The Ten Commandments Are NOT the Answer! - Exodus 20: 1-17

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Last year, the Texas State Legislature attempted to pass legislation that would have forced public schools, from kindergarten through college and university level to have posted copies of the Ten Commandments in a “conspicuous place” in each classroom in a “size and typeface that is legible to a person with average vision from anywhere in the classroom.”  The logic for such laws stems from an admixture of moralism and pietism: if we post the Ten Commandments, society’s problems will disappear, starting with the kids and working their way upward and outward into homes, then parent relationships, into businesses, and across the country.

From www.imagesfromtexas.com

I use this illustration, not as a means of entering what has become a political hot-potato, but to make you think. Will the Ten Commandments instill morality and the Christian values so touted by the Right? I don’t think so. The problem is that God did not give the Ten Commandments to institute morality, or to establish pietistic practices. The Ten Commandments were given by God to establish boundaries around His people, around His gifts to His people, and against how the rest of the world lived. “I am the Lord your God,” the commandments began. It establishes the relationship: God and people, people and God. It also establishes the relationship as one of love: that God brought Israel out of Egypt, out of slavery, and was leading them to His promised land. In a word, it was a relationship grounded in His love, mercy and compassion for these people, these sons and daughters of Abraham to whom He first made the covenant.

Because He is Israel’s God, they are His people, and because He is a loving, merciful God, He is the giver of good gifts to His people. The Ten Commandments, properly understood, lay out these gifts and how they are to be used. Instead of thinking of the Uncle Sam poster, with God pointing His finger in a scolding fashion, snarling “Don’t you dare…,” instead see God as your Heavenly Father who has given you a good, beautiful, wonderful gift and then is giving you instructions on how to use it. It is as if God was saying this: I am giving you myself to be your God, therefore, don’t have any other Gods. I am giving you my name to use and use faithfully to call upon me and to worship Me, therefore  don’t misuse it. I am giving you a day for worship and to rest, both spiritually and physically, in my presence; therefore, don’t squander the time wastefully. Each commandment lays out the gift: the fourth is the gift of parents and authorities; the fifth, the gift of life; the sixth, the gift of marriage between husband and wife; the seventh, the gift of possessions; the eighth, the gift of a good name and reputation; the ninth and tenth, the gift of contentment. Each commandment gives a unique gift of love, and each commandment establishes the way the gift is to be used and treasured in a loving way. Understood this way, the Commandments become loving curbs to keep God’s people from straying away from how the gifts are to be used.

But, what happens when we do jump the curb? What happens when our reputation, or our job, or our bank account, or our happiness becomes the thing we desire most of all? What happens when gratitude for what God has given gets turned around and we begin coveting what we don’t have? Coveting, for example, quickly can lead to theft. We’re not likely to murder someone, but Jesus takes the gross action of physically taking a life and re-interprets it so say that if we even call someone names, we are guilty of murder? Who hasn’t called someone else stupid, moron, or worse, not only guilty of breaking the 7^th Commandment’s do not kill, but also ruining someone’s 8^th commandment good reputation? All this, because at the heart of breaking any of the Ten Commandments lies a shattered First Commandment, where we make ourselves out to be the triune godhead of me, myself and I.

Where do you go with your sins? Here is the problem with using the Ten Commandments to try to instill morality or Christian pietism. Turn back to the Commandments and you find only guilt, shame, and sin upon sin. The Law exposes sin, letting us see it in all of its unbridled shame like a mirror exposes the blemishes on our nose and the fading hairline. The Ten Commandments do not help in trying to make ourselves better; the Ten Commandments expose our failures as God’s people. If all we have is the Ten Commandments staring us in the face, we are left in despair. How can we possibly keep them? How can we square the debt? How can we possibly be holy as God is holy when we are unholy people? The Commandments show us that our best, isn’t; our self-security is precarious; our self-righteousness is nothing but dirty rags.

So, where do you go with your sins, with your list of broken commandments, with your failings as God’s people to fear, love and trust Him above all other things?

Some people misunderstand what God says: “I the Lord your God and a jealous God…” From a human perspective, jealousy is a bad thing. If love focuses externally on another person to whom love is given; jealousy is love inverted, focusing on how love doesn’t seem to be properly reciprocated but is directed elsewhere. A husband is jealous when his wife flirts with another man; a wife is jealous when her husband jokingly refers to a coworker as a “work wife.” God’s jealousy is holy. That is, His desire is for you to love Him solely, not to be one god (lower-case g) among many things where you place your fear, love and trust. So God sent His beloved Son into the world to redeem a broken and fallen, sin-stained people. It was as if God said, “Since you cannot love me perfectly, I will love you perfectly so you can experience the most perfect of love.” You don’t see this kind of love in a list of “Thou shalt’s” and “Thou shalt not’s.”   You see it in Jesus. You see it at the cross.

The Christian life is not about keeping the Commandments perfectly; it’s about trusting in the One who did. Christ placed Himself under His Father’s Law so that He could obey it perfectly in our place. Christ submitted to the Father’s will, not placing Himself above the Father in any way. Christ honored the Father’s name in prayer and in His preaching. He loved and honored His parents and those in authority, even when those in authority mocked Him and had Him crucified. He did not take anything that was not His, even giving to Ceasar that which belonged to Caesar, paying the tax with the help of a coin in a fish’s mouth. He spared the life of sinners caught under the Law. He didn’t even covet the pillow where others placed their heads. He sanctified the Sabbath day with His Sabbath rest in the tomb. And He blessed marriage, not only with His presence in Cana, but in His perfect marriage to the Church, His bride, whom He adorns in the splendor of His holiness. He loved the Lord God with all His heart, soul and mind, and loved His neighbor even more than Himself, going to the cross, sacrificing Himself in our place – the perfect for the imperfect, the Law keeper for the Law breakers.

This is not earned by keeping the Ten Commandments. This is a gift given by God the Father, through faith in His Son Jesus Christ, enabled by the power of the Holy Spirit.

So we are His loved, forgiven, and made-holy people, not because we keep the Commandments perfectly, but because Jesus did for us.

Here is a beautiful paradox: As God’s people, we don’t live under the Ten Commandments. As God’s people we do strive to keep the Commandments. We live under the cross, where the Commandments were completed for us. Not to earn our salvation, but in gratitude for being rescued and redeemed. Instead of seeing them as a burden, we see the Ten Commandments as protection against the fallenness of the world, a way to receive God’s gifts with thanksgiving, loving Him and serving our neighbor.