The Ten Commandments: A Meditation on Exodus 20, for the 3rd Sunday in Lent

When Luther wrote his catechisms during the Reformation period, he had several objectives in mind.  As a theologian, doctor of Holy Scripture, and tip of the spear for articulating Biblical truth against the ridiculous accretions of man-made philosophies in his time, he was certainly able to present wonderfully complex arguments.  His published works on the Freedom of a Christian, his Commentary on Galatians, and his Babylonian Captivity of the Church are only a few of his marvelous treatises.  In fact, the full set of his writings have not yet been translated into English, but Concordia Publishing House is currently offering up through volume 77.  Luther, however, was not interested in his catechisms being complex works of theological might.  Rather, he wanted to give the people simple digests of the Word of God which could be quickly committed to memory, and deeply meditated upon for the entire life of the Christian.  Luther was even given to say, that he himself would never tire of meditating and praying upon the catechism—not because he wrote it, but because of the fundamental and eternal truths of Scripture which it contained.

At the beginning of his catechism are the Ten Commandments, taken from Exodus chapter 20.  Luther was a scholar well versed in Biblical Hebrew and Greek (he translated the entire Bible into his native German) but he saw, as many other church fathers before him, a succinct summary of God’s Law in these Ten Commandments.  One of the brilliant insights Luther had during his time, was that while people managed to confuse and complicate God’s Law endlessly, adding to it or subtracting from it to please their own appetites or intellects, God is actually quite clear in what he demands of human beings.  As Moses came down Mount Sinai with the Law and read it to the people, there was no confusion about exactly what God expected of them.  While these Ten Commandments received certain expanded treatment throughout the books of Moses, the Law itself was simple and fundamental (so much so, that Jesus could summarize it perfectly as complete love of God and selfless love of neighbor.)  Here is that simple Law:

You shall have no other Gods.

You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

You shall remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy

Honor your father and your mother

You shall not murder

You shall not commit adultery

You shall not steal

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor

You shall not covet your neighbor’s house

You shall not covet your neighbors wife,

manservant or maidservant, ox or donkey,

or anything that is your neighbor’s.

To this Law, God adds both blessing and curse:

For I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the

iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and

fourth generation of them that hate me; And

shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and

keep my commandments.

Understanding both God’s Law and its corresponding blessings and curses is critical for the Christian, or for anyone who would desire to be a Christian.  To know what God expects of His creation, and the judgment God offers relative to those expectations, describes the fundamental relationship between God and men.  Scripture teaches us that there is only one God, and we are not Him—rather, we are His creatures, and we are accountable to Him as the Creator.

A little meditation upon this simple and fundamental Law will by necessity reveal some very simple and fundamental truths about ourselves.  We are guilty, both in part and in whole.  We have not loved God above all things, and made idols of things we trust more than Him.  We used the Lord’s name shamelessly, as we wear it upon ourselves, yet live in ways that profane Him.  We scorn preaching and the sacraments on the Lord’s Day, often hoping to get out of it as soon as possible, even if we go.  We have not honored our fathers and mothers, nor many other appointed authorities in society.  We have murdered each other through hatred and unforgiveness.  We have become adulterers and fornicators, perverting God’s good gift of sex by our thoughts, words, and deeds.  We have taken what is not ours, when we should have protected our neighbor’s goods.  We have taken our neighbor’s honor and good name, when we should have protected it.  We have lusted after our neighbor’s estate and his people, desiring them for ourselves.  We are wicked and evil before the Law of God, finding in that glaring and unsparing light of righteousness, that we are the inheritors of the curse.  We are fallen, unable to return to a state of grace.  We are broken, dead, and dying, in desperate need of a Savior.

This is the chief work of God’s Law in this sinful world:  to show us our sin, and to lead us to our need for a Savior.  It strips us bare of our presumptions and pride, revealing us for the broken and rightfully damned people we really are. In the Law we see God’s holiness, and reflected in that perfect mirror is our own lack of holiness.  Before God and His Law, we find that there is none who is righteous—no, not even one.  Here before the tutelage of the Law, we learn our lesson well:  on our own strength, works, intelligence, cleverness, merit, or good intentions, we have no hope at all.

But the Law as our school master serves more than simply slaying us.  It points us to our absolute and total need for a Savior.  In this glaring and terrifying light, we learn that Jesus is our only hope, our only salvation, and our only life.  In the holy and righteous Law of God we are sent fleeing to the wonderful grace, mercy, and forgiveness of His everlasting Gospel.  For in Jesus, and Him alone, is the full weight of the curse poured out for our transgressions, so that by His stripes we may be healed.  There, at the foot of His Cross, we find not only the payment of the curse for our sins, but the forgiveness and justification which come through His shed blood for sinners like you and I.  In His resurrection we find the promise of our own triumph over sin and death, as He extends to us the Gospel promises of a Law fully satisfied.  In Jesus alone we find the fullness of the curse atoned, and the fullness of the promise extended.

It is in this Gospel grace that the Christian rests, knowing by faith that God is reconciled to him through the blood of His Only Begotten Son.  In this wonderful life of forgiveness, blessing, and hope, the Christian can now turn his eyes back to the Law as a remembrance and a guide.  No longer under the curse of the Law, we can embrace and love it for the holy thing that it is, and the holy reflection of our holy God who saves us.  The Law becomes something we can love and pursue, rather than something we fear and flee from.  Forgiven and free by grace through faith in Christ alone, enlivened by His Holy Spirit, we can by faith strive to love God with our whole heart, soul, strength and mind, and love our neighbors as our ourselves.  We strive not for the promises and blessings of the Law (already won for us in Christ,) nor do we strive to avoid the penalties and curses of the Law (already paid for us in Christ).  Rather we respond in love, keeping the Law with all our strength, because of the love first poured out to us through our Savior Jesus Christ.  The Law becomes swallowed up in the love of God worked out through His Gospel, so that we might be raised up in Jesus to live out the good works of faith He has preordained for us from before the foundation of the world.

In this penitential season, hear the Word of the Lord as it comes to you in both Law and Gospel, letting it have its way with you:  that the Spirit of the Living God might slay you in your sins, stripping you of any deluded hope that you may save yourself, only then to raise you up to an eternal newness of life by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.  Amen.