Issues to Consider about the Second/Third Commandment

One hard text to understand is the following part of the Second/Third Commandment in Exodus 20:5-6:

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 the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

Roderick Lawson of Maybole (1863-1897) reprinted the Westminster Shorter Catechism along with his own explanatory notes and review questions for each Shorter Catechism question. Lawson's comment on question and answer 56 is very helpful:

Comment: The special warning here held out to us is, that although men may permit us to break this commandment with impunity, yet God will assuredly not do so. He will not fail to judge us.

Lawson makes this commandment very personal. Both the Larger and Shorter Catechism do not deal directly with verses 5-6.

In Martin Luther's Large Catechism he explained the words of the third Commandment in his concluding section about the Ten Commandments. Luther numbered the third commandment the second commandment. The following quote are marked as paragraphs 319-326:

In conclusion, however, we must repeat the text which belongs here, of which we have treated already in the First Commandment, in order that we may learn what pains God requires to the end we may learn to inculcate and practise the Ten Commandments: For I the Lord, thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me, and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love Me and keep My commandments. Although (as we have heard above) this appendix was primarily attached to the First Commandment, it was nevertheless [we cannot deny that it was] laid down for the sake of all the commandments, as all of them are to be referred and directed to it. Therefore I have said that this, too, should be presented to and inculcated upon the young, that they may learn and remember it, in order to see what is to urge and compel us to keep these Ten Commandments. And it is to be regarded as though this part were specially added to each, so that it inheres in, and pervades, them all. Now, there is comprehended in these words (as said before) both an angry word of threatening and a friendly promise to terrify and warn us, and, moreover, to induce and encourage us to receive and highly esteem His Word as a matter of divine earnestness, because He Himself declares how much He is concerned about it, and how rigidly He will enforce it, namely, that He will horribly and terribly punish all who despise and transgress His commandments; and again, how richly He will reward, bless, and do all good to those who hold them in high esteem, and gladly do and live according to them. Thus He demands that all our works proceed from a heart which fears and regards God alone, and from such fear avoids everything that is contrary to His will, lest it should move Him to wrath; and, on the other hand, also trusts in Him alone and from love to Him does all He wishes, because he speaks to us as friendly as a father, and offers us all grace and every good. Just this is also the meaning and true interpretation of the first and chief commandment, from which all the others must flow and proceed, so that this word: Thou shalt have no other gods before Me, in its simplest meaning states nothing else than this demand: Thou shalt fear, love, and trust in Me as thine only true God. For where there is a heart thus disposed towards God, the same has fulfilled this and all the other commandments. On the other hand, whoever fears and loves anything else in heaven and upon earth will keep neither this nor any. 325] Thus the entire Scriptures have everywhere preached and inculcated this commandment, aiming always at these two things: fear of God and trust in Him. And especially the prophet David throughout the Psalms, as when he says [Ps. 147:11]: The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear Him, in those that hope in His mercy. As if the entire commandment were explained by one verse, as much as to say: The Lord taketh pleasure in those who have no other gods. Thus the First Commandment is to shine and impart its splendor to all the others. Therefore you must let this declaration run through all the commandments, like a hoop in a wreath, joining the end to the beginning and holding them all together, that it be continually repeated and not forgotten; as, namely, in the Second Commandment, that we fear God and do not take His name in vain for cursing, lying, deceiving, and other modes of leading men astray, or rascality, but make proper and good use of it by calling upon Him in prayer, praise, and thanksgiving, derived from love and trust according to the First Commandment. In like manner such fear, love, and trust is to urge and force us not to despise His Word, but gladly to learn, hear, and esteem it holy, and honor it.

Since we are talking about trying to understand a particular command of the moral law another good resource to look at is the Prophetic books of the Old Testament. The Prophets gave the word of the Lord to the nation of Israel during a long time of disobedience towards God, and so much of their prophesies are targeted towards how the covenant nation of Judah and the uncovenanted nation of Samaria (Willson, 64-67) were in an active state of breaking and twisting God's moral law. The tasks of the Prophets were to correctly interpret God's ten words given on Sinai so that the people's comfortable lifestyles were correctly understood as actually being uncomfortable to God. Their lives were a mess, because they have lowered God's standard so that "It's not their fault."

Three specific passages can help us understand Luther's appendix to every commandment. Jeremiah 16:10-13, Ezekiel 18, and 33:7-20. The most helpful passage is spoken through Jeremiah and says:

And when you tell this people all these words, and they say to you, "Why has the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us? What is our iniquity? What is the sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?" then you shall say to them: "Because your fathers have forsaken me, declares the Lord, and have gone after other gods and have served and worshiped them, and have forsaken me and have not kept my law, and because you have done worse than your fathers, for behold, every one of you follows his stubborn, evil will, refusing to listen to me. Therefore I will hurl you out of this land into a land that neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor."

According to Jeremiah the people were correct to say that God was not judging them based on the actions of their fathers, but Jeremiah's message went further to say that the present generation of the nation of Israel had exceeded their fathers in their sinful acts.

My pastor, Dave Long, helpfully pointed out the Jeremiah passage many years ago while preaching on the Westminster Larger Catechism.

The Threefold Division of the Law: Part 3 - Jesus and the Gospels

In part 2, we sketched out five presuppositions that run throughout the entire Old Testament (OT) that point the law given through Moses as not being an uniform united body of law. Ross concluded the second section by contending that if we don't see these distinctions that we will not, and cannot, make proper sense of the teachings of Christ in the four Gospels, in the Apostolic events in the Book of Acts and the Epistles written by the Apostles when they write about the law.

In this part we will focus on the words of Jesus as found in the four Gospel writings and try to understand how what Jesus says about the law and does during His first coming further develops the five observations made about the OT law.

These notes are based on an address that Phil Ross delivered to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in England and Wales in March 2010.

Here's where we are in this series of posts relative to where we have been and where we are going:

1. Introduction
2. Five Old Testament presuppositions that shape the New Testament's understanding of law
3. Jesus and the Gospels
4. The Apostolic Interpretation of the law in the Book of Acts
5. The Epistles of the Apostles
6. Conclusion
7. Sabbath Extracts

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Ross wants to look at the teaching of Christ and the Apostles concerning the law in two parts divided chronologically by the veil of the temple that was torn in two (pg. 187):

1. What may we conclude from the Gospels? - From the words and deeds of Jesus up to the point where the veil was torn.
2. What, if anything, changes after the rending of the veil? - What do the Apostles and their Epistles have to say to all this?

We will in this post address the first question and then over the course of following two posts Ross will address his second question.

Jesus' subjecting himself to the law was basic to his humiliation.

One passage matters above all others when it comes to discussing Jesus' attitude to the law, namely Matthew 5.

Some say we should take the word commonly translated 'abolish' in a absolute sense. (pgs. 195 - 197)

Others use the word commonly translated 'fulfill' to determine that 'abolish' means anything but abolish. (pgs. 197 - 199)

When translators/interpreters focus on the lexical definition of 'fulfill' it generally leads them to seeing Jesus' fulfillment of the law and the prophets in the following three ways (pgs. 201 - 202):

1. Eschatological - He fulfills the law by his teaching.
2. Soteriological - He fulfills the law by bringing salvation.
3. Moral - He fulfills the law by doing what the law commands.

Ross doesn't want to suggest totally disregarding the lexica, but contends that we will understand Jesus' words when we read them with the church, in the context of Matthew as a whole, and with the OT background in view. (pg. 199)

Pope Leo the Great and John Calvin may not have had much in common, but they both thought it was proper to connect the sermon on the mount with Jeremiah's new covenant prophecy. (pg. 199)

Their case is strengthened if we also accept that Jesus fulfilling the law and the prophets in Matthew 5:17 is a piece of his fulfillment of all righteousness in Matthew 3:50. (pgs. 199 - 200)

We might hear echos of this relationship when we line up the voice that says 'This is my beloved Son' with the same voice in Jeremiah 31:20 saying 'Ephraim my beloved Son'. May we not then see Jesus standing with his people, and in their place, 'here's the beloved Son that Israel failed to be. (pg. 200)

Read Matthew 5 in that context and we may then see Jesus' fulfillment of the law as eschatological, soteriological, and moral. (pg. 202)

To illustrate the relationship between the elements in Matthew 5 and Jeremiah 31, Ross wants to call attention to the following four components in Jeremiah's prophecy. (pg. 203)

1. 'I will put my law within them' - According to Deuteronomy 6:4 - 9 the law was always meant to be internalized. Jesus promotes this intention as he calls for obedience to the great commandment, he promotes it in his exposition of the law throughout Matthew 5, and He fulfills it by exemplifying in his own life what it means to obey the law and be the obedient Son par excellence (meaning 'the best of its kind'). (pgs. 203 - 204)
2. The promise, 'I will be their God, and they shall be my people.' That theme permeates Matthew from beginning to end. Matthew 1:23, '... God with us.' We know that the Shekinah who dwelt in the bush and in the tabernacle now dwells in the flesh and fleshy blood. Immanuel's closing promise is, 'I am with you always.' Christ's being with his people in fulfillment of the law and the prophets is the dominant idea, but moral fulfillment can't be excluded from that. His instruction, 'teach them all that I've commanded you' presupposes ongoing obedience as an indispensable concomitant to God with us. (pgs. 204 - 206)
3. 'They shall all know me', is sometimes linked with Matthew 23:8 - 10 where Jesus says, 'You have one teacher'. We can hear in that passage a precise echo of the shama. Only one teacher fulfills Jeremiah's prophecy; he is the one who is one who will teach the New Covenant community. There is also a connection between Jeremiah 31:25 - 26 and Jesus' invitation to the laboring and heavy laden to come for rest (Matthew 11:28). He delivers the rest promised in the law and the prophets to those whom the Father reveals Jesus and to whom Jesus reveals the Father. (pgs. 206 - 211)
4. 'For I will forgive their iniquity', is the absolutely indispensable (Ross uses the term, 'sine qua non') promise of the first few promises in Jeremiah 31. Note the preceding three. There's not much question that Matthew 26:27 - 28 recalls this. 'Drink of it, all of you.' The 'all' recalling the 'all' of Jeremiah 31:34 as Matthew once again draws several OT threads together to show that forgiveness of sin and God's presence are conjoined in Jesus. If Jeremiah is in the background, then sin is transgression of the Decalogue because that's generally how Jeremiah defines 'transgression'. (pgs. 211 - 214)

If the sermon on the mount introduced new law then spoke of forgiveness in relation to the old law, how could Matthew's notion of atonement be coherent? Sin would be a moving target. (pg. 215)

The point is to say that for Matthew, Jesus' fulfillment of the law and prophets is eschatological, soteriological, and moral. He is a mighty savior, whose assumptions about the law he shares with the prophets, whose full assumptions land on the Pentateuch. (pgs. 214 - 215)

So Jesus leaves untouched the embryonic framework that saw some laws as a 'pattern'; some to be obeyed 'in the land'; but the Decalogue as the controlling influence. (pg. 215)

When Jesus says, 'not a jot or a tittle shall pass away', his statement is in harmony with the framework because it only makes sense if we recognize that the law had built in limitations. (pgs. 215 - 220)

Even before the entry into Cana, they had the mana laws, which were of temporal jurisdiction/duration. Yet these laws remained but did not bind in the same way they abide as memorial and foretoken. (pgs. 218 - 219)

Everything that Jesus says about the law is in continuity with the intent of the law, and Ross rejects outright the universal description of what follows in Matthew 5:21 - 48 as the antithesis. (pgs. 220 - 236)

Despite all the arguments that Jesus is overturning the law in these verses, its demonstrable that everything Jesus says reflects a correct and proper understanding of the laws; his views of hatred, lust, divorce, oaths, the lex talionis - law of retaliation -, and love for enemies do not reflect abrogation of the law, but co-ordination with the law. (pgs. 236 - 237)

What was Jesus' attitude to things that were not of the weightier matters of the law? (pgs. 173 - 174)

One person wants to say that because Jesus touched a leper He made himself unclean and therefore held the purity laws in contempt, while another wants to defend him against accusations of uncleanness at all costs. (pgs. 174 - 177)

So was Jesus ever unclean? Well, of course he was. What Jew who ever sucked at his mother's breast was not unclean? But, so what? (pg. 178)

The law makes no straightforward equation between guilt and ceremonial uncleanness. (pg. 178)

So matters of:

1. The woman bleeding who touched Jesus (Mark 5:27) is simply not a issue. (pgs. 174 - 177)
2. Mark doesn't introduce us to an antinomian Jesus when he records Jesus' comments in Mark 7, 'nothing that goes into a man can defile a man'. Perhaps Jesus is reflecting creational norms: Nothing is intrinsically unclean. The Levitical law concurs - eating unclean foods could not itself defile. Jesus' statement is in continuity with the law. Looking back, Mark makes the kind of statement he should have made about the Sabbath if the anti-Sabbatarians are correct that the Sabbath ought to not be part of a Christian's life. (pgs. 179 - 187)

When we see Jesus at the end of his earthly life it's instructive to think about these events in the light of Leviticus 20:24 - 26. There the Lord separates Israel to himself, separates certain foods to uncleanness as a sign of Israel's separation to a God whose separation was marked by the temple veil. (pgs. 184 - 187)

Then when the veil is torn in two, it signifies not the departure of the Shekinah, as some argue. It signifies that the separation has ended. (pgs. 189 - 190)

Viewing this event through the lens of Isaiah 64, God has rent the heavens and come down, and the rent veil proclaims that from this point onwards no symbolic uncleanness can separate them from Emmanuel. (pg. 190)

In the Gospels we meet a Savior who lived in conformity with the law. He taught us to obey it in its own terms. Fulfilled its shadows. Evangelists confirm, rather than overturn, the presuppositions outlined from the Pentateuch. They do not abort the embryonic form of the threefold division that appears in the OT. (pgs. 190 - 191)

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A lot more material this week than in the last post. Ross is summarizing chapters four and five in his book, which is 93 pages. In our next post in this series we will consider how the Apostles interpreted the law, as recorded in the book of Acts. We will start to develop a better idea about what actually changed in the church after the rending of the temple veil.