Are the TEN merely a confirmation of God's love?

Our new Sunday series, TEN, isn’t the first preached on the Ten Commandments and it won’t be the last. Actually, as a part of my sermon study, I’ve been reading and even listening to some other preaching series. You may have heard me last week take issue with one particular pastor’s approach to the Ten. In his sermon series for one of the country’s most high profile megachurches, this pastor attempted to provide an overall thesis statement for the famous Decalogue in Exodus 20. He said, “God’s rules (the Ten Commandments) aren’t a condition for His love, they’re a confirmation of His love.” He then continued to support this claim by noting, correctly I might add, God’s earlier covenant pursuits with people. In other words, prior to law giving God established Himself as relationship giving. God made friends with Adam, with Noah, with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses. Even within the Exodus text, God said “I am Yahweh your God.” The revelation of the personal name, Yahweh, combined with the distinction your God, clearly points to a relationship that precedes rules. So far we have a pretty solid hermeneutical approach. I agree that God’s love-giving predates law-giving. God is first and foremost a people-loving, grace-giving God. So, what is my issue?

The term confirmation is simply too limited a word to explain Sinai. A confirmation is a reinforcement or reestablishment of a prior fact or truth. Is that all God was doing? Was he just repeating Himself? The Israelites at Sinai were not meant to simply hear God, once again, establish His love. They were also intended to hear a declaration of His Sovereignty. They were not being called away from Pharoah’s slavery to have no master, but to have a new Master - a new and better Master. And this was going to require something from them. It would require obedience.

We cannot avoid the clear assumption at Sinai that the people must obey. The fact that God’s grace precedes the Law shouldn’t be used to downplay the people’s requirement to obey the Law. In a similar fashion, our New Testament free gift of salvation does not nullify the requirement for good works (Ephesians 2:10, James 2:17). God is calling his loved people to be his holy people. The two ideas are inextricably linked. To say the theme of the Ten is a “confirmation of love” without an expectation of obedience, is only teaching half of the truth.

And the missing half-truth carries deeper implications still. The Apostle Paul doesn’t seem to share the warm-fuzzy law approach with our megachurch pastor . He writes, “For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them,” (Galatians 3:10). Now a curse is a pretty far thing from a confirmation of love, wouldn’t you say? And why is it a curse? Because you have to abide by (obey) “all things” written in it. In other words, you have to be perfect. The Law is a curse because it points to your failings in sin. It’s a brutal reminder of your humanity. So that is another point of the Ten that is missed when we simply call it a “confirmation” of God’s love. But, there is something sadder that we leave out.

Paul continues to further explain the Law in Galatians 4:19. He writes, “Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. ” Paul continues in verse 24, “So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.” The saddest fact of reducing the Ten to a “confirmation of love” is we might miss its most obvious intended purpose - pointing us to Christ! The Ten Commandments, along with the rest of the Law, are a guardian. They are the foster parent. They are not the adoptive parent. And we were meant to long for the permanency of adoption. We were never meant to be content in the foster system, a provision of temporary and inconsistent care. We were meant for a permanent roof over our heads, our very own room, a changed last name, and a perfectly secure future. We were meant to be adopted sons and daughters! And that adoption is not secured at Sinai. That adoption is secured with Jesus, the Firstborn Son, who, with great self-sacrifice, made us His brothers and sisters. He fulfilled the Law and then gave us its benefits through ransom and rescue.

We could never meet the conditions of any relationship with God. But there are conditions. We could never clean ourselves up enough to please God. But there is One who can clean us up perfectly. The teaching of the Ten is not to help us rest in a confirmation, but to cause us to depend upon a Savior who meets all its conditions.

Jesus “fulfills” the Ten!