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THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
:: A SUMMARY STATEMENT OF THE SINAI COVENANT OF ISRAEL — BUT APPLICABLE TO ALL HUMANKIND, EVERYWHERE, ALWAYS ::
– for it is based on general human welfare – that which is best for us; but is NOT the way of salvation –
IT IS DESCRIBED IN THE NEW TESTAMENT AS THE "MINISTRY OF CONDEMNATION" WHICH CANNOT SAVE
(for in our self-centred lives our awareness of it simply causes our guilt. Romans 7:9)
For all born-again Christians it was superceded by the moral nature of God planted within through the resurrection of Jesus.
2 Corinthians 3:9.
from the earth but God-breathed so as to be the 'image of God' in God's universe, all humanity is designed to represent God to all, in its moral character and therefore to exercise authority on His behalf, and is accountable to the Judicial Court of God accordingly.
Everything created, that exists, is a witness to the sovereignty and wisdom of God (Romans 1:20), but it is uniquely humanity that is gifted with choice so as to express or represent the moral nature and character of the Creator and therefore –
His intention/purpose in all things.
| In the Fall of Genesis 3, disobedience twisted our natural survival-instinct to become an un-natural selfish-instinct. |
| Matthew 22:37; Mark 12:30; Luke 10:27 ESV, emphasis mine. |
Hence, the exercise of Eden concerned saying 'no' to themselves in trust toward God's instructions, in direct contrast to the instinct-bound natural state of all other forms of biological life. Every other creature functions within a balance of instincts and environmental influences, as also does humanity, except that humanity has the intrinsic ability – to choose to defy its feelings and do that which is better.
the Christ of God hung the whole duty of humanity, summarized in the Ten Commandments, on the following two elements. Drawing on Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18, Jesus said:
| 1. "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, 2. and your neighbour as yourself." |
But this is not enough!
within Christ's perspective then that we are to properly understand the essential covenant law which God instituted with the nation Israel at Mount Sinai, as being His basic or minimum requirement, and also the symbol of their national relationship to Him carried on stone tablets in the Ark of Testimony, as the central symbol of their national identity before God.
This is not the Christian ethic even in Christ's summary of it above, for true Christianity goes far beyond this, as instructed in John.15:12 and 1 John.3:16.
reminds us also that the essence of what God requires of all human behaviour (the Ten Commandments) did not therefore belong exclusively to the Jews –
| "For when Gentiles, who do not have the Law, by nature do what the Law requires, they are a Law to themselves, even though they do not have the Law. They show that the work of the Law is written on their hearts..." |
truth is demonstrated in the much quoted words of that ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius (Kongfuzi, 551-479 BC) –
"What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others", or, as the Lord Jesus Himself put it –| "whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is [the sum of] the Law and the Prophets". |
following Ten Commandments are not God's eternal Law, as some mistakenly claim. God's eternal law did not begin at Mount Sinai when the Ten Commandments were given. The Ten Commandments, which represented God's conditional Covenant with the nation of Israel, written on stone tablets and carried/stored in Israel's Ark, simply expressed a required standard of behaviour. In vivid contrast to this, what Jesus called the New Covenant is the enactment of God's promise given in the very beginning of humanity, as recorded for us in the words of God Himself to Satan's intrusion –
| "...He [the Seed of the woman] shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel" |
Therefore, the New Testament records for us that the covenant of God with Israel, represented in theses following Ten, are a ministry of death for they only present a standard from which all have already come short and so they are a pointer to our rightful condemnation by God. God has given us in Christ –
"...a New Covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone [10-commandments in Israel's Ark], came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses' face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end [fading], will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory? For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory. Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all, because of the glory that surpasses it. For if what was being brought to an end came with glory [in the shining of the face of Moses], much more will what is permanent [the New/Eternal Covenant] have glory." |
Commandments therefore are simply a summary of minimum moral duty applicable to all, at all times, everywhere, for God is the Creator of all that exists.
God has called those who know Him, the heirs of Christ's New Covenant, to more, much more than this!
This simply states that any reference to God must be true to the nature and character of God Most High or it is false, a misrepresentation, and the root of blasphemy.
This command has absolutely no reference at all to not pronouncing the term 'Yahweh', as medieval Jewry imagined; nor that avoiding using the full spelling of the word 'God' by writing it as G-d avoids this sin, as many in modern Judaism today seem to think.
This command has absolutely no reference at all to not pronouncing the term 'Yahweh', as medieval Jewry imagined; nor that avoiding using the full spelling of the word 'God' by writing it as G-d avoids this sin, as many in modern Judaism today seem to think.
This view is simply ridiculous, and worse – it subverts this holy command of God!.
Therefore the son of man [human] is lord of the Sabbath" [simply because Jesus is human, as God intended all to be].
Lord Jesus publicly rebuked Jewish leaders of His time as hypocrites for exonerating people from providing for their parents if the money was given to the temple instead, thereby violating this command.
| And Moses said: "These words the LORD spoke to all your assembly at the mountain [of Sinai] out of the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, with a loud voice; and He added no more. And He wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me." |
and it is written for our sakes
| "For I delight in the Law of God [10-Commandments], in my inner being, but I see in my members another law [selfish instinct] waging war against the Law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members [of my body]." |
that the Law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? Thus a married woman is bound by Law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the Law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that Law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress. Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the Law [10-Commandments] through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to Him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God."
• It is important here to also note that Christians do not represent Christ to this world.
Individual Christians represent the Saviour to the repentant within the relationships of the redeemed, not to the world. Christians do not represent the Saviour to this world! Because...
• Christians collectively are Christ, the Body of Christ, for they are equipped by the Sprit to be the continuance of Christ's life and ministry in this world.
Therefore as such, just as Jesus Himself represented God the Father during His ministry on earth, so also Christians represent the One upon the Throne – God the Father.
Individual Christians represent the Saviour to the repentant within the relationships of the redeemed, not to the world. Christians do not represent the Saviour to this world! Because...
• Christians collectively are Christ, the Body of Christ, for they are equipped by the Sprit to be the continuance of Christ's life and ministry in this world.
Therefore as such, just as Jesus Himself represented God the Father during His ministry on earth, so also Christians represent the One upon the Throne – God the Father.
Therein alone is their authority by the Holy Spirit!
CHRISTIAN SOLIDARITY
WORLDWIDE
