In Exodus 20 are uttered those wonderful ten commandments which are the great center of divine communications through Moses – the fundamental expression of God’s law. On this, being so thoroughly familiar to all, I of course do not enlarge. We know from our Lord Jesus its moral summary and essence – the love of God, and the love of man.
But it was presented here for the most part in a way that betrayed the condition of man – not in positive precepts but in negative ones – a most humbling proof of man’s estate. He loved sin so well that God had to interdict it. In the greater part of the ten commandments, in short, it was not “Thou shalt,” but “Thou shalt not.” That is, it was a prohibition of man’s will; He was a sinner, and nothing else.
A few words on the law may be well here. It may be looked at in its general and historical bearing, more abstractly as a moral test.
First, God was dealing with Israel in their responsibility as witnesses of Jehovah, the one true self-existing God, the almighty God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. His relationship was with them as they then were, redeemed from Egypt by His power and brought to Himself indeed, but only after an outward sort, neither born of God, nor justified. They were a people in the flesh. They had been wholly insensible to His ways of grace in leading them out of Egypt to Sinai. They lost sight of His promises to the fathers. They stood in their own strength to obey the law of God, as ignorant of their impotence or of His holy majesty.
Accordingly we may regard the law as a whole, consisting not only of moral claims but of national institutes, ordinances, statutes, and judgments under which Israel were put. These consequently were to form and regulate them as a people under His special government, God suiting them to their condition and in no way revealing His own nature as He afterward did personally in the Word made flesh in the New Testament as a full display of His mind, and in the Christian individually or the church corporately as responsible to represent Christ, like Israel in relation to the tables of stone (2 Cor.). Hence we can understand the earthly, external, and temporal character of the legal economy.
There were believers before it and all through; but this of course wholly distinct from Judaism. It was now a question of a nation, and not of individuals merely, thus governed – of one nation in the midst of many which were to behold in it the consequences of fidelity or the lack of it toward the law of Jehovah. The Old Testament proves, and indeed the New Testament also, how utterly Israel failed, and what the consequences have been alike in the justice and in the grace of God.
But secondly, the law is a test morally and individually. This always abides; for the law is lawful if a man use it lawfully. Christianity teaches its value instead of neutralizing it.
It is false that the law is dead. It is not thus that the believer, even if a Jew and therefore under law, was withdrawn from its condemning power. By the law he died to the law that he might live to God. He is crucified with Christ and nevertheless he lives, yet not himself but Christ in him. He underwent death to the law by the body of Christ that he should belong to another – Him that was raised from the dead in order that we should bear fruit to God.
But it is as far as possible from the truth that “the discipline of the law comes in to supply the deficiencies of the Spirit, and curb the still remaining tendencies to sin.” Such was no doubt the doctrine of those whom the apostle censures as wishing to be law-teachers, understanding neither what things they say nor whereof they stoutly affirm. It is not Christianity to talk of “deficiencies of the Spirit,” any more than of “still remaining tendencies to sin”; still less to call in the discipline of the law to mend matters.
Is it not known that for a righteous man (which assuredly the believer is) law is not in force, but for lawless and insubordinate, the ungodly and sinful. They that are of Christ Jesus crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts. It is a question of mortifying our members which are on earth, on the ground of our being dead, and of walking by the Spirit, even as we live by Him, and of those not in any way fulfilling flesh’s lust. Thus, if the law be the power of sin, grace is of holiness. Thanks be to God who gives us the victory by our Lord Jesus Christ.
However, we find that God was pleased to give subsequently and separately, but yet in connection with the ten words, certain ordinances which concerned Israel in their worship.
All the people then saw the thunderings and the lightnings, and the voice of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking, and stood afar off, asking that not God but Moses should speak with them. He accordingly drew near into the thick darkness; for so God dealt with Israel as a people in the flesh. For the Christian it is not so.
The veil is rent; and we walk in the light as He is in the light. Yet even then Jehovah, while warning against making gods of silver and gold, deigned to direct them to make to Him an altar of ground for burnt-offerings and peace-offerings: if of stone two prohibitions instruct His people. It must not be of hewn stone, as their work would profane it; neither must the Israelite go up by steps, as thereby his nakedness would be manifested.
Grace covers through the expiation of Christ, as it flows in virtue of God’s work and in maintaining God’s order.