There seems to be a common misconception among most Christians, that Jesus made the 10 commandments obsolete when he put us under a new covenant. This of course is completely false.
Before Jesus’ arrival in human form, man needed to follow Mosaic law in order to remain in covenantal relationship with God. This was referred to as the Old Covenant. Here man was required to follow a series of steps and rituals, even offering sacrifices, to cleanse his sins, before entering into God’s presence.
These Mosaic laws were received right after the 10 commandments.
Mosaic law is completely different from the 10 commandments
The 10 commandments were spoken to ALL of Israel at the base of Mt. Sinai before they were given to Moses on stone tablets. It is here in Exodus 20, that God identifies himself, affirms his character, and specifically tells Israel what love for God and what love toward their fellow man should look like in these 10 commandments.
What is Love?
It is worth defining here exactly what “love” is. To love simply means to seek another’s best interest. It is the guiding and ultimately sustaining principle by which Christ teaches us to live.
In human terms, love means seeking the best interest of your fellow man. This can occur with or without emotional attachment.
For example, we seek the best interest of our family members and we may also be emotionally attached to them. At work, in your community, or on the street, you seek the best interest of your fellow man but you may not be emotionally attached to them.
What was Mosaic Law?
After God tells Israel the 10 commandments, Moses later receives these 10 commandments in tablet form as a reminder; and he now additionally gets some new information.
The new information he receives is a detailed plan that God has laid out. The plan and instructions spoken by God, provide a plethora of laws of how man should act, the structures and infrastructure that need to be built, and the rituals and sacrifices that need to be undertaken, in order to cleanse themselves of sin. These detailed instructions are referred to as Mosaic Law.
Put another way, in addition to how to live, God outlines how man needs to make himself clean so that God’s presence can come among them. The sinful human cannot survive in God’s presence without perishing as a result of his glory and perfection. Such is the nature of God’s form revealed, The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Mosaic Law vs. The 10 Commandments
The detailed laws, steps, and minutia of ritualistic observance that are referred to as Mosaic law or the law of Moses are entirely separate from the 10 commandments. Mosaic law makes up the Old Covenant. The details of this can be found in Exodus 20:22 onwards. These detailed steps and writings of old, represent a covenant between God and man to govern their relationship at that time, until the coming of Christ.
The 10 commandments, by contrast, are the overarching principles of love that God gave to man when he announced his presence and affirmed his character, having brought them out of Egypt.
Israel is a nation that was meant to represent ALL nations and men
Man at that time was represented by the nation of Israel, God’s chosen people. They were not chosen because they were special, favoured, or above other humans but because they were meant to fulfill a promise made to their ancestor Abraham.
They were to serve as a conduit through which ALL other nations of the world will be blessed. God is not a micromanager, he likes to work through people and nations and to give them purpose.
Israel’s purpose was to bring the character of God and his principles of love to the world so that, through them, ALL may be blessed.
The Old Covenant was not sustainable
Ritualistic cleansing and repetition of sin represented a cycle that was not sustainable, nor was this pleasing to God. Our ever-loving God wants to have us close to him at all times.
So this old covenant was temporary. Periodic rituals, sacrifices, cleansing of sin and repeating sin, meant that not all people and nations could be aligned with God all the time and be close to him.
It was an undesirable long-distance relationship. This covenant was only meant to serve as a type of guardrail to keep man aligned with God until the permanent solution arrived.
Christ is the permanent solution and brings with him a New Covenant
This permanent solution was Christ. God decided to sacrifice himself in Christ to cleanse and absolve our sin permanently. This is the new covenant. When Christ arrived as a man he would make Mosaic laws, manual cleansing of sin, and sacrifices obsolete. Now Mosaic law was not needed to relate to God and be in his presence. Christ was the way, he was the direct path to communication with the heavens having permanently satisfied the need to cleanse sin. Christ himself was the sacrifice and the ultimate one.
Why Jesus needed to die
To better understand why Christ needed to die we must first understand that the wages of sin are death, this is the inevitable price that humans pay because of our prideful arrogance and self-centred living. We were supposed to pay that price because of our actions. We were supposed to die a permanent death.
However, because it is not God’s will, that any man perish, but be at his side forever, God decided to die for us instead. He took our punishment, our wages, our consequences upon himself, so that we may live eternally at his side. Such is his love. Such is his ultimate self-sacrificing love. He absolved our past, present and future sin by taking the punishment of death for us.
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” – Romans 6:23
Christ’s New Covenant is not just about Sacrifice but Teaching
Who so ever accepts Christ’s gift of love, sacrifice, rescue, mercy, grace, and faithfulness will have their sins reconciled and absolved. You cannot accept this gift with your mouth only, but you must also demonstrate genuine repentance and understanding through your actions.
Man did not know how to do this yet, and needed to be taught how to walk and live in love just like Christ. This was the other purpose and a very crucial aspect of Jesus’s arrival.
Jesus’ arrival as the son of man, who is simultaneously the son of God, was to teach man how to live in love. This is why he was born into this world as a human being, to set the ultimate example for other human beings.
He served us in death, sacrificing himself for our past, present and future sins, and he also served us in life. Jesus taught us how to observe and even celebrate the 10 commandments from a position of true love not law. True love is never forced.
Under his new covenant, Jesus not only taught but exemplified how the 10 commandments of interacting with God and interacting with our fellow man should be fulfilled.
When you walk in Christ’s example you will be transformed, and as a result, how you see other human beings and how you see God in love becomes a revelation.
We are not perfect and Christ knows this
A true transformation is accepting Christ’s love and teachings, however, this is not simply providing lip-service testimony or offering disingenuous platitudes. It involves living like Christ did to the best of our ability.
Although we are not perfect, we will find ourselves acting like Jesus, we will find ourselves naturally and organically keeping his commandments from a place of love, not because we are instructed to. Our ears are opened to hearing the Holy Spirit within us that Jesus left with us upon his death. John 14:15-16
We do not glorify and worship God because we are forced. We glorify God because he first showed us love and what love should look like. And as a result, we love him too.
When you love Christ you keep his commandments
Walking in the example of Christ means keeping his commandments, as Jesus said in John 14:15 “If ye love me, keep my commandments.”
Now as followers of Christ, we observe the commandments through love not law, Jesus gave context to the law, he provided context to the 10 commandments, because as Jesus also said in Matthew 5:17 – “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.
Jesus summed it up in the genius way that only he could: “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength and You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” – Mark 12:29-31
Keeping commandments is natural when you Love
As mentioned earlier: To love, simply means to seek another’s best interest, this can occur with or without emotional attachment. It is the guiding and ultimately sustaining principle by which we are taught to live.
We follow a few principles when we love our fellow man
If you love your fellow man, you will not murder, steal, commit adultery, or bear false witness against him. You will honour your father and your mother naturally and you will not covet what belongs to your fellow man.
When you truly seek another person’s best interest all of these things come naturally and in this way, you automatically keep God’s commandments.
You keep these commandments not because you are instructed to, but because the Holy Spirit inside you, guides your choices, your words your actions, and your deeds. Your conscience, your sense of right and wrong which was put there by God, automatically rejects sinful ways and the associated evil of them, however, sometimes we as humans suppress this conscience and ignore it.
We follow a few principles when we love God
When you truly love God you will not worship idols, you will not take his name in vain, you will have no other gods before him and you will remember his Sabbath day and to keep it holy.
As you may have noticed these principles we do in love are what comprise the 10 commandments.
God identifies himself in this one commandment
When you look at the 10 commandments, you must want to know where they come from and who is saying them to mankind. The answer is in the 4th commandment. This is where God identifies himself as Lord of the Sabbath. Exodus 20:10-11 – “But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.”
When Jesus arrives as the son of man he also affirms that he is the Lord of the Sabbath. Matthew 12:1-8, Mark 2:23–28, Luke 6:1–5
Remembering and celebrating the Sabbath day is one of the first examples Jesus sets since the creation of the heavens and the earth, whereby in Genesis 2:2–3 he sanctified this day as a day of rest. On this day you rest from your secular work and activities, however, divine work continues.
So much attention is paid to the celebration of the Lord’s Sabbath day when he gave Israel the 10 commandments because it is the commandment that identifies God. It identifies the giver of these principles of love as the Lord of the Sabbath (Exodus 20:8-11).
Jesus shows a New way to celebrate the Sabbath under the New Covenant
The remembrance and celebration of this day are particularly important when relating to both God and your fellow man.
When Jesus observes the Sabbath day as a man he sets the example of how the Sabbath day should be observed under his new covenant. No more are we to observe the rituals associated with this day under Mosaic law that make it seem like a chore for Israel and a burden. (For they observed the day without love in their heart, but contempt and condescension)
Observing the Sabbath as it was originally intended
But through Jesus’ sacrifice and his resolution and absolution of our sins, we are now able to observe the Sabbath day in the way it was originally intended. This does not involve a series of rules and regulations, but rather a departure from the norm, a departure from our secular lifestyle, from pursuing our own pleasures on this day.
Instead, he shows how the day is meant to be observed, the joy it brings, and how it is a delight when you live in love with God and your fellow man. Worship, pray, and do God’s divine work on this day.
What is Worship?
Prayer is a way to directly communicate with God and so it is heavily involved with your worship. Many people incorrectly believe that God needs our worship or that worship is somehow tied to God’s ego. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Worship is the process by which we bask in the presence of God, which benefits us. It causes us to become more like him, the perfect being. We study his teachings, speak of his love, speak his words, and do as he would want us to do. In this way, we return the love that God first showed us. We thank him with our words and upliftment. We bring him pleasure in our progress.
It’s actually almost paradoxical because in our worship we want to please God, and the way God is pleased, is when we are uplifted to be more like him. He sought our best interest first by loving us, and we return his love by pleasing him with our upliftment. It’s a cycle of genuine happiness that sustains itself.
Worship then, is the process by which we try to become more like God, which pleases him, because he wants us to be like him. He delights in seeking our best interest.
What is Divine Work?
In addition to our worship we also please God through our divine work. Divine work as Christ perfectly exemplifies, involves helping your fellow man on this day, tending to the sick, taking care of other’s needs, and not seeking your own pleasure but doing what Christ will do.
This is shown when Jesus heals on the Sabbath day John 5:1-18 and fed the hungry Matthew 12:1-8. For the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath day. He, Jesus Christ is Lord of the Sabbath. He shows us here that he created the Sabbath day for us, to relate and commune with him and our fellow man in love on this day in particular setting aside everything else.
By being like Christ on this day which is set apart, we honour God, we honour our fellow man made in his image, for we are his image bearers. We bask in the perfection of our Father and our Lord Jesus, with the Holy Spirit inside us.
The 10 commandments as the 10 principles of Love under Christ
When we realize the 10 commandments were always the governing principles of love toward God and love toward your fellow man, contextualized by Jesus Christ; the word of God becomes clear. Scripture and our purpose become obvious, the Holy Spirit that dwells within us causes us to receive this revolution and helps us to put it into practice.
We adopt a posture of other-centredness, honouring and worshiping our Father and putting our fellow man’s best interest above our own. Just like Christ.