Sermon Notes: Exodus 20:1-17 – The Decalogue
Matthew 5:17-19 (CSB) 17 “Don’t think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or one stroke of a letter will pass away from the law until all things are accomplished. 19 Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commands and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
So far in our Exodus study, we have seen the Lord save his people from Egypt and bring them to himself.
Now we will see the Lord intensify his discipleship of his people in showing them how to live like they are his people as he codifies his created standard for human flourishing.
They can never say they didn’t know or understand when the Lord writes it down.
He will write it in stone with his finger as a way of telling the whole world what Jesus makes explicit in Matthew 5:17-19, and that is that his boundaries, his Words, his laws are eternal because he is the lone Eternal One with no beginning and no end. Therefore, his standard will never pass away.
These Ten Words the Lord codifies are not new. They are written into created order and the Lord has been governing the flourishing of humanity and creation since he spoke them into existence.
***Adam and Eve taking from the tree of knowledge of good and evil was theft motivated by distrust in the goodness of God and rooted in a covetous desire due to the temptation of the Serpent/Dragon to take what did not belong to them. Eating from the tree was false worship through obedience to another god. This act of distrust was murder because it resulted in the death of all mankind.
The holy righteous character of God has always been and will never cease to exist. So, Jesus would never seek to abolish his law.
However, Jesus would fulfill his law for us in his life and on the cross so that we could be reconciled back to the Father by his sacrifice in our place for our sin.
Today, we move back into our study through Exodus with an overview of the “Decalogue”. The ten Words that make explicit the ethical paradigm or framework of the reign of Jesus Christ. I say “make explicit” because as I’ve said already, these standards are built in as they are rooted in the nature and character of the Triune God.
Let’s read about it. Exodus 20:1-17.
A few worthy notes to help us navigate:
The Ten Commandments are more accurately called the “Decalogue” or the Ten Words.
This wording of the text is not insignificant, nor just a preference issue. The text of Exodus 20:1 says that the Lord spoke “all these words”, and the Lord spoke ten powerful and life-giving words. The Hebrew word used for the “words” that are life-giving is “debar”. “Debar” means word or matter or a thing.
Follow me for just a moment: When the Lord raised up Ehud the judge to rescue Israel from Eglon the king of Moab, Ehud made himself a two-edged sword, strapped it to his right thigh under his cloak (because he was left-handed), and went to pay the required tribute. Ehud presented the tribute along with the team it took to carry the tribute. After they presented the tribute, they left. Ehud and his team reached a place where Ehud determined it was safe to send the team on and returned by himself to meet with Eglon. Ehud told Eglon that he had a “debar” for him, a word, so Eglon dismissed his staff and stood alone with Ehud to “hear” this word. Ehud drew his two-edged “debar” from under his cloak and ran Eglon through with his two-edged “word”.
I wonder what the writer of Hebrews had in mind when he penned Hebrews 4:12 (CSB) 12 For the word of God is living and effective and sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrating as far as the separation of soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
The Decalogue, the Ten Words, are God’s sharp, boundary setting words, his sword, that distinguishes between life and death.
The Bible doesn’t distinguish in name between moral, ceremonial, and civil law.
Those distinctions are placed on top of the text in attempts to make sense of what we read in the text.
The Decalogue is a paradigm of law. What is captured are the standards of God to provide boundaries for human flourishing. What comes after the Decalogue are 601 applications of the Decalogue in a multitude of ways for ethical living, for civic life, and for worship boundaries.
Some theologians choose to read back onto the text categories of law as prescriptions rather than applications of the standards of God.
Since the church is not the government and debatably should not be the government and since we don’t sacrifice animals for worship or worship in Jerusalem, we should be careful in assigning biblical text to categories the text does not assign itself to.
The law’s application is not exhaustive in the Old Testament. The people and judges were to be able to understand God’s boundaries and apply them in every situation.
The perfect example of this is Acts 15 and the Jerusalem council on how to deal with Gentiles coming into the kingdom of God. They didn’t place circumcision on them, but they did make some wise applications (avoid sexual immorality, food offered to idols, food that had been strangled), and the question is, “why?”.
There were factors in play for Gentiles in the first century in certain parts of the world that required some restrictions and gave some freedoms that might not be as wise for you and me because the law is a paradigm or framework and not exhaustive in application. We don’t wonder if the beef at Walmart was sacrificed to an idol as we self-check-out, so we don’t need that application.
We, by the help of the Spirit in fellowship with one another on mission, are to take God’s paradigm or framework with the lens of the good news and make multitudes of applications.
They were to be a people with eyes to see and ears to hear and a heart to understand.
We are to be the same. And we now have the Holy Spirit to make this not only possible but necessary and attainable.
The New Testament does not pit the law and the gospel against one another.
Any such confusion or effort to play gospel against the law is a lack of understanding the good news of the kingdom.
The New Testament shines the light of the special revelation of the gospel in such a way that we can see the gospel clearly revealed on every page of the Old Testament as preached in the law.
We won’t solve the tension of the place of the law in civil life in this sermon, or maybe ever until the Lord Jesus returns.
Errors abound in efforts to distinguish parts of the law’s applications and apply them to only certain people or domains of society.
***Dispensationalism tries to apply what some call ceremonial law to a reinstated Jewish state as an indicator of “end times” or standard for international cooperation for other nations. Now, to be clear, that does not mean Israel should not be treated in a way that reflects the purposes of God, but it certainly means we must be careful in prescribing certain ceremonies as present accurate worship when they ignore and dimmish Jesus.
Theonomy (“Christian reconstruction”) attempts to make a civil application for nations from the Jewish application of the Decalogue in order to restore a “Christian America” or to seek to Christianize some other nation. As John Calvin recognized in his “Institutes”, this is “perilous and seditious.” – John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, 2 vols., Library of Christian Classics, 20–21 (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), IV.xx.14. That’s because Jesus has fulfilled the law and does not need governmental Christianization to fulfill his law and his will. I recognize this is a debatable point.***
The fact that God’s law does not pass away and is fulfilled in Christ for sinners and the fact that God is restoring all things requires a lot of working out.
We must not minimize the challenges of how to apply the whole of the Bible to our world where ethical rot seems to be winning the day.
There are challenges in the public square as we engage our domains. If you are not running up on those challenges, you are not really in the weeds of disrupting and healing broken systems while preaching like Jesus taught us to do (Luke 10:1-12).
Jesus helps us make application of the Decalogue.
Jesus is asked what the greatest commandment is, and he responds in Matthew 22:34-40 by referencing Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18b. In doing this Jesus sums up the Decalogue and the prophets into two categories: Love God. Love neighbor.
The first four Words teach us to love God. They teach us how to flourish in loving God.
The last six words teach us to love our neighbor. They teach us how to flourish in loving one another.
The Decalogue:
The Gospel Lens at the Beginning of the Decalogue: The indicative comes before the imperative. V. 1-2
Lest we misunderstand, the Lord codifies the good news at the front end of his Words of life.
The indicative, the fact that he has purchased them through the Passover as his people is a fact. He is Yahweh and he has brought them to himself. They are his!
The imperative, the Words of life the boundaries, are how his people act like who they are because the Lord has made them his.
Our identity comes before our obedience, and that order can never be reversed. Reverse it and you no longer have the good news, you have legalism.
We don’t obey the Lord’s boundaries to earn his love. We have his love and acceptance because of what he did for us. We seek human flourishing in obedience because we are his people, because he has made us his by his redemptive work in our place for our sin.
Love God
Word 1: No gods besides the LORD. V. 3
The literal wording is “Do not have other gods before my face.” So, it is accurate to say that there should be no gods in the Lord’s presence, and since he is ever-present, he is prohibiting the incorporation of, worship of, admiration of, serving of any other god.
This is not, however, the first time the LORD has made this clear. He’s just codifying it here, writing it in stone as the framework from which human flourishing would advance.
It’s clear from Genesis 1-11, Deuteronomy 32, Psalm 82 and other extra-biblical works written by those who fear Yahweh that supernatural created beings are NOT to be worshiped, and those supernatural beings who have rebelled against their Creator Jesus are under condemnation and are the sources of rebellion, sin, and woe in the world.
These beings who have gone to war against Yahweh and his image-bearers are not to be worshiped or served in any way. In fact, the LORD’s dismantling of these god’s systems in Egypt with Moses should indicate that the LORD intends to destroy these gods and bring his people to himself so they would worship him and be restored to a place of human flourishing NOT slavery to evil.
So, there are to be no gods served other than the LORD.
If he tells us to not serve other gods, then it’s likely there are moments when other gods might seek to interfere in our allegiance to Jesus. So, beware of being lured away to obeying someone other than Jesus.
*** FUN NOTE: When a church starts reading their Bible’s I can tell because the questions increase, and I love every question. Already some have asked, and I can’t take you down into the reasons the LORD refers to himself as an “Elohim” along with yet above other “Elohim” here in verses 2-3. He is Yahweh their “Elohim”. The astute reader notices he does this.
That is the subject of entire books. I’d refer you to “The Unseen Realm” by Michael Heiser. But don’t get down that road until you’ve digested your whole Bible a couple of times.***
Word 2: No idols for worship. V. 4-6
Word number two can be confusing without proper understanding.
An idol is a physical representation of something unseen. Idolatry was and still is a means of animating the unseen god that the idol represented. It is evident as you read through the Old Testament that some people just devolve to the point of worshiping the image and had long since missed the point of the image, and that itself may be part of the evil intent of the god(s) who have enticed the people away from the LORD.
Either way, idolatry is a nefarious and evil practice.
The LORD prohibits this activity.
Idolatry is a nefarious problem stemming from the Genesis 6:1-4 rebellion of the sons of God, their offspring, and the offspring’s destruction in the flood.
Followers of these evil beings would seek to have them manifest themselves in images they would inhabit and animate.
We see this problem that has been plaguing humanity in the gospels as Jesus has conflict with these beings. Jesus called them unclean spirits and sometimes they are called demons. Jesus is taking that language from some extra-biblical writings that Peter and Jude likewise quote in their inspired writings in the New Testament.
Jesus is clear that these unclean spirits look for people to inhabit like they do in an idol thus treating a human being like their vessel, and they will inhabit willing and sometimes unwilling people who don’t have the Spirit’s protection to animate them for evil purposes.
Matthew 12:43-45 (CSB) 43 “When an unclean spirit comes out of a person, it roams through waterless places looking for rest but doesn’t find any. (Author’s note: Why waterless? Because it was water the Lord used to destroy their bodies in the flood.) 44 Then it says, ‘I’ll go back to my house that I came from.’ Returning, it finds the house vacant, swept, and put in order. 45 Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and settle down there. As a result, that person’s last condition is worse than the first. That’s how it will also be with this evil generation.”
The creation of images for an unclean spirit to inhabit and direct a people is prohibited because it’s a way of violating the first Word. It’s one of the ways these gods steal worship from Jesus.
That’s just a tiny bit of background for understanding.
Specifically in the second Word, the LORD is prohibiting them/us from trying to worship Him like that.
To make an image for the LORD, the Creator of all things is to make a statement about the nature of the uncreated and eternal Yahweh. To put the LORD on the same level with created beings or objects would be to rob him of glory because nothing created is like the LORD or can measure up to the Lord.
Therefore, we are not to create or assign any image of our imagination to the LORD for worship or any other purpose.
There are some, including J.I. Packer who believe the second Word extends to even paintings of Jesus. I’m not so sure I agree with Packer, but his concern for the intent of this prohibition is worth consideration.
The LORD considers equating Him to unclean spirits so demeaning that he warns us the consequences of such sin would extend genetically to the third and fourth generation.
The LORD tells us the reason for the severe genetic consequences of this violation is because its root of the sin is hatred of the LORD. To attempt to manipulate Creator God into displaying himself through making him a form to inhabit is to hate the LORD.
The only way Yahweh would tabernacle among mankind is when the eternal Son of God, Jesus, would take on flesh and display the glory of God (See John 1:1-3, 14).
This is why Jesus would summarize these first four Words (commandments) as the framework of how to “love God” rather than hate God.
By keeping these Words, those who keep them display their love of the Lord Jesus.
Word 3: No misuse of the LORD’S name. V. 7
The LORD reveals his name to Moses in Exodus 3:14, 15. For the Hebrew, a name was not a label. Names spoke to something or someone’s identity.
Jesus gave Adam the authority to identify creation by putting names on them. So, whatever he called something, that was its name, it’s identity. We have a powerful responsibility in naming humans and things. Don’t take it for granted.
For Creator Jesus to state his name is to state his very identity, and his name is “I AM”. He is. His name represents his whole identity.
He is holy. There are none like him. He is the Eternal and First of his kind (Elohim), and He is Creator of all beings and mater that came to be by his word. His name speaks to this eternal glory.
To misuse his name, as many of our translations say, is to use his name in vain (without good and holy purpose). Thoughtlessly. Carelessly. Flippantly.
It’s better to not use his name than to misuse his name.
Word 4: Keep the Sabbath. V. 8-11
The Sabbath, the seventh day, is rooted in creation, and is not an issue of God getting tired.
The Sabbath is rooted in the truth that the LORD stopped his work of creating. He rested or ceased his creating because the work was finished not because he was tired.
He, the LORD, wove into creation the truth of stopping for his creatures. In his action he stamped ceasing labor, stopping work, into the fabric of reality for his image-bearers he would create to do work so they could enjoy the break of stopping.
Remember, these Words are for human flourishing, therefore, those who break Sabbath reject the love of God because God himself ceased the work of creation. To continue to work is to deny the reality of how creation works.
The Sabbath is hard-wired into creation to show us the love of God for us and for us to show our love of God back to God by cooperating with how he made things to operate.
By stopping our labor, we position ourselves to show love to God, receive love from God, and work in harmony with created rhythm.
Love Neighbor
Now the LORD begins to address the ways to flourish as humans toward and with one another.
Word 5: Honor father and mother. V. 12
Augustine emphasized the importance of the fifth commandment by posing a rhetorical question: “If anyone fails to honor his parents, is there anyone he will spare? – Philip Graham Ryken and R. Kent Hughes, Exodus: Saved for God’s Glory (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2005), 602.
The LORD kicks off the section of his Word for loving others by addressing children honoring their parents for the flourishing of the family unit since it is the building block of social order.
“Honor” is the word “kabad” and it means “heavy”. It’s the word used in the Old Testament for the “glory” of God. God’s glory is weighty, heavy.
So, to honor parents is to consider their leadership as carrying more weight than the leadership of other influences.
God considers parents so important for the flourishing of humanity that our approach to them can increase the length of life in the land of the LORD.
We won’t get into the weeds of what we do when we have parents who violate God’s word and put their children or spouses in danger. Never would we or God advocate for allowing ourselves to be hurt or wounded by ignoring the central nervous system moving us to safety. He created that system to protect us when there is danger, and specifically danger from those who are supposed to care for and protect us.
When all things are in place, we are to honor worthy parents by treating them like we would treat God, with weighty consideration.
***This is how serious God is about loving our families as children of a family unit:
Leviticus 20:9 (CSB) 9 “If anyone curses his father or mother, he must be put to death. He has cursed his father or mother; his death is his own fault.
Deuteronomy 21:18-21 (CSB) 18 “If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father or mother and doesn’t listen to them even after they discipline him, 19 his father and mother are to take hold of him and bring him to the elders of his city, to the gate of his hometown. 20 They will say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he doesn’t obey us. He’s a glutton and a drunkard.’ 21 Then all the men of his city will stone him to death. You must purge the evil from you, and all Israel will hear and be afraid.***
Word 6: No murder. V. 13
The Hebrew language has at least eight different words for killing, and the one used here has been chosen carefully. The word “ratzach” (raw-tsakh) is never used in the legal system or in the military. There are other Hebrew words for the execution of a death sentence or for the kind of killing that a soldier does in mortal combat. Nor is the word “ratzach” ever used for hunting and killing animals. What the commandment forbids is not killing, but the unlawful killing of a human being. – Philip Graham Ryken and R. Kent Hughes, Exodus: Saved for God’s Glory (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2005), 616.
Thus, the CSB chooses “murder” instead of the word “kill” that the KJV uses.
“Ratzach” also includes death for negligence or carelessness.
Humans will not flourish where humans are allowed to unlawfully take human life.
The root of being thoroughly pro-life is found in the nature of God, who created life and who alone can take and authorize the taking of life.
The sixth Word does not ban what the law calls for in warfare and legal punishment, and therefore, gives us an indication of what justice looks like in legal and just warfare situations.
Word 7: No adultery. V. 14
Leviticus 20:10 (CSB) 10 “If a man commits adultery with a married woman — if he commits adultery with his neighbor’s wife — both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.
When they brought Jesus the woman who was caught in adultery and Jesus bent down and wrote in the dirt, my hunch is he was writing this verse because if she was “caught” then there should have been a dude there to put to death also.
Adultery is a violation of the one flesh relationship and involves two people either physically or mentally/emotionally.
Jesus sharpened the OT’s definition of adultery by applying it to a man or woman’s thought life. Any man or woman who fantasizes in lust (as distinct from just being tempted) has committed adultery in mind and intention, he taught, even though there is no physical contact (Mt 5:27, 28; cf. Job 31:1, 9). – David H. Field, “Adultery,” in Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1988), 33.
I would argue with Field’s statement here by saying he didn’t sharpen the Old Testament’s definition as much as he spoke to the OT’s intent in the paradigm of husband/wife relationship.
We have had folks argue against Jesus’ making his intent clear in order to justify their response to a particular situation by appealing to the state of Georgia’s definition of adultery for legal prosecution which does not acknowledge Jesus’ intent.
We don’t use the state of Georgia’s definition of adultery for legal prosecution. It’s embarrassing that Christians would appeal to the state of Georgia to justify their decision making.
We go with the Bible, and God’s seventh Word is clear.
Word 8: No stealing. V. 15
“Ganab” (gaw-nab) is the word we translate as “steal”. It means to “carry away”.
“Ganab” covers all conventional types of theft: burglary (breaking into a home or building to commit theft); robbery (taking property directly from another using violence or intimidation); larceny (taking something without permission and not returning it); hijacking (using force to take goods in transit or seizing control of a bus, truck, plane, etc.); shoplifting (taking items from a store during business hours without paying for them); and pickpocketing and purse-snatching. The term “ganab” also covers a wide range of exotic and complex thefts…such as embezzlement (the fraudulent taking of money or other goods entrusted to one’s care). There is extortion (getting money from someone by means of threats or misuses of authority), and racketeering (obtaining money by any illegal means). – Rob Schenck, The Ten Words That Will Change a Nation: The Ten Commandments (Tulsa, OK: Albury, 1999), p. 155.
Stealing dishonors God by denying the value of another person’s property and their right to have personal property. Stealing denies God’s providence toward us by not being content with what he has seen fit to give us in the moment. Stealing fails to trust God’s provision for our needs.
By stealing we violate other people’s boundaries by taking what God has providentially supplied for them and we create a felt lack of safety for them by our actions.
Stealing destroys human flourishing for those who are victims, and it destroys the thief’s capacity to create and propagate righteous economy through earning or creating their own goods, services, or wealth. It short circuits God’s means of production that produce good things in the one who engages in creating and producing by getting to the fruit without having to put in the labor to get the fruit. When we put in the labor to gain, we get more than what we gain in the development of gifts and skills and capacity that will continue to serve us long after we get our first fruits of production.
Word 9: No false testimony. V. 16
The immediate context of the ninth Word is giving false testimony in court against a neighbor, and since Jesus taught us that everyone is our neighbor (Luke 10:25-37), then we should never be a lying witness against someone accused of a crime.
In the absence of forensic evidence back in the day conviction of a crime required testimony. God made sure to build in that a person could not be convicted by the evidence of just one person. God required two to three witnesses for a conviction to take place (Deuteronomy 19:15; 17:6; Numbers 35:30). This was particularly important for capital murder.
In fact, God required the accuser who to throw the first stone when a person was rightly accused and found guilty.
If they found false testimony, then the accuser making lying accusations were to be punished with the punishment they were seeking against the innocent person (Deuteronomy 19:18-19).
Remember, God’s Words are a paradigm of flourishing, so it’s not just false testimony. The wise application to lying in court against a neighbor extends to our lying in any setting about the truth.
So, God prohibits telling falsehood because God is a God of truth.
Whether it is gossip or slander or the embellishment that makes us look better than we actually are, we hinder human flourishing when we embrace the darkness of lies rather than the light of truth.
We don’t have time to deal with the occasions in Scripture where the Lord honored deception in order to prevent evil from winning the day. Understand these are the exceptions when righteous people are in threat of being brought to extinction not the rule when it comes to falsehood (Hebrew midwives, Rahab, Gideon).
Corrie Ten Boom would have to wrestle with this challenge inside her family as some valued complete transparency with the Germans occupiers while Corrie was engaged in levels of deception in order to save Jewish folks from concentration camps.
We can’t take the survival of humans from the hands of evil and equate that with my desire to advance my personal agenda.
Word 10: No coveting. V 17
Luke 12:15 (ESV) 15 And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”
Coveting is an all-consuming passion to have something that belongs to someone else. We covet when we set our passion on something that is not rightfully ours.
Coveting is ultimately an issue of being discontent with the sovereignty of God to entrust me with what I currently have.
Coveting pits us against others in a way that can create envy and bitterness toward someone which will result in bitterness toward God.
Coveting unchecked can lead to theft and even murder in the most extreme situation.
Application
- Human flourishing is maximized within the boundaries of the Decalogue, so don’t avoid them.
- Set them as boundaries that lead to your temporal and eternal delight in God, enjoyment of others, and maximizing your own potential.
- Let the Decalogue be a guide to keeping yourself in check as you engage your domain, get neck-deep in disrupting evil systems (replacing them with good systems), and preaching the good news to the lost.
- Being on the front lines comes with the hazard of temptation to mail our ethical framework in and violate God’s holy standards.
- Keep God’s framework as a check against that temptation.
- Let the Decalogue help you see where you need to apply the salt and light of the gospel in your domain.
- Let it be a diagnostic to help you uncover darkness and evil that need to be confronted.
- Help each other stay in check by applying the Decalogue to our hearts by asking loving and tough questions of each other in accountability to one another as sons and daughters of God.
- Do this with people you have a relationship with, not someone you’ve never spoken to.
- Remember, we don’t apply the Decalogue to get acceptance, but we apply it because we are accepted in Christ, and we want to flourish and live as children of God.