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If one goes to a group of random, assorted Christians today and asks, “What happened to the Law of Moses?” a wide variety of answers is likely to result. “Done away with at the cross,” is a popular one. Others will say, “Still applicable in spirit, but not in practice.” I’ve also heard, “Impossible to keep,” “Still binding,” and “Only for the Jews.” Well, if you’ve read some of my other articles, you know I don’t find any of these to be quite what happened. Something changed at the death of Christ, all right – but it wasn’t the Law. If the Law could be changed, He need not have died at all, but it’s because they are eternal, changeless, and reflections of the nature of the Father Himself that even the loving and forgiving Creator needed to have the death to satisfy the transgression.

At the cross, it wasn’t the Law that was changed, but it’s meaning in relation to us, and our understanding of it. Through Christ, the clearest revelation of the Father, we came to realize that the commandments were not given to “keep us in line,” but to teach us, to make us the kinds of people that would not make the same mistake a third of the angels did, to prepare us to receive the inheritance promised us. They became promises of an eternity free from sin, and even the hints and temptations thereof. They became a spiritual map of our future country. If you want more on this, you can read my short essay called Ten Perfect Promises. Of course, some individuals before Christ realized this even before His first Advent, for the second Person has always been around, making intercession for humans in one way or another. Abraham, Elijah, Isaiah, Moses... these all knew who Yah was.

Of course, some will say that since it IS the law of Moses, it should be no longer applicable to Christians, since we don’t do everything the Old Testament prescribes anyway. If my brother dies and leaves a childless widow, I am under no obligation to marry her and call our firstborn his, as was the custom according to Deuteronomy 25:5. But then, isn’t there a difference between those customs and the eternal Law? I would think so, for certainly any Christian will believe that “thou shalt not kill” is a fairly socially relevant idea in these modern times.

For those who say we must keep the law only in Spirit, that makes things even worse... For to them, they are really saying that if ONLY the Spirit is applicable, we can kill as long as we do not hate. We can steal if we do not envy. We can fornicate and commit adultery so long as no lust is involved. We can bear false witness against our neighbors, as long as we have our conception of their “best interest” at heart. This cannot be Yah’s plan for His people.

So we must agree, for it was taught in the New Testament also (Mark 10:19, Luke 18:20), that some laws are certainly still a good idea. It seems apparent that the ones listed most often by the Gospel writers, James, John etc. are those same found in the 10 Commandments, or Decalogue which is recorded has having been given to Moses on stone tablets in Exodus 20. It has been pointed out that whenever the commandments are listed in the New Testament, however, the fourth, that concerning the Sabbath, is conspicuously absent.

Then again, that’s what the protests against the Law are generally about, aren’t they? No one seems to have a problem with the other nine! But I say this to you, hard as it may be to grasp at first, the fourth commandment is THE most important to a Christian. Satan well knew that it is an essential component to the continuous life of Victory that Christ has gone ahead to prepare for us, and therefore he has directed his best efforts into having people regard it as unimportant. How is it I say it is the most important of the ten? It doesn’t seem so at first glance, does it? But we need to see things through the eyes of Yah, not of man.

Do you want proof of how successful Satan was? Ask an average Christian today two questions: 1) Is a life of complete victory over one’s sinful nature possible? 2) Is the 7th Day Sabbath still a day that should be kept holy by the followers of Christ? For the most part, the answers to these two questions will be the same. There is a connection, and it is this: One may keep ANY and ALL of the other 9 commandments and worship ANY other god (or almost no god at all) than the One who can impart this Victory!

All the other 9 commandments are either upheld by civil law, social custom or spiritual “common sense.” The 4th is the ONLY one that is “invisible” between Yah and man alone, and therefore the consequences of not keeping it are not immediately apparent, for our Father is more willing to forgive than either the judicial system or societal norm. One may argue that the 10th (not coveting) is also just between Yah and man, and to an extent this is true, but that would only give further evidence of my point. That’s the second-least-obvious commandment for which the breaking of it is visibly punished.

For both the 4th and 10th, the penalty is as real as the other 8. But does Yah actually punish us if we do not keep these principles He has given us? No. Not at all. The truth is, He doesn’t have to! We forfeit their natural benefits if we break them, and through Christ, when He lives in us, we will not WANT to lose any benefit that will be of value to ourselves and others through us. It will be our very nature to want to do what is best for our bodies and minds.

If we are overcome often by envy in violation of the 10th article, we WILL eventually be led into outward sin. These things ARE upheld by social norm, and that’s why I don’t really include it in the JUST between Yah and man category so directly. If one is a worshipper of some false god, like, for example, Odin... this “being” can be loved above all other gods. No idol might be put before him. A devotee may choose not to use his name in vain. All the while, the “Odinist” may also respect his/her parents, not kill, sleep around, lie, steal or covet. Behold, outwardly he or she has kept nine commandments well!

But the Odinist CANNOT remember the Sabbath in favor of his deity. For it was Yah and Him alone who “made heaven and earth, the sea; and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day:wherefore the Lord blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it.” (Ex 20:11) This is the ONLY commandment that thus bears the seal of Yah as Creator, and the only one by which the other 9 become sanctified for the Christian God alone. Now the question becomes, “Wasn’t it only for the Jews, though?” Well, early church history doesn’t support that, nor do the Scriptures themselves.

But we can find an even clearer way to acquit all the Law of the charges Satan has leveled against it. What if we could show that the phrase “The Law of Moses” was only a convenient title? What if we could point out that the principles were in effect from the very beginning, and that they were merely given in visible fashion to the prophet on Sinai? Wouldn’t that be something! And even more importantly, if the claims are true that they are reflections of Yah’s very nature, they HAVE to have been there before they were given to Moses. That will be the deciding factor, for then it will be seen that it’s not just by interpretation of a few people, but there and clear in the Word concerning these matters.

Since the Sabbath is a specially controverted point, let’s leave that till last and deal with the other nine. My proposal is to show an instance of each of the 10 being kept faithfully before they were inscribed on stone for the Israelites. So let’s begin:

Commandment 1: “I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other Gods before me.” (Ex 20:2,3)

“And Abram said to the king of Sodom, ‘I have lift up mine hand unto the Lord, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth.’” (Genesis 14:22)

Commandment 2: “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: 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 shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.”

“And [Moses] took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strawed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it.” (Exodus 32:20) Technically, this is recorded after the giving of the tablets, yet Moses called it, when speaking to Aaron, a “great sin.” (Ex 32:21) Surely he could not have expected the people to have known better than idolatry if the commandment had JUST been given. Neither had the Decalogue been yet read in the hearing of the people – they would not have been accountable if they had not previously been instructed not to go the way of the heathen Egyptians in the land of their bondage.

Commandment 3: “Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain.”

Lots of examples of people having reverence for Yah’s name... “then men began to call upon the name of the Lord.” (Gen 4:26) “And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Hai on the east: and there he builded an altar unto the LORD, and called upon the name of the LORD.” (Gen 12:8) There is also an example given of men who held their own name higher than that of Yah, and this fulfils a violation of the commandment to keep His name sacred, as well as a more clear indication of the results of idolatry in the 2nd commandment above: “And they said, ‘Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.’ ... Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.” (Gen 11:4 & 9)

Commandment 5: “Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.”

Called the “first commandment with a promise,” this article of the Decalogue is also shown to be a fundamental truth: respect for elders, particularly those of near blood. “Gather yourselves together, and hear, ye sons of Jacob; and hearken unto Israel your father.” (Gen 49:2) “And Noah drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father’s nakedness.” (Gen 9:21-2)

Commandment 6: “Thou shalt not kill.”

Well, there are lots of examples of people not killing each other. For this one, we need to find a situation where a killing took place that was not the Father’s explicit command. The story of the first murder immediately comes to mind. Cain slew his brother Abel, and Yah declared to him, “And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened up her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand.” (Gen 4:11) Of the crime itself, in the verse above Yah said to Cain, “What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.” Even the very first humans knew the value of the lives of others.

Commandment 7: “Thou shalt not commit adultery.”

This is another commandment for which the earlier followers of Yah could best demonstrate their knowledge by counter-example. “And it came to pass after these things, that his master’s wife cast her eyes upon Joseph; and she said, ‘Lie with me.’ But he refused, and said unto his master’s wife, ‘Behold, my master wotteth not what is with me in the house, and he hath committed all that he hath to my hand; There is none greater in this house than I; neither hath he kept back any thing from me but thee, because thou art his wife: how then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” (Gen 39:7-9) They seem to have known this commandment as well, didn’t they?

Commandment 8: “Thou shalt not steal.”

“Behold, the money, which we found in our sacks’ mouths, we brought again unto thee out of the land of Canaan: how then should we steal out of thy lord’s house silver or gold?” (Gen 44:8) The sons of Jacob to Joseph’s servant, when he discovered among them property which had been planted upon them.

Commandment 9: “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.”

Abram said to Sarai, “Therefore it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they shall say, ‘This is his wife:’ and they will kill me, but they will save thee alive. Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister: that it may be well with me for thy sake; and my soul shall live because of thee.” (Gen 12:12,13) But that didn’t exactly go according to plan, for “The princes also of Pharaoh saw her, and commended her before Pharaoh: and the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house.” (Verse 15) “And the LORD plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai Abram’s wife. And Pharaoh called Abram, and said, What is this that thou hast done unto me? why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife?” (Verses 17,18) No matter how good an idea it seems at first, a lie will never result in the best possible good.

Commandment 10: “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.”

This one was also well known to the people of earth before Sinai. In fact, all the other evils that occurred were but a natural result of the sins started in the mind, the father of them all being discontent. “And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the LORD that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart. And the LORD said, ‘I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.’” (Gen 6:5-7)

Okay, here we go: The fourth commandment. I can cite as many examples as above for this one, but over the years, people have come up with as many arguments as possible to downplay or eliminate the Sabbath’s role in the early days of mankind. I’ll show you the verses, man’s argument against them, and then I’ll cite an example that perhaps many readers were not previously aware of. Anyway, for the record:

Commandment 4: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.” (Ex 20:8-11)

Well, aside from being the longest commandment, and also including the words “remember” and “keep,” the enemy of souls sure has done an extensive job of getting us to “forget” and “lose” it. The first, and perhaps most obvious evidence in favor of it being in existence before Sinai is to go back to the incident the commandment itself refers to. “And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made.” (Gen 2:2,3)

Now, there are some who will say that it was not TOLD to Adam to keep the day sacred, therefore how can we say it was in effect as a Sabbath from then? Well, for one thing, Adam was created on the 6th day, so he was certainly around to note well whatever “resting” went on. Aside from this, we are not specifically told when the institution of the sacrifice was made known to him either, but by the actions of his sons, we can see that this was indeed the case. But let’s just keep this in mind and move on a little further.

There are the comments of Moses about the Sabbath before the Israelites arrived at the place where the tablets were given. These are found instatements such as this, “See, for that the LORD hath given you the Sabbath, therefore He giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days; abide ye every man in his place, let no man go out of his place on the seventh day.” (Ex 16:29) And in several places BEFORE this was it also mentioned, Exodus 16:23, 25 and 26. All of this was before Exodus 20 and the commandments.

The arguments that men have brought against this one are a bit more subtle. They say that it was somehow revealed to Moses alone before the tablets were given, and that he was actually teaching the people something new in the 16th chapter there. This is quite an assumption, when the relevant data concerning the 7th day was given in Genesis. but there is a way to deal with this assumption as well.

Many years later, the psalmist, king David, wrote the following when thinking of the exodus of the Hebrew people from Egypt, “And He brought forth His people with joy, and His chosen with gladness: And gave them the lands of the heathen: and they inherited the labour of the people; That they might observe His statutes, and keep His laws. Praise ye the LORD.” (Psalms 105:43-45) What laws? If the commandments were first given at Sinai, how could He have brought them out so that they could therefore keep them?

Actually, the earlier chapters of Exodus tell us just what laws were being referred to. “And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, ‘Thus saith the LORD, Israel is my son, even my firstborn: And I say unto thee, Let my son go, that he may serve me: and if thou refuse to let him go, behold, I will slay thy son, even thy firstborn.’” (Ex 4:22,23) We all know this story, and we also well know Pharaoh’s response, “And Pharaoh said, ‘Who is the LORD, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I know not the LORD, neither will I let Israel go.’” (Ex 5:2)

Yet observe this part carefully. The ruler of Egypt did NOT let the Israelites go, yet Moses got them to start keeping the Law which they already knew well. Read what Pharaoh later said in complaint to Moses, “And the king of Egypt said unto them, ‘Wherefore do ye, Moses and Aaron, let the people from their works? get you unto your burdens.’ And Pharaoh said, ‘Behold, the people of the land now are many, and ye make them rest from their burdens!’” (Ex 5:4,5) What could this have been referring to but the Sabbath? David’s psalm said the Hebrews were released from Egypt “that they might observe His statues and keep His laws.” Surely, of all the Decalogue, the ONLY one which their slavery made it impossible for them to keep was the 4th. And, if Moses was bringing some “strange, new teaching” to the already heavily burdened Hebrew laborers, it seems unlikely that he would be able to get them to adopt it so quickly.

Pharaoh retaliated by giving the Israelites even more restrictive conditions under which to work, at the same time leaving their quotas unchanged (Ex 5:10,11) in an effort to get them to forsake their duties to the Most High. The result? Ten awful plagues, one for each article of the law that the Egyptian king had sought to make the children of Israel despise. The people were released, and they were given the tablets of stone as a visible symbol of that which they had known all along, as demonstrated in the 10 examples above.

Not a single article of the Decalogue was first given to Moses. These things were known, and kept, from the earliest times in Genesis. They were around ever since there were beings other than Yah to keep them, and even more significantly, were around before sin entered. Even though, therefore, Christ came to release us from the penalty of sin (Romans 6:23), nevertheless He did so to “reconcile” us unto Himself (Col 1:20), that is, to bring us back into favor of Heaven, and into that mindset whereby we may say, “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments: and His commandments are not grievous.” (1 John 5:3) Adam did not find the principles of Heaven offensive. Neither will any who have returned, through Christ, to that state of spiritual innocence.

David.

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