The First Table - Introduction

How would beat my name my kingdom Come, that will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one, because Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. Amen, Please open again to Exodus chapter twenty, Exodus chapter twenty, and as we've come to this place and the Exodus, and as we now examine the Decalogue, as we examine these ten words, these ten Commandments. There are going to be several weeks of introduction and overview because it is critical that we understand what the Ten Commandments are, that we understand where the Ten Commandments fit, not just within the context of Exodus, but within the context of redemptive history as a whole. Where do they fit for us? What do they mean to us and to all men? On last week, Stephen gave us that broad overview of the Ten Commandments and how they fit. What I want to do this week is to give us a kind of overview, overview of the structure of the Ten Commandments and what we're looking at here it's easy for us to look at the Ten Commandments as just these ten words, these ten rules, and here's a circumstance, here's a rule, here's another circumstance, here's a rule. This one violates this commandment, and this one violates that commandment. But there is a structure here that is informative. There is a structure here that is helpful. There is a pattern here that helps us bring together the Decalogue as one whole. And that's what we want to see today. Understand this also Steven alluded to this, And over the next several weeks, you'll hear some things again and again and again. And that's okay, because there are some of these things that if we repeat them for the next six weeks, three weeks after that, somebody who's been here will ask us a question that we've covered five times in those six weeks. It just happens that there are some of these things that we just know so well. As Stephen said on last week, there's some of these things that we just know so well that it takes more than once or twice, or three or four or five or six times for us to hear these trewths for it to kind of jar Us away from what we're assuming, because oftentimes we hear what we assume. One of the things that we need to be reminded of is that one of the great distinctions between reformed Christians and other evangelicals is the fact that we believe in and hold to the perpetuity of the moral law. That's one of the distinctions. The word reformed is thrown around so loosely today, where anybody who believes in, for example, the tulip, anybody who, as it relates to soulteriology or salvation, who could be characterized as a Calvinist, is called reformed. And this is not true. There are some characteristics of reformed Christians that go beyond being five point Calvinists. Okay, refur to the tulip, you know, total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement or particular redemption, irresistible grace, and then perseverance of the elect Okay. We talk about that usually we say, okay, that person is reformed. We even talk about four point Calvinists who are really not Calvinists at all. A four pointers not is not Calvinists. They're Amoraldian. Okay, But we even talk about four pointers as being reformed, and nothing could be further from the truth. Not only must you be calvinistic, but also covenantal in your theology not dispensational. A person who hosts the dispensational theology is not reformed. Let me say that again, a person who hosts the dispensational theology is not reformed. Even if they fall into that unusual category of being a dispensationalist and a five point Calvinist, they're not reformed because they do not hold to a covenantal view of theology. And then finally, if they're not confessional, they're not reformed. And these reformed confessions all have in common the upholding of the perpetuity of the moral law. For people who are not reformed, the only significance that the Ten Commandments have for them is to the degree that they are mentioned in the New Testament, that they're mentioned in the New Covenant. This is why, for the most part, people who are not reformed, one of the dead giveaways is that they don't believe. And I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself, but this is an important point. They don't believe that the Fourth Commandment is binding in any significant way on us today because they argue that the Fourth Commandment is something that is not repeated in the New Testament expressly and explicitly. Well, we would disagree with that on both points. We would disagree with that because we don't believe that the commandments have to be repeated in the New Testament for them to be binding. And secondly, we do believe that the Fourth Commandment is absolutely repeated in the New Testament. Okay, So on both accounts, we would disagree more on that when we get to the Fourth Commandment. We'll spend a few weeks on each of the commandments. So we'll spend a few weeks at least on the Fourth Commandment talking about that. But for now, just understand that structurally this is important. Okay. So we believe in the perpetuity of the Ten Commandments, the perpetuity of the Decalogue. And again it was alluded to on last week, but one of the reasons that we believe in the perpetuity of the Decalogue is because we don't believe that the Ten Commandments are limited to the Mosaic Covenant. We don't believe that they're limited to the Mosaic Covenant. Why, because every one of the Commandments transcends the Mosaic Covenant. All of these commandments have been seen as part of God's moral law. Before the Ten Commandments, none of the things that we read in the Decalogue were okay before the Decalogue. This is codifying those things and giving them to us in a particular form that it's easy for us to grasp and understand and codify and to use as a tool for our understanding of the rest of our ethics. Beyond that, we'll see that it's significant because even in the New Covenant, the Decalogue is referred to as a whole and as binding. A great example of this is Jesus in Matthew twenty two when he's asked what is the greatest commandment? Again a number of different schools of thought at that time. Some would have argued that the first Commandment was the greatest commandment, you know, know the gods before me. Others would have argued that the tenth Commandment was the greatest commandment because really all of our other sins would come as a result of our covetousness. And others would argue that the fifth Commandment was the greatest commandment because it is the link if you will or the bridge between the first and second tables of the law. So Jesus is asking Matthew twenty two, it's the greatest commandment? And his response is, the greatest commandment is you should love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your strength. Huh. Interesting, because that's a summary of the first table of the law. The first table of the law is those first four commandments. They are that vertical commandments. They have to do with our duty toward God. And then he says quickly the second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Well, that is a summary of the second table of the law, or the last six commandments, which have to do with our horizontal duty or our duty to our fellow man. So the question comes Jesus, what's the greatest commandment? His response essentially is I'm gonna have to say one through four, followed closely by five through ten. That's his answer in the New Covenant, that's his answer. Okay, why because we see in the Decalogue a picture a summary of God's forever binding moral law, a picture of God's moral character, and a picture of what God is forming in his people. It is also a picture of what his son personifies and keeps on behalf of his people. This is the law that Christ keeps. This is the law to which he's bound, this moral law. And what we'll also see is that this moral law becomes foundational, so that even in the judicial law and the ceremonial law, what happens is that the moral law becomes the sort of umbrella and becomes categories for these other laws. So when you see in the judicial laws, for example, here's what happens when when your ox goes and kills someone, this is how you're held accountable for that. Well, what is that? Well, that is an application. It's a civil application of the sixth Commandment against murder. So negligent homicide is wrong because of the sixth Commandment. So even when you have the civil law, the way that you understand the civil law and why the civil law is what it is for Israel is by understanding that it's actually an application of the decalogue. Because this is a picture of God's morality, then this is an explanation of how that would manifest itself in the way you live your life. So with that in mind, let's look at the first table and the second table of the law. Let's look at the way these things work together as a whole, and let's look at their implications for us. First, let's look at the first table and our duty to God. That's those first four commandments, and these first four commandments really lay a foundation for our worship. When you talk about our duty to God, ultimately you're talking about our worship of God. Okay, look at the first commandment, the first commandment, verse three, you shall have no other gods before me. The first commandment very short and sweet, but this clarifies the object of our worship. We worship God, and we worship God alone. If you look at those first couple of verses leading up to it, look at chapter twenty, verse one, and God spoke all these words saying, I am the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. So the foundation, the moral foundation for the moral law is God himself. This is why God is able to give the Decalogue, because he's God, and that's why he starts there. He says, God spoke these words with his own mouth, saying I am the Lord your God. There you have it. Here is why God gets to give us the Decalogue. Here is why God gets to give us the Ten Commandments, because he is God. Period end of discussion. This is why they're forever binding and unchangeable. God is God, and the first commandment is you should have no other gods before me. This means that God alone is God, that God is our God. Therefore, because of this, we must worship God alone. This means a couple of things or several things. First, obviously monotheism. Obviously it means monotheism. This is extremely important for Israel coming out of Egypt. We've alluded to this before, but let me put a finer point on it. When Israel comes out of Egypt and when the plagues come. God did not need the first nine plagues to get Pharaoh ready for plague number ten. Amen. God made Pharaoh. God is sovereign over Pharaoh. God did not need the first nine plagues in order to soften him up. He could have just done it all in one shot. Could have done it all without a word, could have done it without Moses, could have done it. I mean, it could have just been done. Pharaoh could have just woken up one day and said, hey, you guys go. But God did not operate that way. Why the first nine plagues, Well, there are several reasons, not the least of which is that God obliterates every possibility of the gods of Egypt being actual gods. He obliterates that He stands in direct opp position to everything that the Egyptians worship, which in turn would have been everything that Israel was tempted to worship. That's why you see those nine plagues. They weren't just for the Egyptians. That was for the Israelites. Because remember, he's not just getting Israel out of Egypt. He's getting Egypt out of Israel. Amen. And so this point is important. Listen to this from Walton, Matthews, and Shavalas. When the text says that there should be no other gods before me, it does not refer to others having a higher position than Yahweh. And that's important because you could you could sort of read it like that, you shall not have any other gods before me. You can have something after me, but you can't have anything no, not at all. The introduction in verse two has already indicated as a pre existing assay that Yahweh is their God. The phrase before me means in my presence and therefore prohibits other gods from being considered to be in the presence of Yahweh. In other words, it's like, you know, don't bring that before me. Don't bring that in front of me? Is what God is saying here, not ranking in order of importance, but you shall have no other gods. I will not tolerate that, so monotheism. Secondly, worship, Calvin states in his commandment, God enjoins that he alone should be worshiped and requires a worship free from all superstition. God requires that He be worshiped in essence. When you boil it down. Worship is our acknowledgment that God is our God, that He is the one true God. We give our worship to God and to God alone. Thirdly, obedience. Obedience is assumed here. After all, what does it mean for God to be our God if it doesn't mean that he rules and reigns? Amen? So God is to be obeying. This is important as God is giving these commandments, because this first commandment becomes sort of an umbrella over the rest of the commandments. Because I'm God I am the one who determines what is true, what is right, what is holy. So truth, beauty, and goodness come to us from God himself. We are not a law unto ourselves. We do not get to determine what is true, what is right, or even what is beautiful. God is the one who determines this, because God is God. If anyone else gets to determine truth, beauty or goodness, if anyone else gets to say authoritatively, this is what is right, this is what is wrong, then suddenly they have usurped God's authority, violated not only the first commandment, but inevitably every other commandment as well. Because the moment you put yourself in the place of God, the moment you put yourself as God's equal. Now, even if you uphold any other commandment, you're basically saying, yeah, this one is okay because I agree with it. This one's not okay because I don't agree with it. By the way, this is exactly what postmodern man has done. It's the essence of postmodernism. What's true is true for me, it's true here, it's true now, it's true based on my experience. In other words, I become the fountain head of all ethics. And if it's not me, then we believe that communally that we become the fountain head of all ethics. We know this, for example, has values clarification. This was very big in education in recent generations, the idea of values clarification, This idea that teachers, you know, teachers used to just sort of put the rules up on the wall. Well that's too reminiscent of the Ten Commandments, right, that's too reminiscent of there is an authority in this class, students, and it's not you. And here's what the authority in this class says, are the rules of the class. Boom boom, boom, boom boom. That's too reminiscent of the Tin Commandments. Okay, and we don't like that. Postmodern man doesn't like that. Authority doesn't come from outside of me. Authority comes from me, and maybe authority comes from the community. So in values clarification, what the teachers were taught is you come to the students and you say, what are we going to have as our rules class? And then the students say, well, I think we ought to have this as a rule, and I think we ought to have that as a rule. Now here's the purpose of it. The purpose of it is so that when Johnny violates a rule, you don't come down on Johnny with authority saying I am the authority. I told you what the rules were, and you have not obeyed. No, no, no, no no. What you do is you come to Johnny as God and you say, God, you establish the rules. Remember, so, in essence, you violated your own rules. So I'm punishing you here, but only because I'm responding to your authority. Do you see the difference. This is I'm God. I determine what's true. I determine what's right. It's very important that we understand what's being said here that ultimately God says, here's the object of our worship and the source of our ethics. So the first commandment gives us the object of our worship. The second Commandment gives us the limitations of our worship. It would be one thing for God to say, I'm God, you must worship me, and then for us to say, excellent, here's how we've determined that we're going to worship you. But God doesn't even leave that up to us. God doesn't even allow us to determine how we're going to worship him. Look at the second commandment. You shall not make for yourselves a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me, and keep my commandments. In other words, we worship God the way God says he is to be worshiped. First of all, this obviously prohibits idolatry. Obviously explicitly, this prohibits idolatry. You don't get to make something and offer it worship, even on my behalf, God says, you don't get to do that. Okay, When we get to this commandment and spend a few weeks on this commandment, we'll talk about some of the implications of this and the way that this has been interpreted in reform circles, because there's not complete agreement on this. For example, sample there's disagreement even among Reformed Christians as to whether or not images of Jesus would violate the Second Commandment. Okay, there are those who would argue no images of Jesus at all because of violations of the Second Commandment. All right, and if you, if you want to understand this culturally, then you would see let me, let me put two things before you. One would be the Jesus film, right, which is shown all over the place, and here's a man playing Jesus. Or if not the Jesus film, then the one where Jim cavizl the Passion with Christ. Okay, you look at those films, right, and you have Jesus being portrayed on film. But there's another you remember, being Her. Jesus is in been Her, but you don't see him. You get to see his cloak or his robe or whatever. But intentionally, in ben Her, Jesus is not personified. He's not shown. Okay, So that there would be a difference between those who believe that images of Jesus would be a violation of the Second Commandment and those who believe that because God manifested himself in flesh, that images of Jesus would not necessarily be a violation of the second commandment, but that's sort of inside baseball. What everybody agrees upon is that you don't make objects and worship them. So if Jim Covizil is dressed up as Jesus, you don't bow down at his feet and offer him worship. Even if you believe it was appropriate to make the passion of the Christ and have an image of Jesus in that film, even those people who would take that position would also agree that you would not. Therefore, when he's in his costume and in his makeup playing the role, you would not bow down before him and offer him worship. That would clearly be idolatry. Fair enough, okay, But regardless of how you split that hair, the fact of the matter is we do not offer our worship to anything or anyone but God. This always leads, also leads us, though, into the regulative principle. We've talked about the regulative principle on a number of occasions. There are basically three approaches to worship. There are two of them that really came out of the Reformation. One was the regulative principle, and this is the reformed understanding of worship. The regulative principle basically argues that God is to be worshiped only in those ways that God has prescribed in scripture, and we do not worship God in any way other than what He has prescribed in scripture. Okay, so regulative principle, here's a circle all the things that God has said specifically, this is what you do to worship me. That's the stuff that we do in worship. Nothing outside of that. That's the regulative principle, the Reformed approach. There is another approach, which was called the normative principle of worship. The normative principle of worship argued that, yes, we got to worship God in those ways that he spoke clearly, but we can also worship God in other ways as long as He hasn't expressly forbidden it and it's not necessarily inconsistent with what we find in the regular principle. So if he hasn't said no to it, and it's not too far out of bounds, then we can do that as well. Okay, there is a third principle. The third principle doesn't come from the Reformation. This is just a phrase that I've coined over the years. I call it the affective principle of worship, and this is what the overwhelming majority of modern worship, especially in the Western world, especially in America, is based on the affective principle. And the affective principle is, if it makes anyone feel closer to God, then it's acceptable worship. As long as it makes people feel closer to God, it's acceptable worship. So worship is not determined by God. Worship is determined by us. And if it's something that makes people feel worship, whatever it is, that thing is worship, okay, whatever it is. And so you know, an example is the people who have the drawings during worship. This was, you know, a big craze in the emerging church. The worship service would be going on and then there would be people who would be over drawing whatever the Holy Spirit was bringing to their minds at that moment, and that was their act of worship. Okay that there were, I mean other expressions like this, and as long as someone was brought closer to God and felt like it helped them encounter and experience God, that it was deemed to be acceptable worship. And anybody who had anything to say against it was deemed to be quenching the Holy Spirit. Okay, this is the affective principle of worship. We hold to the regulative principle of worship largely because of the Second Commandment. God makes it very clear in the first Commandment that he's to be worshiped, but in the second Commandment that He's to be worshiped the way he says. So this talks about the elements of our worship. And this is why you see those elements of the reading of the scriptures, and the praying and preaching, and the elements like the Lord's Supper and baptism and things of this nature. We do these its singing. We do these things because we find them expressly in scripture. And this is why we don't do things like, for example, drama, because you don't find those things expressly in scripture as biblical worship. Okay again, okay, all right. Thirdly, the reverence of our worship, the reverence of our worship. This is what the third Commandment gives us. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guilt. Liss who takes his name in vain. I want to back up and connect this to the Second Commandment, because this goes back to that principle of God's jealousy in the Second Commandment. God makes it. Clay says, where I am a jealous God. We've talked about this before, but it bears mentioning again. This makes some people very uncomfortable because jealousy is sinful, and you know, jealousy and envy. By the way, jealousy and envy are two different things, but jealousy is sinful, so it seems like God is here upholding sin for himself. Let me be very careful and very clear. Jealousy is sinful because in jealousy you are essentially violating the Tenth Commandment, and in the tenth Commandment coveting, you see the possessions, position, or praise received by another as being more desirable for yourself. You want their possessions, their position, or their praise to be yours, or at least you want it not to be theirs. In other words, you believe that God has wrongly or erroneously passed out position, possession, or praise to someone who doesn't deserve it, but you deserve it more. God didn't know what he was doing. That's why jealousy is wrong for you, folks. Jealousy is not wrong for God because God is God. If God allows position, possessions, or praise that belong to him to be the possession of another, then he would be guilty of idolatry. God has to be jealous for his own glory because God is God. If God stops being jealous for his own glory, that means he is sharing his glory with another. And there is no other who is worthy of God's glory. That's a violation of the first Commandment. If God's not a jealous God, he's violating the first commandment. Okay. The reason that jealousy is a sin for you and not for God is because God is the one who owns all glory, all praise, all possessions, all positions are God's amen. And so here we see the reverence of our worship. Do not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. God will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. We'll discover when we get to this commandment and spend again a few weeks on this commandment that we're not just talking about God's name, but even those things that would that would bear his name, or communicate his name, or represent his name. Like his word. You don't blasphem God's word, because it's the word of God. You don't do that. You don't do that. By the way, you also don't blaspheme the image of God in humanity. Ultimately, murder in some ways is rooted and grounded in this because man is made in the image of God. He's an image bearer of God. When you destroy a man made in God's image, it is as though you were murdering God in effigy and thereby taking his name in vain. This is about the holiness of God, the righteousness of God. This is why the Psalmist repeatedly says, we come before Him clothed in righteousness. Fourthly, the regularity of our worship we see in the fourth commandment. Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work. You or your son or your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates, For in six days, the Lord God made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord has blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy one day in seven. One day in seven belongs to God. This has to do with the balance of our work and our worship. Folks, why do we go to church every seven days as opposed to every forty? And this is especially my question to those people who abandon the Reformed position and abandon the ten Commandments as the ten commandments, and abandon the fourth Commandment, because they would argue that you don't see it explicitly in the New Testament, in the New Covenant. Then my question to them is, why do we have church one day in seven and not one day in forty? And would you discipline someone in your church who just showed up once a year? Would you allow them to still be members in your church? And if you discipline that person, you're basically saying they're committing a sin. Sin has to be tied to a moral obligation. How do you have a moral obligation without an ought, without a command? How do you do this? Well, will you get it from the law of Christ? Really tell me how the Law of Christ gives you one day in seven worship? How does it do it? Well? You ought to want to go u uh uh. Why ought you to want it? If it's not a moral imperative? Why ought you to want it? Why would it be morally wrong for a Christian to say I'm only going to show up one day a year. Why would it be morally wrong unless this is the moral law of God binding on all people for all times, one day in seven, one day in seven. Why would it be morally wrong for me to have servants or employees and to force my employees to work seven days a week. Or would it be morally wrong? Because, by the way, if you throw out the Fourth Commandment, because the Fourth Commandment is not expressly repeated in the New Testament, by the way it is, we'll talk about that when we get there, Okay, But if you throw it out and become a non commandment person and you don't have the Fourth Commandment, then how do you justify having a moral obligation to treat your employees a certain way? Because whenever Paul or Peter talk about the treatment of servants. It is rooted and grounded in the morality of the fourth Commandment, which is another reason that I would argue that you do see it there in the New Govenant. But again we're getting ahead of ourselves. But if you don't have this as a moral commandment, then you again, it is not just that we worship one day and seven. It is not just that there's a day set apart as the Lord's day and not our own. It is also the idea that this affects and impacts the way we treat those people who work for us, if we are employers. So we see the object of our worship, the limitations of our worship. We see the reverence of our worship and the regularity of our worship in the first four commandments. And I want you to notice how that first commandment is sort of an umbrella. God is God and God alone. Therefore we worship God and only God, and we worship him the way that he tells us to worship him. Because God is God, we have reverence for his name. Because God is God, we have reverence for his day. You see how that's an umbrella. Now in the second table of the Law, we see our duty toward our fellow men. First, let me show you the bridge. The fifth commandment is a bridge between the first and the second tables of the law. Look at verse twelve. Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. The honoring of father and mother is the honoring of God given authority. It's the honoring of God given authority. And we honor God by honoring the authority under which God has placed us. This is how we honor God. This has made clear in the Old Covenant and in the New Covenant. But for us as Christians, we see this, for example, in Romans thirteen. We see this in Second Peter two. We also see this in the household commands of children obearing their parents in the Lord. Why do you do this Hebrews thirteen seventeen. Why do you submit to the authority in the church. Why do you submit to the elders and the rulers in the church. According to Hebrews thirteen seventeen, because in every institution God has given those who represent His authority. In Romans thirteen, those who represent Him in governmental authority are ministers of God. And we submit to them because of our submission to God. The submission of a wife to her husband is a submission as unto the Lord. The submission of children to parents is submission as unto the Lord. So the fifth commandment, which covers all of our submission to the authority that God has placed over us, is ultimately a two table commandment. It is our duty to our fellow man. But in this duty to our fellow man, we are actually showing our submission to God. There are some who argue that the fifth commandment belongs to the first table. I wouldn't split hairs with them over that, but I argue, at least it's a bridge between the first and second table of the law. And then watch what happens the second table of the law. Look at this don't murder, which means don't deprive your neighbor of his life. And we'll talk about the difference between murder and killing. Okay, the commandment is don't murder, it's not don't kill. Pacifism is not supported by the Ten Commandments. Pacifism is not supported by the Bible in any way, shape, form, or fashion. Okay, God calls upon his people to defend themselves, to defend their families, Okay, to defend their nations, to defend those who are under their charge. So pacifism, pacifism is not here, all right, Anti capital punishment folks like to go to the sixth commandment, and you know you shall not murder and listen before this commandment is even given back in Genesis chapter nine. You take a person's life, your life will be taken. Right. This is back in Genesis because of the dignity inherent in human beings. People forfeit their very lives by killing human beings. So don't deprive your neighbor illegitimately of his life. Secondly, adultery, don't deprive your neighbor of his family. Thirdly, theft, don't deprive your neighbor neighbor of his goods. Fourthly, false witnesses, don't deprive your neighbor of his reputation. And then fifthly, covening, don't despise what God has given you. I would argue that the second table really almost goes backwards, like the first commandment becomes this umbrella over the first table of the law and explains the first table of the law. I would say that the tenth commandment becomes an umbrella and explains the second table of the law. And so you have this sort of increasing severity. Let's look at it backwards. You have the tenth commandment, don't covet, and ultimately, coveting is about you not being satisfied with what God gave you and instead wanting what He gave you plus what he gave your neighbor. Okay, be satisfied with what God has given you. Then it becomes more intense and more personal. Protect your neighbor's reputation. Then, don't deprive your neighbor of his goods. Don't deprive him of his reputation. Next, don't deprive him of his goods. Thirdly, don't deprive him of his family, because ultimately, this is what adultery is doing. It's depriving him of his family. And then don't deprive him of his life. Do you see how there's sort of increasing degrees there coming from the tenth commandment and going backwards. Ultimately, what God is doing here in the second table of the law is he's talking about our duty horizontally to our fellow man, and he goes from the most severe down to the root cause, don't deprive him of his life. If you'll deprive him of his life, it'll be easy for you to deprive him of his family. If you'll deprive him of his family, it'll be easy for you to deprive him of his goods. If you're willing to deprive him of his goods, it's easy for you to deprive him of his reputation. And ultimately, you're willing to do all of that because you're not satisfied with what you have, and instead you want what your neighbor has. See the connection. This is absolutely a whole, especially when you understand that you not being satisfied with what you have is ultimately you not being satisfied with God, which takes us right back to the first table of the law. And so it's summarized as loving your neighbor as yourself. But I don't want to just say that. I want you to see it. Let's go to a couple of places here, and then we'll close go to Luke eighteen. Why do we call the commandments commandments? Well, because Jesus does. Look eighteen. And then let's start in verse eighteen the rich young ruler, and the ruler asked him, good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life. And Jesus said to him, why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments, Jesus calls him. Commandments. You know the commandments. Do not commit adultery, do not murder, steel, do not bear false witness. Honor your father and your mother. By the way, there they are, right, second table of the law. Right there. Boom boom, boom boom boom there it is. Okay, you know the cupmn mints. Okay, of course, he says he's kept these from his youth. He absolutely has not. Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, helps us to interpret the commandments. I won't spend time there today because as we get into the individual commandments, we'll spend a lot more time in the way Jesus treats them in the Sermon on the Mount. Because in the Sermon on the Mount he gets to the heart of the matter. You've heard it said, don't murder, I say, don't even hate your brother. You've heard it said, don't commit adultery. I say, if you lusted after a woman, you've committed adultery with her in your heart. He gets to the heart of the matter. He ups the steaks on these commandments. Turn to the right and look at Romans Romans, because oftentimes people will say that, you know, it's not so much the commandments anymore, but it's the law of love, the law of love. So look at Romans thirteen. Romans thirteen, beginning of verse eight, Ohe no one anything except to love each other. There it is. It's the law of love. Man. We're not under the law anymore. Now we have the law of love. Not those old commandments. They're done away with. We got the law of love. Okay. Four. The one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments you shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet and any other commandment are summed up in this word. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. How about that. We're not under those commandments anymore. We're under the law of love. What does that even mean? What does it mean? What is your ethical standard? If it's not the moral law of God. I love my neighbor, but I murder him because I'm not under it. I mean, that's old testament, man, that's the Old Covenant. Now, as long as I do it in love, it's okay. I can deprive him of his life. But if I do it in love, it's okay. Right, I can deprive him of his family. I can commit adultery, but as long as I love my neighbor while I'm depriving my neighbor of the fact. Come on, now, I can deprive him of his property. I can steal from him, as long as I'm doing it in love. Do you see how foolish this is when you examine it? Number one, It's foolish because it denies clear biblical teaching. This idea that the law of love is set over against God's moral law is obliterated here in Romans thirteen, and in other passages, I would say in One Timothy one as well. It's obliterated. In One Timothy one. Paul talks to Timothy about things that are in keeping with sound doctrine, and he enumerates the decalogue all ten commandments. He enumerates them as being in keeping with sound doctrine. In the New Covenant. Okay, does keeping these things look differently today than it did then? Absolutely? And this is what Jesus does for us in the Sermon on the Mountain keeping these things looks differently today. That's why we're here today, and we don't have tassels on our clothing. This is why we're here on the first day of the week instead of the last day of the week. Right, these things don't look the same as they did, but they're based in the same moral reality. Jesus has just upped the stakes. He's transformed the way we look at the decalogue. So when you see these I want you to see them as a whole. View these two tables of the law, these two sides of the coin. View this as God giving us a picture of what it looks like when his ethic is formed in us, when his ethic is formed in us, and we worship him rightly in accordance with his word, when his ethic is formed in us, and that worship of God and our vertical commandment then spills over into the horizontal commandments and into the way that we treat our neighbor, our fellow man. Understand these things as a whole. Also understand them as two great holes. Understand them as this first table. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength, and the second table, love your neighbor as yourself, and as explicit expressions of what it means and what it looks like for us to do that. These are of great benefit to us. Those benefits were outlined for us on last week, but for now let me just say they're of great benefit to us because as we are conformed to the image of Christ, we now have a picture of what that righteousness looks like as it is formed in us. The righteousness of Christ being formed in me will absolutely look like the right object of my worship, the right limitations of my worship, the right reverence in my worship, and the right regularity of my worship. Christ being formed in me will absolutely look look like that Christ being formed in me will absolutely look like obedience and submission to the authority that God has placed in my life. It will absolutely look like look like me not depriving my neighbor of his life, of his family, of his possessions, of his reputation. And it will absolutely look like me being satisfied with what God has given me, knowing that God is God, he is sovereign, and he is in control. So again we don't look at these as just sporadic random rules, but as one beautiful whole that gives us a picture of God's holiness, God's righteousness, and what that holiness and righteousness looks like when it is formed in God's people. But how does this happen? Remember, it happens as we are conformed to the image of Christ. And being conformed to the image of Christ doesn't come, as we heard our last week, by us merely striving to keep this law. As we've heard these things, and especially as we hear them through the lens of Christ's teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, what we're reminded of again and again and again is that we can't keep these things. We don't keep these things. In my heart, I am constantly violating the first table of the law. I want myself to be put into that position. I want myself to be the source of all ethics. In my heart, I'm constantly violating that second table of the law. As anger and lust and greed and covetousness and dissatisfaction continue to grow in me and fight against who I am in Christ, who shall deliver me from this body of death? God has given us an answer in the person and work of Jesus Christ, who kept these things perfectly, without stumbling, without fault. He kept them perfectly in every way, and was actually righteous, so that He might impute that righteousness to us, so that by the imputed righteousness of Christ, through me coming to Him in faith in repentance, God views me as having kept all of these things perfectly. In Christ, I am as righteous as if I had never faltered at any point, because I'm clothed in the righteousness of Christ when I come to Him through repentance and faith, and then through his passive obedience, he lays down his life as a vicarious substitutionary atonement on my behalf, so that God, who looks at me as righteous, can still be righteous himself because He has not committed the sin of not dealing with my unrighteousness. If God calls me righteous when I'm not, if God, who is just, has not punished my righteousness, that's not okay. So through Christ's passive obedience, my sinfulness is imputed to him, so that on the Cross, God righteously pours out his wrath on my sin, which is viewed in Christ just as real as his righteousness is viewed in me, so that through this double imputation. God can be just because He's punished sin, and the justifier because he sees me as righteous in Christ. This is the message of the Gospel. This is my only hope. So that when I look at the Decalogue and I see the beauty of the Decalogue, I don't turn around and say, oh, this is beautiful, and I will work harder to get there. No, oh, this is beautiful, and woe is me, because it shows me very clearly that I do not possess the righteousness that God demands and commands. I am undone. I am a man of unclean lips, that I live among the people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the king. But that's okay. God has something better than a burning cold. He has the burning, unquenchable righteousness of Jesus Christ that was laid down for the sinfulness of those who come to Him in repentance and faith, and that is offered to all of those who do the same. So what we are called to here is to see the beauty and the glory of God's holiness and righteousness, and to see the emptiness of our vain attempts to get there in our own selves, and then to see the mercy of God and to come to Him in repentance and faith, throwing ourselves on the mercy of Almighty God, believing by faith that we have the righteousness of Christ, and that our sinfulness is imputed to Him, so that we thereby stand perfect and righteous before God because of Christ. Oh sinner, to not leave this room today believing that you've unlocked the door to holiness by knowing what to do in the commandments. But leave here today knowing that Christ is the key and the door and the lock, and has used the key to open the door of the lock, so that you might indeed be found righteous and made righteous, both positionally and actually through the person and work of Jesus Christ. Run from your sin and run to Jesus. He is indeed your only hope. Let's pray