I AM Bible Studies and Resources

The Ten Commandments

There are certain elements within Christianity that want to take parts of The Law for themselves, specifically the Ten Commandments. They say that the Ten Commandments are moral laws and as such are binding upon the Church.
This however is not only unnecessary but, as we have seen previously, it is unscriptural. The moral laws that the Ten commandments contain were already generally accepted before The Law was given. Examples can be found in the books of Beresheet / Genesis and Iyov / Job:

No other gods:
No carved images:

Then Jacob said to his household, and to all who were with him, "Put away the foreign gods that are among you, purify yourselves, change your garments...."
Beresheet / Genesis 35:2

Do not take the Lord's name in vain:

Although not explicitly expressed before the giving of The Law it can be seen in the attitudes of the righteous towards God, i.e.. Enoch, who walked with God; Noah who was considered a just man, perfect and who also walked with God; there were others also including Job who would not profane the Lord's name:

9 Then his wife said to him, "Do you still maintain your integrity? Renounce God, and die."
10 But he said to her, "You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. What? Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?"
In all this Job didn't sin with his lips.
Iyov / Job 2:9-10

Honor your father and mother:

Can be seen in children's attitudes towards their parents, for example Noah's children in their obedience to him regarding the ark:

Noah went into the ark with his sons, his wife, and his sons' wives, because of the waters of the flood.
Beresheet / Genesis 7:7

You shall not murder:

I will surely require your blood of your lives. At the hand of every animal I will require it. At the hand of man, even at the hand of every man's brother, I will require the life of man..
Beresheet / Genesis 9:5

You shall not commit adultery:

3 But God came to Abimelech in a dream of the night, and said to him, "Behold, you are a dead man, because of the woman whom you have taken. For she is a man's wife."
4 Now Abimelech had not come near her. He said, "Lord, will you kill even a righteous nation?
5 Didn't he tell me, 'She is my sister?' She, even she herself said, 'He is my brother.' In the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands have I done this."
Beresheet / Genesis 20:3-5

You shall not steal:

25 Abraham complained to Abimelech because of a water well, which Abimelech's servants had violently taken away.
26 Abimelech said, I don't know who has done this thing. Neither did you tell me, neither did I hear of it, until today.
Beresheet / Genesis 21:25-26

You shall not bear false witness:

22 It happened at that time, that Abimelech and Phicol the captain of his host spoke to Abraham, saying, "God is with you in all that you do.
23 Now therefore swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me, nor with my son, nor with my son's son. But according to the kindness that I have done to you, you shall do to me, and to the land in which you have sojourned."
24 Abraham said, "I will swear."
Beresheet / Genesis 21:22-24

You shall not covet:

This really is the first step before theft and although not explicitly forbidden before the giving of The Law, it is implied wherever the idea that theft is morally wrong (as we have just seen in Beresheet / Genesis 21:25-26).

So it can be seen that there is no need for Gentile Christians to claim the Ten Commandments, as all the moral laws that they desire were already in effect long before The Law was given; however if the desire is to make use of the Ten Commandments because the moral laws that they contain are all laid out in an orderly fashion, then that's fine, but the Ten Commandments should only ever be used as a guide to morality rather a legalistic code of practice, and to remember that they are part of that which was covenanted to Israel and Israel alone.

The Sabbath

The only commandment of the Ten not mentioned, commanded nor implied before the giving of The Law is the fourth - To keep the Sabbath. The reason is simple - the Sabbath was given to Israel as a sign of their redemption from slavery in Egypt:

12 Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the LORD your God commanded you.
13 Six days shall you labor, and do all your work;
14 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God: in it you shall not do any work, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your man-servant, nor your maid-servant, nor your ox, nor your donkey, nor any of your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates; that your man-servant and your maid-servant may rest as well as you.
15 You shall remember that you were a servant in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out of there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm: therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.
Devarim / Deuteronomy 5:12-15

There is no reason for Gentiles to keep the Sabbath - Scripture does not command it nor require it. As we have seen already The Law, and therefore the Sabbath, was given only to Israel. Some might say that God gave the Sabbath in Genesis chapter two but this is an error as the term 'the seventh day' is used and not 'the Sabbath'; the Hebrew word sabbath (which literally means rest) is used twice, once in v. 2 and again in v. 3 but both times it is correctly rendered 'rested' as it has no definite article and the context is referring to God resting from His work with no reference to man at all.
There is no mention of anyone keeping the Sabbath from Beresheet / Genesis to the giving of The Law in Shemot / Exodus. The Sabbath law is not a creation ordinance as some have tried to make it.

For more on the subject see 'Israelology: The Missing Link In Systematic Theology' by Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum, pp. 651-660; also available in an updated version online.

Circumcision

Circumcision was first given to Abraham as a token in remembrance of the covenant previously established:

You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin. It will be a token of a covenant between me and you.
Beresheet / Genesis 17:11

The 'covenant between Me and you' is the covenant referred to in Beresheet / Genesis 15:1-21:

In that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, "To your seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates:..."
Beresheet / Genesis 15:18

Later, circumcision was confirmed in The Law:

In the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised.
VaYikra / Leviticus 12:3

Yeshua makes it clear where the covenant of circumcision originated:

Moses has given you circumcision (not that it is of Moses, but of the fathers), and on the Sabbath you circumcise a boy.
Jn. 7:22

What Moses did give was the confirmation of the covenant of circumcision - that it continued as God said that it would as an everlasting covenant:

"...He who is born in your house, and he who is bought with your money, must be circumcised. My covenant will be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant...."
Beresheet / Genesis 17:13

Circumcision for Jew and Gentile

a. For a Jew under the Abrahamic covenant:

10 "...This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your seed after you. Every male among you shall be circumcised.
11 You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin. It will be a token of a covenant between me and you.
12 He who is eight days old will be circumcised among you, every male throughout your generations, he who is born in the house, or bought with money of any foreigner who is not of your seed.
13 He who is born in your house, and he who is bought with your money, must be circumcised. My covenant will be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant...."
Beresheet / Genesis 17:10-13

b. For a Gentile under the Abrahamic covenant:

"...He who is eight days old will be circumcised among you, every male throughout your generations, he who is born in the house, or bought with money of any foreigner who is not of your seed...."
Beresheet / Genesis 17:12

c. For a Jew under The Law:

In the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised.
VaYikra / Leviticus 12:3

d. For a Gentile under The Law:

    NB. For a Gentile to convert to Judaism - in NT times called a proselyte - he had to accept the sign of circumcision; by doing so, he was agreeing to keep The [whole] Law in the same way that a natural Jew would. This is what Gal. 5:3 is referring to:

Yes, I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is a debtor to do the whole law.
Gal. 5:3

Law and Grace

Grace is defined as: "the unmerited favor of God" (The Concise Oxford Dictionary).
Bullinger describes it as: "The word denotes specially, God's grace and favour manifested towards mankind or to any individual, which, as a free act is no more hindered by sin than it is conditional upon works...."
We do not deserve salvation, nor any good thing from God; but through grace He wants to give them to us anyway. We can do nothing to earn God's favor - not good works nor by being a 'good person':

8 for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God,
9 not of works, that no one would boast.
Eph. 2:8-9

Jn. 1:17 would seem to separate grace from The Law:

For the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth came through Yeshua the Messiah.
Jn. 1:17

Both the Greek words used for grace and truth have the article and therefore should properly be rendered 'the grace' and 'the truth'; and as such 'the grace' and 'the truth' were not in The Law - they came through Yeshua the Messiah. But that is not to say that there was neither grace nor truth in The Law - there certainly was but that 'the grace', that is grace in all it's fullness, and 'the truth', that is truth in all it's fullness, were only revealed through the person of Yeshua.
Grace in The Law was confined to God overlooking the sins of the people:

whom God set forth to be a an atoning sacrifice, through faith, in his blood, to show his righteousness because of the passing over of the sins done before, in the forbearance of God;
Romans 3:25

1 For the law, having a shadow of the good to come, not the very image of the things, can never with the same sacrifices year by year, which they offer continually, make perfect those who draw near.
2 Or else wouldn't they have ceased to be offered, because the worshippers, having been once cleansed, would have had no more consciousness of sins?
3 But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance made of sins year by year.
4 For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins
Heb 10:1-4.

In Rom. 13:1 we are told: 'Let every soul be in subjection to the higher authorities,....'. Law is not just The Law but all law; - 'we are not under law but under grace' means every law. This is not to say that we can ignore laws and please ourselves:

What then? Will we sin, because we are not under law, but under grace? Certainly not!
Rom. 6:15

It might be that there are some things that we have done and are not aware of, and if we were to die without having specifically asked for forgiveness for them, then on the day of judgement God will not judge us with regards to them because Yeshua paid for our sins so that they will not be counted against us:

He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world.
1 Jn. 2:2

When Yeshua died he took upon Himself all our sins - past, present and future. God is not confined to time and therefore when He says, through the Bible, that Yeshua paid for our sins He meant all of them; not just the ones before we came to faith.