Every game has rules. In basketball, one of the rules is that you can’t walk or run with the ball unless you are bouncing it on the ground at the same time. In football you can run with the ball but you may not bounce the ball. That’s called a fumble. In baseball you can run until you’re tagged with the ball. In golf, you may only touch the ball with a club, and then only for the purpose of hitting it into a little hole punched in the lawn. In volleyball you can hit the ball, only once, but you can’t catch, dribble it on the ground, or run with it. Those are the rules. Without rules there wouldn’t be much of a game. Everyone would do whatever he or she pleased. There would be no cooperation, no play, and no fun. Rules provide freedom for people to play together. And we all know what happens to the person who doesn’t play by the rules. He gets thrown out of the game. God has rules for playing the game called, “Life.” We call them “The 10 Commandments.”
The Need for the 10 Commandments Today
A few years ago Ted Turner, a major TV executive, said on TV what he thought of our current morality. He declared the Ten Commandments obsolete and part of a religion for losers. He went on to propose ten “voluntary initiatives” as a humanistic alternative. I believe that the reason most folks struggle with the Ten Commandments is that they have never established a personal relationship with the Author, the one and only living God, whose name is Jesus. But we who have a personal relationship with Jesus agree with the apostle Paul’s statement that “;…the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good”; (Romans 7:12). Today the words of Isaiah 5:20 are needed: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness.” We have a terrible decay of morals today, yet some think we need no absolutes.
Dr. Laura Schlessinger writes: “‘Ship me somewheres east of Suez, where the best is like the worst,” Rudyard Kipling wrote, ‘Where there ain’t no Ten Commandments, an’ a man can raise a thirst.’ Geography notwithstanding, England might be the place! The British newspaper The Sunday Times (November 16, 1997) reported that the Church of England’s liturgical commission decided to remove the commandments from the holy communion service in the new millennium prayer book. “Philip Gore, a synod member for the Manchester diocese, said the decision reflected the church’s fear that any kind of religious challenge will alienate congregations. Earlier this year, it emerged that the church had suffered its biggest drop in attendance for more than twenty years. ‘Many in the church do not want a God who makes too many demands of them,’ he said. ‘Therefore, they want to dismiss the commandments as irrelevant to our modern age.’” – from The 10 Commandments, by Dr. Laura Schlessinger and Rabbi Stewart Vogel
The Nature of the 10 Commandments
The term “decalogue” comes from Exodus 34:28: “he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant-the Ten Commandments,” and Deuteronomy 4:13: “he declared to you his covenant, the Ten Commandments.” These “ten words” were different from the rest of the law God gave to Israel in that they were audibly delivered to Moses in Israel’s hearing by God himself and later written by God on two tables of stone. The principles of the decalouge are timeless and universal. Each of the 10 “words” is repeated for believers in the New Testament. They remain today as relevant as when they were given. What could be more relevant than principles that deal with family, abortion, war, capital punishment, euthanasia, poverty, the new morality, divorce laws, burglaries, theft, and the credibility gap in advertising, television news, and government. They have to do with the protection of our lives, our property, and our reputations. The laws were given as a covenant, or treaty agreement between God and Israel. They express the rightful expectations of the Lord’s claim upon those He has redeemed. They may be divided thus:
Reverence for God
1. Against Polytheism
2. Against idolatry
3. Against dishonoring God’s name
4. Against dishonoring God’s day
5. Against dishonoring parents (God sees parents as representatives of Himself, therefore any dishonoring of parents is dishnoring of God.)
Respect for Man
6. Against needless violence and criminal negligence
7. Against violating the marriage union
8. Against violating the sanctity of property
9. Against false witness
10. Against envy and greed
Most of the New Testament argument against the law is against legalism. Legalism thinks of justice in terms of fear rather than love; hopes to escape retribution by obeying the law perfectly, and builds a wall against human error by developing laws for every situation. What we do learn from the 10 Commandments is a picture of the high moral standards of the holy God.
Jesus Fulfilled the Law:
1. He was made under it (Gal.4:4).
2. He perfectly obeyed it (John 8:46; I Pet.2:22-23).
3. He was as the minister of it (Lk.10:25-37).
4. He fulfilled its types in life and death (Heb.9:11-26).
5. He bore its curse in our stead (Gal.3:13-14).
6. He made believers “sons” instead of “servants” (Gal.4:1-7).
7. The believer is “in-lawed” to Him under the law of Christ (I Cor.9:21).
Those of us who have invited Jesus to become our Lord and Savior know that God has placed His Law on our hearts and minds and has given us His Holy Spirit to empower us to walk in His will and live according to His Law (Romans 8:3-4).
