Covenant and Creation (revised 2013) by William Dumbrell

Author:William Dumbrell
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Paternoster
Published: 2013-04-30T00:00:00+00:00

Interpretation of the Ten Words

The Decalogue must be interpreted in the light of its prologue, the opening statement of Exodus 20:1. The relationship between God and Israel’s ensuing new freedom provides the rationale for the Decalogue in its origins, basis, and intention. The Decalogue invalidates a law/grace dichotomy whereby the Old Testament is regarded as law and the New Testament as grace. The ethic of the Ten Words is not the grim response of obedience but the response to the gratitude of the gift of freedom. Thus the Decalogue is given to explain the dimensions of a grace already received, to explain the significance for personal living of the great redemption from slavery given. The book of Exodus commences with Israel enslaved in Egypt and concludes where the main effort of the book had been directed: with Israel in worshipping fellowship and the tabernacle dedicated and the glory of God coming down upon it. So, biblical law comes in a framework of grace. If there is no framework of grace then there is no covenant obligation. The concept of gospel precedes the law, then law follows the gospel as the guide for covenant conduct. The Decalogue is addressed to those who have just become a kingdom of God society by a great redemption. The commandments then set forth the basic understanding of how life is to be lived to bring blessing and covenant continuation.

The prologue very appropriately begins with God, the great assumption beyond which knowledge cannot go. It begins by asserting that God is. There is no effort spent to prove God; he is simply affirmed. Our understanding of God, after all, depends upon the range of our own experience. We cannot prove his existence; we can only react to his presence in our world. Psalmists and prophets and writers never do either. To believe in him is to know him as our heavenly Father. And this is God’s will for humankind.

The second thing that is evinced by the prologue is that God is available. God is not only a reality but also an accessible reality. God is the one who meets with his people, guides and directs them. Of course our conception of God has changed since these commandments were written, for we have seen God made flesh. But that does not mean that God has changed, or that his demands have changed. No one in this world need miss finding God since we are created to express God’s will. But in order to possess God there must be a relationship with us, and we with him.

The Ten Commandments are really one commandment, natural extensions from the first with many different phases. We cannot keep the eighth and ignore the fifth, the fourth and not the ninth. To keep one commandment is to keep all; to break one is to break all. What the commandments do in the prologue firstly is to call for a right view of reality. Every succeeding comment will be dumb, with nothing to say to us unless there is a right view of the first.

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