Peter Leithart - The Ten Commandments: A Guide to the Perfect Law of Liberty

CHRISTIAN ESSENTIALS

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

A Guide to the Perfect Law of Liberty

PETER J. LEITHART

The Ten Commandments: A Guide to the Perfect Law of Liberty

Christian Essentials

Copyright 2020 Peter J. Leithart

Lexham Press, 1313 Commercial St., Bellingham, WA 98225

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Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the authors own translation or are from the King James Version.

Scripture quotations in the series preface are from ESVBible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version), copyright 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked ( NASB ) are from the New American Standard Bible, Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations marked ( KJV ) are from the King James Version. Public domain.

Print ISBN 9781683593553

Digital ISBN 9781683593560

Library of Congress Control Number:2019951006

Lexham Editorial: Todd Hains, Jeff Reimer, Danielle Thevenaz

Cover Design: Eleazar Ruiz

To Warren Gaines Leithart, son of the King:

May the God who spoke the world in ten words

forever keep you by his Spirit in

the way of Sinais ten words.

CONTENTS

T he Christian Essentials series passes down tradition that matters.

The church has often spoken paradoxically about growth in Christian faith: to grow means to stay at the beginning. The great Reformer Martin Luther exemplified this. Although Im indeed an old doctor, he said, I never move on from the childish doctrine of the Ten Commandments and the Apostles Creed and the Lords Prayer. I still daily learn and pray them with my little Hans and my little Lena. He had just as much to learn about the Lord as his children.

The ancient church was founded on basic biblical teachings and practices like the Ten Commandments, baptism, the Apostles Creed, the Lords Supper, the Lords Prayer, and corporate worship. These basics of the Christian life have sustained and nurtured every generation of the faithfulfrom the apostles to today. They apply equally to old and young, men and women, pastors and church members. In Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith (Gal 3:26).

We need the wisdom of the communion of saints. They broaden our perspective beyond our current culture and time. Every age has its own outlook, C. S. Lewis wrote. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. By focusing on whats current, we rob ourselves of the insights and questions of those who have gone before us. On the other hand, by reading our forebears in faith, we engage ideas that otherwise might never occur to us.

The books in the Christian Essentials series open up the meaning of the foundations of our faith. These basics are unfolded afresh for today in conversation with the great traditiongrounded in and strengthened by Scripturefor the continuing growth of all the children of God.

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. (Deuteronomy 6:49)

AND GOD SPAKE ALL THESE WORDS, SAYING,

I am THE LORD THY GOD , which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I THE LORD THY GOD am a jealous God.

Thou shalt not take the name of THE LORD THY GOD in vain; for THE LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of THE LORD THY GOD .

Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which THE LORD THY GOD giveth thee.

Thou shalt not kill.

Thou shalt not commit adultery.

Thou shalt not steal.

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

Thou shalt not covet.

G od spoke the Ten Commandments to Israel at Sinai. Are they for us? Are they for us Christians who are not Jews, or should Christians live by a New Testament ethic? Are they for us Germans or Japanese or Nigerians or Peruvians or Americans? Are they only for Israel or for the nations?

The church has always taken the Decalogue, with modifications, as Gods word to Christians. New Testament writers quote it, church fathers appeal to it, Thomas Aquinas comments on it, Reformation catechisms and confessions teach it, prayer books incorporate it into our worship, and church architects carve it on our walls. Christian rulers like Alfred the Great made the Decalogue the basis of civil law.

Has the church been right? Or is this an unfortunate old covenant residue that needs to be purged from the church?

Read in canonical context, the Decalogue presents itself as a Christian text. To see how, we need to examine the text carefully.

Scripture doesnt use the phrase Ten Commandments. Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 record Yahwehs Ten Words (Exod 34:28; Deut 4:13). These texts contain imperatives, but, like the rest of Torah, they include declarations, warnings, promises. That multiplicity of speech acts is better captured by the phrase Ten Words or Decalogue, which I use throughout this book.

Israel has been in the wilderness for three months when they arrive at Sinai (Exod 19:1). Behind them are the ruins of Egypt, blighted by plagues. Theyve passed through the sea, received manna and water, grumbled and rebelled. Now the God who revealed his Name to Moses at Sinai (Exod 3:112) unveils himself to Israel.

God speaks on the third day of the month (Exod 19:16). Yahweh descends with a trumpet blast that summons Israel to assembly. From a fiery cloud, he speaks the Ten Words.

Hes spoken ten words before. Ten times Genesis 1 repeats, And God spoke. At Sinai, God again speaks ten words that, if guarded and obeyed, will form Israel into a new creation. These ten new-creative words present the form of new creation.

Yahweh has spoken on the third day before too. On the original third day, in the seventh of ten creation words, Yahweh