Bethany and Concordia

In our catechism we talk about the three ways that God uses His moral Law by using three metaphors or comparisons. Most importantly, He uses His Law as a mirror, which shows us our sinfulness and need for a savior. Also of great importance, He uses His law as a curb upon the evil in the whole world, since it is written upon the hearts of everyone to a limited degree. Finally, God guides Christians with His Law in the ways we are to live as His redeemed children. This is necessary because Christians still have the sinful flesh as long as we live, which obscures and confuses our knowledge of God’s will.

Strictly speaking, the Ten Commandments as found in the Bible were given to the children of Israel, and not to us. However, Jesus confirmed that they describe the way God would have us live, with the exception that the Third Commandment no longer requires a specific day of the week as the Sabbath. Seventh-day Adventists object to this, wishing to retain the meaning of the Third Commandment as it applied to the Israelites. They fail to understand that this aspect of the Third Commandment is not part of God’s universal will for all people (moral law), but His instructions for the worship life of the Jews (ceremonial law), and as such it is fulfilled for us all by Jesus Christ and superceded by faith in Him (Colossians 2:16-17). That does not make it wrong to observe the Sabbath on Saturdays, but it is wrong to insist that every Christian do so.

So in the distinction between the ceremonial and moral law, we can see a difference between God’s will for the behavior of Israelites and for Gentiles. Still, a similar difference also exists in connection with the Ten Commandments. Since Jesus has fulfilled all of them in our place, our righteousness before God is found entirely in Him. Since He gave His life to suffering and death in payment for our disobedience, the Ten Commandments have no more power to condemn those who trust in the Gospel. So Jesus has not only separated us from the ceremonial law, but also from the moral law, though in a different way. It means that Christians can understand and use the Ten Commandments without fear of punishment or condemnation. In Jesus, we no longer have any guilt. He has freed us to live without the intolerable burden of God’s conditional favor: “If you obey My commandments, I will consider you to be righteous.” Now, we are already righteous, entirely through the obedience of Jesus.

With the freedom we have from the Law, we now have a different relationship to the Ten Commandments. They become more precious, because they describe the will of a gracious and loving God. We can approach them with a confidence that as long as we remain in our baptismal grace, they cannot condemn us. So when God says, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain,” we can see more clearly, and more readily admit those times when our personal behavior has not met His righteous expectations.

In Jesus Christ, we can say, “Yes, I have taken God’s name in vain today. I have cursed another in my heart and used His name to decieve another person. Moreover, I have relied upon my own strength in time of trouble, failing to call upon His name, and I have thanklessly taken the credit for my deliverance from trouble. For these things I need God’s forgiveness.” Such an admission is what we call repentance. It’s possible for Christians only because we know that Jesus has obtained forgiveness for us, and God is ready to pronounce that forgiveness upon us at any time we need it.

Sometimes, we may feel the terror of God’s condemnation upon our guilt, but repentance is not necessarily like that. Often, the terror of our guilt is still far away because we still know that Jesus is our savior from sin and death, and the accusations of the devil cannot penetrate our faith in that fact. It may seem unnecessary, in that case, to acknowledge our faults and repent of them, but repentance is always necessary. Faith in Jesus exists only inasmuch as we trust that He is our savior from sin — from the guilt of our own sins. That’s the essence of the Gospel. So in order to have faith in Jesus, to be a Christian, we need to repent. In order to repent, we must have some guilt to acknowledge. God builds our faith with the Gospel, which can only be received through repentance, which in turn can only exist where there is guilt. Understanding this, we can be confident that Jesus has delivered us from God’s wrath, while simultaneously and freely repenting of our many sins that should have incurred that wrath.

When we fail to acknowledge our sins before God, claiming or thinking that we have actually kept one or more of God’s commandments, then we have not rightly understood the demands of His Law in relation to our thoughts, words, and deeds. In that case, we become self-righteous, and that excludes faith. We become unbelievers again, and are in peril of eternal punishment if we should die during that time. An important duty of a pastor is to remind his congregants of their sins, and even to confront those who may have become impenitent with the real danger of God’s punishment in hell. Naturally, we don’t enjoy hearing such a message, but only through that message can we recall our utter need for a Savior.

Beside the spiritual application of the Ten Commandments, Christians also find that they describe a blessed life on earth. Though we can’t keep any of the Commandments as perfectly as they demand, many people (even unbelievers) can live righteous lives outwardly to some degree. Those who do become a blessing to other people, and are themselves blessed in many ways. Those blessings do not equate to “the easy life,” because Christians always live under the shadow of Jesus’ cross, bearing crosses of their own. However, it becomes clear that those who disregard God’s commandments create much more trouble and suffering for themselves and others. So the Ten Commandments, as a summary of the way God would have people live, describe an excellent foundation for a civil society. One does not have to be a Christian or a Jew to see this, or to benefit from it, because God has hidden an echo of His Law in the heart of every human being.

To help you continue to grow in faith, I recommend that you read the Large Catechism on the Ten Commandments, where Dr. Luther explains in detail what each commandment means. You might read about only one commandment each day, and meditate upon Jesus’ fulfillment of that commandment for you, and the ways in which your life continues to make His work necessary for your salvation. You might also wish to think about the way each commandment might be a blessing upon civil society on earth when its members endeavor to live outwardly moral lives, according to God’s will.