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The Ten Commandments
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The ten Commandments were written by God on two tables of blue stone and they were given to Moses on Mt. Sinai. The other laws were written by Moses but they were apparently given to him by God. They were of lesser importance because they were temporary and based on repairing a flawed system. When the world is perfect, some of them will not be needed.
Love
Love is the basis of the Ten Commandments in both the Old and New Testaments.
The Scope Of The Law
Since the Ten Commandments do not tell us about the good we should do,
Christ widened our responsibility to God when He pointed out the good we neglected to do as we concentrate only on the letter of the law.
So, in both the Old and the New Testament, the dimensions of doing good are described in many ways.
We can conclude that there are many principles that cover a wide range of activities.
God does not say, "do not take drugs" but he does tell us to honor the body where He lives and which He gave us at an enormous sacrifice.
In 1999, I remember talking to a Christian girl who said that the Bible does not stop her from sleeping around with many men because she is still single.
In her thinking the commandment is against adultery - therefore it is for married people only.
Sinners use many such arguments to justify their behavior.
For her, I could point out many texts that talk about fornication and that only the marriage bed is not wrong.
But what about the millions of Christians who take drugs and alcohol, watch soap operas, violent movies, pornography,
cheat on their income taxes and bribe officials to spread the gospel.
Matthew 5, 1 Corinthians 13 and the book of James expand on the nature of the true Christian.
The Meaning Of The Commandments
Love God
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Love Other People
The Jews divide the commandments into two sets of five. They believe that since God is our parent, the fifth commandment should honor Him as parent first.
One Like Us
Many sinners believe that Jesus was sinless because He was God or because He had special help that we cannot access.
But the Bible presents Jesus as a model for righteousness because He put aside His divinity and cloaked in human form He overcame sins in the same way that we can.
How could He claim to be like us and be tempted like us if He did not undergo the worst of every form of treatment?
He knows how we feel because He experienced all of the accompanying treatment and emotions in a suffering that was equivalent or greater than ours.
So there is nothing that we will ever experience in which He cannot say that He understands those emotions and feelings.
In the estimation of God, if one is treated in a certain manner, then one has become that image in the eyes of those who accept or inflict this treatment.
So let us see how Jesus was tempted to break the commandments and how He was falsely accused and treated as a sinner.
If you believe that you have experienced something that Jesus could never understand, remember that Satan hated this little boy and wanted to see Him fail so Satan must have made His life a living hell because his existence depended on it.
If you believe that Jesus did feel eveything you did but that your suffering was greater because you suffered longer, remember that Jesus lived this nightmare for thirty three years and that God has been suffering the full brunt of all this pain for over six thousand years.
So take the worst suffering that you have experienced and break it down into its parts.
You will see that the collective mental, physical and emotional pain that they cause has been experienced by Jesus Christ in some way.
His suffering is even greater because He experienced the additional emotional pain of unjust suffering and abandonment by loved ones.
If you think that Jesus cannot understand how your feel because you are guilty and you deserve punishment then remember that Jesus was also supposed to bear our guilt.
So imagine feeling the collective guilt and shame of over eight billion people all at once!
If you still think that He could not feel it because He knew He was not guilty, then remember that He created man knowing what would happen.
Everybody in the world blames Him for this.
Christ In The Law
In our lesson on the sanctuary we completely explain many of these laws that were kept or fulfilled by Jesus.
Here is a summary.
| Day and Night Time | Day Only | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Passover | Wavesheaf | Pentecost | Trumpets | Day of Atonement | Tabernacles | |||||||||
| Lamb | | Goat | First Fruits | Holy Spirit | Judgment | Church | Warning | Plagues | Millennium | New Heavens and Earth | ||||
| Christ is the buried Seed | Early Rain | Summer Drought | Latter Rain | Harvest | City of Refuge | |||||||||
| Shepherd Priest | King | Judge | Reaper | Bridegroom | Executioner | All Fulfilled | ||||||||
| Law | Verse | Contents | Fulfillment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lamb | Leviticus 27: 26, 28-29 | The innocent dies for the guilty | Jesus died for our sins as the Lamb of God (John 1: 29) |
| Goat (Sin Offering) | Numbers 29: 11 | The goat was the sacrifice for the sin and guilt offering | As our replacement He became as sinful as Satan by becoming sin |
| Serpent on the Cross | Numbers 21: 8 | Life could come by looking at a serpent lifted up | John 3: 14-15. As the demon goat, Jesus also took on the characteristics of the satanic serpent when He became sin for our sins |
| Mother's Milk | Exodus 34: 26 | A young goat cannot be cooked in its mother's milk | Jesus separated from His mother before facing the darkest part of His suffering (John 19: 26-27) |
| Exchanged for Us | Leviticus 27: 9-10 | An even exchange makes both animals holy | Jesus died for our sins, covered us with His blood, and we became holy just as He is, by law |
| Female Offering | Leviticus 4: 27-29 | The female sin offering and the red heifer | Jesus died in place of the woman (the church) |
| Shoulder offering | Numbers 6: 19-20 | The parts of the offering were displayed in a certain manner. The breast and shoulder offerings were waved and the thigh offering was lifted up | On the cross his arms were stretched out as in the position of a wave. |
| Breast offering | Leviticus 10: 14-15. Numbers 6: 19-20 | ||
| Thigh offering | On the cross His thighs were lifted up | ||
| Passover lamb | Leviticus 23: 4-8 | Death will pass over us | Jesus died on Passover as the Lamb of God |
| One Day | Exodus 34: 25 | The age of the offering | Jesus was taken off the cross and buried the same day. He was not hung for days as was the custom. |
| Three Days | Leviticus 7: 17-18. | He presented Himself to the fiery presence of God within three days of His death | |
| Thirty Three Years | Leviticus 12 | Woman cleansed thirty three days after the birth of a son | Christ died at the age of thirty three to cleanse the church (woman) |
| First Fruits | Leviticus 23: 11 | He was presented before God after three days | Jesus was the first fruits from the dead |
| Nocturnal Emission | Deuteronomy 23: 10-11 | His Seed was spilled during His sleep of death | Some of the dead were resurrected with Him from His seed of Life |
| Feast of Tabernacles | Leviticus 23: 34 | God lives with humans | Jesus was born during the feast of tabernacles and He will probably return on the same schedule |
| City of Refuge | Joshua 20: 6 | A killer can hide in a city of refuge without fear of retribution until the high priest dies and until he stands in judgment | As our permanent and immortal High Priest, Jesus will never die. God established the New Jerusalem as a city of refuge. |
| Bridegroom | Deuteronomy 24: 5 | The groom cannot work or go to war for the first year of his marriage | Jesus rests with us for 1000 years with His bride before the complete destruction of Satan in the battle of Armageddon |
Changes To The Law Of God
| Actions | Motives | Actions | Catholic Changes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| (Exodus 20, Deuteronomy 5) | Text | New Testament | # | Change | Tradition | |
| Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind (Deuteronomy 30: 6; Luke 10: 27) | ||||||
| 1 | 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 (Verse 1-3) | Pride | "You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall You serve." Matthew 4: 10 | 1 | You shall have no other gods before Me | Praying to Mary and saints |
| 2 | You shall not make for yourself any idols or any likeness of what is in Heaven above or earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them. (Verse 4 - 6) | Stubbornness is idolatry | "little children, keep yourselves from idols." "For as much then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not think that the Godhead is like gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device." I John 5: 21; Acts 17: 29 | Deleted | Image worship | |
| 3 | You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, the Lord will not leave him unpunished who takes his name in vain. (verse 7) | Unthankful, Unholy | "That the name of God and His doctrine be not blasphemed." (1 Timothy 6: 1) | 2 | You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain | Priest confessions |
| 4 | Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant, your cattle or your visiter who stays with you. For in six days the Lord made the Heavens and the Earth and the Sea and all that is in them and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the seventh day and made it holy (Verse 8 -11) | Salvation by works | "Pray that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day." "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath: therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath." "For He spoke in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all His works." "There remains therefore a keeping of a Sabbath to the people of God. For he that is entered into His rest, he also has ceased from his own works, as God did from His." " For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth." Matthew 24: 20; Mark 2: 27-28; Hebrews 4: 4, 9-10, margin; Colossians 1: 16. | Changed | ||
| 3 | Remember to keep holy the Lord's day. | Sabbath changed from Saturday to Sunday. And the phrase "the Lord's day" has been consistently applied to Sunday even though the biblical evidence is that it is the Sabbath. |
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| Love your neighbor as yourself (Leviticus 19: 18,34. Matthew 22: 37,39) | ||||||
| 5 | Honor your Father and your Mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God gives you. (Verse 12) | Disrespectful, rebellion | "Honor your father and your mother." Matthew 19: 19 | 4 | Honor your Father and your Mother | Infallible pope. The holy father. |
| 6 | You shall not murder (Verse 13) | Hate, anger. Matthew 5: 22 | "You shall not kill." Romans 13: 9 | 5 | You shall not murder | Persecute heretics |
| 7 | You shall not commit adultery (Verse 14) | Lust. Matthew 5: 28 | "You shall not commit adultery." Matthew 19: 18 | 6 | You shall not commit adultery | Promotes church and State union |
| 8 | You shall not steal (Verse 15) | Greed, Selfishness | "You shall not steal." Romans 13: 9 | 7 | You shall not steal | Claims supreme, infallible, authority over church |
| 9 | You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor (Verse 16) | Truce breakers | "You shall not bear false witness. "Romans 13: 9 | 8 | You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor | Tradition in place of the Word of God - the true witness. Claims to be infallible. |
| 10 | You shall not covet your neighbor's house you shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. (Verse 17) | Malice and greed. Luke 12: 15 | "You shall not covet." Romans 7: 7 | 9 | You shall not covet your neighbor's house | Covets the duties and authority of God. God on Earth, holder of the triple crown with keys to heaven earth and purgatory. |
| 10 | You shall not covet your neighbor's wife | |||||
| Study to show yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth. 2 Timothy 2: 15 | Time: 60 minutes Print: 13 pages |
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For the eyes of the Lord move back and forth throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His.
2 Chronicles 16: 9
Copyright Updated : June 11, 2004. December 2009 Credits: Author: Laverna Patterson. Editor: Patterson (January 2008) |
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