As Christians we believe God has not remained silent, but
has spoken in what he has made (his created word), in the Bible (his written
word), and in Christ (the incarnated word). When we read the Scriptures we
cannot miss the fact that his revelation includes his law. The best summary of
that law is contained in the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-21).
I have long believed that God’s law is badly misunderstood
by the majority of Christians today. This misunderstanding skews their
understanding of grace, causes them to function as if their works make them
righteous even though they claim to believe the opposite, prompts them to be
judgmental, and causes their witness before a watching world to get bogged down
in law instead of being a celebration of grace.
So, when my friend Cal Burroughs (pastor, St Elmo
Presbyterian, Chattanooga) mentioned this essay by theologian Peter Enns, I
thought it might generate some comments. If the prose sounds a bit academic,
it’s because this is from a commentary written by a scholar. Ignore that, and
think about what Enns is saying—and I’d love to hear what you think about what
he argues here.
Fully in keeping with
the way in which commands are articulated in both the Old and New Testaments,
we must confess that the Ten Commandments are not bare “guidelines” for how we
should act, but are means by which we as God’s people come to understand God
better. They are a reflection of him and since we in Christ are re-created in
his image, we ought to honor and keep these laws. As Vern Poythress argues,
“all the commandments reflect the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ.”
Rather than the “spiritualizing” the Ten Commandments or making them too
abstract, such a Christological perspective is the proper starting point from
which the church is to view them.
Yet, in my view, fundamental misunderstandings surrounding the purpose of the
Ten Commandments abound in our society, perpetuated by well-intentioned
Christians. I would like to mention two
related misunderstandings.
(1) As difficult as it
may be to accept, we must remember that the Ten Commandments are not primarily
concerned with personal, private morality. To be sure, it is individuals who
keep them, but God’s purpose of giving them and implementing them should never
be reduced to a simple matter of individual righteousness. As we have seen,
there is a corporate dimension involved when God’s people speak of the Ten
Commandments. His law is to be followed not so that the individuals can show
their worth before God, and certainly not so that they can either earn or
secure their salvation, but so that God’s people can show the world the kind of
God they worship. This God is not always friendly but can be demanding and
uncompromising.
Too often, however, we
use the Ten Commandments today as a basis by which to judge the “personal
morality” of others. This is bad enough when we do this with respect to the
church, but it is even worse when we judge those outside of the family of God.
The sexual sins of politicians have been a regular theme in the news as I write
this, and a number of Christian commentators remark that such activity is
against God’s law and should therefore be punished. In fact, there is even a
degree of surprise in their voices, as if it is “normal” for Americans to be
ready, willing and able to keep the law. This is misguided. I am neither
shocked nor offended when any public official—or anyone else, for that
matter—who does not claim the name of Christ (or perhaps does so only
nominally) breaks one of the Ten Commandments. Frankly, breaking those laws is
the least of their worries.
We should never wonder
when God’s law is broken by people who were never intended to keep it in the
first place. Moreover, by chiding these individuals for doing so, are we not
sending the wrong gospel message, that being right with God is primarily a
matter of proper conduct? Are we not, contrary to the place of the law in both
the Old and New Testaments, putting the cart before the horse? We are saying to
them that God demands a high moral standard apart from the work of Christ, that proper behavior is what makes us
right with God. But the opposite is true. Apart from being in Christ first we are incapable of good works that please
God. Such legalistic, pull-yourself-up-by-your-moral-bootstraps theology is
only too natural for human beings, it is our nature to want to do it ourselves.
Should we perpetuate such a thing?
Expecting unbelievers
to keep God’s law, or even to respect it, blurs the sharp divide between those
who are God’s people and those who are not. Even if they can keep the law in an
external, superficial way, this is not to say that they do what really matters,
which is to keep the law in a manner pleasing to God. To single out the Ten Commandments and set them up as a standard of
conduct for unbelievers or American society in general indicates not only a
misunderstanding of the purpose of the Ten Commandments, but of the good news
itself. Christ died and rose to provide another way. We should do nothing to
make that way obscure.
(2) This brings us to
another example: the Ten Commandments in public schools. This is another
hot-button issue that will quickly make you life-long enemies if you say the
wrong things in the wrong company. At the risk of losing a friend or two, let
me say that I do not think the Ten Commandments should be displayed in public
schools. By this point it should go without saying that I feel strongly that
they should be kept (although precisely how they should be kept is a matter of constant reflection). The point,
however, is that they should be kept by the right people and for the right reasons. It is not really for me a matter of the “separation
of church and state”—a wonderful ideal in its original intention, but one that
has been distorted in our day—as much as a matter of the separation of those
who are in Christ from those who are not.
What do we hope to
accomplish by imposing God’s law on those who do not know him? To make better
citizens? To make better-behaved children? Neither of these goals is wrong. In
fact, they are important. They are not, however, the goal of the gospel, which
is to change those who are not God’s people into those who are. Better people
and citizens, these things are byproducts (again, important ones) of the spread
of the gospel.
If I may put the
matter somewhat differently, placing the Ten Commandments in public schools
represents a misuse and misunderstanding of the purpose of these laws; it is,
therefore, tantamount to promoting a false religion. It is not Judaism, and it certainly
is not Christianity. It may be a “Judeo-Christian ethic”—a thoroughly
non-biblical concept—but such an ethic has no life if it is presented as
anything other than the gift of God for those already redeemed by grace. God’s laws are for his people. Those who do not
know him are walking tombs. They do not need whitewashing but complete renovation,
from the inside out. They do not need their moral gyroscopes pushed in the
right direction, but the Spirit of the risen Christ breathed into them.
Source: The NIV Application Commentary: Exodus
(Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2000) pp. 431-433. Rembrandt “Raising of the
Cross” (1633).
(Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2000) pp. 431-433. Rembrandt “Raising of the
Cross” (1633).
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