Ed Clowney on the Ten Commandments

Ed Clowney's last book on the 10 commandments is quite odd but always Christ-centred and often insightful. This is from the conclusion and summarises much of the book:

"Christ fulfills the law, not by diminishing it, but by deepening and widening it. In every one of the Ten Commandments we see not only the negative commands but their positive requirements.

1. Having no other gods implies loving God will all our heart, soul, strength, and mind.
2. Not bowing to idols means honoring and revering God as Creator and Redeemer in our every thought, capturing all our thoughts to Christ.
3. Not misusing God's name means honoring that name in every moment of our lives, and confessing it in witness by both our words and our actions.
4. Remembering the Sabbath means finding our joy and rest in laboring for God and his kingdom not only one day a week, but all seven.
5. Honoring our parents means accepting and promoting those family values that God set into creation and honoring all God's family members.
6. Avoiding murder implies loving and protecting life and the image of God in man.
7. Avoiding adultery means keeping our hearts pure from lust and from twisting sexuality to suit our appetites. It also implies placing love for God above all other loves.
8. Ceasing to steal is insufficient to obey God's command, which demands that we work hard to earn enough money to be lavish and extravagant in graciously giving it away to those in need.
9. Not bearing false witness implies that in every situation we must honor the reputations of those around us, refusing to allow any shadow of dishonor to fall across their reputations because of our words. It also means that our words are to bear testimony to the truth of God and to the person of Christ.
10. Refusing to covet means that our hearts must be completely sold out to the good of the kingdom and thoroughly careless about the material implications of that passion.

How impossible to keep the commandments!... Praise God that the Ten Commandments not only have been intensified by Christ, but also have been transformed and fulfilled in his righteousness. The law is transformed in the full measure of the love of Christ. The love that fulfills the law is the love

• by which Christ gave himself to redeem those given him by the Father, and
• by which the Father gave his one and only Son [and]
• [by which] we live by the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead [and] can do what the law had no power to help us accomplish."

(formatting mine, pp.153, Edmund P. Clowney, How Jesus Transforms the Ten Commandments)

Jesus and the 10 commandments

• Jesus reveals their intensity - e.g. not just condemning destroying marriage (adultery) but weakening marriage (lusting), and implying the positive command to strengthen marriage
• Jesus transforms them (making them 'Christian' by giving the fullest content to the name 'God' and the fullest example to imitate):
• he is our God, who created and saved us from a bondage greater than Egypt
• he is the image we worship of the invisible God, excluding any other representation of who God is
• he is the name of God which we are given to bear as Christians in a way which gives him the honour he is due,
• he is the Lord of the Sabbath who commands us to enter his rest,
• he is our brother who obeyed his father perfectly and by whom we are adopted into a new family to love and given a new Father to honour
• he is the life-giver who not only gave life to humanity, but bought it back by identifying himself with humans, so how can we kill those made in his image and redeemed by his blood?
• he is the husband of the ugliest and most adulterous woman, who shows that to love our wife is to lay down our life for her, and that wives should submit to their husband as the church does to Christ - recognising that even more important than our earthly marriage is our marriage to him
• he is the owner of all the cattle on the hills and every star in the sky, but he gave all that he had to those who had already stole from him,
• he is the perfect witness to (and embodiment of) the truth about God and about our sin even though it cost him his life
• he is the lover of neighbour who didn't begrudge all that we have, but loved us so much he wanted to give us more
• Jesus obeyed them fully even though he was the one to whom obedience was due
• Jesus was condemned by them as a sinner because he identified with us

Therefore

• the law ends (terminates) with the death of the people to whom it was given in the cross (Rom 7:4)

but then

• the law reaches its end (telos/purpose/fulfilment) in the resurrection new lives of the saints against which there is no law but which flawlessly reflect the same God who gave the law (Rom 10:4, 13:10; Gal 5:14)

For us the cross and resurrection are not just past events, but part of our lives now, and only fully realised in our lives when Christ returns. So for us the law is "becoming obsolete and growing old [and] ready to vanish away" (Heb 8:13), but not yet fully gone.

Commandments 6-10

6. Do not deprive another person of their life
7. Do not deprive another person of their spouse
8. Do not deprive another person of their possessions
9. Do not deprive another person of their reputation
10. Do not even desire in your heart to deprive another person of anything

And a bit like Luther in his catechism these are then turned into positive commandments like this:

6. As far as you are able, supply your neighbour with all their needs for bodily and spiritual life
7. Strengthen your neighbour's marriage and your own
8. Give your neighbour your possessions
9. Build up your neighbour with your words and speak well of them to others
10. Love your neighbour in your heart and desire their good in everything

Your law is my delight

(HT Tim)

"I long for your salvation, O Lord,
and your law is my delight.
Let my soul live and praise you,
and let your rules help me.
I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant,
for I do not forget your commandments."

(Psalm 119:174-176)

"I delight in the law of God, in my inner being,
but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!"

(Romans 7:22-25)

Both passages include:

• delight in the law; and
• a realisation of our failure to keep it.

After this common starting point:

• The OT passage includes a prayer to be delivered.
• The NT passage includes thanks that we have been delivered.

A few notes on not coveting

Listening to: Belle and Sebastian: The Life Pursuit

Mark 10:19 (parallel: Luke 18:20)

The Christianity Explored booklet asks "What did Jesus expect the man to notice about his list of the commandments in Mark 10:19?" I can't remember what it exactly wants to answer to be, but you have commands 5-9 listed - i.e. not the first table and not the command not to covet. I think Jesus was pointing out to the rich young man that while he had not done the external acts prohibited by the second table of the law, he had not obeyed the spirit of them.

I have been challenged before that honouring your father and mother is not an external act but, like coveting, is about the state of your heart. But Exodus 21:15-17 expounds the commandment as not striking or cursing your parents. Deuteronomy 27:16 talks about not dishonouring and Matthew 15:4 (parallel: Mark 7:10) expands on honouring by saying that it is not reviling. All of which suggests it was seen more as an external act.

1 Timothy 1:9-10

the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers [5th commandment], for murderers [6th], the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality [7th], enslavers [8th? cf. Deuteronomy 24:7], liars, perjurers [9th], and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine,

Again the absence of the 10th commandment not to covet is notable. Also interestingly, I believe the Reformers considered this passage to be mainly about the 'civil use of the law'.

Hosea 4:2

there is swearing, lying [9th], murder [6th], stealing [8th], and committing adultery [7th]; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed.

... no commandment to honour father and mother, or not to covet.

James 4:2

You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.

James sees coveting as the cause behind murder. Justifiably you could also quite easily see that it is the cause of breaking all the rest of the second table, or at least commandments 6-9. This is anticipated in part within the 10th commandment itself which lists some of the things we may covet - i.e. wives who we may commit adultery with and possessions we may steal.

Romans 7

When Paul chooses to explain how the law works to bring knowledge of sin, he picks the commandment not to covet. Mark Seifrid commenting on this passage explains this not an insignificant choice:

All other transgressions against other (the dishonouring of parents, murder, adultery, theft and false witness, and so on) have their root in coveting, which is the antithesis of the love commandment. In this commandment the whole weight of the law comes to bear on us.

(p. 117, Christ Our Righteousness)