Law-Dt 5:1-33

Deuteronomy 5:1-33; Key Verse: Dt 5:6, 29

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you…out of the land of slavery.” “Oh, that their hearts wouldbe inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always, so that it might go well with them and their children forever!”

Theme: (1) There is no greater grace than when God delivers us from a life of slavery. (2) Grace always precedes the Law (Ten Commandments, “ten words,” the Decalogue). Law follows Grace. The Law is preceded by the Gospel.

Some questions for reflection:

1. Can you articulate the grace of God to you?
2. Can you explain how bondage to slavery feels like?
3. Does the grace of God touch and move your heart at a deep level?
4. Do you feel burdened by the Ten Commandments? Why?

The Ten Commandments “don’t work.” When you hear, “Keep your heart pure,” your response and reaction would likely not be purity, but the very opposite of purity!

If we are truly honest with ourselves, we know that we break the Ten Commandments every day without a second thought. Then we might dispair at our inability or try not to think about it so as not to feel bad about ourselves. Or worse, we become a Pharisee. Because we think that we agree with and keep the Ten Commandments outwardly (shallowly), we judge and despise those “shameless fornicators and adulterers” who do not. So we either condemn ourselves for breaking the Ten Commandments, or we condemn others for doing so. It should be clear (though it is often not clear) from the Bible that God did not give the Ten Commandments as a rule of law for us to keep, for God knows that we are unable to. No one can live according to the Ten Commandments. The one who thinks he is may be a most unfortunate person like the rich young ruler who lacked the one most important thing in life (Mk 10:21; Lk 18:22; Mt 19:21). What is not clear to many people, including Christians, is what precedes the Ten Commandments. After several decades of reading and studying the Bible I never realized that the grace of God preceeded the Ten Commandments (Dt 5:6; Ex 20:2)!

12 Years A Slave. Because slavery has been abolished for many years, most of us do not realize just how brutal and inhumane slavery is. A slave has zero rights. A slave must always do what their master demands. The best scenario for a slave is that they have a kind master. The most unfortunate slave is one with a cruel angry heartless master. Furthermore, there is no possible legal human way for a slave to ever be freed. This causes utter hopelessness. As a result, death may be preferable to living as a slave. The movie 12 Years a Slave grapphically and viscerally depicts just how horrifying slavery is. It is hard to watch the movie without being deeply disturbed and horrifed. One who is a slave wants nothing more than to be delivered from slavery. When the Israelites were slaves in Egypt their cries and groaning in misery because of their slavery went up to God (Ex 2:23). In his compassion God heard their cries and delivered them (Dt 5:6, 15; 15:15). There is no greater act of love and kindness than when God delivered the Israelites from slavery.

Deuteronomy 5 may be considered in three parts:

1. Grace (Dt 5:1-6): I am the Lord who redeemed you from slavery (Dt 5:6).
2. Law (Dt 5:7-22): Love God and love your neighbor (Mt 22:37-39; Mk 12:30-31).
3. Response (Dt 5:23-33): We will listen and obey (Dt 5:27).

Intro: Deuteronomy consists of three addresses (speeches/sermons) by Moses. Over the last four weeks, the first speech (Dt 1:1-4:43) was preached under the themes of Sin (Dt 1:1-46), Leadership (Dt 1:9-18), Faith (Dt 2:1-3:29), and Obedience (Dt 4:1-49). Moses’ second speech, the bulk of Deuteronomy, is from Dt 4:44 – 28:68. Dt 4:44 – 11:32 are the general covenant stipulations. Dt 12:1 – 26:19 are the detailed stipulations and instructions.

1. Grace(Dt 5:1-6)

The Ten Commandments begin with the grace of deliverance. Dt 5:1-21 contains the laws that Israel was to keep in the land they were about to enter. The Ten Commandments stand at the beginning of all other laws. The beginning of the Ten Commandments reads, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the land of slavery” (Dt 5:6; Ex 20:2).

Grace precedes the Law. God saved Israel before he gave them his law to follow. God rescued Israel not because of their obedience to the law but because of his promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Ex 3:15-16). Israel’s deliverance was not because of their obedience to the law but because God saw their affliction and cared enough to deliver them from their suffering to an abundant life (Ex 3:7-8). This truth provides the context in which to read the whole of Deuteronomy 5-26. This gospel rhythm provides the context in which we carry out our obedience to God. Law follows grace. We obey from, not for, God’s favor.

Hear and obey (Dt 5:1). “Moses summoned all Israel and said: ‘Hear, Israel, the decrees and laws I declare in your hearing today. Learn them and be sure to follow them'” (Dt 5:1). In the Ancient Near East, the verb “hear” appears with the sense of “obey.” As with Dt 4:1, Moses declares the goal of his address: “the laws are to be learned and rigorously applied.” This is reminiscent of Gen 18:19 where God calls on Abraham’s descendants to “keep the way of the Lord by doing justice and righteousness.”

Do you hear God’s voice? (Dt 5:2-5) In the original covenant at Horeb (Dt 5:2), the entire preceding generation broke their covenant (Dt 1:19-40; 9:7-21) and died out during the wilderness wandering. The heard God’s voice, yet failed to hear him because of the hardness of their hearts. But God’s offer remains. God had spoken to the people in the midst of the fire (Dt 5:4) and also through Moses (Dt 5:5). The revelation at Sinai thus involves two dimentions: direct divine speech and mediated divine speech. Our God is a communicating deity who speaks in a language humans can understand. God’s revelation of himself is always a gracious act of self-disclosure, climaxing in the incarnation (Jn 1:14; Heb 1:2).

The Law is founded on God’s saving grace (Dt 5:6). The Ten Commandments are given after God “brought (them) out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery” (Dt 5:6b). God took the initiative to save the Israelites before giving them the Law. The Law is not intended to enslave but to enhance the liberated life. People think that in the OT salvation is by works and in the NT salvation is by grace through faith. But grace was operating and primary in both the OT and NT. The OT is a story of God’s redemptive history. God first saves us, and the laws are a consequence of that salvation. They help us continue in the life with which God has gifted us. Thus, our obedience to the Law, the Ten Commandments is a joyous response to the God who has loved and redeemed us.

All other religions…the gods shows people how to live, and that way of life is primary to the religion. People often think that all religions teach basically the same thing: how to be good. But Christianity is founded on God’s saving grace and his acts of redemption. The Law flows from God’s saving acts. Law follows gospel.

1. Law(Dt 5:7-22)

“Thou shall not…” Some people think that Christianity is just no fun at all because of the Ten Commandments with all of their imposing “Thou shall not’s…” Christians also seem to be known more for what they are against, than for what they are for. Does that mean that we Christians should rid ourselves of the Ten Commandments (since it is unpopular and also that we are now under grace)? What most people do not know or realize, both Christians and non-Christians, is that what precedes the Ten Commandments is the grace of God.

The basis of ethics produced by the finger of God. In Christian tradition the Decalogue has been elevated above all the rest of the Torah as the essence of God’s moral law, permantly and universally valod as the basis of ethics, in stark contrast to the rest of the laws, which have little or no relevance for us. Produced by the finger of God, it was the official covenant document. It reduced the divine will to ten statements that could be easily memorized and recited in a liturgical setting.

What is the Christian today to make of the Ten Commandments? In seeking to answer this question, keep in mind the following considerations:

1. Addressed to the redeemed. The ten principles of covenant relationship was revealed to the people of God (not to the Egyptians or canaanites), chosen by grace to represent him and proclaim his grace and glory among the nations. The Law (including the Decalogue) was not a way of salvation nor a burdensome obligation. It was a gracious gift, a guide to God’s people so that they might knowingly respond to his grace according to his will. The Ten Commandments was the charter of freedom which God had presented to his people delivered from slavery in Egypt. The people received it not as a burden, but as a gift, which was seen as a privilege and as an occasion of thanks. (Therefore to enforce the Decalogue in public schools or courthouses are fundamentally misplaced. The problem with many people is not that they do not keep the Ten Commandments, but that they have never left Egypt. It is unrealistic and unbiblical to expect the unredeemed to live according to the Law. They have neigther the motivation nor the indwelling Spirit to empower them to do so.)
2. Covenant relationship. The terms of the Decalogue are revealed within the context of the establishment of a covenant relationship. God brought Israel to himself before he brought the laws to them (Ex 19:4-6). The Israelites were not called primarily to follow a code conduct but to enter a relationship with God (“I am the Lord your God“). Apart from the experience of salvation and covenant relationship, insistence on obedience to the “Ten Commands” is sheer moralism.

Jesus shows us how to understand the Decalogue. Jesus reduced the revealed will of God to the simple command, “Love God…and your neighbor as yourself” (Mt 22:37-39; Mk 12:30-31). Jesus captured both the essence and the heart of all the law. True godliness is demonstrated by acts of covenant commitment that seek the pleasure of God and the well-being of others.

III. Response (Dt 5:23-33)

This part can be divided as follows:

1. The people’s voice (Dt 5:23-27): Fear.
2. God’s voice (Dt 5:28-31): Longing.
3. Moses’ voice (Dt 5:32-6:3): Exhortation.

(1) The people’s fear. The people’s response to God revealing himself at Horeb (Dt 5:23-24) is the fear of dying by God’s great fire consuming them and by hearing God’s voice (Dt 5:25-26). They request that Moses be their mediator and that they would “listen and obey” whatever God tells them.

(2) God’s longing. God’s response to the people’s proposal was his expressed wish that they would never lose their present reverential disposition toward him. God says, “Oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always, so that it might go well with them and their children forever!” (Dt 5:29) God’s longing for constancy of devotion reveals the fundamental depravity of the human heart. God (and Moses) know only too well how short-lived will be the Israelites’ fearful disposition. In Dt 10:16, Moses calls them to circumcise their hearts, yet this too involves a divine act of grace (Dt 30:6). People with hearts of stone rebel against God and insist on their own ways, while those with circumcised hearts fear God and walk in his ways.

(3) Moses’ exhortation. Moses the mediator seized the opportunity to exhort the people to a life of obedience (Dt 5:32-33; 6:1-3). If they stay on course, they will reach the threefold goal of life: well-being and length of days in the land they are to possess (Dt 5:33).

Slavery is our human condition. A slave is in a helpless, hopeless, desperate, abandoned situation with no possibility of freedom, and who is at the complete disposal of their master. But by a mighty hand, God delivered his people from bondage to slavery in Egypt (Dt 5:6, 5:15; 15:15; 24:18). Our human condition before Christ is like one who is in bondage to sin, whatever our sin of choice may be (cowardice, fear, anger, bitterness, resentment, greed, lust, laziness, various idolatries, etc). In our bondage to slavery, like real slaves, we were helpless to ever be free from sin’s slavish bondage.

To deliver us from slavery, an Innocent One had to be enslaved. Yet, by his mercy and grace, God redeemed us from bondage to slavery. But the cost was great. There was One who is innocent, yet He became like one who is unclearn, like one who is covered with sin and shame. Though he was free, he became like a slave in bondage and suffered like one in bondage. On the cross, he experienced what slaves experience: helplessness, hopelessness, torture, injustice, insults, beatings, blaming, abandonment until his flesh and his body was ripped apart unto death. Yet, his death in the injustice of slavery as an innocent man, brought forth our deliverance from slavery into freedom. This is the grace of God.

Why the Law? As stated earlier, the Law was never intended to enslave one to the Law but to enhance the liberated life. The Law was given not as a burdensome imposition, but to help us remember the grace of the God who redeemed us from our horrific life of slavery. The Law was never inteneded to bind us to a code of conduct but to deepen our covenant relationship with God.

May God bless you to remember and never forget the grace of God who delivered you from a life of slavery. May you then love the Law not as a moralistic legalistic Pharisee but as a lover of the One who delivered you.

References:

1. Block, Daniel I. Deuteronomy: The NIV Application Commentary. Grand Rapids: Zondervan. 2012.
2. Fernando, Ajith. Deuteronomy: Loving Obedience to a Loving God. Wheaton: Crossway. 2012.
3. Woods, Edward J. Deuteronomy: An Introduction and Commentary (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries). Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press. 2011.