. And he is the one who gives the power to make
1:19:45
wealth. So that kind of rules out stealing too, doesn't it? Um, so you know, we we we certainly have the metaphor of of Israel being the bride of God. And so that kind of
1:19:56
touches upon adultery. So I mean, my point is, yeah, there's a predominant horizontal effect, but they're all fundamentally vertical. But there are
1:20:08
two that everybody divides in in Protestant Christianity. Now again, Catholic, Roman Catholic has a different enumeration. It's wrong, but it's
1:20:20
different. Okay? Um and and so we're dealing with the Protestant enumeration of Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5, which is actually a lot closer to the Jewish. But in the Protestant, we tend to put only
1:20:32
four commandments on the first table and six on the second. So we just completely blow the symmetry of the thing. But how is the Sabbath
1:20:53
I mean, it is the Lord's Sabbath. God told us to do it. God done told us to do it. Yeah. And it is the Lord's Sabbath. And in Exodus, it's patterned after the Sabbath, the rest of God in uh Genesis 2. Whereas in
1:21:05
Deuteronomy, it's actually patterned on the Exodus itself. We'll talk about that next week. next week. But when you look at the commandment
1:21:16
itself, it's really very horizontal. Not only are you to rest, but your children, your servants, your slaves, and your animals are to rest.
1:21:28
I it and then the the year of Sabbath, your land is to rest. And then on the year of Jubilee, all your slaves are freed, your debts are forgiven, and the
1:21:40
mo and the markers are restored to your ancestral land. ancestral land. It it's really socialism in the Old Testament. I mean, it's amazing. It's incredible. It's like a reset of the
1:21:51
entire economy every 50 years. Okay. Now, there were also laws to prevent cheating um you know making not making loans on the 49th year um and allowing
1:22:02
your your uh neighbor to starve because you you only get a year's worth of of that loan. That that was also a capital offense actually. But but look at it. Look at look at all the things that you
1:22:12
were supposed to do on the Sabbath. Are they not very horizontal? I'm not saying they're not vertical. I'm just saying that's not a distinction
1:22:23
that really applies here. It it it's one of those again it's it's an illegitimate rubric that we're applying to scripture because that helps us understand how to
1:22:33
do it but it also helps us neatly to divide. Okay. But but I'm talking about these two four and five. And if we divide the tables into
1:22:43
vertical and horizontal then we need to flip them and then put this one over there. But I didn't put it over there. And actually the Jews don't put it over there either.
1:22:57
Comment. Did you have a comment? Okay. All right. So the first question is how is the Sabbath vertical? Sabbath vertical? Again, beyond the fact that we're told to do it and it's the Lord's Sabbath and obedience is very vertical, the actual
1:23:09
application and obedience the the the cons the what consists in the obedience of the Sabbath is incredibly horizontal. It it impacted the entire social
1:23:20
spectrum from top to bottom. Okay. But what about the fifth commandment? How is the fifth commandment
1:23:45
Does the fifth commandment inculcate equality between parents and children? Is honor horizontal? Now, of course, we're told to honor the Sabbath, too. So, we're actually told to
1:23:57
remember the Sabbath. Um, and actually, Deuteronomy 5 says, "Observe the Sabbath." But we're to honor our parents. Honor is vertical.
1:24:07
And pretty much every interpretation throughout Christian history including Catholic as well as Protestant is that the understanding that in the parents
1:24:18
are represented all of the vertical relationships in a human society which then come out later especially in Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2 with regard to the
1:24:31
magistrate. Um but it also pertains to when Paul says it is written in the law that you shall not speak ill of the leader of your people. Okay. The the the the fifth commandment actually inculcates
1:24:44
vertical relationships within human society. Whereas the fourth commandment actually pertains to horizontal relationships. It levels human society.
1:24:56
The fifth commandment unlevels it. That make sense? Now, you may disagree that you can include magistrates and and leaders and
1:25:08
rulers and kings in this, but again, I'm not making that up. That's that's pretty much uniform within Christian exesus is that even though it doesn't say it, and
1:25:18
there's the hermeneutical or exogetical principle that what is actually said implies the opposite. So saying thou shalt not murder
1:25:29
also says you shall be your brother's keeper. Okay? keeper. Okay? You shall not and and also what is said pertains to more than what is said that
1:25:40
you shall not murder but you shall also not do harm. Okay? And you shall not hate as Jesus expands it in the sermon on the mount. So by that principle again
1:25:52
uniformly and even among Jew Jewish rabbis as well I can throw them in uh the idea of honoring your father and mother is a vertical paradigm vertical paradigm by which society recognizes
1:26:05
providentially ordained vertical relationships. So this one is actually quite vertical just as this one is actually quite
1:26:17
horizontal. Again, are there elements of horizontal? Yeah. Are there elements of vertical? Yeah. But it's a rubric that cannot be cleanly applied cleanly applied to the various. You can't make a
1:26:29
division. And if you make a division this way, I think you're you got to flip these two because this is much more vertical than that one. Okay. So, how do we divide them? They do seem to divide.
1:26:43
I mean, divide by two. There's five on each side. I put the fifth commandment on the what's now the the first list. I'm not going to call it the first table. Let's say this is the front and
1:26:53
you know this is the obverse and this is the reverse of the stone t tablet. I don't think that's the case either. Um but I put it on that side because I actually think that what you're doing
1:27:04
here is summarizing. You are to have no other gods before me, but I have my representatives
1:27:17
that you are to honor. In other words, you shall have no other gods but me is reflected in the proper relationships within the community of
1:27:27
God's people. God's people. that God has set in place those who on a daily basis and throughout life
1:27:37
receive honor because of him. Does that make sense?
1:27:48
Again, Romans 13, why are we to honor the magistrate? the magistrate? Why do we submit? Because every authority has been set in place by God. Okay, there's that relationship. We are
1:27:58
to obey our parents in the Lord. I think that's an important distinction and if we were executing the fifth commandment, we would talk about that. But the the concept of the parents is that they are
1:28:10
obviously providentially placed as your progenitors. But they're not there's none of this parody between parents and children.
1:28:20
There is no parody between parents and children. Even as believers, we still have this relationship, this vertical relationship that is not abolished
1:28:31
because we are now in Christ. We still are to honor our parents. We are still to submit to the magistrate, to the king. Um, we are still to submit and and
1:28:41
obey our elders or our leaders. All those commandments are still there. They are under this rubric. And I believe that this rubric is actually a bookend to this one.
1:29:08
is love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. And the second is like unto it. Love your neighbor as yourself.
1:29:31
Let's close in a word of prayer. Father, we do help ask that you would help us to to understand this most important of your revelation in the old covenant, the law, the ten commandments.
1:29:43
Help us to know that by your spirit you have written them on our new hearts. And knowing that, help us to understand their impact, their influence on our
1:29:54
lives in Christ. And keep us from error. Keep us from minutia, from legalism, from a works religion. Help us to live and stand in grace even
1:30:07
as we seek to do your law for your glory. We ask your blessing on our leaving and safety as we drive home. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen.
