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COVENANT Vol. 1, Ray Sutton, 1987 COVENANT: WHAT IS IT ANYWAY? February, 1987
“What is a covenant anyway~
Okay, someone might want to say, “You can’t define it; it is like God; you can only it.” Great, I’ll settle for a description. But where is it? Descriptions are as few and far between as definitions. So we’re left to treating the covenant like pornography, a kind of ‘you know it when you see it” understanding. But the problem is that most Christians can’t even do this. They don’t know it because they don’t see it. And they don’t see it because they don’t know it. They are trapped in a ridiculous cycle. All the while, these good-intentioned Christians continue
to propose a disjointed kind of Christianity at a time when more than ever before they need to know what a covenant is and how it works. Thev are headed into the slaughter of irrelevance with their Scofield Bible notes in hand.
So my primary purpose in this newsletter is to the covenant. The Book of Deuteronomy is a model, a place where all of its parts can clearly be seen. Deuteronomy is to the covenant what Remans is to systematic theology. But how do we know Deuteronomy is a covenant? Moses says,
“He declared to you His which He commanded you to perform, that is, the Ten Commandments in the original~ (Deut. 4:13). Deuteronomy is the giving of the Ten Commandments, a “new covenant so to speak. Moses says of the book as a whole, ‘Keep the words of to do them, that you may prosper in all that you do” (Deut. 29:9). Deuteronomy is definitely a covenant document.
Significantly, scholarship of the last few decades has uncovered the similarity between Deuteronomy and other ancient near-eastern covenant treaties, called Hittite (sixteenth-thirteenth centuries B. C.) and Assyrian (eighth-seventh centuries B.C.). Suzerains were ancient kings who imposed their covenant treaties on lesser kings called vassals. The structure of these treaty documents is not identical to Deuteronomy, but close enough to help us better understand its structure. Suzerainty covenants had six parts.1 Suzerainty Covenants
1. Like an introduction, it declared who the suzerain (king) was as well as his great power.
2. A historical summary of the suzerain’s rule. In short, the one who controls history is lord and demands complete control
These were the specific laws of conquest to be observed, the stipulations being the very means of dominion.
3 Also, they distinguished the servants of the suzerain from the other people of the world.
4. This section outlined the ceremony where an was taken, receiving sanctions in the form of blessing and cursing, The character of this oath was
itself-valedictory. The vassal swore his allegiance to the suzerain. It is called “self-valedictory” because the vassal condemned himself to death if he broke the covenant. In other words, if he was faithful, he was blessed. If unfaithful, he was cursed.
5. The covenant document
It should be noted that Mendenhall’s overview of the covenant in this article actually lists seven parts of the suzerain treaty Preamble, historical prologue, stipulations, deposit arangements, witnesses, blessing and cursing, and oath. But it is generally agreed that the suzerain covenant had six parts. also specified successors to the suzerain so that the vassal could pledge his allegiance to them. Another feature is the enlisting of witnesses, often “heaven and earth,” to the sealing of the covenant.
What is it? What does it mean? Briefly, God established a bottom-up system of government with captains over 50s, 100s, and 1000s. These representatives were to mediate judgment to the nation. And the nation was to mediate judgment to the world.
The next section of the covenant is usually the longest. It concerns the principle of are set out. In Deuteronomy, this segment is a re-statement and expansion of the Ten Commandments, consisting of 21 chapters (Deut. 5-26). These stipulations are the way God’s people defeat the enemy. By relating to God in terms of ethical obedience, the enemies fall before His children. The primary idea is that God wants His people to see an
relationship between cause and effect: be faithful and prosper.
The fourth part of Deuteronomy lists blessings and curses (Deut. 27-28).
.
3. Any student of Kline will immediately recognize the similarity between the five points of covenantalism and Kline’s division of Deuteronomy. But any real student of Kline will also immediately note the differences between what I am doing and what Kline has done. The moat obvious difference, for example, is my understanding of the first point of covenantalism: transcendence.
Kline failed to make this connection, simply calling the first section of Deuteronomy the “preamble.” In the next newsletter I shall discuss in what sense I’ve
used Kline and in what way I’ve rejected him. The title of the essay is, “Kline
vs. Kline.”
the actual process of ratification. The covenant is received
by a “self-valedictory” oath that applies both sanctions. A
“self-valedictory” oath literally means “to speak evil unto
oneself.” it calls down God’s wrath, if the covenant is broken,
and God’s blessing, if the covenant is kept.
Continuity determines the true “W
heirs. it is established by means of a confirmation process. It
appears when Moses lays hands on and commissions
Joshua to lead the nation into conquest of the land. The covenant is handed down from generation to generation. But only the one empowered by the Spirit can obey and take dominion. He is the one who The final principle of the covenant tells “who is in the covenant,” or “who has continuity
with it: and what the basis of this continuity will be.
The covenant model is complete. Now we know what a covenant is. The Church has always wrestled with the structure of the
Ten Commandments, or “Ten Words” in the original Hebrew (Exod. 4:13). Some see a three/seven break down. Others
have proposed a four/six division. Still others have considered even different structuring. But let’s consider the obvious, a five/five division, by using our covenant model as a guide.
1. First Commandment: Transcendence (Exod. 20:1-3) ~
The first commandment begins with the Exodus. It is an explicit reference to God’s true transcendence. God said that the purpose of the Exodus was so that the “Egyptians would know that He is (Exod. 14:18). He essentially told them that His purpose was to demonstrate His transcendence and immanence: that He was distinct from all other Gods, the One and only God, and that He was present with His people in a way that He was not present with anyone else. He had made a special display of His transcendence and immanence in other words, and thus, Israel was especially responsible to depend on Him alone for their salvation.
Second Commandment:
The second commandment moves to the next principle of the covenant, a hierarchy of obedience (“worship and serve”). In the Deuteronomic covenant, the hierarchical section closes by associating rebellion to the sin of idolatry.
Moses says, “So watch yourselves carefully, since you did not see any form on the day the Lord spoke to you at Horeb from the midst of the fire, lest you act corruptly and make a graven image” (Deut. 4:15-16). Thus, the second commandment follows the same pattern, connecting worship and submission, “service” (Exod. 20:5).
The history of Israel’s redemption is also the backdrop. God forbids worship of any sort of idol. The specific outline is “from heaven above to the earth, to anything under the sea or earth.” It is possible that the commandment is written this way to counter a “hierarchy” among the Egyptian false gods.
They worshiped life above, below, and especially the Nile itself. Birds and animals of the Nile were worshiped because it was believed that the “Great River” was a serpent providing life to the world above, below, and all around.
Clearly this refers to the imagery of the serpent in the garden, a pagan hierarchy. Even the way God condemns idolatry develops a certain “false” hierarchy.
COVENANT RENEWAL–
God’s hierarchy places all authority in Him. Anyone else only has delegated responsibility, Transcendence is not shifted from God to man, or to creation for that matter. Egyptian religion had a hierarchy of authority that placed the Pharaoh in the center of the world. He was half god and half man, a perfect “false” incarnation. He mediated life to the world. The animals were simply “emanations” from him, possessing a little “less” deity. This created a pyramidal hierarchy with man at the top of the pyramid. The pyramid structure is not inherently bad, since it is the “mountain model” found throughout the Bible
The pyramid was simply a cheap (or shall I say, rather expensive) copy of God’s mountain dwelling. But God’s mountain pyramid always has God on top of the mountain, His hierarchy begins with God, not man. To worship a “created” thing is to place creation at the top of the mountain. The result: tyranny like that of Egypt
3. Third Commandment: Ethics (Exod. 20:7)
The third section of the Deuteronomic covenant stipulates what is involved in obeying God. The pagan system,
growing out of a “chain of being” approach, is inherently ma-.
nipulative. This commandment has to do with not manipulating the “name of God.” When would the name of God be
taken in vain? In false oath-taking. To ‘swear in the Bible is
to take an oath. Jesus criticized the Pharisees for swearing
by all sorts of things and taking so many false oaths (Matt.
5:33-37). They tried to manipulate God’s name.
What is a name? A name in the Bible represents the person. God named Adam. Adam named the animals and Eve. This made man God’s vice-regent in dominion. But the the Therefore, any time the name of God was tampered with, it indicated an attempt to manipulate Him. Actually,to worship a false god renames and re-constitutes the true God. God does not want to be re-named,and He certainly cannot be manipulated.
The Pharaoh renamed Joseph (Gen. 41:45). Nebuchadnezzar’s official over the eunuchs renamed Daniel and the three Hebrew youths (Dan. 1:7). When a man came under a pagan king’s authority in the Old Testament, at least to serve in a position of leadership under him, he was renamed by that king. God renamed Abram to Abraham and Jacob to Israel, a sign of His authority over them.
The commandment here forbids a manipulative approach to God. It does not forbid oath-taking . “vanity.” When someone makes a false oath, he is attempting to manipulate God’s name for his own end. Even though man tries, he cannot control God. It is the other way around.
Nevertheless, false oath-taking is ultimately a reflection on Him, making Him seem to be empty. How? When someone who is actually lying says, “May God strike me dead, if I am i telling a lie: and, if he does not fall down dead, but is later found out to be a liar, God does not “seem” to have stood behind His name. If man obeys God’s stipulations, however, he will not need to try to manipulate God’s name. Blessing and whatever man needs will come through a proper ethical relationship to Him.
“. Fourth Commandment: Sanctions (Exod. 20:8-11)
The fourth commandment regulates the Sabbath. What was the Sabbath? Originally, it was the day when God
“blessed” the world in a special way (Gen. 2:lff.). The word “blessing” ties the day to one of the two judicial of the covenant (Deuteronomy 28), This makes the original Sabbath a day when man was to receive God’s benediction.
Instead, man disobeyed and the Sabbath Day became a day of judgment. The curses of Genesis three were issued. So, throughout history, the Lord’s Day (Sabbath Day) is a time of judgment. It is like that final day, “the Day of the Lord.”
This commandment has to do with honoring a time of special judgment. One day in seven should be devoted to it. Double sacrifices were offered because Israel made special reflection on her sins. The comments about working on the other days orient even man’s work toward a time of judgment. Indeed, this is the direction of history.
5. Fifth Commandment: Continuity (Exod. 20:12)
We see that the fifth commandment is positive. The emphasis is on tangible continuity, since to “live
long on the earth” was the legacy given to Israel. Why longevity? The curse of death broke down generational continuity, requiring that covenantal faithfulness be sustained over many generations, was broken down. Think how easy it would be to sustain a system of belief if the founders lived for 500 years. It would be like still having Martin Luther alive. All those years that liberal German, Lutheran theologians were corrupting orthodoxy, Luther could and would have confronted them and probably turned them over his knee. (They would have needed a lot more
than that.) But the point is that longevity was critical to sustaining the family inheritance. Because death entered the world, a system was needed to the inheritance. It is in the that the many problems of inheritance can be seen.
Although, it seems that death is also After the flood, lifespans shortened. The common grace to pagans lasts three to four generations, then they fall or revolt. The blessings to the faithful go on for a thousand generations. Thus, covenant keeping compounds far longer than covenant-breaking. If the evil ones lived five hundred years per generation, their hand would be strengthened: two thousand years of compounding. So this commandment has to do with inheritance, an issue of Obedient sons and daughters receive the inheritance, the blessing of the previous commandment.
The first series of commandments follows the structure of the covenant. Without having to force the commandments, I believe the reader can easily see how God ordered them around the five parts of the covenant. The second half of the commandments does the same.
.— -- -———
The Second Commandments
6. The Sixth Commandment: True Transcendence (20:13)
God returns to the transcendence theme. How? Unlawful killing of another human being was expressly forbidden because “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed, For in the of God He made man” (Gen. 9:6). In fact, the “ethical” section of the Noahic covenant is
summarized under this one commandment, summing up all of God’s demands.
The key is in the word Man is the image of God.
Unique to God% creation and unlike any other aspect of His handiwork, man is a picture of God. Man shows Gods transcendence and immanence. To kill man is analogous to killing God. All rebellion is an attempt to kill God. Satan tempted man to become like “God. Between the lines of Satan’s offer was the idea that the true God would be (Gen. 3:l). So the second table begins with a commandment against eradicating Gods transcendent immanent representation in man.
7. Seventh Commandment: Hierarchy (20:14)
The Deuteronomic covenant made a specific connection between idolatry and adultery. The end of the second sec- COVENANT RENEWAL-4
calls attention to the second commandment, reminding Israel of the prohibition against “idolatry” (Deut. 4:15-19).
Moses gives as a reason, “For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a God” (Deut. 4:24). “Jealousy” is a response to any kind of marital unfaithfutness. Indeed, there was a special “ordeal of jealousy” (Nu. 5). Since the people of God are His “bride,” worshipping other gods would be
analogous to sexual unfaithfulness in marriage, God’s proper response would be “jealousy.”
The ideas of worship and marriage are expressed in the old Anglican form of the marriage ceremony where the bride pledges, “1 worship thee with my body? Sexual faithfulness is a form of service, like the faithfulness of service in worship.
Adultery is a violation of God’s hierarchy. Marital faithfulness is a mutual (familial hierarchy) to one another. Paul says,
But because of [adultery], let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. . . . The wife does not have over her
own body, but the husband does (1 Cor. 7:2-4). Adultery is due to rebellion against the authoritative within marriage. A man and woman are to submit their bodies to one another, the best defense against adultery and “immoralities.”
8. Eighth Commandment: Ethics (20:15)
The third section of the Deuteronomic covenant ‘stipulated” how to be consecrated through “ethics.” In other words, God’s are ethical, separating the clean from the unclean. As long as God’s people lived by these ethical boundary-lines, they would be victorious. Ethics is contrary to a “manipulative” world-and-life view.
In the third commandment we saw that man is forbidden to “manipulate” the Name of Gods The eighth commandment,
which parallels both the third section of the covenant and the third commandment, speaks to another form of “boundary violation.” Stealing is manipulative. Taking something that is not yours is a failure to relate to people on terms, and honor the propriety of others.
Paul says, “Let him who steals steal no longer; but rather let him labor, performing with his own hands what is good, in order that he may have something to share with him who has need” (Eph. 5:28). There are two problems with a thief. He will not and will not Both require dealings with people. means one submits himself to the laws of work: perseverance, showing upon time, willingness to learn, diligence, etc. To give means taking what has been earned and helping someone in need.
A thief, on the other hand, takes a manipulative approach. Instead of working, he seeks to manipulate through cunning, deception, and various other forms of theft. He certainly doesn’t give to others, and if he happens to, he does so to further need, not the other person’s. Ultimately, a
thief believes money is magical: not the means to an end, but the end in itself. This is why all tyrannies are based on theft. The “Robin Hood” approach is a form of manipulating what belongs to one group to re-distribute it to another.
9. Ninth Commandment: Sanctions (20:16)
The Deuteronomic covenant is ratified by sanctions in the fourth section, to be received in an “official” context, probably at worship. Furthermore, this judgment was received at a Sabbath time, Pentecost.
Thus, in this commandment, “bearing false witness” also conjures up the picture of an official scene, a courtroom. Where would one be
likely to bear false witness? It would probably be brought in the same legal environment of passing judgment, a formal trial or hearing. This could also be done informally, telling lies about someone in the congregation or who lives down
the street.11 But even this setting is judicial because a judgment is passed. “Bearing false witness” interferes with and perverts judgment. How? False witness causes blessings to fall on those who deserve a curse, and vice versa.
10. Tenth Commandment: Continuity (20:1 7) Notice ail the items that are forbidden to covet. They all have to do with a man’s inheritance. In Old Testament times, the wife was made an heir of the covenant through an adoption procedure. She actually became the “sister” of her husband. Abraham was not lying to Pharaoh after all (Gen. 20:2)when he called Sarah his “sister.” This practice was done to assure the woman’s receiving part of the inheritance, contrary to the pagan practices of considering a woman’s value as being less than a man’s. So, when an Old Testament man
coveted the wife of another, he was cutting into his neighbor’s inheritance. In Israel, this disrupted everything because each family received a particular piece of land and inheritance when Canaan was conquered under Joshua. To covet one’s covenant brother’s family and possessions was to rob the inheritance granted by the covenant itself, Here the last commandment ends on a note of finality.
The second five commandments follow, without much explanation, the basic pattern of the covenant, completing a perfect double witness. They also confirm our basic five-fold definition. Now, when someone asks, “Covenant: What is it anyway?”, you’ll have an answer, an answer that is so
you can count it on your fingers. Who knows, maybe this is why God gave man two hands with five fingers on each one!
“What is a covenant anyway~
Okay, someone might want to say, “You can’t define it; it is like God; you can only it.” Great, I’ll settle for a description. But where is it? Descriptions are as few and far between as definitions. So we’re left to treating the covenant like pornography, a kind of ‘you know it when you see it” understanding. But the problem is that most Christians can’t even do this. They don’t know it because they don’t see it. And they don’t see it because they don’t know it. They are trapped in a ridiculous cycle. All the while, these good-intentioned Christians continue
to propose a disjointed kind of Christianity at a time when more than ever before they need to know what a covenant is and how it works. Thev are headed into the slaughter of irrelevance with their Scofield Bible notes in hand.
So my primary purpose in this newsletter is to the covenant. The Book of Deuteronomy is a model, a place where all of its parts can clearly be seen. Deuteronomy is to the covenant what Remans is to systematic theology. But how do we know Deuteronomy is a covenant? Moses says,
“He declared to you His which He commanded you to perform, that is, the Ten Commandments in the original~ (Deut. 4:13). Deuteronomy is the giving of the Ten Commandments, a “new covenant so to speak. Moses says of the book as a whole, ‘Keep the words of to do them, that you may prosper in all that you do” (Deut. 29:9). Deuteronomy is definitely a covenant document.
Significantly, scholarship of the last few decades has uncovered the similarity between Deuteronomy and other ancient near-eastern covenant treaties, called Hittite (sixteenth-thirteenth centuries B. C.) and Assyrian (eighth-seventh centuries B.C.). Suzerains were ancient kings who imposed their covenant treaties on lesser kings called vassals. The structure of these treaty documents is not identical to Deuteronomy, but close enough to help us better understand its structure. Suzerainty covenants had six parts.1 Suzerainty Covenants
1. Like an introduction, it declared who the suzerain (king) was as well as his great power.
2. A historical summary of the suzerain’s rule. In short, the one who controls history is lord and demands complete control
These were the specific laws of conquest to be observed, the stipulations being the very means of dominion.
3 Also, they distinguished the servants of the suzerain from the other people of the world.
4. This section outlined the ceremony where an was taken, receiving sanctions in the form of blessing and cursing, The character of this oath was
itself-valedictory. The vassal swore his allegiance to the suzerain. It is called “self-valedictory” because the vassal condemned himself to death if he broke the covenant. In other words, if he was faithful, he was blessed. If unfaithful, he was cursed.
5. The covenant document
It should be noted that Mendenhall’s overview of the covenant in this article actually lists seven parts of the suzerain treaty Preamble, historical prologue, stipulations, deposit arangements, witnesses, blessing and cursing, and oath. But it is generally agreed that the suzerain covenant had six parts. also specified successors to the suzerain so that the vassal could pledge his allegiance to them. Another feature is the enlisting of witnesses, often “heaven and earth,” to the sealing of the covenant.
What is it? What does it mean? Briefly, God established a bottom-up system of government with captains over 50s, 100s, and 1000s. These representatives were to mediate judgment to the nation. And the nation was to mediate judgment to the world.
The next section of the covenant is usually the longest. It concerns the principle of are set out. In Deuteronomy, this segment is a re-statement and expansion of the Ten Commandments, consisting of 21 chapters (Deut. 5-26). These stipulations are the way God’s people defeat the enemy. By relating to God in terms of ethical obedience, the enemies fall before His children. The primary idea is that God wants His people to see an
relationship between cause and effect: be faithful and prosper.
The fourth part of Deuteronomy lists blessings and curses (Deut. 27-28).
.
3. Any student of Kline will immediately recognize the similarity between the five points of covenantalism and Kline’s division of Deuteronomy. But any real student of Kline will also immediately note the differences between what I am doing and what Kline has done. The moat obvious difference, for example, is my understanding of the first point of covenantalism: transcendence.
Kline failed to make this connection, simply calling the first section of Deuteronomy the “preamble.” In the next newsletter I shall discuss in what sense I’ve
used Kline and in what way I’ve rejected him. The title of the essay is, “Kline
vs. Kline.”
the actual process of ratification. The covenant is received
by a “self-valedictory” oath that applies both sanctions. A
“self-valedictory” oath literally means “to speak evil unto
oneself.” it calls down God’s wrath, if the covenant is broken,
and God’s blessing, if the covenant is kept.
Continuity determines the true “W
heirs. it is established by means of a confirmation process. It
appears when Moses lays hands on and commissions
Joshua to lead the nation into conquest of the land. The covenant is handed down from generation to generation. But only the one empowered by the Spirit can obey and take dominion. He is the one who The final principle of the covenant tells “who is in the covenant,” or “who has continuity
with it: and what the basis of this continuity will be.
The covenant model is complete. Now we know what a covenant is. The Church has always wrestled with the structure of the
Ten Commandments, or “Ten Words” in the original Hebrew (Exod. 4:13). Some see a three/seven break down. Others
have proposed a four/six division. Still others have considered even different structuring. But let’s consider the obvious, a five/five division, by using our covenant model as a guide.
1. First Commandment: Transcendence (Exod. 20:1-3) ~
The first commandment begins with the Exodus. It is an explicit reference to God’s true transcendence. God said that the purpose of the Exodus was so that the “Egyptians would know that He is (Exod. 14:18). He essentially told them that His purpose was to demonstrate His transcendence and immanence: that He was distinct from all other Gods, the One and only God, and that He was present with His people in a way that He was not present with anyone else. He had made a special display of His transcendence and immanence in other words, and thus, Israel was especially responsible to depend on Him alone for their salvation.
Second Commandment:
The second commandment moves to the next principle of the covenant, a hierarchy of obedience (“worship and serve”). In the Deuteronomic covenant, the hierarchical section closes by associating rebellion to the sin of idolatry.
Moses says, “So watch yourselves carefully, since you did not see any form on the day the Lord spoke to you at Horeb from the midst of the fire, lest you act corruptly and make a graven image” (Deut. 4:15-16). Thus, the second commandment follows the same pattern, connecting worship and submission, “service” (Exod. 20:5).
The history of Israel’s redemption is also the backdrop. God forbids worship of any sort of idol. The specific outline is “from heaven above to the earth, to anything under the sea or earth.” It is possible that the commandment is written this way to counter a “hierarchy” among the Egyptian false gods.
They worshiped life above, below, and especially the Nile itself. Birds and animals of the Nile were worshiped because it was believed that the “Great River” was a serpent providing life to the world above, below, and all around.
Clearly this refers to the imagery of the serpent in the garden, a pagan hierarchy. Even the way God condemns idolatry develops a certain “false” hierarchy.
COVENANT RENEWAL–
God’s hierarchy places all authority in Him. Anyone else only has delegated responsibility, Transcendence is not shifted from God to man, or to creation for that matter. Egyptian religion had a hierarchy of authority that placed the Pharaoh in the center of the world. He was half god and half man, a perfect “false” incarnation. He mediated life to the world. The animals were simply “emanations” from him, possessing a little “less” deity. This created a pyramidal hierarchy with man at the top of the pyramid. The pyramid structure is not inherently bad, since it is the “mountain model” found throughout the Bible
The pyramid was simply a cheap (or shall I say, rather expensive) copy of God’s mountain dwelling. But God’s mountain pyramid always has God on top of the mountain, His hierarchy begins with God, not man. To worship a “created” thing is to place creation at the top of the mountain. The result: tyranny like that of Egypt
3. Third Commandment: Ethics (Exod. 20:7)
The third section of the Deuteronomic covenant stipulates what is involved in obeying God. The pagan system,
growing out of a “chain of being” approach, is inherently ma-.
nipulative. This commandment has to do with not manipulating the “name of God.” When would the name of God be
taken in vain? In false oath-taking. To ‘swear in the Bible is
to take an oath. Jesus criticized the Pharisees for swearing
by all sorts of things and taking so many false oaths (Matt.
5:33-37). They tried to manipulate God’s name.
What is a name? A name in the Bible represents the person. God named Adam. Adam named the animals and Eve. This made man God’s vice-regent in dominion. But the the Therefore, any time the name of God was tampered with, it indicated an attempt to manipulate Him. Actually,to worship a false god renames and re-constitutes the true God. God does not want to be re-named,and He certainly cannot be manipulated.
The Pharaoh renamed Joseph (Gen. 41:45). Nebuchadnezzar’s official over the eunuchs renamed Daniel and the three Hebrew youths (Dan. 1:7). When a man came under a pagan king’s authority in the Old Testament, at least to serve in a position of leadership under him, he was renamed by that king. God renamed Abram to Abraham and Jacob to Israel, a sign of His authority over them.
The commandment here forbids a manipulative approach to God. It does not forbid oath-taking . “vanity.” When someone makes a false oath, he is attempting to manipulate God’s name for his own end. Even though man tries, he cannot control God. It is the other way around.
Nevertheless, false oath-taking is ultimately a reflection on Him, making Him seem to be empty. How? When someone who is actually lying says, “May God strike me dead, if I am i telling a lie: and, if he does not fall down dead, but is later found out to be a liar, God does not “seem” to have stood behind His name. If man obeys God’s stipulations, however, he will not need to try to manipulate God’s name. Blessing and whatever man needs will come through a proper ethical relationship to Him.
“. Fourth Commandment: Sanctions (Exod. 20:8-11)
The fourth commandment regulates the Sabbath. What was the Sabbath? Originally, it was the day when God
“blessed” the world in a special way (Gen. 2:lff.). The word “blessing” ties the day to one of the two judicial of the covenant (Deuteronomy 28), This makes the original Sabbath a day when man was to receive God’s benediction.
Instead, man disobeyed and the Sabbath Day became a day of judgment. The curses of Genesis three were issued. So, throughout history, the Lord’s Day (Sabbath Day) is a time of judgment. It is like that final day, “the Day of the Lord.”
This commandment has to do with honoring a time of special judgment. One day in seven should be devoted to it. Double sacrifices were offered because Israel made special reflection on her sins. The comments about working on the other days orient even man’s work toward a time of judgment. Indeed, this is the direction of history.
5. Fifth Commandment: Continuity (Exod. 20:12)
We see that the fifth commandment is positive. The emphasis is on tangible continuity, since to “live
long on the earth” was the legacy given to Israel. Why longevity? The curse of death broke down generational continuity, requiring that covenantal faithfulness be sustained over many generations, was broken down. Think how easy it would be to sustain a system of belief if the founders lived for 500 years. It would be like still having Martin Luther alive. All those years that liberal German, Lutheran theologians were corrupting orthodoxy, Luther could and would have confronted them and probably turned them over his knee. (They would have needed a lot more
than that.) But the point is that longevity was critical to sustaining the family inheritance. Because death entered the world, a system was needed to the inheritance. It is in the that the many problems of inheritance can be seen.
Although, it seems that death is also After the flood, lifespans shortened. The common grace to pagans lasts three to four generations, then they fall or revolt. The blessings to the faithful go on for a thousand generations. Thus, covenant keeping compounds far longer than covenant-breaking. If the evil ones lived five hundred years per generation, their hand would be strengthened: two thousand years of compounding. So this commandment has to do with inheritance, an issue of Obedient sons and daughters receive the inheritance, the blessing of the previous commandment.
The first series of commandments follows the structure of the covenant. Without having to force the commandments, I believe the reader can easily see how God ordered them around the five parts of the covenant. The second half of the commandments does the same.
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The Second Commandments
6. The Sixth Commandment: True Transcendence (20:13)
God returns to the transcendence theme. How? Unlawful killing of another human being was expressly forbidden because “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed, For in the of God He made man” (Gen. 9:6). In fact, the “ethical” section of the Noahic covenant is
summarized under this one commandment, summing up all of God’s demands.
The key is in the word Man is the image of God.
Unique to God% creation and unlike any other aspect of His handiwork, man is a picture of God. Man shows Gods transcendence and immanence. To kill man is analogous to killing God. All rebellion is an attempt to kill God. Satan tempted man to become like “God. Between the lines of Satan’s offer was the idea that the true God would be (Gen. 3:l). So the second table begins with a commandment against eradicating Gods transcendent immanent representation in man.
7. Seventh Commandment: Hierarchy (20:14)
The Deuteronomic covenant made a specific connection between idolatry and adultery. The end of the second sec- COVENANT RENEWAL-4
calls attention to the second commandment, reminding Israel of the prohibition against “idolatry” (Deut. 4:15-19).
Moses gives as a reason, “For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a God” (Deut. 4:24). “Jealousy” is a response to any kind of marital unfaithfutness. Indeed, there was a special “ordeal of jealousy” (Nu. 5). Since the people of God are His “bride,” worshipping other gods would be
analogous to sexual unfaithfulness in marriage, God’s proper response would be “jealousy.”
The ideas of worship and marriage are expressed in the old Anglican form of the marriage ceremony where the bride pledges, “1 worship thee with my body? Sexual faithfulness is a form of service, like the faithfulness of service in worship.
Adultery is a violation of God’s hierarchy. Marital faithfulness is a mutual (familial hierarchy) to one another. Paul says,
But because of [adultery], let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. . . . The wife does not have over her
own body, but the husband does (1 Cor. 7:2-4). Adultery is due to rebellion against the authoritative within marriage. A man and woman are to submit their bodies to one another, the best defense against adultery and “immoralities.”
8. Eighth Commandment: Ethics (20:15)
The third section of the Deuteronomic covenant ‘stipulated” how to be consecrated through “ethics.” In other words, God’s are ethical, separating the clean from the unclean. As long as God’s people lived by these ethical boundary-lines, they would be victorious. Ethics is contrary to a “manipulative” world-and-life view.
In the third commandment we saw that man is forbidden to “manipulate” the Name of Gods The eighth commandment,
which parallels both the third section of the covenant and the third commandment, speaks to another form of “boundary violation.” Stealing is manipulative. Taking something that is not yours is a failure to relate to people on terms, and honor the propriety of others.
Paul says, “Let him who steals steal no longer; but rather let him labor, performing with his own hands what is good, in order that he may have something to share with him who has need” (Eph. 5:28). There are two problems with a thief. He will not and will not Both require dealings with people. means one submits himself to the laws of work: perseverance, showing upon time, willingness to learn, diligence, etc. To give means taking what has been earned and helping someone in need.
A thief, on the other hand, takes a manipulative approach. Instead of working, he seeks to manipulate through cunning, deception, and various other forms of theft. He certainly doesn’t give to others, and if he happens to, he does so to further need, not the other person’s. Ultimately, a
thief believes money is magical: not the means to an end, but the end in itself. This is why all tyrannies are based on theft. The “Robin Hood” approach is a form of manipulating what belongs to one group to re-distribute it to another.
9. Ninth Commandment: Sanctions (20:16)
The Deuteronomic covenant is ratified by sanctions in the fourth section, to be received in an “official” context, probably at worship. Furthermore, this judgment was received at a Sabbath time, Pentecost.
Thus, in this commandment, “bearing false witness” also conjures up the picture of an official scene, a courtroom. Where would one be
likely to bear false witness? It would probably be brought in the same legal environment of passing judgment, a formal trial or hearing. This could also be done informally, telling lies about someone in the congregation or who lives down
the street.11 But even this setting is judicial because a judgment is passed. “Bearing false witness” interferes with and perverts judgment. How? False witness causes blessings to fall on those who deserve a curse, and vice versa.
10. Tenth Commandment: Continuity (20:1 7) Notice ail the items that are forbidden to covet. They all have to do with a man’s inheritance. In Old Testament times, the wife was made an heir of the covenant through an adoption procedure. She actually became the “sister” of her husband. Abraham was not lying to Pharaoh after all (Gen. 20:2)when he called Sarah his “sister.” This practice was done to assure the woman’s receiving part of the inheritance, contrary to the pagan practices of considering a woman’s value as being less than a man’s. So, when an Old Testament man
coveted the wife of another, he was cutting into his neighbor’s inheritance. In Israel, this disrupted everything because each family received a particular piece of land and inheritance when Canaan was conquered under Joshua. To covet one’s covenant brother’s family and possessions was to rob the inheritance granted by the covenant itself, Here the last commandment ends on a note of finality.
The second five commandments follow, without much explanation, the basic pattern of the covenant, completing a perfect double witness. They also confirm our basic five-fold definition. Now, when someone asks, “Covenant: What is it anyway?”, you’ll have an answer, an answer that is so
you can count it on your fingers. Who knows, maybe this is why God gave man two hands with five fingers on each one!