What’s Wrong With The Commandments?
Exodus 20:1-7
3/09/12
••••be advised....I use Lutheran numbering of the commandments.... the numbers may not match up for you••••
I’m so very very confused. The Ten Commandments under fire. They are being removed from courthouses and other public spaces. What is it about the commandments that sets people off?
Is it the first commandment, that bothers them? That we should have no other Gods? Perhaps. But then again, isn’t it this generation which has continually told us that we all worship the same God? Why would they now be so offended by a commandment which asserts that there is but one God?
Is it the Second commandment that so offends them? What? They are sympathetic to the the foul-mouthed people of the world? They like swearing and cursing in the workplace all the live long day? And when they go to court are they pleased to have people who have no spiritual scruples against lying to testify against them? I don’t get it!
Or how about the Third commandment. Remembering the Sabbath Day... the day of rest. What’s the problem? Don’t they like weekends? This commandment is what called weekends into existence. The Jews, following this command observed the sabbath on Saturday, and Christians, on the Lord’s day, Sunday. So the weekend is a gift to humanity that originated from this commandment they now seek to eliminate. Do they really want to do that? I don’t think so.
Or perhaps its the forth commandment that so raises their ire. “Honor your father and mother,” it says. Apparently, they like like bratty kids. They want all children to grow to a bane and burden to society. that have no respect for authority and grow up to be a burden and a bane to society. I just saying, I don’t think that’s what they really want.
Maybe it’s the 5th commandment that really gets their goat. They despise the way it puts value on human life. They want murder to be legalized. They want their neighbor to be free to come over and and murder them whenever they feel like it! Again, I don’t think that’s what they really want.
Then there’ s the 6th commandment. Honoring the life-long commitment of a man and a woman to love each other and be faithful to one another. So they favor adultery? They favor husbands being unfaithful to their wives and wives being unfaithful to their husbands? They relish the sorrow and pain of wasting their opportunity to learn to love in exchange for moments of pure lust. They like the way the hearts of children are broken over the divorce of their parents? Nope I don’t think they want any of that.
7th Commandment....protection of personal property? What’s the beef with that? They want people to steal their stuff? The relish the idea of roving bands of thieves breaking into people’s houses and making off with their flat screens? With joy, do they look forward to being taken for a ride by swindlers and cheats? Of course not! Nobody wants this!
8th Commandment... Protects people’s reputation. What’s wrong with that? Do they enjoy libelous remarks made against them? Do the revel in being slandered and and laughed at in public? Nope.
9th and 10th Commandment....You shall not covet. It calls upon people to not live a life of envy. Apparently, they like it when people hate them for driving a better car than they. They love the envious people foment class warfare. I think not!
It is clear to me and probably clear even to those who do not believe in God that the commandments are merely a description of mankind at its best. It’s what we could be; it’s what we should be. The world would be a happier, more joyful, more content, and a more loving place if all would merely obey these commands. The majority of what we see in the commandments is codified into our secular laws. Why are the prohibitions against murder, stealing, slander, and the like acceptable when it’s in our man made law, but not acceptable in the commandments? You would think that our nation, would welcome an earlier and ancient iteration of the same laws that we enforce...it adds thousands of years of provenance. But they are doing just the opposite? So we return to the big question of the day: What’s so wrong with the commandments?
I think we find our answer in verse 1 of the text: “And God spoke all these words ....” There it is! That’s their problem. Did you se it? It’s not so much a problem with the Law that has cause people to expunge the commandments from the public record, it’s with the one who spoke them. People cannot bear to see the commandments and think about them for the same reason that Adam and Eve could not bear to stand in his presence after they sinned but rather hid. Getting rid of the commandments is just another way to hide from the God who created them.; another way to avoid thinking about the fact that they are accountable to him; another way of burying their guilt.
So how is it that we are so different? Like anybody who hears them, we certainly do feel the force of the commandments, but we do not seek to do away with them. Not in the least! We specifically teach them to our our children. We sing hymns like the one before the sermon which said “The Law of God is Good and wise”. We put up banners on the wall that signify the ten commands. Unlike the apparent sentiments of many in our country, we like the commandments. We revisit them; and study them again and again. They guide our ethics and our decision making. We like them. How can this be?
We like them because we see them from the perspective of those who are forgiven and saved by Jesus. Indeed, if we did not have Jesus, these commandments would resound in our ears like hammer blows. Because we haven’t kept them! We have broken every one of them; if not with our actions, then at least with our words or in our thoughts which is virtually the same.
That’s one of the things that the Law is meant to teach us. It’s meant to teach us that we have not done it; that we have not lived as the almighty Lord would have us live. We know that we haven’t done it. We know that we can’t do it. And this is why Jesus came.
The timing was perfect. The story of Israel had reached its sad and bitter conclusion. Long long ago, God gave them the Law. Gave them a beautiful land to call there own. He led them, he blessed them, he protected them. He gave them his Word through the prophets. Everything they they could possibly need, he gave them. Would they ultimately succeed in bringing righteousness back to humanity? No. They would fail. And from this we are meant to learn that even in the best circumstances, man cannot be his own Savior. He needs something more, something other than himself; that’s why Jesus came. God saw that we could not save ourselves. We see that we cannot save ourselves. And so we turn our hopes heavenward in the hope that God is merciful and that he will have mercy on us. And he does in Jesus.
When it it comes to the the Law, Jesus saves us in two ways. First, he did what we couldn’t do. He kept the law. And since he was the representative of all humanity... he kept the law for all of us. Second, there is the other side of the law, the punitive side. God is just and he will not allow sins against the law to go unanswered. This is why Jesus died. He endured what we deserved. His suffering and death there on the cross...was because of our sins.
Is Jesus mad at us because we made him suffer? No! He wanted to do this. He said “no one takes my life from me, I lay it down on my own accord.” He did this so that we might be justified and declared not guilty under God’s law. And So Jesus saves us by his life and by his death. He saves us also by his resurrection. The resurrection proves that his death did indeed pay the full price. If he didn’t rise, that would mean that he didn’t accomplish what he set out to do. But he did.
And so the deep set dread of God’s law that others have has been defused for us who approach God on the basis of mercy. God’s law is a description; a description of what humanity can be; a description of who Jesus our Savior was; a description of what we are even now becoming as the Holy Spirit gradually works upon our hearts and helps us to fight against the sin of our lives; and a description of who we will ultimately be by the Grace of God in Glory. We can imagine a world without hatred, war, murder and perversion. We imagine a world of peace, Joy, and Love. We can imagine this better place and we long for it. The Ten commandments offer a description of it. What was first fulfilled in Christ, will ultimately be fulfilled in us. AMEN
