Foreword:
The following exerpt is taken from The Ten
Commandments by Arthur W. Pink
(BAKER BOOK HOUSE, 1994 GRAND RAPIDS, MI)
In this blog series I will work through this very
important article a paragraph at a time – asking my reader comprehension style
questions at the end. In our day, when people who identify themselves as
Christians are so sensitive to any accusation of legalism that they tend to
swing all the way out to antinomianism (that is lawlessness), it is perhaps now
more than ever that we ought to prayerfully re-examine the Ten Commandments –
and few do it better than Arthur Pink (1886 - 1952). I found
this article to be very convicting as I first worked through it. And, lest we
think we the church are not in need of this labour, let us be reminded that
those whom Jesus will reject on the last Day even though they did many mighty
works in his name, were accused by our Lord of not just having no intimate
relationship with him (‘I never knew you’), but also that they were accused as
workers of lawlessness by our Lord. The Law of God does not save, nor does it
keep one saved – none the less we are called to obedience to it who are saved –
but enough of me – here is Arthur Pink…
“Fifth, we pass on to say a word upon the number of the
commandments of the Moral Law, ten being indicative of their completeness. This
is emphasized in Scripture by their being expressly designated "the Ten
Words" (Ex. 34:28 margin), which intimates that they formed by themselves
an entire whole made up of the necessary, and no more than the necessary,
complement of its parts. It was on account of this symbolic import of the
number that the plagues upon Egypt were precisely that many, forming as such a
complete round of Divine judgments. And it was for the same reason that the
transgressions of the Hebrews in the wilderness were allowed to proceed till
the same number had been reached: when they had "sinned these ten
times" (Num. 14:21) they had "filled up the measure of their
iniquities." Hence also the consecration of the tithes or tenths: the
whole increase was represented by ten, and one of these was set apart for the
Lord in token of all being derived from Him and held for Him.”
1) How would the ‘completeness’ of the Decalogue as
highlighted by Pink here be expressed or supported by James 2:10 “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet
stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.”
2) Consider the Ten Commandments:
1 You shall have no other gods
before Me.
2 You shall not make idols.
3 You shall not take the name
of the LORD your God in vain.
4 Remember the Sabbath day, to
keep it holy.
5 Honor your father and your
mother.
6 You shall not murder.
7 You shall not commit
adultery.
8 You shall not steal.
9 You shall not bear false
witness against your neighbor.
10 You
shall not covet.
Take any pair and see if you can identify the link that
makes breaking one breaking the other and therefore all. For example breaking
10 is a breaking of 2 is it not? In similar fashion how are 8 and 1 related?
How is commiting 6 a type of 8?and so on…
3) Having undertaken the previous exercise consider any
other exhortation or command given in both the new and old testament – how do
most of these become mere clarifications or further detailings of the Ten
Commandments?
For example:
a) relate Hebrews 10:25 (…not
giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing etc) to
commandment 4.
b)relate Romans 13:12 (…lay
aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light) to commandment 9.
c) relate Titus 3:1 (Remind
them to be subject to rulers, to authorities, to be obedient…) to commandment
5.
d) relate Micah 6:8 (…act justly … love mercy and … walk humbly
with your God) to commandments 1, 6 and 9.
e) relate Ephesians 4:29 (Let
no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth…) to commandment 3.
… and so on…
No comments:
Post a Comment