Lent 3- The Law (10 Commandments)
We can have a tendency to see the Law as something that gets in the way of freedom. We can see the Law as something we need to be freed from. We often hold the Law in oppositions against the grace of Christ. John says,
“The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (Jn 1:17).
We can sometimes read verses like this as if Moses and Jesus were in a competition.
In the time before Jesus was born, some Jewish scholars believed that there were two powers in heaven. The Jewish people of the time didn’t see this as a violation of monotheism in the way it was understood. The way they thought about this was still considered to be in the realm of correct Jewish thinking. Though, by the second century AD, Judaism had labeled this as a heretical view, which is probably in response to the rise of Christianity. But this was an idea that circulated for at least 400 years. When Jesus was born this was a thought that had already been floating around for a couple hundred years.[1]
Where would a thought like this come form? … In Exodus 33:11 we read,
In the time before Jesus was born, some Jewish scholars believed that there were two powers in heaven. The Jewish people of the time didn’t see this as a violation of monotheism in the way it was understood. The way they thought about this was still considered to be in the realm of correct Jewish thinking. Though, by the second century AD, Judaism had labeled this as a heretical view, which is probably in response to the rise of Christianity. But this was an idea that circulated for at least 400 years. When Jesus was born this was a thought that had already been floating around for a couple hundred years.[1]
Where would a thought like this come form? … In Exodus 33:11 we read,
“the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend.”
Hold that image in your head. … And just a few verses later in the same chapter we read,
“you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live” (33:20).
Either we have to believe that the person who wrote this was an incoherent mess, and can’t keep a consistent idea even within the same chapter, or there was something else going on. … There arose an idea that there was God who was visible and seemed to take human form, and God who was invisible and who was even dangerous to try to look at.
There are times when this is expressed through the encounter of the “angel of the Lord” where, for example, Abraham acts as host to three angels who come to visit him, but one of those angels seems to speak to Abraham as if he is God (Gen 18).
The Jewish Targums were a kind of paraphrase of the Hebrew Bible. In English, “The Message” version of the Bible is a paraphrase written by Eugene Peterson. That’s sort of what a Targum was. They were often written in different languages as people knew less and less Hebrew. It is a kind of retelling of the Bible, which necessarily gives interpretations of the original Hebrew Bible. So, a Targum gives us a little glimpse into how people were reading the Bible. So, for example, there are times in the Aramaic Targum where they will replace “Lord” with “Word of the Lord”, which is presented as a person that is somehow God, and still somehow distinct from other ways that God is encountered. This “Word of the Lord” is presented as the one who speaks to Moses face to face.[2] John connected this “Word of the Lord” to Jesus-
There are times when this is expressed through the encounter of the “angel of the Lord” where, for example, Abraham acts as host to three angels who come to visit him, but one of those angels seems to speak to Abraham as if he is God (Gen 18).
The Jewish Targums were a kind of paraphrase of the Hebrew Bible. In English, “The Message” version of the Bible is a paraphrase written by Eugene Peterson. That’s sort of what a Targum was. They were often written in different languages as people knew less and less Hebrew. It is a kind of retelling of the Bible, which necessarily gives interpretations of the original Hebrew Bible. So, a Targum gives us a little glimpse into how people were reading the Bible. So, for example, there are times in the Aramaic Targum where they will replace “Lord” with “Word of the Lord”, which is presented as a person that is somehow God, and still somehow distinct from other ways that God is encountered. This “Word of the Lord” is presented as the one who speaks to Moses face to face.[2] John connected this “Word of the Lord” to Jesus-
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (Jn 1:1).
Inheriting this understanding of God, Christians came to understand that the Word of God was who Moses was speaking to face to face as one speaks to a friend. The Lawgiver is really the pre-incarnate Christ. Before Jesus was born, God the Son gave the Law to Moses. … St. Irenaeus, who studied under the teaching of one of St. John’s (the author of the gospel that bears his name) students, and writing in the mid to late 100’s, says,
“But one and the same householder produced both covenants, the Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who spoke with both Abraham and Moses” (Adv. Haeresies, 4.9.1).
Holding the Law and the grace of Christ as enemies of each other is probably not the best way to think about them then. Instead, there is a complementary way of looking at them. … The Law is a guardian over the people until Christ comes (Gal 3). The Law is about identifying, preventing, and containing sin (Rom 3:20; 7:7). The rituals of Israel are about creating safe sacred places where the people can approach the presence of God. Sin is not safe in God’s presence the way darkness is destroyed by the presence of light. The law was a sin management system. …
But Christ brings a new covenant. Through the work of Christ, we are purified so that the Holy Spirit can dwell in us, where He then writes the Law on our hearts. The body of Christ replaces the Temple. … In our gospel reading today Jesus judges and symbolically destroys the Temple, which the leadership had corrupted. The Temple will not be needed with the New Covenant Jesus brings. … Christ offers us healing from our sins through the cross. Christ offers to rescue us from death and the oppression of demonic powers, and offers to draw us deeply into God’s reality (2 Pet 1:4). These are things Christ can do, but the Law couldn’t do. …
We now see the Law as fulfilled in Christ, but it still gives us guidance. The Law is still a part of our story, through it functions differently in our lives than it did for those who first received it. … Through Christ, there is help available if Sin has grabbed a hold of us. It is still important for us to identify sin, so that we can be drawn into repentance and receive God’s forgiveness and teaching. The danger of sin is that it draws us away from God. It ensnares us and can even make us numb to God’s reaching out to us. Sin will distort us and draw us away from who we were made to be.
Like a doctor giving a patient a check-up, Christians have often turned to the Ten Commandments as a way to examine their spiritual health. … In the Book of Common Prayer, once a month on a Sunday Morning, the Priest is directed to lead a responsive reading based on the Ten Commandments. After each command is read out, the people respond saying, “Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law”.
So, what I would like to do is briefly go through the Ten Commandments and look at how we might use them to do a kind of spiritual check-up. Remember that these commandments are given to freed slaves. They have been outwardly freed from captivity in Egypt, but they need to be inwardly freed from Egypt as well.
The first commandment is about worshipping God alone. We will become like what we worship. We are made in God’s image, so worshipping God will heal and strengthen that image within us. … Worshipping anything but God will enslave us. To worship money, will enslave us into greed. To worship bodily pleasures, will enslave us to an addiction. …
Connected to this, we are not to make idols. God cannot be contained by an image. It will always be too false to truly point us to God. We are to allow God to show us who He is, rather than impose our image on God. … Once Christ comes, though, we do have an accurate image for God. We are told that Christ is the image of the invisible God (Col 1:15).
The commandment about misusing God’s name protects us from falsely representing God- saying God said something when it's not true. It is also meant to save us from being enslaved by false prophets who are using God’s name to manipulate us. This isn’t primarily about swearing, it’s about manipulation.
The commandment about keeping the Sabbath Holy is about reminding ourselves of the Heavenly perspective. It is a protection against making our work an idol. We stop whatever we do in an ordinary day to remember that the world will continue without us, we remember that we do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.
Honouring our parents calls us into gratitude for where we came from and for what we have inherited. One generation is not to go to war against another. We honour our ancestors, we are alive because of them and we are beneficiaries of their accomplishments. This is about gratitude for what we have inherited from those who have come before us.
To murder someone is to take the place of God as judge over their life. It inserts fear and chaos into the community. Christ internalizes this commandment and warns us about fanning the flames of anger that can lead to murder (Matt 5:21-26).
Adultery damages the family, and therefore damages the stability of society. It creates mistrust between neighbours as they wonder who might seduce their husband or wife. Again, Christ internalizes this and warns about fanning the flames of lustful thoughts that can lead to unfaithfulness. So this commandment points to a misuse of the gift of sexuality.
Stealing from your neighbours inserts mistrust into the social fabric. If we have to constantly worry that someone might steal from us, then we put protections in place, which means we start treating our neighbours with suspicion and even as potential enemies. A knock on the door is greeted with fear and suspicion.
Giving false testimony creates a general mistrust of the words of our neighbour. Think of how telephone scams have changed the way you answer your phone. How do you answer your phone if you don’t know who’s calling? What does that do to our attitude towards our neighbours? Jesus says we should let our “yes be yes, and our no be no”. We don’t want to contribute to this problem.
The commandment against coveting calls us to look inward- to our deeper desires that give rise to the reason we might steal, or murder. Perhaps the neighbour’s wife is a better household manager and would make a person more wealthy. Maybe their servants work harder. Maybe their animals are younger and stronger. … Instead of being drawn to these acts motivated by coveting, we are taught by Jesus to learn to be content, to be grateful for the life we have, and to trust God. Our lives are about more than the wealth or power we can accumulate, or the pleasures of the flesh. God asks us to trust our life to Him, and to even celebrate the success of our neighbour, rather than burn in envy and jealousy.
It is good, especially during Lent, for us to assess our lives to see if there is any place where we are being held back by the Sin that wants to enslave us. God wants us to be free. A fish is free when it is able to live according to its nature, which means in the water. The law reveals where sin can trip us up. And thank God that we can call on Christ to help us whenever we do get tripped up. Ultimately, what we are aiming at isn’t a sinless life. We are aiming at an intimate life with God, sin is just what gets in the way of that. Let’s not obsess about sin. Let’s obsess about the love of God. AMEN
[1] See “Two Powers in
Heaven” by Alan Segal
[2] “The Jewish Targums
and John’s Logos Theology” by John Ronning
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