Keeping Christ in the Decalogue

The Old Testament law is a huge and complex subject. There are as many views on it as there are Christian traditions, and even within the same tradition there can be a wide divergence of opinion. The New Testament can seem to not offer us much help here. What does it mean that Jesus came not to abolish, but to fulfill the law? How can the law be good, and at the same time a source of death? If we're not under the law, then what role does the law have in the life of the Christian? Does it have any role? How do we avoid the error of legalism or the opposite error of antinomianism?

Historically, Reformed theology has sought to answer these questions and others by speaking of the three uses of the law. To summarize -- the first use of the law is as a "harsh taskmaster", teaching us about the righteousness of God and our unrighteousness, revealing our sin, showing us our inability to attain God's holy standard, and causing us to flee to Christ for rescue.

Secondly, the law has the common grace function of restraining public wickedness and promoting public righteousness by informing human laws and customs. How far this should go has often been a source of disagreement within Reformed circles. Google "theonomy" to see what I mean.

Thirdly, the law functions for the Christian as a guide to growing in Christlikeness. For those "in Christ" the law loses it's power of death and becomes instead a gracious tool of the Holy Spirit for our sanctification.

Reformed theology also teaches that the moral law of God is summarized in the ten commandments, and further that "the sum of the ten commandments is, to love the Lord our God, with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength, and with all our mind; and our neighbor as ourselves." (Westminster Shorter Catechism Q&A 42) This brings me to The Rule of Love: Broken, Fulfilled, and Applied by J.V. Fesko, a minister in the OPC and professor at Westminster Seminary California. The Rule of Love is a clear and concise Reformed treatment of the ten commandments that grew out of a sermon series on Exodus. This is a practical little book that I'll undoubtedly refer to often. I recommend it.

Fesko begins by writing that part of the motivation for the book was his vexation at Christians who get more upset about the absence of the Decalogue from the public square than from the public worship of the church, or parents more concerned to have the ten commandments on the wall of the public school than impressed upon the hearts and minds of their covenant children. Also, much discussion of the ten commandments today completely omits Christ. The result? "They go from the Ten Commandments straight to its application to life, never asking the question: What about Christ? That inevitably leads to legalism, or the belief that we are able to fulfill the Law." (p. 3)

Fesko attempts to remedy this in two ways -- by stressing the importance of keeping the Decalogue linked to its prologue, and by considering each commandment in light of its historical, covenantal, and redemptive contexts. I found this a very fruitful way of opening up the ten commandments in new ways that I'd never seen before. The author contends that too often the commandments are decoupled from their prologue in Exodus 20:1-2. They thus become merely a set of abstract ethical principles, neither Jewish nor Christian. The prologue is essential for it "reminded Israel of her gracious redemption and directed her to the coming redemption of Christ. . . . Divorced from the prologue, the Ten Commandments are disconnected from their historical (the Law delivered at Sinai), covenantal (the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant), and redemptive contexts (the deliverance from Egypt)." (p. 15)

With the prologue in place we can better see the ten commandments in these three complementary contexts. I'll be sharing some excerpts from the chapters on specific commandments over the next days or weeks, but I hope you'll check out for yourself Fesko's Christ-centered treatment.

You can listen to the author interviewed about the book here.