************ Sermon on Heidelberg Catechism Q & A 92-93 ************
By: Rev. Adrian Dieleman
This sermon was preached on June 29, 2008
Q & 92-93
Psalm 19:7-11
"The Law of God"
Introduction
There are four legs to the chair we call gratitude. The first leg, remember, is conversion. The second leg is good works. The third leg is obedience to the Law. The fourth leg is prayer.
Today, we begin discussion of the third leg: obedience to the Law.
As we do this, we need to remember where we are at in the Catechism. We have already looked at our sin and misery. We have already looked at salvation by grace through faith. And now, now we look at our grateful response by keeping the Law.
I The Three Uses of the Law
A When we first moved here, the cycling group took me on bike rides that had me totally lost. I had no idea where we were at. I had no idea where we were going. And once, when I got separated from the group, I had no idea how I took a wrong turn. I needed a map of Tulare County. A map can prevent you from taking the wrong road, from going down the wrong path. When you are lost, a map also shows you where you've gone astray. But most importantly, a map can also be a positive guide, showing you which road to follow.
B Reformed Christians have long recognized that the Law of God is like a road map (HOLD UP MAP). First of all, it can prevent you from taking the wrong road, the road of sin and evil. People, for instance, come across a tempting situation – they can take a hundred dollars without anyone noticing, or cheat on their income tax without getting caught, or commit adultery without their spouse being the wiser – but the Law of God tells them this is evil so they don't do it. Most people know that the "Ten Commandments" are not the "Ten Suggestions."
The Apostle Paul tells us "that the requirements of the law are written on human hearts" so that even those Gentiles "who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law" (Rom 2:14-15). This explains why unbelieving individuals or pagan societies are rarely as bad as they can possibly be – the requirements of God's Law, written on everyone's heart, restrains or prevents evil.
Among Christians it goes even a step further than this. The book of Hebrews tells us that God established in Christ Jesus a new covenant first spoken of by the prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 31:31-34; cf Heb 8:8,10). In this new covenant God says, "I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts." In this new covenant relationship, born-again Christians intimately know and want to obey God's Law. In this new covenant relationship, born-again Christians are sorry for sin, hate sin, run away from sin, and take great delight in obeying God's laws and commandments.
Among both believers and unbelievers, then, the Law of God restrains or prevents evil.
C Secondly, when you are lost the Law of God, like a map (HOLD UP MAP), can show you where you have gone wrong, where you have gone astray. The Law shows you that you have gone wrong when you rebelled against God. The Law tells you that you took the wrong way or the wrong turn when you sinned against God. In other words, in light of God's Law we come to realize that we are lost in sin and desperately need Christ Jesus to save us. The Law is a teacher of sin.
D Thirdly, the Law of God, like a map (HOLD UP MAP), is a positive guide showing you which road to follow. From this viewpoint, God's Law is a guide for grateful Christian living, a model for doing and being good. This is a distinctly Reformed understanding of the Law. This is the usage emphasized by the Catechism.
When the Catechism, in Q & A 3 & 4, teaches us about our sin, it turns to the summary of God's Law as found in Matthew 22: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and ... your neighbor as yourself." And, when it teaches us how to lead and live before God the life of gratitude, the life of thankfulness – because of all God's mercies and benefits – it turns to the Ten Commandments.
It isn't only the Catechism which uses the Law as a guide for gratitude. This is the way God originally intended the Law to be used. Listen as I read what is known as the Law's preface:
(Ex 20:2) "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery."
The Catechism makes a pretty sad mistake when it lists this preface as being part of the first commandment. And, it makes an even bigger error in not discussing the preface.
This preface is discussed by the Westminster Shorter Catechism in Q & A 44:
Q. What does the preface to the ten commandments teach us?
A. The preface to the ten commandments teaches us, That because God is the Lord, and our God, and Redeemer, therefore we are bound to keep all his commandments.
The preface to the Law forces us to make sure we understand the connection between the Law and the Gospel. The Gospel comes first: "I am the Lord, who set you free." Then comes the Law as the rule or guide for grateful living: "now keep my commandments."
In order to grasp this crucial connection between Law and Gospel, a person should always keep in mind when and where God gave the Ten Commandments. God gave the Ten Commandments to the former slaves of Egypt when they were camped at Mount Sinai. In other words, God gave the commandments after the great deliverance from Egypt. The people were delivered from Egypt not by obedience but by grace. And the Lord gave the Law to them before they reached the Promised Land.
This is how the Law ought to function in the lives of each and every one of us: we begin with the Gospel and not with the Law. We were not redeemed by Law-keeping but by God's sovereign grace. And, between our redemption and our arrival in the land beyond the Jordan, we travel by the road map of God's Law. God's Law is the guide or map (HOLD UP MAP) for our pilgrimage.
Let's translate the preface of the Law into New Testament language. To His Old Testament people God said,
(Ex 20:2) "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. This is my will: You shall have no other gods before me ..."
To His New Testament people God says,
"I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of your slavery to sin and evil. This is my will: You shall have no other gods before me ..."
II The Law and the Covenant
A About 80 years ago, archaeologists in the Middle East discovered the law books of the Babylonian King, Hammurabi. When they studied them, they found there was a striking similarity to the laws Moses gave to the people of Israel. Their conclusion was that Moses never made those laws and the claim that he received them from the Lord was false. Moses, they said, simply adapted to Israel's situation the law books of Egypt and other countries that he had studied while he attended university in Egypt.
However similar the laws may be, there is something unique about the Ten Commandments. You see, behind the Law there is an enduring and abiding relationship – we call it a covenant – between God and His people.
I'm not sure if we realize how wonderful a covenant relationship really is. You see, in modern times we define most relations by contracts. Consider the many contracts a typical home owner has: the bank or mortgage company, the city for garbage pickup, Southern California Gas, Southern California Edison, AT&T, Protection One security, Allied home owners insurance, Comcast or DirecTV, Amaze Pest Control, The Yard Man, The Pool Company, and the list goes on and on; all of these relationships are defined by contracts. Teachers, today, sign contracts offered by school boards, unions negotiate contracts with employers, door-to-door salesmen offer contracts for everything from vacuum cleaners to health-insurance. The contract, whether formal or informal, specifies the obligations of both parties.
The Lord did not establish a contract with Israel or with the church. He created a covenant. There is a difference.
Contracts are broken when one of the parties fails to keep his promise. If, for instance, I fail to pay my home owner's insurance, Chuck Griffin has the right to cancel the contract his company has with me.
The Bible compares the covenant relationship to the tie between a mother and her child. The Lord says,
(Is 49:15) "Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!"
In a covenant, one member's failure does not destroy the relationship. For instance, if a teenager fails to come home, the parent's obligation, unlike my insurance man's, is not canceled. The parent finds out where the teenager is and makes sure he or she is safe. A covenant, in other words, demands unconditional love. In establishing His covenant with us God promises to unconditionally love and care for us.
B The Ten Commandments, do you know what they are? They are the laws of the covenant. They spell out how the people Who have been delivered by Jehovah are to live as His covenant people. And, the obedience that is required is not slave-like but child-like. We obey the Law as children who love the Father in heaven.
It is only the covenant relationship which makes the Law meaningful. Consider the lawbook of Hammurabi again. Because his empire is gone and his throne has disappeared, his laws are historical curiosities with no relevance or meaning for today's life. But that is not the case with the Law of God. Because God's Kingdom is still here, because His covenant with His people endures, and because He continues to be our God and Father, His Law continues to have relevance and meaning for life.
C There are some who say that the new covenant established in Christ Jesus also means a new Law: the Law of Sinai has been replaced by the Law of love. Those who talk this way show they have misunderstood God's Word. Jesus said,
(Mt 5:17-18) "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. (18) I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished."
Even for God's New Testament people, the Law of Sinai remains the Law of the covenant. However, the old covenant Law is deepened and "filled full," or "fulfilled," by Jesus. The full meaning of the Law proclaimed on Mount Sinai is expounded by Jesus in His Sermon on the Mount. And, although the new covenant does not bring a new Law it does bring a new obedience because of the Spirit living in us and working through us (cf Jer 31:33) so that it is now our desire to do and be good.
III The Two Tablets
A Sunday School pictures and the movie, "The Ten Commandments", have permanently engraved on our mind the image of Moses coming down the mountain holding in his arms the two tablets of the Ten Commandments. In these pictures the two tablets always resemble grave markers. Clearly visible on them are the Roman numerals I - X with commandments I - IV on the front of the first tablet and commandments V - X on the front of the second tablet.
This picture is wrong for two reasons. First, did you know that God inscribed the two tablets "on both sides, front and back" (Ex 32:15)? Second, this was the Law of the Covenant. And, all covenants have two sides or two partners. And, each partner gets a copy of the covenant agreement. Therefore, the two tablets were identical to each other. One copy, with all Ten Commandments written on it, was for God. The other copy, with all Ten Commandments written on it, was for man (cf Ex 31:18; 32:15,16; 34:4,28).
B A number of questions should be asked as we start our study of the Ten Commandments. The first question concerns how one should count or divide them. A quick look at the Catechism shows how the Reformers count them. However, not everyone divides the Law as we do. Another tradition, followed by Roman Catholics and Lutherans, combines into one what we know as the first and second commandments and splits apart what we know as the tenth. Therefore, a recent novel written by a Roman Catholic entitled "The Sixth Commandment," deals with adultery rather than murder.
A second question asks about the words God engraved on the tablets that Moses carried down the mountain. The Law is found in two places: Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5. The texts differ widely from each other in two places. First, they present different reasons why God wants His people to keep the Sabbath day holy. We know that God revealed both reasons to His people but we also know that He did not include both on the stone tablets. Some scholars and teachers say that the Exodus text – being the original one – reflects what is written on the tablets. Others maintain that the original commandments written on the tablets came without the reasons or motivations. We just don't know. Second, the two texts also differ from each other in that they change the order of neighbor's house and wife in the tenth commandment. Again, we are not certain what was written on the tablets.
C However they are counted or divided and whatever the original words or language, we know that the Law can be logically divided into two tables:
The first has four commandments,
teaching us what our relation to God should be.
The second has six commandments,
teaching us what we owe our neighbor.
In this light I want you to compare the Ten Commandments in the Bible to the Ten Commandments held by the Chippewa Indians:
1. Never steal, except from an enemy.
2. Respect the aged and harken to them.
3. Be kind to the sick and deformed.
4. Obey your parents.
5. Be modest.
6. Be charitable.
7. Be of good courage, suffer in silence.
8. Avenge personal and family wrongs.
9. Be hospitable.
10. Pray to the Great Spirit.
We can't help but notice there is only one commandment about their god. As for the other nine, they view a neighbor only as those from your own family and tribe and not mankind in general. In contrast, the Ten Commandments in the Bible has 4 commands about God and says my neighbor is not just people from my family and tribe but anyone I come across.
D There is a reason the Law of God is broken into two tables. The majesty of God held forth by the first four commandments and the rights of my neighbor mentioned in the next six must always be held side-by-side. Both are destroyed when either is forgotten. A welfare state which looks after its citizens from cradle to grave may observe the second table of the Law; but if it does so because of humanistic principles it has no chance of survival because it erases the first table of the Law. "Religious fanatics" who kill or hate people of another faith may, in their zeal, think they are observing the first table of the Law; but in reality they destroy the whole Law of God because they utterly fail in their love for the neighbor demanded by the second table. And, a society – such as the one we live in – which ignores both tables of the Law surely will also fall.
Conclusion
When it comes right down to it, the goal of the Law is positive. It wants to stop our sin, it wants to turn us to Jesus Christ, and it wants to teach us how to live the godly life. In this light, I want to end the way I started – with the words of David in Psalm 19:
(Ps 19:7-11) The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul. The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple. (8) The precepts of the LORD are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the LORD are radiant, giving light to the eyes. (9) The fear of the LORD is pure, enduring forever. The ordinances of the LORD are sure and altogether righteous. (10) They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb. (11) By them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.