Sermon by Rev. Steven R. Key
L.D. 34, Q & A 92,93
Scripture: Matthew 5:17-48; Exodus 20:1,2
Today we enter the study of the law of God. And by the law I refer specifically in this context to the Ten Commandments, which our Heidelberg Catechism will expound as the outline for our life of gratitude to God. It is possible and perhaps even desirable to get right into the study of the first commandment. But I decided I should not do that yet today.
I decided it is important, first of all, that we gain a proper understanding of the place of the law in the life of the Christian. I have given this matter some emphasis in the past, both in connection with our study of Psalm 119, and in our consideration of the last two Lord's Days. I have done so because this is indeed a matter essential to true Christian living as a Protestant Reformed people. And yet I see it as necessary to spend still more time on an introductory sermon like this, exactly because it is evident that many do not understand, or perhaps will not understand, the place of the law. There are those who feel that any admonitions from the pulpit will bring them into bondage. They will not have law-preaching. There are still others, who see it necessary to conform outwardly to the precepts of the Ten Commandments, but who give clear indication by their wayward lives and wicked attitudes that the principle of the law — the love of God and of the neighbor — does not abide in them. There are others who almost dare, as it were, the Church to discipline them. It is as if, when the Church exercises discipline, they like to charge the Church with legalism. And so they also show themselves in bondage to the law, lacking understanding, perhaps willfully, of why the law continues to have a place among us, and why, when one walks contrary to God's law, he shows himself at enmity against God. But to you who live by faith, to you who know your redemption in Christ Jesus, I would have you see the law as it is in truth, the perfect law of liberty.
The Heidelberg Catechism properly expounds the Ten Commandments in the section pertaining to the gratitude of the Christian toward His Savior. The Catechism also properly includes in Q & A 92 the introduction to the law, which we read in the first two verses, and particularly the second verse of Exodus 20. That takes the law and cuts it open as an apple, as it were. And there we see that at the very core of that moral code is the gospel.
The law, as we shall consider it over the next several weeks, is not for everybody. Oh, I realize that every man is responsible before God for the keeping of His precepts. There is no man that shall sin against God and get away with it. The law most certainly is in force for those outside of Christ, and it is the very means of their condemnation. But what I emphasize here is that the law for us is the revelation of the God of our salvation, nothing less. For those who feel compelled to obey the law; for those who must be brought under discipline for refusing to walk in the way of God's commandments while claiming membership in His Church, the real issue is what they think about God. If a man feels that the law holds him in bondage, then he lives without a true understanding of what it is to be redeemed. For when we are truly living out of Christ by faith, we desire earnestly to walk in the way of God's commandments, and to grow in our understanding of them and the God Who reveals Himself in them. Listen to the psalmist in Psalm 119:129-131: "Thy testimonies are wonderful: therefore doth my soul keep them. The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple. I opened my mouth, and panted: for I longed for thy commandments." Do you join in confessing that? For the next few minutes, then, I call your attention to:
THE PLACE OF THE LAW IN THE LIFE OF THE CHRISTIAN
I. ITS CONTINUITY
II. ITS EXCELLENCY
III. ITS VALUE
WE MUST NOT MAKE A SEPARATION BETWEEN OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS.
That would be a fundamental error. It is an error often embraced. But it is a fundamental error which corrupts one's entire understanding of biblical truth. The Word of God is one. The Church of God is one. The covenant of God is one. The promise of God is one — even though that promise has many facets or aspects, and therefore is often referred to in the plural. So that, while we can and do speak of distinctions between Old and New Testaments, we must be very careful not to make separation.
Those who make such division have no difficulty rejecting the law altogether. They must have nothing of the law for themselves and for the Church. It isn't that they think one can murder and commit adultery and all the rest. They know that such is wrong. But they will not have the law preached to them. They will not have the principles of the law imposed upon them. And they think it is absolutely wrong even to read the law to the Church, as we do in our worship services. With vigor they claim Christian liberty, by which they mean freedom from the law. And they base their position on the truth — and truth it is — that Christ has fulfilled the law. I say, that is true. But the way they would apply that truth is wrong. They would claim that in the Old Testament the people of God were in bondage to the law. "Do this, and thou shalt live; fail to do this, and thou shalt die." But we are no longer in bondage. Christ has freed us from the curse of the law. Therefore that law has no place among us any more.
You know, there is an appeal to that line of thinking. And there is an appeal because there is a certain deception involved in that line of argumentation. Most who hold to that position, probably do so without thinking it through. It is nice, after all, to think that freedom means that you can do as you please. It is nice to be able to say that the fourth commandment no longer applies; so I can do whatever I want on Sunday, so long as I go to church once. But that division between Old and New Testaments is incorrect. And the argumentation, I say, is deceptive. It is certainly true that Christ has freed us from the curse of the law. That is true. That is how we approach the law too, as I emphasize always. But the fact that Christ has freed us from the curse of the law does not mean that we are free from the law. Rather, we are now free to walk in the law, in the light of God's precepts, in all good works.
LETS CONSIDER NOW IN SOME DEPTH THE CONTINUITY OF THAT LAW AS IT WAS GIVEN TO THE CHURCH OF OLD, AND AS IT STILL APPLIES TO US TODAY.
Let us say, first of all, that as to its purpose, the law served to set apart Israel as a separate nation, as the people of Jehovah God. It was God's purpose, always with a view to Christ and the salvation that would be realized in Him, to have a people in this world who would reflect the glory of His grace. When God gave the law at Sinai, after having led His people out of the bondage of Egypt, He distinguished them sharply from the nations all around them. He said to them, "Be ye holy; for I the LORD your God am holy," and indelibly marked them as His own. But there was also a distinct purpose that God would accomplish in His people by the law. Through the law He would lead His people to Christ.
Now the law was divided into three parts. Our focus will be entirely upon the Ten Commandments, what is referred to as the moral law. There was also the ceremonial law, which directed Israel's life as a church. The ceremonial law included all the laws pertaining to Israel's worship. The sacrifices that must be brought, the feast days that must be observed, the cleansings and all the rest, were spelled out in the ceremonial law. Then there was the civil law, which governed Israel's life as a nation. Included in the civil law were all the ordinances pertaining to their life as a society. Regulations concerning crimes and punishments, family rights, property rights, and so on, were spelled out in the civil law. Our focus will be entirely upon the moral law, the Ten Commandments, because the Mosaic precepts of the civil and ceremonial laws have been abolished in Christ. Our Belgic Confession explains that in Article 25. "We believe that the ceremonies and figures of the law ceased at the coming of Christ and that all the shadows are accomplished, so that the use of them must be abolished among Christians." The civil and ceremonial laws in particular belonged to the types and shadows of the Old Testament. The shadows are now done away with in Christ. The worship practices associated with priests and sacrifices and feast days ended when these shadows were removed by the reality of Christ's appearance and perfect work. From those laws the Church was delivered completely as the prophesy inherent in those laws was fulfilled by Christ.
Even so, we must also say that those civil and ceremonial laws also contained certain spiritual principles. And so the Belgic Confession goes on to say, "yet the truth and substance of them remain with us in Jesus Christ, in whom they have their completion. There are principles of those laws which, although fulfilled in Christ, continue to serve and to teach us and reveal to us God in all His holiness. And emphatically is that true in the moral law. Such declarations as "If ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people" (Exo. 19:5), and "Ye shall therefore keep my statutes, and my judgments: which if a man do, he shall live in them: I am the LORD" (Lev. 18:5), are the embodiments of eternal principles that Christ did not invalidate. As we recently considered the first two verses of Psalm 119, we saw that the gospel is proclaimed there in this way: "Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the LORD. Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the whole heart." Christ certainly did not invalidate those principle truths. When we teach our children to sing Psalm 1, we teach them the reality of the fact that only the man whose delight is in the law of the Lord shall be like a tree, planted by the rivers of water.
So we continue to maintain the relevancy of the law, not as though righteousness comes by the works of the law. That is certainly another gospel from that which we proclaim and love. But the relevancy of the law, its continuity, is seen in this, that the keeping of God's commandments and the Christian life go hand in hand, that the law of the Lord is the very way of life, and that therefore the man who does not run in this way, walks instead in the counsel of the ungodly and sits in the seat of the scornful, and therefore is doomed to destruction except he be brought under the power of Christ's life. The saints in Christ Jesus will and do choose the way of truth, and live. But the proud who reject God's law are cursed. It cannot be otherwise. God's justice requires it. If we read ahead in the Catechism's exposition of the first commandment, we see what describes the man who runs in the way of God's commandments, and worships the only true God. He who walks in the law of the Lord rightly knows the only true God, trusts in Him alone, with humility and patience submits to Him; expects all good things from Him only; and loves, fears and glorifies Him with the whole heart." Oh yes, the Ten Commandments are as binding upon us who are in Christ, as they were upon the Israelites of old.
But when we say that, it must also be made clear how such a position is certainly in harmony with the biblical truth of justification by faith alone. We do not teach a works-righteousness. We must understand how the upholding of the law is in harmony with such apostolic statements as, "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law," and "as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse."
So the question is: In what sense is it true that we are freed from the law, or that we are not under the law any longer? When God says, "Keep my commandments, and live," what is the force of that for us?
First of all, bear in mind what that means for the sinner, the fallen man who is dead in sin. God says, "Keep my commandments and live." But man is dead in sin. To do something presupposes life. Only the living have power to walk in the way of the commandments of God. And the man who is dead in sin cannot impart life to himself. It is God alone Who gives life and immortality. Therefore, before life can be imparted to the sinner, his guilt must be atoned for and he must be freed from the curse. So that when God's commandments, "Do this and live," come to the fallen sinner, it places him under a four-fold obligation. He must atone for his sin; he must deliver himself from the curse of the law; he must merit for himself life eternal; and he must impart that life to himself. If fallen man can do all four of those things, he can keep the law. And therefore you see how utterly lost man is! You and I, apart from Christ, are held in bondage by the law.
But it is those obligations of the law from which Christ came to free us. Unlike us, Christ came into our human nature without sin. Born of the virgin Mary, He is the only begotten Son of God. The guilt of Adam was not His. And therefore His was the right and the strength to fulfill the law perfectly. He walked in the way of God's commandments. In perfect righteousness He obeyed the law, loving God and the neighbor flawlessly, perfectly. He did so, even while bearing our sins upon His shoulders. With the immeasurably heavy burden of our guilt weighing Him down and making Him the Man of sorrows, He continued to walk the way of God's commandments in perfect obedience. And by walking in this way, He atoned for us, beloved. He atoned for the sins of all His people, and merited for them everlasting life. In that way He delivered them from those unachieveable obligations of being under the law. Being in Him, we His people are freed from the necessity of atoning for our sins and meriting eternal life by walking in the way of God's commandments. Being clothed with Christ's perfect righteousness we have the pardon of all our sins, and life everlasting. That is our justification, our perfect righteousness.
Does this mean, however, that the law no longer has a place in our life? May we, as freed from the law, do as we please? Oh no! Paul writes in Romans 7:4-6: "Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter." God delivered us from the law for the very purpose that we might serve Him in newness of spirit, bringing forth the fruits of thankfulness in all good works in obedience to that very law.
Christ, you see, is not only our righteousness, in Whom alone we are justified before God. But He is also our sanctification, our complete redemption. We are raised from the dead by Christ our Savior and transported out of the broad way that leads to destruction into the way of His commandments, the way of life. The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts, from which, as a new principle, we live. The law of God, therefore, is written on the very tables of our heart, and is impressed upon our very being. It has become, in truth, the perfect law of liberty, in which we desire to walk. It is that which Christ has fulfilled, and which He also fully expounds as we gather from Matthew 5, which we read earlier. We no longer stand at the foot of Sinai; but we live after Christ. For that reason when we consider the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill," we also discuss Christ's explanation of that as including hatred and anger. We do not confine ourselves simply to the letter of the Ten Commandments. Rather, we seek to know their depth and breadth as the law of love which God requires of us who are His.
That is both the continuity and the difference between the Old and New Testament as far as the place of the law is concerned. In both Old and New Testaments, the law had and has an indispensable place. In the New Testament, the saints sing just as God's people did in the Old Testament, "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night." But in the Old Testament the law stood out more prominently in the whole life and structure of the nation of Israel, as the grace and truth in Christ Jesus were not yet fully revealed. Oh, there is much more that could be said, especially concerning the place of the ceremonial and civil laws. But this will serve our purpose for today. So the law, the Ten Commandments, as we consider it now and as we possess it in Christ, is indeed a rich gift of God's grace.
ITS EXCELLENCY IS FOUND, FIRST OF ALL, IN HIM WHO GAVE US THAT LAW.
The Ten Commandments reveal God to us. They reveal Him in all His majesty and in all His holiness. And they show that sin in every form is entirely inconsistent with His very nature. He is the Holy One of Israel. One only needs to consider the context of that law's introduction to see its glorious origin. In Exodus 19 we see Jehovah's revelation at Sinai was accompanied by claps of thunder and flashes of lightning, "so that all the people that was in the camp trembled." The Israelites were called to gather at the mountain that was blazing with fire, and shaking as if unable to stand before the Holy One Whose presence surrounded it. And by the revelation of His great majesty, God would teach His people the excellency and authority of His Words. For He said to Moses (as we read in Deuteronomy 4:10): "Gather me the people together, and I will make them hear my words, that they may learn to fear me all the days that they shall live upon the earth, and that they may teach their children." They were to give honor to this God. And certainly as we stand before this law, the same excellency of Him Who gave it is revealed to us. Let us honor Him, shall we.
But the law's excellency can also be seen only when we understand that He Who gave it with the revelation of all His majesty and perfect holiness is also our Redeemer. "I am the LORD thy God, which hath brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." The law is given to us from Jehovah, the I AM. That is to say, the God of the promise, the God Who revealed His covenant to His people, and Who is faithful to that covenant, is the One Who speaks to us in these words. This law is excellent, because He Who gave it is also He Who faithfully fulfills it for our sakes. That is why, although the law certainly exposes our own sin, it is properly treated by the Catechism and us as the rule for our life of gratitude to God our Savior. That it is. And that it must be for us. It is the excellent law, from the most excellent Lawgiver.
BUT THE EXCELLENCY OF THE LAW IS ALSO SEEN IN ITS FORM.
There are ten commandments written by the very finger of God. Ten, as you know, is the biblical number of perfection and completeness. It is, therefore, the complete and perfect expression of the moral will of God for our faith and conduct. And who will not be struck by the inherent order of the law? God is set before us first as the object of our love. Then follow the commandments calling us to love our neighbor as ourselves. There can be no true love to man, if there be no love to God. But at the same time the commandments are inseparable. For it is just as true, as the Apostle John points out clearly in his first epistle, that there can be no true love to God, where there is no true love for the neighbor. "For he that loveth not the brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen."
And then we note that the law was written on two tables of stone, with both sides covered, so that no room remained for additions to the Commandments. Being so written, they were given the character of eternity. Plainly the law of the Ten Commandments was given with a view to serving God's people permanently. It is the call to love, the continual call to that excellent life of liberty that is ours in serving our Redeemer with gratitude.
BUT ITS VALUE EXTENDS ONLY TO YOU WHO BELIEVE, WHO ARE MEMBERS OF CHRIST BY A TRUE AND LIVING FAITH.
I mentioned in my introduction that all men are required to walk in obedience to God. None shall escape His judgment. And the standard of His judgment shall indeed be His law. From all the heart and soul and mind, and with all our strength, we are called to love the Lord God. And out of love for Him we also are to walk in love toward our neighbor, whoever is that man or woman that crosses our pathway. Again, I say, none escapes that law of God. And those who walk in disobedience show themselves under condemnation. For them the law of God heaps coals of fire on their heads. And that is why even the preaching of the law works condemnation in some. They chafe under it. They reject it. They will not have its application to their own lives. They will find another goodness, another righteousness for themselves and in themselves. But that is because they cannot hear the gospel that has embraced the law. They have not yet come under the personal embrace of that gospel.
That is why the value of the law is particular. Its value is applicable only to those who are the redeemed. That is also emphasized in the very introduction to the law. "I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." Jehovah addresses that Word to His people personally. He addresses it to you who are His, in the singular. The commandments are addressed very personally. You singular, you personally, shalt have no other gods before Me. You singular, you personally, must enter into the rest of the Sabbath. You must honor your father and mother. And all the rest. While it is true that the Scriptures often address the Church organically and emphasis the relationship that exists and must exist among the members of the one body of Christ, there are other times when emphasis is given to your own personal relationship to God and mine.
THE BEAUTY OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH IS THAT WHEN WE ARE MEMBERS OF CHRIST BY A TRUE AND LIVING FAITH, WE HAVE A VERY SPECIAL AND PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP TO HIM.
Oh, beloved, we must live in that consciousness, if we shall ever walk in obedience to God. When "everybody" is doing that which is contrary to God's law, what will you do? Where do you stand personally before the face of God? You see, we must be living out of that personal relationship and fellowship with our Redeemer, if ever we are to walk in thankfulness to Him. Else we will not walk in the way of His Word. That is why, when one is walking contrary to God's Word, it immediately announces that his or her personal relationship with Jehovah God is lacking. When one walks impenitent in sin, disregarding God's law, and casting aside His Word, there is a very definite breach in the relationship that ought to exist between a true believer and his Lord.
Oh yes, the law is a valuable thing. And when we live in the consciousness of God's love, when we live in His fellowship, when we know personally our only comfort in life and death, then we long to run in the way of God's commandments. Is it so with you? The law is a rule for our life of thankfulness. It is indeed the perfect law of liberty. But it is so only for those who live in that personal and experiential relationship with Jesus Christ, in Whom alone the law is fulfilled. "I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." Do you hear that Word of God? Then you will rejoice in the study of His law. That law will speak to you personally. We will not study it in the abstract, nor as to the mere letter of the law. We will study it in the light of the whole Word of God, as it addresses us personally. May the Spirit use that study for our continued spiritual growth, working in us both to will and to do God's good pleasure.
Amen.
Preached: Randolph PRC 8/10/97 (am)
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