Christ and the Ten Commandments

I’m sure that you were as shocked as I was by the unforgettable images that came out of Los Angeles this week. Those scenes of brutality and senseless violence reminded me of the great capacity for evil that lies just under the surface of every human being.

I watched as whole families drove up to supermarkets and shopping malls in their cars and actually stood in line to loot the stores. They went in and scooped up armloads of clothing, electronic equipment; anything they could get their hands on. In many cases they brought their children along to help carry the goods.

In some locations, the police were nowhere to be found, so store owners had to try to protect their property themselves. Some of them went to shocking extremes. I will never forget the pictures of two store owners calmly walking through the streets shooting at the looters with handguns. In other places, the police stood nearby and looked the other way, fearful of stopping the looters lest they start a riot.

One TV camera crew approached a woman who was loading stolen clothing and groceries into the trunk of her car. The reporter asked her if she would describe what she was doing as wrong. I’ll never forget her reply. She said “No, it can’t be wrong. If it was wrong, they would have stopped us.”

If it was wrong, they would have stopped us. I think, unwittingly, that woman described what many people today believe about right and wrong. Right is whatever you can get away with. Wrong is getting caught.

So it must be alright to loot a department store as long as the cops look the other way. But by that same perverse logic, it must be just as right for four police officers to beat a black man senseless as long as a jury is willing to look the other way. Somewhere in there, you lose the concept of real justice. And without justice as an absolute, you have anarchy.

That’s the kind of world we were given a glimpse of last week in L.A. A world of anarchy. A world where everybody does what it right in his own eyes. A world where justice is decided by whoever has the upper hand. And that’s a pretty scary world to live in.

Los Angeles and Mount Sinai don’t seem to have a lot in common. They are separated by about 7,500 miles of geography and 3,400 years of history. But the events of this past week show that those two places are really tied together by a very important question: Who’s going to determine what’s right and wrong? Who’s going to define truth and justice? Who’s going to establish the absolutes?

I think it should be obvious by now that we, as human beings, are not capable of deciding those issues for ourselves. We are so quick to twist the truth to our own advantage. We find it so easy to ignore evil when it’s convenient to do so. Although we all have a keen sense of justice when we ourselves have been done wrong, we’re not so quick to stand up for the other guy.

3,400 years ago, a man named Moses stood on a mountain peak in the Sinai peninsula and took with trembling hands two stone tablets on which God had written the Ten Commandments. What exactly did he receive from God that day?

He received a set of absolutes. He received a capsule definition of right and wrong from the creator of the universe. The human race did not somehow morally evolve until we arrived at the positions represented by the Ten Commandments. These moral absolutes came from above, they came from the King of Righteousness himself.

In giving us the Law, God was revealing to us what true righteousness is. He was giving us a glimpse of his character. And he was also giving us the standard by which he was going to judge us.

You see, God is holy. Sin is an absolute contradiction of his nature. He is morally perfect. If we’re ever going to have fellowship with him, we’re going to have to be that way, too. And that’s where we’ve got a problem.

When God gave Moses the Ten Commandments, he certainly wasn’t giving him a do it yourself kit called How to Get to Heaven in Ten Easy Steps. But a lot of people have thought of the Ten Commandments that way in the years since. They have thought that by simply trying to keep the Ten Commandments, you would go to heaven; you would be right with God. The only problem is that the Ten Commandments are not possible to keep.

Which one of us has never told a lie? Which one of us has never coveted something that belonged to someone else? Which one of us has truly and consistently given God first place in our lives? None of us has. Yet the Bible says that if you break just one of God’s laws, you’re guilty of having broken them all.

So the Ten Commandments can never get us to heaven. Is that because there’s something wrong with the Ten Commandments? No. It’s because there’s something wrong with us. Paul said in Romans 7:14 “the Law is spiritual, but I am unspiritual.” The Law can’t get me to heaven because the Law is dependent upon me to keep it.

My mother often used to make roast beef for us for Sunday dinner. She’d put the roast in the oven and we’ll all go to church. When the preacher ended on time, we’d have roast beef medium-rare. When he was long-winded, we’d have roast beef well-done. One Sunday, my mother forgot to turn the oven on, and we had roast beef raw!

But suppose we came home from church, and the preacher had gone way overtime, and the roast was really well-done, almost overcooked. My mother would rush to the oven and take out the roast pan. Then she would stick a fork in it to pull it out of the pan. But the meat was so well-cooked that the fork just wouldn’t hold it. She tried again and again to get the roast out of the pan with the fork, but it just wouldn’t come. The fork wasn’t the problem; it was strong enough to hold the meat. The problem was that the meat was too weak to hold the fork.

Paul, in Romans 8:3, tells us that the Law is powerless to save us because it is weakened by our sinful nature. The Law can hold us, but we can’t hold the Law.

So, knowing that we are sinful creatures, God had to have something different in mind when he gave us the Ten Commandments.

Have you ever been driving in your car and made a wrong turn into a one-way street? You’re driving along and all of a sudden, you notice that all the parked cars are facing the other way! Then you come to an intersection and you notice a sign on a lamppost with an arrow pointing the opposite way. That’s when you realize that you’re going the wrong way.

That’s what the Ten Commandments are for. God gave them to us to tell us that we’re going the wrong way. They are there to tell us that we’re sinners, and if we’re ever going to be right with God, we’re going to have to get turned around.

Paul said “If it weren’t for God’s Law, I never would have really understood what sin is. I thought I was doing ok, going in the right direction, until I really started to examine God’s Law. Then I realized that I was going the wrong way.”

But did simply knowing that fact make Paul turn around? No. He couldn’t turn around by himself. None of us can. Our steering wheel is locked, you see. All we can do is go down that street the wrong way, getting further and further away from God in the process. We see the direction signs going by, pointing us in the other direction, and we say “Yeah, I know I’m going the wrong way, and I’m really trying to get turned around. I’m really trying to get my life straightened out.” And the more we do that, the further away we get.

Paul tried harder than anybody. He was a Pharisee. He had made it his life’s ambition to live according to God’s law. And all it got him was further away from God. He was a bitter, angry man when we meet him in the book of Acts. He stood by while they stoned Stephen. He hunted down the Christians and arrested them and had them executed. And he thought he was doing God’s work. But he was getting further and further away from God. Until he met Jesus Christ.

When Jesus Christ came, some people thought he had come to do away with the Law. But he said “No, I have not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.”

The Law is the perfect expression of God’s righteousness. It’s God’s standard for truth and justice. It’s absolute. It’s not going to change. God hasn’t changed his mind about any of the things written in the Ten Commandments. Jesus didn’t come to do away with the Law. He came to fulfill it.

But how did he do that? Two ways:

#1 - he lived a perfect life. His life was a living fulfilment of the Ten Commandments. He was the first and last and only person to ever live his whole life without breaking any of the Ten Commandments.

He said “I have come to do your will, O God.” And that meant more than just to die on the cross. That meant to live out God’s will in every area of life. In every relationship. In all that he did, his life was a perfect expression of God’s righteousness.

#2 - he paid the Law’s penalty on behalf of everyone who ever broke the Law. You see, the Law says that when you sin, when you break God’s law, you pay for it with your life. You can’t have fellowship with God. And not to have fellowship with God is death - more than just physical death, it’s spiritual death - eternal separation from God.

That’s the consequence of sin. And we’re all under that penalty, because we’ve all, at one point or another, broken God’s law. But along comes Jesus, who has lived a perfect life. He’s not under that penalty. In fact, he’s the only person who’s not under that penalty. And he steps forward and says “I will pay the penalty on behalf of all those who deserve it. I will exchange my righteousness for their guilt. I will take it all on myself. And I will give them my righteousness in exchange.”

Now we’re talking about two kinds of righteousness here. There’s earned righteousness, which is the kind you get when you keep the Ten Commandments. And we’ve just seen that the only person who ever succeeded at getting earned righteousness was Jesus Christ. But then there’s another kind of righteousness. There’s bestowed righteousness, which you can get given to you by somebody who has the right to give it.

Maybe this illustration will help. In academic circles, there are two kinds of doctorates. There’s an earned doctorate. To get an earned doctorate, you have to complete a required course of study that takes several years. You have to pay several thousands of dollars in tuition fees. You have to attend classes and seminars. You have to pass all your tests. You have to write a doctoral dissertation and defend it before an examining committee. And when you’ve done all those things, the university will award you a Ph.D. You’ve got an earned doctorate.

Now when it comes to righteousness, the only person who has an earned doctorate is Jesus Christ, because he’s the only one who completed the curriculum. The rest of us dropped out somewhere back in the first two weeks of class!

But there’s another kind of doctorate. It’s called an honorary doctorate. The university can, for whatever reason it chooses, confer upon a person an honorary doctorate. You don’t have to enroll in that university. You don’t even have to set foot on their campus. You don’t have to attend classes or write examinations or defend a dissertation. The board of chancellors of the university simply sends you a beautiful letter inviting you to come to the commencement exercises, where they will put upon you the robe and cap of a doctor and give you a sheepskin that says Ph.D.

When you receive what Jesus did for you in dying on the cross, he gives you an honorary doctor of righteousness degree. He has the right to do that. It’s his prerogative. God gave him degree-granting privileges.

Now here’s the point. Unless you let Jesus do that for you, you will never see God. You’ve got to realize that if you are depending upon getting an earned doctorate in righteousness by keeping the Ten Commandments, you’re never going to make it. You’ve already been disqualified. Your doctoral dissertation is full of holes. God’s never going to accept it, because it is far beneath his standards. There’s only one way in, and that’s through Jesus.

Now when you accept Jesus by faith, you get an honorary doctor of righteousness degree. You are now right with God.

Romans 5:1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

But then something funny happens. Just because you have an honorary doctor of righteousness degree doesn’t mean that you turn into Joe Perfect overnight. But God begins to work on you and He starts teaching you what his righteousness is really all about.

Before, when you were still working on your earned doctorate, you really didn’t understand what true righteousness was all about. But now that you’ve given all that up and let Jesus make you righteous, now you start really getting the hang of it.

Paul says in Romans 8:4 that now that you are living according to the Spirit, the righteous requirements of the Law begin to be fully met in your life. Before, when you were trying to do it under your own steam, you couldn’t keep the Law anymore than a crocodile could sing soprano. But now that you’ve got the Spirit of God living in you, you’re doing it.

This is where the Ten Commandments really come into their own. Let me repeat an illustration I gave you several months ago.

If you wanted to enroll in the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD., you would have to be nominated for appointment to the Academy by your Senator or Congressman. Each Senator and each Congressman nominates a very limited number of candidates from his state or district for appointment to the Academy each year. Now let’s say that you are fortunate enough to be both nominated and appointed to the Naval Academy.

That gives you the privilege of getting a first class education all expenses paid, and receive a small salary as well. All your uniforms, all your books, all your supplies are paid for. On graduation, you’ll receive a Bachelor of Science degree, and a commission in the U.S. Navy. In return, you’ll belong to the Navy for the next five years of your life.

Upon your appointment to the Academy, you’ll receive a packet of information telling you what you’ll need to get ready to start classes: a Student Handbook, a description of life as a midshipman, some of the rules and regulations of the Academy, what personal belongings you should bring along with you, etc.. The Registrar’s Office will tell you to show up at the front gate on August 15, 1992, ready to begin.

Now what would happen if you really wanted to attend the U.S. Naval Academy, but you didn’t bother to petition your Senator or your Congressman for a nomination. You simply went ahead on the strength of your shool record and you made plans to attend the Academy. Your got all your stuff together and on August 15, you presented yourself at the front gate of the Academy, with your suitcase and your books and your personal belongings, ready to enroll.

Do you think they would let you in? Not on your life! You are lacking the most important thing - without that letter of nomination, signed by your Senator or Congressman, you can’t get appointed. And without that appointment, you can’t get in! In spite of all your plans and preparations, you will not be going to the U.S. Naval Academy!

In the same way, we cannot earn our way into heaven by keeping the Ten Commandments. Admission into heaven is by appointment only.

Acts 13:48 …all who were appointed for eternal life believed.

Only Jesus can appoint us to heaven. Only by his good name, written on our lives in his blood, can we get in. If only people would realize that fact! Eternal life isn’t based on what we do. It isn’t based on our best intentions, or our hopes, or our dreams, or our moral performance. It’s based on what Jesus did for us when he died on the cross. All we can do is to receive what he did for us. All we can do is to ask him to appoint us to heaven on the strength of his good name.

But once we receive Jesus, and we receive our appointment, then he begins to prepare us for heaven. He begins to enable us to live the way that God wants us to live. He begins to shape us into people who will be citizens of his kingdom. That’s where the Ten Commandments come in. The Ten Commandments form the ten chapters of our Student Handbook. We don’t follow them to gain admission; we follow them because we’ve been admitted.

God bless you as you seek to live for him!