The Institutes

of

Biblical Law

By

ROUSAS JOHN RUSHDOONY

A Chalcedon Study

with three appendices by

GARY NORTH

Copyright © 2012 Chalcedon Foundation

Kindle Version 1.0

ISBN-13: 978-1-879998-64-3

ISBN-10: 1-879998-64-5

All rights reserved.

This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations.

Published by Chalcedon.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION: The Importance of the Law

1. The Validity of Biblical Law

2. The Law as Revelation and Treaty

3. The Direction of the Law

I. THE FIRST COMMANDMENT

1. The First Commandment and the Shema Israel

2. The Undivided Word

3. God versus Moloch

4. The Laws of Covenant Membership

5. The Law as Power and Discrimination

II. THE SECOND COMMANDMENT

1. The Lawful Approach to God

2. The Throne of Law

3. The Altar and Capital Punishment

4. Sacrifice and Responsibility

5. Holiness and Law

6. Law as Warfare

7. Law and Equality

III. THE THIRD COMMANDMENT

1. The Negativism of the Law

2. Swearing and Revolution

3. The Oath and Society

4. Swearing and Worship

5. The Oath and Authority

6. The Name of God

IV. THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT

1. The Sign of Freedom

2. The Sabbath and Life

3. The Sabbath and Work

4. The Sabbath and Authority

5. The Sabbath and Law

V. THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT

1. The Authority of the Family

2. The Promise of Life

3. The Economics of the Family

4. Education and the Family

5. The Family and Delinquency

6. The Principle of Authority

7. The Family and Authority

8. The Holy Family

9. The Limitation of Man’s Authority

VI. THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT

1. “Thou Shalt Not Kill”

2. The Death Penalty

3. Origins of the State: Its Prophetic Office

4. “To Make Alive”

5. Hybridization and Law

6. Abortion

7. Responsibility and Law

8. Restitution or Restoration

9. Military Laws and Production

10. Taxation

11. Love and the Law

12. Coercion

13. Quarantine Laws

14. Dietary Rules

15. Christ and the Law

16. Work

17. Amalek

18. Amalek and Violence

19. Violence as Presumption

20. Social Inheritance: Landmarks

VII. THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT

1. Marriage

2. Marriage and Man

3. Marriage and Woman

4. Nakedness

5. Family Law

6. Marriage and Monogamy

7. Incest

8. The Levirate

9. Sex and Crime

10. Sex and Religion

11. Adultery

12. Divorce

13. The Family as Trustee

14. Homosexuality

15. Uncovering the Springs

16. The Mediatorial Work of the Law

17. The Transvestite

18. Bestiality

19. The Architecture of Life

20. Faithfulness

VIII. THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT

1. Dominion

2. Theft

3. Restitution and Forgiveness

4. Liability of the Bystander

5. Money and Measures

6. Usury

7. Responsibility

8. Stealing Freedom

9. Landmarks and Land

10. The Virgin Birth and Property

11. Fraud

12. Eminent Domain

13. Labor Laws

14. Robbing God

15. Prison

16. Lawful Wealth

17. Restitution to God

18. The Rights of Strangers, Widows, and Orphans

19. Injustice as Robbery

20. Theft and Law

IX. THE NINTH COMMANDMENT

1. Tempting God

2. Sanctification and the Law

3. The False Prophet

4. The Witness of the False Prophet

5. Corroboration

6. Perjury

7. Jesus Christ as the Witness

8. False Witness

9. False Freedom

10. The Lying Tongue

11. Slander Within Marriage

12. Slander

13. Slander as Theft

14. “Every Idle Word”

15. Trials by Ordeal and the Law of Nature

16. Judges

17. The Responsibility of Judges and Rulers

18. The Court

19. The Procedure of the Court

20. The Judgment of the Court

21. Perfection

X. THE TENTH COMMANDMENT

1. Covetousness

2. The Law in Force

3. Special Privilege

4. Offenses Against Our Neighbor

5. The System

XI. THE PROMISES OF LAW

1. The Use of Law

2. The Law and the Ban

3. The Curse and the Blessing

4. The Unlimited-Liability Universe

XII. THE LAW IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

1. God the King

2. The Law and the Prophets

3. Natural and Supernatural Law

4. The Law as Direction and Life

5. The Law and the Covenant

XIII. THE LAW IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

1. Christ and the Law

2. The Woman Taken in Adultery

3. Antinomianism Attacked

4. The Transfiguration

5. The Kingdom of God

6. The Tribute Money

7. The Cultural Mandate

8. The Law in Acts and the Epistles

XIV. THE CHURCH

1. The Meaning of Eldership

2. The Office of Elder in the Church

3. The Christian Passover

4. Circumcision and Baptism

5. The Priesthood of All Believers

6. Discipline

7. Rebukes and Excommunication

8. Power and Authority

9. Peace

XV. NOTES ON LAW IN WESTERN SOCIETY

APPENDICES

1. The New Testament as Law

2. The Implications of 1Samuel 8

3. Stewardship, Investment, and Usury: Financing the Kingdom of God—by Gary North

4. The Economics of Sabbath-Keeping—by Gary North

5. In Defense of Biblical Bribery—by Gary North

6. Subversion and the Tithe

7. Notes

Footnotes

PREFACE

The chapters of this study were delivered, over a period of three years, before a large number of

groups—students, civil officials, businessmen, housewives, and a great variety of persons. All of

this study was also delivered at a single place during the course of the three years, with discussion

and comment: At the Chapel of the Palms, Westwood, Los Angeles, James and Clarence Pierce

have made their facility available for a continuing Chalcedon study group, and their cooperation

is gratefully acknowledged.

Various persons have contributed generously to the Chalcedon publication fund, and have made

this study possible: Frederick Vreeland, Keith Harnish, Mrs. S. W. North Jr., my associate Gary

North, and many others. The faithful work of the Chalcedon Guild is undergirding the publication

of this and other Chalcedon Studies.

The indexing is the work of Bernard Ladouceur. The typing and proofreading have been done by

my beloved wife, Dorothy, whose thinking and questioning have greatly furthered this study.

Many of the ideas developed in this study were discussed at times with Burton S. Blumert, who in

more ways than one has been a source of encouragement. David L. Thoburn supplied me with

several books which were helpful. Many other friends have, by their encouragement and help,

made my work possible, and, to one and all, I am deeply grateful.

ROUSAS JOHN RUSHDOONY

INTRODUCTION

The Importance of the Law

When Wyclif wrote of his English Bible that “This Bible is for the government of the people, by

the people, and for the people,” his statement attracted no attention insofar as his emphasis on the

centrality of biblical law was concerned. That law should be God’s law was held by all; Wyclif’s

departure from accepted opinion was that the people themselves should not only read and know

that law but also should in some sense govern as well as be governed by it. At this point, Heer is

right in saying that “Wyclif and Hus were the first to demonstrate to Europe the possibility of an

alliance between the university and the people’s yearning for salvation. It was the freedom of

Oxford that sustained Wyclif.”1 The concern was less with church or state than with government

by the law-word of God.

Brin has said, of the Hebrew social order, that it differed from all others in that it was believed to

be grounded on and governed by the law of God, who gave it specifically for man’s government.2

No less than Israel of old, Christendom believed itself to be God’s realm because it was governed

by the law of God as set forth in Scripture. There were departures from that law, variations of it,

and laxity in faithfulness to it, but Christendom saw itself as the new Israel of God and no less

subject to His law.

When New England began its existence as a law order, its adoption of biblical law was both a

return to Scripture and a return to Europe’s past. It was a new beginning in terms of old

foundations. It was not an easy beginning, in that the many servants who came with the Puritans

later were in full scale revolt against any biblical faith and order.3 Nevertheless, it was a resolute

return to the fundamentals of Christendom. Thus, the New Haven Colony records show that the

law of God, without any sense of innovation, was made the law of the colony:

March 2, 1641/2: And according to the fundamental agreem(en)t, made and

published by full and gen(e)r(a)ll consent, when the plantation began and

government was settled, that the judiciall law of God given by Moses and

expounded in other parts of scripture, so far as it is a hedge and a fence to the

moral law, and neither ceremoniall nor typical nor had any reference to Canaan,

hath an everlasting equity in itt, and should be the rule of their proceedings.4

April 3, 1644: Itt was ordered that the judicial lawes of God, as they were

delivered by Moses . . . be a rule to all the courts in this jurisdiction in their

proceeding against offenders. . . .5

Thomas Shepard wrote, in 1649, “For all laws, whether ceremonial or judicial, may be referred to

the decalogue, as appendices to it, or applications of it, and so to comprehend all other laws as

their summary.”6

It is an illusion to hold that such opinions were simply a Puritan aberration rather than a truly

biblical practice and an aspect of the persisting life of Christendom. It is a modern heresy that

holds that the law of God has no meaning nor any binding force for man today. It is an aspect of

the influence of humanistic and evolutionary thought on the church, and it posits an evolving,

developing god. This “dispensational” god expressed himself in law in an earlier age, then later

expressed himself by grace alone, and is now perhaps to express himself in still another way. But

this is not the God of Scripture, whose grace and law remain the same in every age, because He,

as the sovereign and absolute Lord, changes not, nor does He need to change. The strength of

man is the absoluteness of his God.

To attempt to study Scripture without studying its law is to deny it. To attempt to understand

Western civilization apart from the impact of biblical law within it and upon it is to seek a

fictitious history and to reject twenty centuries and their progress.

The Institutes of Biblical Law has as its purpose a reversal of the present trend. It is called

“Institutes” in the older meaning of that word, i.e., fundamental principles, here of law, because it

is intended as a beginning, as an instituting consideration of that law which must govern society,

and which shall govern society under God.

1. The Validity of Biblical Law

A central characteristic of the churches and of modern preaching and biblical teaching is

antinomianism, an anti-law position. The antinomian believes that faith frees the Christian from

the law, so that he is not outside the law but is rather dead to the law. There is no warrant

whatsoever in Scripture for antinomianism. The expression, “dead to the law,” is indeed in

Scripture (Gal. 2:9; Rom. 7:4), but it has reference to the believer in relationship to the atoning

work of Christ as the believer’s representative and substitute; the believer is dead to the law as an

indictment, a legal sentence of death against him, Christ having died for him, but the believer is

alive to the law as the righteousness of God. The purpose of Christ’s atoning work was to restore

man to a position of covenant-keeping instead of covenant-breaking, to enable man to keep the

law by freeing man “from the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:2), “that the righteousness of the law

might be fulfilled in us” (Rom. 8:4). Man is restored to a position of law-keeping. The law thus

has a position of centrality in man’s indictment (as a sentence of death against man the sinner), in

man’s redemption (in that Christ died, Who although the perfect law-keeper as the new Adam,

died as man’s substitute), and in man’s sanctification (in that man grows in grace as he grows in

law-keeping, for the law is the way of sanctification).

Man as covenant-breaker is in “enmity against God” (Rom. 8:7) and is subject to “the law of sin

and death” (Rom. 8:2), whereas the believer is under “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ”

(Rom. 8:2).The law is one law, the law of God. To the man on death row in a prison, the law is

death; to the godly man, the same law which places another on death row is life, in that it protects

him and his property from criminals. Without law, society would collapse into anarchy and fall

into the hands of hoodlums. The faithful and full execution of the law is death to the murderer but

life to the godly. Similarly, the law in its judgment upon God’s enemies is death; the law in its

sustaining care and blessings is for the law-abiding a principle of life.

God, in creating man, ordered him to subdue the earth and to exercise dominion over the earth

(Gen. 1:28). Man, in attempting to establish separate dominion and autonomous jurisdiction over

the earth (Gen.3:5), fell into sin and death. God, in order to reestablish the Kingdom of God,

called Abraham, and then Israel, to be His people, to subdue the earth, and to exercise dominion

under God. The law, as given through Moses, established the laws of godly society, of true

development for man under God, and the prophets repeatedly recalled Israel to this purpose.

The purpose of Christ’s coming was in terms of this same creation mandate. Christ as the new

Adam (1 Cor. 15:45) kept the law perfectly. As the sin-bearer of the elect, Christ died to make

atonement for their sins, to restore them to their position of righteousness under God. The

redeemed are recalled to the original purpose of man, exercise dominion under God, to be

covenant-keepers, and to fulfil “the righteousness of the law” (Rom. 8:4). The law remains

central to God’s purpose. Man has been reestablished into God’s original purpose and calling.

Man’s justification is by the grace of God in Jesus Christ; man’s sanctification is by means of the

law of God.

As the new chosen people of God, the Christians are commanded to do that which Adam in Eden,

and Israel in Canaan, failed to do. One and the same covenant, under differing administrations,

still prevails. Man is summoned to create the society God requires. The determination of man and

of history is from God, but the reference of God’s law is to this world. “To be spiritually minded

is life and peace” (Rom. 8:6), and to be spiritually minded does not mean to be other-worldly but

to apply the mandates of the written word under the guidance of the Spirit to this world.

Lawless Christianity is a contradiction in terms: it is anti-Christian. The purpose of grace is not to

set aside the law but to fulfil the law and to enable man to keep the law. If the law was so serious

in the sight of God that it would require the death of Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God,

to make atonement for man’s sin, it seems strange for God then to proceed to abandon the law!

The goal of the law is not lawlessness, nor the purpose of grace a lawless contempt of the giver of

grace.

The increasing breakdown of law and order must first of all be attributed to the churches and their

persistent antinomianism. If the churches are lax with respect to the law, will not the people

follow suit? And civil law cannot be separated from biblical law, for the biblical doctrine of law

includes all law, civil, ecclesiastical, societal, familial, and all other forms of law. The social

order which despises God’s law places itself on death row: it is marked for judgment.

2. The Law as Revelation and Treaty

Law is in every culture religious in origin. Because law governs man and society, because it

establishes and declares the meaning of justice and righteousness, law is inescapably religious, in

that it establishes in practical fashion the ultimate concerns of a culture. Accordingly, a

fundamental and necessary premise in any and every study of law must be, first, a recognition of

this religious nature of law.

Second, it must be recognized that in any culture the source of law is the god of that society. If

law has its source in man’s reason, then reason is the god of that society. If the source is an

oligarchy, or in a court, senate, or ruler, then that source is the god of that system. Thus, in Greek

culture, law was essentially a religiously humanistic concept.

In contrast to every law derived from revelation, nomos for the Greeks originated

in the mind (nous). So the genuine nomos is no mere obligatory law, but

something in which an entity valid in itself is discovered and appropriated. . . . It

is “the order which exists (from time immemorial), is valid and is put into

operation.”7

Because for the Greeks mind was one being with the ultimate order of things, man’s mind was

thus able to discover ultimate law (nomos) out of its own resources, by penetrating through the

maze of accident and matter to the fundamental ideas of being. As a result, Greek culture became

both humanistic, because man’s mind was one with ultimacy, and also Neoplatonic, ascetic, and

hostile to the world of matter, because mind, to be truly itself, had to separate itself from non-

mind.

Modern humanism, the religion of the state, locates law in the state and thus makes the state, or

the people as they find expression in the state, the god of the system. As Mao Tse-Tung has said,

“Our God is none other than the masses of the Chinese people.”8 In Western culture, law has

steadily moved away from God to the people (or the state) as its source, although the historic

power and vitality of the West has been in biblical faith and law.

Third, in any society, any change of law is an explicit or implicit change of religion. Nothing

more clearly reveals, in fact, the religious change in a society than a legal revolution. When the

legal foundations shift from biblical law to humanism, it means that the society now draws its

vitality and power from humanism, not from Christian theism.

Fourth, no disestablishment of religion as such is possible in any society. A church can be

disestablished, and a particular religion can be supplanted by another, but the change is simply to

another religion. Since the foundations of law are inescapably religious, no society exists without

a religious foundation or without a law system which codifies the morality of its religion.

Fifth, there can be no tolerance in a law system for another religion. Toleration is a device used to

introduce a new law system as a prelude to a new intolerance. Legal positivism, a humanistic

faith, has been savage in its hostility to the biblical law system and has claimed to be an “open”

system. But Cohen, by no means a Christian, has aptly described the logical positivists as

“nihilists” and their faith as “nihilistic absolutism.”9 Every law system must maintain its existence

by hostility to every other law system and to alien religious foundations, or else it commits

suicide.

In analyzing now the nature of biblical law, it is important to note, first, that, for the Bible, law is

revelation. The Hebrew word for law is torah, which means instruction, authoritative direction.10

The biblical concept of law is broader than the legal codes of the Mosaic formulation. It applies to

the divine word and instruction in its totality:

. . . the earlier prophets also use torah for the divine word proclaimed through

them (Isa. viii. 16, cf. also v. 20; Isa. xxx. 9f.; perhaps also Isa. i. 10). Besides

this, certain passages in the earlier prophets use the word torah also for the

commandment of Yahweh which was written down: thus Hos. viii. 12. Moreover

there are clearly examples not only of ritual matters, but also of ethics.

Hence it follows that at any rate in this period torah had the meaning of a divine

instruction, whether it had been written down long ago as a law and was

preserved and pronounced by a priest, or whether the priest was delivering it at

that time (Lam. ii. 9; Ezek. vii. 26; Mal. ii. 4ff.), or the prophet is commissioned

by God to pronounce it for a definite situation (so perhaps Isa. xxx. 9).

Thus what is objectively essential in torah is not the form but the divine

authority.11

The law is the revelation of God and His righteousness. There is no ground in Scripture for

despising the law. Neither can the law be relegated to the Old Testament and grace to the New:

The time-honored distinction between the OT as a book of law and the NT as a

book of divine grace is without grounds or justification. Divine grace and mercy

are the presupposition of law in the OT; and the grace and love of God displayed

in the NT events issue in the legal obligations of the New Covenant.

Furthermore, the OT contains evidence of a long history of legal developments

which must be assessed before the place of law is adequately understood. Paul’s

polemics against the law in Galatians and Romans are directed against an

understanding of law which is by no means characteristic of the OT as a whole.12

There is no contradiction between law and grace. The question in James’s epistle is faith and

works, not faith and law.13

Judaism had made law the mediator between God and man, and

between God and the world. It was this view of law, not the law itself, which Jesus attacked. As

Himself the Mediator, Jesus rejected the law as mediator in order to reestablish the law in its

God-appointed role as law, the way of holiness. He established the law by dispensing forgiveness

as the lawgiver in full support of the law as the convicting word which makes men sinners.14

The

law was rejected only as mediator and as the source of justification.15

Jesus fully recognized the

law, and obeyed the law. It was only the absurd interpretations of the law He rejected. Moreover,

We are not entitled to gather from the teaching of Jesus in the Gospels that He

made any formal distinction between the Law of Moses and the Law of God. His

mission being not to destroy but to fulfil the Law and the Prophets (Mt. 5:17), so

far from saying anything in disparagement of the Law of Moses or from

encouraging His disciples to assume an attitude of independence with regard to

it, He expressly recognized the authority of the Law of Moses as such, and of the

Pharisees as its official interpreters (Mt. 23:l-3).16

With the completion of Christ’s work, the role of the Pharisees as interpreters ended, but not the

authority of the law. In the New Testament era, only apostolically received revelation was ground

for any alteration in the law. The authority of the law remained unchanged:

St. Peter, e.g., required a special revelation before he would enter the house of

the uncircumcised Cornelius and admit the first Gentile convert into the Church

by baptism (Acts 10:1-48)—a step which did not fail to arouse opposition on the

part of those who “were of the circumcision” (cf. 11:1-18).17

The second characteristic of biblical law is that it is a treaty or covenant. Kline has shown that the

form of the giving of the law, the language of the text, the historical prologue, the requirement of

exclusive commitment to the suzerain, God, the pronouncement of imprecations and

benedictions, and much more, all point to the fact that the law is a treaty established by God with

His people. Indeed, “the revelation committed to the two tables was rather a suzerainty treaty or

covenant than a legal code.”18

The full covenant summary, the Ten Commandments, was

inscribed on each of the two tables of stone, one table or copy of the treaty for each party in the

treaty, God and Israel.19

The two stone tables are not, therefore, to be likened to a stele containing one of

the half-dozen or so known legal codes earlier than or roughly contemporary with

Moses as though God had engraved on these tables a corpus of law. The

revelation they contain is nothing less than an epitome of the covenant granted by

Yahweh, the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth, to his elect and redeemed

servant, Israel.

Not law, but covenant. That must be affirmed when we are seeking a category

comprehensive enough to do justice to this revelation in its totality. At the same

time, the prominence of the stipulations, reflected in the fact that “the ten words”

are the element used as pars pro toto, signalizes the centrality of law in this type

of covenant. There is probably no clearer direction afforded the biblical

theologian for defining with biblical emphasis the type of covenant God adopted

to formalize his relationship to his people than that given in the covenant he gave

Israel to perform, even “the ten commandments.” Such a covenant is a

declaration of God’s lordship, consecrating a people to himself in a sovereignly

dictated order of life.20

This latter phrase needs reemphasis: the covenant is “a sovereignly dictated order of life.” God as

the sovereign Lord and Creator gives His law to man as an act of sovereign grace. It is an act of

election, of electing grace (Deut. 7:7-8.; 8:17; 9:4-6, etc.).

The God to whom the earth belongs will have Israel for His own property, Ex.

xix. 5. It is only on the ground of the gracious election and guidance of God that

the divine commands to the people are given, and therefore the Decalogue, Ex.

xx. 2, places at its forefront the fact of election.21

In the law, the total life of man is ordered: “there is no primary distinction between the inner and

the outer life; the holy calling of the people must be realized in both.”22

The third characteristic of the biblical law or covenant is that it constitutes a plan for dominion

under God. God called Adam to exercise dominion in terms of God’s revelation, God’s law (Gen.

1:26ff.; 2:15-17). This same calling, after the Fall, was required of the godly line, and in Noah it

was formally renewed (Gen. 9:1-17). It was again renewed with Abraham, with Jacob, with Israel

in the person of Moses, with Joshua, David, Solomon (whose proverbs echo the law), with

Hezekiah and Josiah, and finally with Jesus Christ. The sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is the

renewal of the covenant: “this is my blood of the new testament” (or covenant), so that the

sacrament itself reestablishes the law, this time with a new elect group (Matt. 26:28; Mark 14:24;

Luke 22:20; 1 Cor. 11:25). The people of the law are now the people of Christ, the believers

redeemed by His atoning blood and called by His sovereign election. Kline, in analyzing Hebrews

9:16-17, in relation to the covenant administration, observes:

. . . the picture suggested would be that of Christ’s children (cf. 2:13) inheriting

his universal dominion as their eternal portion (note 9:15b; cf. also 1:14; 2:5ff.;

6:17; 11:7ff.). And such is the wonder of the messianic Mediator-Testator that

the royal inheritance of his sons, which becomes of force only through his death,

is nevertheless one of co-regency with the living Testator! For (to follow the

typological direction provided by Heb. 9:16, 17 according to the present

interpretation) Jesus is both dying Moses and succeeding Joshua. Not merely

after a figure but in truth a royal Mediator redivivus, he secures the divine

dynasty by succeeding himself in resurrection power and ascension glory.23

The purpose of God in requiring Adam to exercise dominion over the earth remains His

continuing covenant word: man, created in God’s image and commanded to subdue the earth and

exercise dominion over it in God’s name, is recalled to this task and privilege by his redemption

and regeneration.

The law is therefore the law for Christian man and Christian society. Nothing is more deadly or

more derelict than the notion that the Christian is at liberty with respect to the kind of law he can

have. Calvin, whose classical humanism gained ascendancy at this point, said of the laws of

states, of civil governments:

I will briefly remark, however, by the way, what laws it (the state) may piously

use before God, and be rightly governed by among men. And even this I would

have preferred passing over in silence, if I did not know that it is a point on

which many persons run into dangerous errors. For some deny that a state is well

constituted, which neglects the polity of Moses, and is governed by the common

laws of nations. The dangerous and seditious nature of this opinion I leave to the

examination of others; it will be sufficient for me to have evinced it to be false

and foolish.24

Such ideas, common in Calvinist and Lutheran circles, and in virtually all churches, are still

heretical nonsense.25

Calvin favored “the common law of nations.” But the common law of

nations in his day was biblical law, although extensively denatured by Roman law. And this

“common law of nations” was increasingly evidencing a new religion, humanism. Calvin wanted

the establishment of the Christian religion; he could not have it, nor could it last long in Geneva,

without biblical law.

Two Reformed scholars, in writing of the state, declare, “It is to be God’s servant, for our

welfare. It must exercise justice, and it has the power of the sword.”26

Yet these men follow

Calvin in rejecting biblical law for “the common law of nations.” But can the state be God’s

servant and bypass God’s law? And if the state “must exercise justice,” how is justice defined, by

the nations, or by God? There are as many ideas of justice as there are religions.

The question then is, what law for the state? Shall it be positive law, the law of nations, a

relativistic law? De Jongste and van Krimpen, after calling for “justice” in the state, declare, “A

static legislation valid for all times is an impossibility.”27

Indeed! Then what about the

commandments, biblical legislation, if you please, “Thou shalt not kill,” and “Thou shalt not

steal”? Are they not intended to be valid for all time and in every civil order? By abandoning

biblical law, these Protestant theologians end up in moral and legal relativism.

Roman Catholic scholars offer natural law. The origins of this concept are in Roman law and

religion. For the Bible, there is no law in nature, because nature is fallen and cannot be normative.

Moreover, the source of law is not nature but God. There is no law in nature but a law over

nature, God’s law.28

Neither positive law nor natural law can reflect more than the sin and apostasy of man: revealed

law is the need and privilege of Christian society. It is the only means whereby man can fulfil his

creation mandate of exercising dominion under God. Apart from revealed law, man cannot claim

to be under God but only in rebellion against God.

3. The Direction of the Law

In order to understand biblical law, it is necessary to understand also certain basic characteristics

of that law. First, certain broad premises or principles are declared. These are declarations of

basic law. The Ten Commandments give us such declarations. The Ten Commandments are not

therefore laws among laws, but are the basic laws, of which the various laws are specific

examples. An example of such a basic law is Exodus 20:15 (Deut. 5:19), “Thou shalt not steal.”

In analyzing this commandment, “Thou shalt not steal,” it is important to note, a), that this is the

establishment, positively, of private property, even as, negatively, it punishes offenses against

property. The commandments thus establish and protect a basic area of life. But, b), even more

important, this establishment of property issues, not from the state or man but from the sovereign

and omnipotent God. The commandments all have their origin in God, who, as the sovereign

Lord, issues the law to govern His realm. Further, it follows, c), since God issues the law, that any

offense against the law is an offense against God. Whether the law has reference to property,

person, family, labor, capital, church, state, or anything else, its first frame of reference is to God.

In essence, lawbreaking is entirely against God, since everything and every person is His

creation. But, David declared, with reference to his acts of adultery and murder, “Against thee,

thee only, have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight” (Ps. 51:4). This means then, d), that

lawlessness is also sin, i.e., that any civil, familial, ecclesiastical, or other social act of

disobedience is also a religious offense unless the disobedience is required by the prior obedience

to God. With this in mind, that the law, first, lays down broad and basic principles, let us examine

a second characteristic of biblical law, namely, that the major portion of the law is case law, i.e.,

the illustration of the basic principle in terms of specific cases. These specific cases are often

illustrations of the extent of the application of the law; that is, by citing a minimal type of case,

the necessary jurisdictions of the law are revealed. To prevent us from having any excuse for

failing to understand and utilize this concept, the Bible gives us its own interpretation of such a

law, and the illustration, being given by St. Paul, makes clear the New Testament’s undergirding

of the law. We cite, therefore, first, the basic principle, second, the case law, and, third, the

Pauline declaration of the application of the law:

1. Thou shalt not steal (Ex. 20:15). The basic law, declaration of principle.

2. Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn (Deut. 25:4). Illustration of the

basic law, a case law.

3. For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth

out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our

sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that

thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. . . . Even so hath the Lord ordained that they

which preach the gospel should live of the gospel (1 Cor. 9:9-10, 14; the entire passage, 9:1-

14, is an interpretation of the law).

For the scripture saith, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. And, The

labourer is worthy of his reward (I Tim. 5:18, cf. v. 17; the illustration is to buttress the

requirement of “honour,” or “double honour” for presbyters or elders, i.e., pastors of the

church). These two passages illustrate the requirement, “Thou shalt not steal,” in terms of a

specific case law, revealing the extent of that case in its implications. In his epistle to

Timothy, Paul refers also to the law which in effect declares, by case law, that “The labourer

is worthy of his reward.” The reference is to Leviticus 19:13, “Thou shalt not defraud thy

neighbour, neither rob him: the wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night

until the morning,” and Deuteronomy 24:14, “Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is

poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren, or of thy strangers that are in thy land within

thy gates (cf. v. 15).” This is cited by Jesus, Luke 10:7, “The laborer is worthy of his hire.”

If it is a sin to defraud an ox of his livelihood, then it is also a sin to defraud a man of his wages:

it is theft in both cases. If theft is God’s classification of an offense against an animal, how much

more so an offense against God’s apostle and minister? The implication, then, is, how much more

deadly is stealing from God? Malachi makes this very clear:

Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we

robbed thee? in tithes and offerings. Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have

robbed me, even this whole nation. Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that

there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD

of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a

blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the

devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground;

neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the LORD

of hosts. And all the nations shall call you blessed: for ye shall be a delightsome

land, saith the LORD of hosts. (Mal. 3:8-12)

This example of case law illustrates not only the meaning of case law in Scripture, but also its

necessity. Without case law, God’s law would soon be reduced to an extremely limited area of

meaning. This, of course, is precisely what has happened. Those who deny the present validity of

the law apart from the Ten Commandments have as a consequence a very limited definition of

theft. Their definition usually follows the civil law of their country, is humanistic, and is not

radically different from the definitions given by Moslems, Buddhists, and humanists. But, in

analyzing later the case laws illustrative of the law, “Thou shalt not steal,” we shall see how far-

reaching its meaning is.

The law, then, first asserts principles, second, it cites cases to develop the implications of those

principles, and, third, the law has as its purpose and direction the restitution of God’s order.

This third aspect is basic to biblical law, and it illustrates again the difference between biblical

law and humanistic law. According to one scholar, “Justice in its true and proper sense is a

principle of co-ordination between subjective beings.”29

Such a concept of justice is not only

humanistic but also subjective. Instead of a basic objective order of justice, there is instead

merely an emotional condition called justice.

In a humanistic law system, restitution is possible and often exists, but again it is not the

restoration of God’s fundamental order but of man’s condition. Restitution then is entirely to

man.30

Biblical law requires restitution to the offended person, but even more basic to the law is

the demand for the restoration of God’s order. It is not merely the courts of law which are

operative in terms of restitution. For biblical law, restitution is indeed, a), to be required by courts

of law of all offenders, but, even more, b), is the purpose and direction of the law in its entirety,

the restoration of God’s order, a glorious and good creation which serves and glorifies its Creator.

Moreover, c), God’s sovereign court and law operates in terms of restitution at all times, to curse

disobedience and hamper thereby its challenge to and devastation of God’s order, and to bless and

prosper the obedient restoration of God’s order. Malachi’s declaration concerning tithes, to return

to our illustration, implies this, and, indeed, states it explicitly: they are “cursed with a curse” for

robbing God of His tithes. Therefore, their fields are not productive, since they work against

God’s restitutive purpose. Obedience to God’s law of the tithe, honoring instead of robbing God,

will deluge His people with blessings. The word “deluge” is appropriate: the expression “open . . .

the windows of heaven” recalls the Flood (Gen. 7:11), which was a central example of a curse.

But the purpose of curses is also restitution: the curse prevents the ungodly from overthrowing

God’s order. The men of Noah’s generation were destroyed in their evil imaginations, as they

conspired against God’s order (Gen. 6:5), in order to institute the process of restoration through

Noah.

But to return to our original illustration of biblical law, “Thou shalt not steal.” The New

Testament illustrates restitution after extortion in the form of unjust taxation in the person of

Zaccheus (Luke 19:2-9), who was pronounced a saved man after declaring his intention of

making full restitution. Restitution is clearly in view in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:23-26).

According to one scholar,

In Eph. iv. 28, St. Paul shows how the principle of restitution was to be extended.

He who had been a robber must not only cease from theft, but must labour with

his hands that he might restore what he had wrongfully taken away, but in case

those whom he had wronged could not be found, restitution should be made to

the poor.31

This fact of restitution or restoration is spoken of, in its relationship to God, in three ways. First,

there is the restitution or restoration of God’s sovereign law-word by proclamation. St. John the

Baptist, by his preaching, restored the law-word to the life of God’s people. Jesus so declared it:

“Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things. But I say unto you, That Elias is come already,

and they knew him not” (Matt. 17:11-12). There is then, second, the restoration which comes by

subjecting all things to Christ and establishing a godly order over the world (Matt. 28:18-20; 2

Cor. 10:5; Rev. 11:15, etc.). Third, with the second coming, there is the total, final restoration

which comes with the second coming, and towards which history moves; the second coming is

the total and culminating rather than sole act of “the times of restitution” (Acts 3:21).

God’s covenant with Adam required him to exercise dominion over the earth and to subdue it

(Gen. 1:26ff) under God and according to God’s law-word. This relationship of man to God was a

covenant (Hosea 6:7; cf. marginal reading).

But all of Scripture proceeds from the truth that man always stands in covenant

relation to God. All God’s dealings with Adam in paradise presuppose this

relation: for God talked with Adam and revealed Himself to him, and Adam

knew God in the wind of day. Besides, salvation is always presented as the

establishment and realization of God’s covenant. . . .

. . . this covenant relation is not to be conceived as something incidental, as a

means to an end, as a relation that was established by way of an agreement, but

as a fundamental relationship in which Adam stood to God by virtue of his

creation.32

The restoration of that covenant relationship was the work of Christ, His grace to His elect

people. The fulfilment of that covenant is their great commission: to subdue all things and all

nations to Christ and His law-word.

The creation mandate was precisely the requirement that man subdue the earth and exercise

dominion over it. There is not one word of Scripture to indicate or imply that this mandate was

ever revoked. There is every word of Scripture to declare that this mandate must and shall be

fulfilled, and “scripture cannot be broken,” according to Jesus (John 10:35). Those who attempt

to break it shall themselves be broken.33

I

THE FIRST COMMANDMENT

1. The First Commandment and the Shema Israel

The prologue to the Ten Commandments introduces not only the law as a whole but leads directly

to the first commandment.

And God spake all these words, saying, 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. 20:1-3)

In this declaration, God identifies Himself, first, as the LORD, the self-existent and absolute One.

Second, He reminds Israel that He is their Savior, and that their relationship to Him (“thy God”)

is therefore one of grace. God chose Israel, not Israel, God. Third, the law is given to the people

of grace. All men are already judged, fallen, and lost; all men are under the wrath of the law, a

penalty which the quaking mountain and the fact of death for unhallowed approach underscored

(Ex. 19:16-25). The law is given to the people saved by grace as their way of grace, to set forth

the privilege and blessing of the covenant. Fourth, it follows, then, that the first response of

grace, as well as the first principle of the law, is this, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”

In analyzing this commandment, we must examine the implications of it cited by Moses:

Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments, which the

LORD your God commanded to teach you, that ye might do them in the land

whither ye go to possess it: That thou mightest fear the LORD thy God, to keep

all his statutes and his commandments, which I command thee, thou, and thy son,

and thy son’s son, all the days of thy life; and that thy days may be prolonged.

Hear therefore, O Israel and observe to do it: that it may be well with thee, and

that ye may increase mightily, as the Lord God of thy fathers hath promised thee,

in the land that floweth with milk and honey. (Deut. 6:1-3)

First, the reason for the giving of these commandments is to awaken the fear of God, and that fear

might prompt obedience. Because God is God, the absolute Lord and lawgiver, fear of God is the

essence of sanity and common sense. To depart from a fear of God is to lack any sense of reality.

Second, “The maintenance of the fear of God would bring prosperity, and the increase of the

nation promised to the fathers. . . . The increase of the nation had been promised to the patriarchs

from the very first (Gen. xii. 1; . . . cf. Lev. xxvi. 9).”34

It is therefore necessary to maintain this

fear and obedience from generation to generation.

In Deuteronomy 6:4-9, we come to a central and basic declaration of the first principle of the law:

Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD

thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And

these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou

shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou

sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest

down and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine

hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them

upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.

The first two verses (6:4-5) are the Shema Israel, recited as the morning and evening prayer of

Israel, and “considered by the Rabbis to contain the principles of the Decalogue.”35

The second

portion of the Shema, verse 5, is echoed in Deuteronomy 10:12-13:

And now, Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the

LORD thy God, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve the LORD

thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul; to keep for thy good the

commandments of the LORD, and His statutes, which I command thee this

day?36

Deuteronomy 6:5 is cited by Christ as “the first and great commandment” (Matt. 22:37; Mark

12:30; Luke 10:27), i.e., as the essential and basic principle of the law. The premise of this

commandment is, however, Deuteronomy 6:4: “Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God is one

LORD.” The Christian affirmation of this is the declaration, “We worship one God in Trinity, and

Trinity in Unity.” It is the faith in the unity of the Godhead as opposed to the belief in “gods

many and lords many.”37

The consequences for law of this fact are total: it means one God, one law. The premise of

polytheism is that we live in a multiverse, not a universe, that a variety of law orders and hence

lords exist, and that man cannot therefore be under one law except by virtue of imperialism.

Modern legal positivism denies the existence of any absolute; it is hostile, because of its

relativism, to the concept of a universe and of a universe of law. Instead, societies of men exist,

each with its order of positive law, and each order of law lacks any absolute or universal validity.

The law of Buddhist states is seen as valid for Buddhist nations, the law of Islam for Moslem

states, the laws of pragmatism for humanistic states, and the laws of Scripture for Christian states,

but none, it is held, have the right to claim that their law represents truth in any absolute sense.

This, of course, militates against the biblical declaration that God’s order is absolute and

absolutely binding on men and nations.

Even more, because an absolute law is denied, it means that the only universal law possible is an

imperialistic law, a law imposed by force and having no validity other than the coercive

imposition. Any one world order on such a premise is of necessity imperialistic. Having denied

absolute law, it cannot appeal to men to return to the true order from whence man has fallen. A

relativistic, pragmatic law has no premise for missionary activity: the “truth” it proclaims is no

more valid than the “truth” held by the people it seeks to unite to itself. If it holds, “we are better

off one,” it cannot justify this statement except by saying, “I hold it to be so,” to which the

resister can reply, “I hold that we are better off many.” Under pragmatic law, it is held that every

man is his own law system, because there is no absolute overarching law order. But this means

anarchy. Thus, while pragmatism or relativism (or existentialism, positivism, or any other form of

this faith) holds to the absolute immunity of the individual implicitly or explicitly, in effect its

only argument is the coercion of the individual, because it has no other bridge between man and

man. It can speak of love, but there is no ground calling love more valid than hate. Indeed, the

Marquis de Sade logically saw no crime in murder; on nominalistic, relativistic grounds, what

could be wrong with murder?38

If there is no absolute law, then every man is his own law. As the

writer of Judges declared, “In those days there was no king in Israel (i.e., the people had rejected

God as King); every man did that which was right in his own eyes” (Judg. 21:25; cf. 17:6; 18:1;

19:1). The law forbids man’s self-law: “Ye shall not do after all the things that we do here this

day, every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes” (Deut. 12:8), and this applies to worship as

well as to moral order. The first principle of the Shema Israel is thus one God, one law. It is the

declaration of an absolute moral order to which man must conform. If Israel cannot admit another

god and another law order, it cannot recognize any other religion or law order as valid either for

itself or for anyone else. Because God is one, truth is one. Other people will perish in their way,

lest they turn and be converted (Ps. 2:12). The basic coercion is reserved to God.

Because God is one, and truth is one, the one law has an inner coherence. The unity of the

Godhead appears in the unity and coherence of the law. Instead of being strata of diverse origins

and utility, the law of God is essentially one word, a unified whole.

Modern political orders are polytheistic imperial states, but the churches are not much better. To

hold, as the churches do, Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Lutheran, Calvinist, and all others

virtually, that the law was good for Israel, but that Christians and the church are under grace and

without law, or under some higher, newer law, is implicit polytheism. The Joachimite heresy has

deeply infected the church. According to this heresy, the first age of man was the age of the

Father, the age of justice and the law. The second age was the age of the Son, of Christianity, of

the church, and of grace. The third age is the age of the Spirit, when men become gods and their

own law.

Dispensationalism is also either evolutionary or polytheistic or both. God changes or alters His

ways with man, so that law is administered in one age, and not in another. One age sees salvation

by works, another by grace, and so on. But Scripture gives us a contrary assertion: “I am the

LORD, I change not” (Mal. 3:6). To attempt to pit law against grace is polytheistic or at least

Manichaean: it assumes two ultimate ways and powers in contradiction to one another. But the

word of God is one word, and the law of God is one law, because God is one. The word of God is

a law-word, and it is a grace-word: the difference is in men, by virtue of God’s election, not in

God. The word blesses and it condemns in terms of our response to it. To pray for grace is also to

pray for judgment, and it is to affirm the truth and the validity of the law and the justice of the

law. The whole doctrine of Christ’s atonement upholds the unity of law, judgment, and grace.

Every form of antinomianism has elements of polytheism in it. Of antinomians Fairbairn wrote:

Some so magnify grace in order to get their consciences at ease respecting the

claims of holiness, and vindicate for themselves a liberty to sin that grace may

abound—or, which is even worse, deny that anything they do can have the

character of sin, because they are through grace released from the demands of

law, and so cannot sin. These are Antinomians of the grosser kind, who have not

particular texts merely of the Bible, but its whole tenor and spirit against them.

Others, however, and these the only representatives of the idea who in present

times can be regarded as having an outstanding existence, are advocates of

holiness after the example and teaching of Christ. They are ready to say,

“Conformity to the Divine will, and that as obedience to commandments, is alike

the joy and the duty of the renewed mind. Some are afraid of the word obedience,

as if it would weaken love and the idea of a new creation. Scripture is not.

Obedience and keeping the commandments of one we love is the proof of that

love, and the delight of the new creature. Did I do all right, and not do it in

obedience, I should do nothing right, because my true relationship and heart-

reference to God would be left out. This is love, that we keep His

commandments” (Darby “On the Law,” pp. 3, 4). So far excellent; but then these

commandments are not found in the revelation of law, distinctively so called. The

law, it is held, had a specific character and aim, from which it cannot be

dissociated, and which makes it for all time the minister of evil. “It is a principle

of dealing with men which necessarily destroys and condemns them. This is the

way (the writer continues) the Spirit of God uses law in contrast with Christ, and

never in Christian teaching puts men under it. Nor does Scripture ever think of

saying, You are not under the law in one way, but you are in another; you are not

for justification, but you are for a rule of life. It declares, You are not under law,

but under grace; and if you are under law, you are condemned and under a curse.

How is that obligatory which a man is not under—from which he is delivered?”

(Ibid., p. 4). Antinomianism of this description—distinguishing between the

teaching or commandments of Christ and the commandments of the law, holding

the one to be binding on the conscience of Christians and the other not—is

plainly but partial Antinomianism; it does not, indeed, essentially differ from

Neonomianism, since law only as connected with the earlier dispensation is

repudiated, while it is received as embodying the principles of Christian morality,

and associated with the life and power of the Spirit of Christ.39

One “evangelistic” association given to campus work has actually taught that “the law was given

by Satan.” (Reported by this writer’s daughter, from a course taught on campus by a leader of this

movement.) Such a position can only be described as blasphemy.

An example of this antinomianism from some unofficial Lutheran circles comes from a Sunday

school manual. The Old Testament is treated, as is the New, as a book to be mined or searched

out for “truths,” so that studies of various books are prefaced with a few summary statements

titled, “Truths You Will Find in the Book of Habakkuk,” or, “Truths You Will Find in the Book

of Matthew,” and so on. Are we to assume the rest of each book is lies? In the “Introduction to

the New Testament,” we are told, “The New Testament is the presentation of life under grace as it

differs from life under law.”40

But the Old Testament also presents life under grace, and both Old

and New Testaments present life under grace as life under law, never as lawlessness. The

alternative to law is not grace; it is lawlessness. Grace and election move in terms of law and

under law; reprobation is anti-law and anti-grace. Is it the purpose of churchmen to make the

churches schools of reprobation?

All this illustrates a second principle of the Shema Israel: one absolute, unchanging God means

one absolute, unchanging law. Men’s social applications and approximations of the righteousness

of God may alter, vary, and waver, but the absolute law does not. To speak of the law as “for

Israel” but not for Christians is not only to abandon the law but also to abandon the God of the

law. Since there is only one true God, and His law is the expression of His unchanging nature and

righteousness, then to abandon the biblical law for another law system is to change gods. The

moral collapse of Christendom is a product of this current process of changing gods.

Barthianism, by asserting the “freedom” of God to change (implying the evolving of an imperfect

god), is asserting polytheism. Polytheism asserts many gods and many ways of salvation. It is not

surprising that Karl Barth is at least implicitly universalistic. For Barth, all men can be or will be

saved, because there is no one absolute, unchanging law which judges all men. In his polytheistic

worldview, all men can find one of any number of roads to salvation, if, indeed, it is salvation

they need. For Barth, salvation is more realistically to be seen as self-realization; it is the gnosis

of election, the realization that all men are elect in Christ, i.e., free from an absolute God and an

absolute decree and law.

A third principle of the Shema Israel is that one God, one law, requires one total, unchanging,

and unqualified obedience: “thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all

thy soul, and with all thy might” (Deut. 6:5). The Talmud translates “might” as “money.”41

The

meaning is that man must obey God totally, in any and every condition, with all his being. Since

man is totally the creature of God, and since there is not a fiber of his being which is not the

handiwork of God and therefore subject to the total law of God, there is not an area of man’s life

and being which can be held in reservation from God and His law. Therefore, as Deuteronomy

6:6 declares, “And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart.” Luther’s

comment on this verse is of interest, in that it contained the seeds of antinomianism which later

became so deeply rooted in Lutheranism:

He (Moses) wants you to know that the First Commandment is the measure and

yardstick of all others, to which they are to yield and give obedience. Therefore,

if it is for the sake of faith and charity, you may kill, in violation of the Fifth

Commandment, just as Abraham killed the kings (Gen. 14:15) and King Ahab

sinned because he did not kill the King of Syria (I Kings 20:34ff.). Similar is the

case of theft, ambush, and trickery against the enemies of God; you may take

spoils, goods, wives, daughters, sons, and servants of enemies. So you should

hate father and mother that you may love the Lord (Luke 14:26). In short, where

anything will be against faith and love, there you shall not know that anything

else is commanded by either God or man. Where it is for faith and love, however,

you shall know that everything is commanded in all cases and everywhere. For

the statement stands: “These words shall be in your heart”; there they shall rule.

Furthermore, unless they are also in the heart, certainly no one will understand or

follow this epieikeia, or ever employ laws successfully, safely, or legally.

Therefore Paul says also in I Tim. 1:9, that “the Law is not set up for the

righteous,” for the reason that the fulfilling of the Law is love from a good heart

and from faith that is not feigned (I Tim. 1:5), which uses law lawfully when it

has no laws and has all laws—no laws, because none bind unless they serve faith

and love; all, because all bind when they serve faith and love.

Therefore this is Moses’ meaning there: If you desire to understand the First

Commandment correctly and truly not to have other gods, act so that you believe

and love one God, deny yourself, receive everything by grace, and do everything

gratefully.42

The confusions of this statement could only beget confusion.

A fourth principle which follows from the Shema Israel is stated in Deuteronomy 6:7-9, 20-25:

education in the law is basic to and inseparable both from obedience to the law and from worship.

The law requires education in terms of the law. Anything other than a biblically grounded

schooling is thus an act of apostasy for a believer: it involves having another god and bowing

down before him to learn from him. There can be no true worship without true education, because

the law prescribes and is absolute, and no man can approach God in contempt of God’s

prescription.

From Deuteronomy 6:8 Israel derived the use of the Tephillin, the portions of the law bound upon

the head or arm at prayer. Of 6:8-9 it has been observed:

As these words are figurative, and denote an undeviating observance of the

divine commands, so also the commandment which follows, viz. to write the

words upon the door-posts of the house, and also upon the gates, are to be

understood spiritually; and the literal fulfilment of such a command could only

be a praiseworthy custom or well-pleasing to God when resorted to as the means

of keeping the commandments of God constantly before the eye. The precept

itself, however, presupposes the existence of this custom, which is not only met

with in the Mahometan countries of the East at the present day, but was also a

common custom in ancient Egypt.43

What is required, certainly, is that mind and action, family and home, man’s vision and man’s

work, be all viewed in the perspective of God’s law-word.

But this is not all. The literal fulfilment of the command concerning the frontlets and the posts

(Deut. 6:8-9) is clearly required, as Numbers 15:37-41 (cf. Deut. 11:18-20) makes clear. The blue

thread required cannot be spiritualized away. God requires that He be worshiped according to His

own word. Calvin’s comment here on Numbers 15:38 was to the point:

And, first of all, by contrasting “the hearts and eyes” of men with His Law, He

shews that He would have His people contented with that one rule which He

prescribes, without the admixture of any of their own imaginations; and again,

He denounces the vanity of whatever men invent for themselves, and however

pleasing any human scheme may appear to them, He still repudiates and

condemns it. And this is still more clearly expressed in the last word, when he

says that men “go a whoring” whenever they are governed by their own counsels.

This declaration is deserving of our especial observation, for whilst they have

much self-satisfaction who worship God according to their own will, and whilst

they account their zeal to be very good and very right, they do nothing else but

pollute themselves by spiritual adultery. For what by the world is considered to

be the holiest devotion, God with his own mouth pronounces to be fornication.

By the word “eyes” he unquestionably means man’s power of discernment.44

It is regrettable that Calvin mars this by calling it a “need of these coarse rudiments.”45

Our Lord

fulfilled this law, and a woman touched a fringe or hem of His garment to be healed (Matt. 9:20).

Jesus criticized the Pharisees for making large their fringes (Matt. 23:5) to boast of their

ostensibly larger loyalty to the law. The commandment is repeated in Deuteronomy 22:12, so as

to make clear its importance.

Men dress in diverse and strange ways to conform to the world and its styles. What is so difficult

or “coarse” about any conformity to God’s law, or any mode God specifies? There is nothing

difficult or strange about this law, nor any thing absurd or impossible.

It is not observed by Christians, because it was, like circumcision, the Sabbath, and other aspects

of the Mosaic form of the covenant, superseded by new signs of the covenant as renewed by

Christ. The law of the covenant remains; the covenant rites and signs have been changed. But the

forms of covenant signs are no less honorable, profound, and beautiful in the Mosaic form than in

the Christian form. The change does not represent an evolutionary advance or a higher or lower

relationship. The covenant was fulfilled in Jesus Christ; but God did not treat Moses, David,

Isaiah, Hezekiah, or any of His Old Testament covenant people as lesser in His sight or more

childish in ability and hence in need of “coarse rudiments.” In every age, the covenant is all-holy

and wise; in every age, the people of the covenant stand in terms of grace, not because of a

“higher” personal ability or maturity.

Worship in an unknown tongue (1 Cor. 14) is a violation of this commandment, as is worship

which lacks the faithful proclamation of God’s word, or is without the education of the people of

the covenant in terms of the covenant law-word.

A fifth principle which is also proclaimed in this same passage, in Deuteronomy 6:20-25, is that,

in this required education, it must be stressed that the response to grace is the keeping of the law.

Children are to be taught that the meaning of the law is that God redeemed Israel out of bondage,

and, “that he might preserve us alive,” “commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the LORD

our God, for our good always” (6:24). There is no warrant for setting this aside in either the Old

or New Testament. Where the churches of the Old or New Testament have set up a false meaning

to the law, that false meaning is attacked by prophets and apostles, but never the law of God

itself. Because God is one, His grace and law are one in their purpose and direction. This passage

makes pointedly clear the priority of God’s electing grace in the call and redemption of His

chosen people. The relationship of Israel was a relationship of grace, and the law was given in

order to provide God’s people with the necessary and required response to grace, and

manifestation of grace: the keeping of the law.

In Deuteronomy 6:10-15, another central point is made with respect to the implications of the

Shema Israel:

And it shall be, when the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land which He

swore unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give thee—great

and goodly cities, which thou didst not build, and houses full of good things,

which thou didst not fill, and cisterns hewn out, which thou didst not hew,

vineyards and olive-trees, which thou didst not plant, and thou shalt eat and be

satisfied —then beware lest thou forget the LORD, who brought thee forth out of

the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt fear the LORD thy

God; and Him shalt thou serve, and by His name shalt thou swear. Ye shall not

go after other gods, of the gods of the peoples that are round about you; for a

jealous God, even the LORD thy God, is in the midst of thee; lest the anger of the

LORD thy God be kindled against thee, and He destroy thee from off the face of

the earth.46

Thus, the sixth principle is the jealousy of God. This is a fact of cardinal importance. The chosen

people are warned, as they occupy and possess a rich land which they did not develop, lest they

forget God, who delivered and prospered them. Seeing the wealth which came from a culture

hostile to God, God’s covenant people will be tempted to see other means to success and

prosperity than the Lord. The temptation will be to “go after other gods, . . . the gods of the

people round about.” This is to believe that there is another law order than God’s order; it is to

forget that the success and the destruction of the Canaanites was alike the work of God. It is the

provocation of God’s wrath and jealousy. The fact that jealousy is associated repeatedly with the

law, and invoked by God in the giving of the law, is of cardinal importance in understanding the

law. The law of God is not a blind, impersonal, and mechanically operative force. It is neither

Karma nor fate. The law of God is the law of the absolute and totally personal Creator whose law

operates within the context of His love and hate, His grace towards His people and His wrath

towards His enemies. A current of electricity is impersonal: it flows in its specified energy when

the conditions for a flow or discharge of energy are met; otherwise, it does not flow. But the law

of God is not so: it is personal; God restrains His wrath in patience and grace, or He destroys His

enemies with an overrunning flood of judgment (Nah. 1:8). From a humanistic and

impersonalistic perspective, both the mercy of God to Assyria (Jon. 3:1-4:3) and the judgment of

God on Assyria (Nah. 1:1-3:19) seem disproportionate, because an impersonal law is also an

external law: it knows only actions, not the heart. Man, as he applies the law of God, must judge

the actions of man, but God, being absolute, judges the total man with total judgment. The

jealousy of God is therefore the certain assurance of the infallibility of God’s court of law. The

evil which so easily escapes the courts of state cannot escape the judgment of God, which, both in

time as well as beyond time, moves in terms of the total requirements of His law. The jealousy of

God is the guarantee of justice. An impersonal justice in a world of persons means that evil, being

personal, can escape the net of the law and reign in laughing triumph. But the jealous God

prevents the triumph either of Canaan or an apostate Israel or church. Without a jealous, personal

God, no justice is possible. The doctrine of Karma only enthrones injustice: it leads to the most

vicious and callous kind of externalism and impersonalism. The people of Karma spare their

monkeys but destroy one another; Karma knows no grace, because Karma in essence knows no

persons, only actions and consequences. The escape from Karma becomes Nirvana, the escape

from life.

This same passage declares, “Thou shalt fear the LORD thy God; and Him shalt thou serve, and

by His name shalt thou swear” (Deut. 6:13). Luther’s comment here is excellent:

Therefore you swear by the name of God if you relate that by which you swear to

God and grasp it in the name of God; otherwise you would not swear if you knew

it displeased Him. Similarly you serve God alone when you serve men in the

name of God; otherwise you would not serve. By such swearing you safeguard

your service to God alone and are not drawn toward a godless work or oath. Thus

Christ also says in Matt. 23:16-22 that he who swears by the temple and altar and

heaven swears by God; and in Matt. 5:35-36 He forbids to swear by Jerusalem,

by one’s head, by heaven, or by anything else, because in all these one swears by

God. But to swear by God frivolously and emptily is to take the name of God in

vain.

When, therefore, He desires oaths to be made by the name of God and no other,

the reason is not only this, that for the truth (which is God) the confirmation of

no one should be introduced except that of God Himself, but also this, that man

should remain in the service of God alone, learn to relate everything to Him, and

to do, possess, use, and endure all in His name. Otherwise, if they employ

another name, they would be diverted and become used to swearing as if it had

nothing to do with God; and finally through bad usage they would begin to

distinguish between the deeds by which God is served and those by which He is

not served, when He wants to be served in all and wants all things to be done in

fear, because He is present to see and judge.

Therefore the oath is to be used in the same way as the sword and sexual

intercourse are used. It is forbidden to take the sword, as Christ says (Matt.

26:52): “He who takes the sword shall perish by the sword,” because he takes it

without a command and because of his own lust. But it is a command and a

divine service to bear the sword if this is assigned by God or through man; for

then it is borne in the name of the Lord, for the good of the neighbor, as Paul

says: “He is the servant of God for your good” (Rom. 13:4). Thus the fleshly use

of sex is forbidden, because it is a disorderly lust. Where, however, sex is

associated with you by marriage, then the flesh should be used, and you render to

the divine Law, that is, to love what is demanded. In the same way one should

make use of an oath: you should swear not for your own sake but for the sake of

God or your neighbor in the name of the Lord. Thus you will always remain in

the service of God alone.47

In the Temptation of Jesus, two of the three answers to Satan are from Deuteronomy 6: “It is

written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God” (Matt. 4:7; Deut. 6:16), and, “Get thee

hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou

serve” (Matt. 4:10; Deut. 6:13; 10:20). The third answer is taken from a related passage,

Deuteronomy 8:3: “But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but

by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4). All three answers were

responses to the temptation to test God, implicit to which was not merely questioning but actually

challenging God and His law-word.

A seventh principle which follows from the Shema Israel is declared in Deuteronomy 6:16-19:

Ye shall not try the LORD your God, as ye tried Him in Massah. Ye shall

diligently keep the commandments of the LORD your God, and His testimonies,

and His statutes, which He hath commanded thee. And thou shalt do that which is

right and good in the sight of the LORD; that it may be well with thee and that

thou mayest go in and possess the good land which the LORD swore unto thy

fathers, to thrust out all thine enemies from before thee, as the LORD hath

spoken. (MTV)

It was this that Satan tried to tempt Jesus to do: to try God, to put God to the test. Israel tempted

God at Massah by raising the question, “Is the LORD among us, or not?” (Ex. 17:7).

The worship of Jehovah not only precludes all idolatry, which the Lord, as a

jealous God, will not endure (see at Ex. xx.5), but will punish with destruction

from the earth (“the face of the ground,” as in Ex. xxxii.12): but it also excludes

tempting the Lord by an unbelieving murmuring against God, if He does not

remove any kind of distress immediately, as the people had already sinned at

Massah, i.e., at Rephidim (Ex. xvii. 1-7).48

This seventh principle thus forbids the unbelieving testing of God: God’s law is the testing of

man; therefore, man cannot presume to be god and put God and His law-word on trial. Such a

step is a supreme arrogance and blasphemy; it is the opposite of obedience, because it is the

essence of disobedience to the law. Hence, it is contrasted to a diligent keeping of the law. This

obedience is the condition of blessing: it is the ground of conquest and of possession, in terms of

which the covenant people of God, His law-people, enter into their inheritance.

Tempting or trying God has other implications. According to Luther,

The first way is not to use the necessary things that are at hand but to seek others,

which are not at hand. . . . So he tempts God who snores and does not want to

work, taking for granted that he must be sustained by God without work,

although God has promised to provide for him through his work, as Prov: 10:4

says: “The hands of the busy prepare wealth, but the slack hand will hunger.”

This vulgar celibacy is like that too. . . .

Secondly, God is tempted when nothing needed is at hand except the bare and

lone Word of God. . . . For here the godless are not content with the Word; and

unless God does what He promised at the time, in the place, and in the manner

prescribed by themselves, they give up and do not believe. But to prescribe place,

time, or manner to God is actually to tempt Him and to feel about, as it were,

whether He is there. But this is nothing else than to want to put limits on God and

subject Him to our will; in fact, to deprive Him of His divinity. He should be

free, not subject to bounds and limitations, and be the one who prescribes places,

means, and time to us. Therefore both temptations are against the First

Commandment. . . .49

The neglect of the Shema Israel and Deuteronomy 6 has been part and parcel of the neglect of the

law.

2. The Undivided Word

A number of prologues or prefatory declarations appear in the law, which are not generally

regarded as a part of the law. Calvin called these passages “The Preface to the Law,” which in an

accurate sense they are, but they are equally a part of the law, the first commandment in

particular, because they affirm the exclusive nature of the one true God and bar from the

allegiance of Israel all other gods. These passages are Exodus 20:1-2; 23:20-31; Leviticus 19:36-

37; 20:8; 22:31-33; Deuteronomy 1:1-4:49; 5:1-6; 7:6-8; 8:1-18; 10:14-17; 11:1-7; 13:18; 26:16-

19; 27:9-10.

First, the premise of commandment is asserted, even as in the Shema Israel, that God is the

LORD (Jehovah or Yahweh, He Who Is, the self-existent, absolute, and eternal One), and,

second, that Israel stands before God because of His electing grace:

And God spake all these words, saying,

I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out

of the house of bondage. (Ex. 20:1-2)

And Moses called all Israel, and said unto them, Hear, O Israel, the statutes and

judgments which I speak in your ears this day, that ye may learn them, and keep

and do them. The LORD our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. The LORD

made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us

here alive this day. The LORD talked with you face to face in the mount, out of

the midst of the fire. (I stood between the LORD and you at that time, to shew

you the word of the LORD; for ye were afraid by reason of the fire, and went not

up into the mount,) saying, I am the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of

the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. (Deut. 5:1-6)

But the LORD hath taken you, and brought you forth out of the iron furnace,

even out of Egypt, to be unto him a people of inheritance, as ye are this day.

(Deut. 4:20)

In these and many of the other passages cited above, the sovereignty of God, and His electing

grace, are declared. In Deuteronomy 5:3, the “fathers” who perished in the wilderness, while

outwardly of the covenant, are excluded from it by God’s declaration: the covenant is “with us,

even us, who are all of us here alive this day.” Those who perished had been cut off from God by

their unbelief. The “people of inheritance” (Deut. 4:20) are the believing Israelites.

The history of grace, and the fact of God’s saving grace to Israel, is cited repeatedly, to deter the

people from presumption and pride (Deut. 1-4; 7:6-8; 8:1-6,11-18; 9:1-6; 10:14-17, 21-22; 11:1-

8; 26:16-19; 27:9-10; 29:2-9). The history of grace is also a promise of grace if man’s response is

one of grateful obedience to the law and an unswerving devotion to the only true God.

Third, the Angel of the LORD will go before His people, to keep them and to deliver them:

Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee

into the place which I have prepared. Beware of him, and obey his voice,

provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for my name is in

him. But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be

an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries. For mine

Angel shall go before thee, and bring thee in unto the Amorites, and the Hittites,

and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites: and I will

cut them off. Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after

their works: but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down their

images. And ye shall serve the LORD your God, and he shall bless thy bread, and

thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee. There shall

nothing cast their young, nor be barren, in thy land: the number of thy days I will

fulfil. I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom

thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee.

And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the

Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee. I will not drive them out from before

thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply

against thee. By little and little I will drive them out before thee, until thou be

increased, and inherit the land. And I will set thy bounds from the Red sea even

unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert unto the river: for I will

deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand; and thou shalt drive them out

before thee. Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods. They

shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against me: for if thou serve

their gods, it will surely be a snare against thee. (Ex. 23:20-33)

The Angel of the Lord (Gen. 16:10, 13; 18:2-4,13-14, 33; 22:11-12, 15-16; 31:11, 13; 32:30; Ex.

3:2, 4; 20:20ff.; 32:34; 33:14; Josh. 5:13-15; 6:2; Isa. 63:9; Zech. 1:10-13; 3:1-2) identifies

Himself with the Lord; those to whom He reveals Himself recognize Him as God; He is called the

LORD by biblical writers; the Scripture here implies a plurality of persons in the Godhead.50

Moreover, the statement is clearly made by God that “my name is in him,” which is the same as

“I am in him” (Ex. 23:20).51

The Angel of the Lord appears in the New Testament repeatedly, for

example, in Acts 5:19; 1