Martin Luther No 6

Martin Luther's take on the 6th Commandment (The Large Catechism):

We have now completed both the spiritual and the temporal government, that is, the divine and the paternal authority and obedience. But here now we go forth from our house among our neighbors to learn how we should live with one another, every one himself toward his neighbor. Therefore God and government are not included in this commandment nor is the power to kill, which they have taken away. For God has delegated His authority to punish evil-doers to the government instead of parents, who aforetime (as we read in Moses) were required to bring their own children to judgment and sentence them to death. Therefore, what is here forbidden is forbidden to the individual in his relation to any one else, and not to the government. 

Now this commandment is easy enough and has been often treated, because we hear it annually in the Gospel of St. Matthew, 5, 21 ff., where Christ Himself explains and sums it up, namely, that we must not kill neither with hand, heart, mouth, signs, gestures, help, nor counsel. Therefore it is here forbidden to every one to be angry, except those (as we said) who are in the place of God, that is, parents and the government. For it is proper for God and for every one who is in a divine estate to be angry, to reprove and punish, namely, on account of those very persons who transgress this and the other commandments. 

But the cause and need of this commandment is that God well knows that the world is evil, and that this life has much unhappiness; therefore He has placed this and the other commandments between the good and the evil. Now, as there are many assaults upon all commandments, so it happens also in this commandment that we must live among many people who do us harm, so that we have cause to be hostile to them. 

As when your neighbor sees that you have a better house and home [a larger family and more fertile fields], greater possessions and fortune from God than he, he is sulky, envies you, and speaks no good of you. Thus by the devil's incitement you will get many enemies who cannot bear to see you have any good, either bodily or spiritual. When we see such people, our hearts, in turn, would rage and bleed and take vengeance. Then there arise cursing and blows, from which follow finally misery and murder. Here, now, God like a kind father steps in ahead of Us, interposes and wishes to have the quarrel settled, that no misfortune come of it, nor one destroy another. And briefly He would hereby protect, set free, and keep in peace every one against the crime and violence of every one else; and would have this commandment placed as a wall, fortress, and refuge about our neighbor, that we do him no hurt nor harm in his body. 

Thus this commandment aims at this, that no one offend his neighbor on account of any evil deed, even though he have fully deserved it. For where murder is forbidden, all cause also is forbidden whence murder may originate. For many a one, although he does not kill, yet curses and utters a wish, which would stop a person from running far if it were to strike him in the neck [makes imprecations, which if fulfilled with respect to any one, he would not live long]. Now since this inheres in every one by nature and it is a common practice that no one is willing to suffer at the hands of another, God wishes to remove the root and source by which the heart is embittered against our neighbor, and to accustom us ever to keep in view this commandment, always to contemplate ourselves in it as in a mirror, to regard the will of God, and with hearty confidence and invocation of His name to commit to Him the wrong which we suffer. Thus we shall suffer our enemies to rage and be angry, doing what they can, and we learn to calm our wrath, and to have a patient, gentle heart, especially toward those who give us cause to be angry, that is, our enemies.  

Therefore the entire sum of what it means not to kill is to be impressed most explicitly upon the simple-minded. In the first place that we harm no one, first, with our hand or by deed. Then, that we do not employ our tongue to instigate or counsel thereto. Further, that we neither use nor assent to any kind of means or methods whereby any one may be injured. And finally, that the heart be not ill disposed toward any one, nor from anger and hatred wish him ill, so that body and soul may be innocent in regard to every one, but especially those who wish you evil or inflict such upon you. For to do evil to one who wishes and does you good is not human, but diabolical. 

Secondly, under this commandment not only he is guilty who does evil to his neighbor, but he also who can do him good, prevent, resist evil, defend and save him, so that no bodily harm or hurt happen to him and yet does not do it. If, therefore, you send away one that is naked when you could clothe him, you have caused him to freeze to death; you see one suffer hunger and do not give him food, you have caused him to starve. So also, if you see any one innocently sentenced to death or in like distress, and do not save him, although you know ways and means to do so, you have killed him. And it will not avail you to make the pretext that you did not afford any help, counsel, or aid thereto for you have withheld your love from him and deprived him of the benefit whereby his life would have been saved.

Therefore God also rightly calls all those murderers who do not afford counsel and help in distress and danger of body and life, and will pass a most terrible sentence upon them in the last day, as Christ Himself has announced when He shall say, Matt.25, 42f.: I was an hungered, and ye gave Me no meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave Me no drink; I was a stranger, and ye took Me not in; naked, and ye clothed Me not; sick and in prison and ye visited Me not. That is: You would have suffered Me and Mine to die of hunger thirst, and cold, would have suffered the wild beasts to tear us to pieces, or left us to rot in prison or perish in distress. What else is that but to reproach them as murderers and bloodhounds? For although you have not actually done all this, you have nevertheless, so far as you were concerned, suffered him to pine and perish in misfortune. It is just as if I saw some one navigating and laboring in deep water [and struggling against adverse winds] or one fallen into fire, and could extend to him the hand to pull him out and save him, and yet refused to do it. What else would I appear, even in the eyes of the world, than as a murderer and a criminal? 

Therefore it is God's ultimate purpose that we suffer harm to befall no man, but show him all good and love; and, as we have said it is specially directed toward those who are our enemies. For to do good to our friends is but an ordinary heathen virtue as Christ says Matt: 5, 46. Here we have again the Word of God whereby He would encourage and urge us to true noble and sublime works, as gentleness patience, and, in short, love and kindness to our enemies, and would ever remind us to reflect upon the First Commandment, that He is our God, that is, that He will help, assist, and protect us, in order that He may thus quench the desire of revenge in us.  

This we ought to practice and inculcate and we would have our hands full doing good works. But this would not be preaching for monks; it would greatly detract from the religious estate, and infringe upon the sanctity of Carthusians, and would even be regarded as forbidding good works and clearing the convents. For in this wise the ordinary state of Christians would be considered just as worthy, and even worthier, and everybody would see how they mock and delude the world with a false, hypocritical show of holiness, because they have given this and other commandments to the winds, and have esteemed them unnecessary, as though they were not commandments but mere counsels, and have at the same time shamelessly proclaimed and boasted their hypocritical estate and works as the most perfect life, in order that they might lead a pleasant, easy life, without the cross and without patience, for which reason, too, they have resorted to the cloisters, so that they might not be obliged to suffer any wrong from any one or to do him any good. But know now that these are the true, holy, and godly works, in which, with all the angels He rejoices, in comparison with which all human holiness is but stench and filth, and besides, deserves nothing but wrath and damnation.

Honour your father and mother

ReverenceHonour is first of all a heart attitude, expressing reverence or respect. 

Leviticus 19:3 (cf. Roverbs 3:9; John 8:49; 1 Timothy 1:17 etc.) 

This is the language of worship! 

Of course Scripture contrasts sharply the deference due to God with that due to human beings: Acts 4:19; 5:29 ... even parents: Matthew 10:35-37; Mark 10:29-30; Luke 9:59-60; 14:26.

That Jesus places loyalty to himself above loyalty to father and mother (even though he emphatically endorses the fifth commandment in Matthew 15:4-6; Mark 7:9-13) is a momentous claim to deity. That loyalty to God transcends loyalty even to parents is an implication of the first commandment. 

Our reverence for parents is not in spite of our reverence for God, but because of it: Deuteronomy 5:16; Leviticus 19:32; Ephesians 6:1-3; Colossians 3:20. In a similar vein we are often commanded to express deference and respect to others in thoughts, words and actions: Genesis 31:35; 1 Kings 2:19; 1 Timothy 5:1. 

Submission 

In a way this is part of reverence, for when we respect someone we hear them with respect, we expect to learn and we are willing to change out of respect for their words. When we disagree we do so reluctantly, and we express even that disagreement in respectful language with gentleness. 

Scripture regularly presents parents as teachers (Deuteronomy 6:6-7; Proverbs 1:10; 2:1; 3:1; Ephesians 6:1-4).

Obedience in turn is a form of submission. Ephesians 6:1; Colossians 3:20. This applies to other authorities too: Romans 13:1; Titus 3:1; 1 Peter 2:13-14; Phil 2:12; 2 Thess 3:14; Hebrews 13:17; 1 Peter 3:6; Colossians 3:22-25; 1 Peter 2:18-20. 

Obedience to other human beings is always limited because God's authority is supreme and limits every form of human authority. Acts 5:29. Luke 2:51 & Luke 2:49.

Financial Support 

Mark 7:9-13; 1 Timothy 5:4-8

The Law of Love

Shell Shocked

Doug Wilson recounts part of his debate with the President of the American Humanist Association: 

Mr. Niose, who struck me as a very nice man, said in the course of the debate that the Bible was a tired and ancient book, with a bunch of irrelevant laws, citing as one example the Old Testament prohibition of eating shellfish. In my reply, I pointed to the stark alternative this presented -- a faith in which the adherents were at one time prohibited from eating shellfish, and on the other hand a faith in which the adherents used to be shellfish.

You can read the rest of his account here. 

HT Pete Jackson

Ancient Assyrians and Abortion

If a woman aborts her fetus by her own action and they then prove the charges against her and find her guilty, they shall impale her, they shall not bury her. If she dies as a result of aborting her fetus, they shall impale her, they shall not bury her. If any persons should hide that woman because she aborted her fetus […] … Middle Assyrian Law (A53)

10

HT Amanda R

Barbarous Humanitarianism

Some quotes from CS Lewis's The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment: 

I urge a return to the traditional or Retributive theory not solely, not even primarily, in the interests of society, but in the interests of the criminal.

According to the Humanitarian theory, to punish a man because he deserves it, and as much as he deserves, is mere revenge, and, therefore, barbarous and immoral. It is maintained that the only legitimate motives for punishing are the desire to deter others by example or to mend the criminal. When this theory is combined, as frequently happens, with the belief that all crime is more or less pathological, the idea of mending tails off into that of healing or curing and punishment becomes therapeutic. Thus it appears at first sight that we have passed from the harsh and self-righteous notion of giving the wicked their deserts to the charitable and enlightened one of tending the psychologically sick. What could be more amiable?

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. Their very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be ‘cured’ against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level with those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals. But to be punished, however severely, because we have deserved it, because we ‘ought to have known better’, is to be treated as a human person made in God’s image.

Mercy, detached from Justice, grows unmerciful. That is the important paradox. As there are plants which will flourish only in mountain soil, so it appears that Mercy will flower only when it grows in the crannies of the rock of Justice; transplanted to the marshlands of mere Humanitarianism, it becomes a man-eating weed, all the more dangerous because it is still called by the same name as the mountain variety. But we ought long ago to have learned our lesson. We should be too old now to be deceived by those humane pretensions which have served to usher in every cruelty of the revolutionary period in which we live.

The Self-Preservation Society?

Vengeance
Genesis 4:23-24
Proverbs 20:22; 24:29
Romans 12:14-21


Deuteronomy 32:35; Psalm 94:1; 1 Thessalonians 4:6


Romans 13:1-7; cf. Genesis 9:6; Exodus 21:23-25 


Matthew 5:38-42


Self-Defence? 
Matthew 5:38-42 is about: 
-a traditional insult (slap on face)
-a challenge in a court of law (sue you)
- a demand by a soldier for services [as a guide or interpreter?] 
- a beggar
-> so Matt 5 prohibits revenge, not self-defence (cf Matthew 5:38; 5:43-48)
1 Peter 2:13-3:17
Exodus 22:2-3 


The Doctrine of the Christian Life (Theology of Lordship) p690-693

Love your neighbour

The ethic of love is not unique to the New Testament. Jesus proclaims it by quoting the Old Testament texts( Matthew 22:34-40; cf. Deuteronomy 6:5; Leviticus 19:18). 


Leviticus 19:18 proscribes bearing grudges, so its main concern is that we love neighbours with whom we have differences, that is, our enemies. 
Exodus 23:4 - if we meet our enemy's ox or donkey going astray, we should return it to him. 
Proverbs 24:17 - We are not to rejoice at our enemy's misfortune


Romans 12:20 quotes Proverbs 25:21-22


What the New Testament adds is an emphasis on showing love to those outside our own community. Leviticus 19:34 -> Luke 10:25-37. 


The Doctrine of the Christian Life (Theology of Lordship), p690-91

Killed in translation

The language of the [6th]commandment itself leads to ... broad applications. The Hebrew verb ratsakh found in this commandment is translated 'murder' or 'kill'. We are familiar with 'Thou shalt not kill' from the KJV. The ESV ... translates 'You shall not murder.' Most often, ratsakh refers to killing that is unlawful or forbidden. It is not used for the killing of animals or for killing in war. That would suggest that the best translation here is 'murder,' not the more general 'kill.' However, the term differs from our English word murder in that it applies to manslaughter and negligent homicide. 

Relevant Scriptures
Deuteronomy 19:5 
Exodus 21:12-14
Numbers 35:9-34
Deuteronomy 19:1-3
Joshua 20:1-9

Matthew 5:21-26 [cf. Leviticus 19:17] * 
1 John 3:14-16 
James 1:20 
Matthew 18:15-20
Galatians 6:1-2

Since the commandment mandates love, its ramifications are exceedingly broad, broad enough to cover the whole of ethics from its distinct perspective. 

* on legitimate forms of anger see also: Psalm:7:11; John 2:13-17; Deuteronomy 32:21; Exodus 34:14; Numbers 5:11-31; Psalm 69; Psalm 109; Psalm 137; Psalm 139:19-22; Ephesians 4:26; Titus 1:7; Psalm 103:8.
on verbal abuse: 1 Samuel 25:9-42; 2 Samuel 16:7-8; 19:16-23; Proverbs 12:18

Notes on The Doctrine of the Christian Life (Theology of Lordship), p686-690

NOYB

What the sixth commandment is basically saying is that life and death are God's business. He is Lord of life and death, and we may not take life without his authorisation. Rather, we must respect life as an aspect of our reverence for God. We should especially respect human life because it is the image of God, that image that grounds the first prohibition of bloodshed in Scripture. Genesis 9:5-6

 The Doctrine of the Christian Life (Theology of Lordship), p685

The Lord of Life

God is the Lord of Life (& Death)
Genesis 1:20, 1:30
'His creation of man was very dramatic in this respect: he took dust and personally breathed the breath of life into that dust' ... Genesis 2:7 [cf. Psalm 139:13-16]
Genesis 2:9
Genesis 2:17
Genesis 3:9
In Genesis 5 each genealogical entry (except Enoch's!) is followed with the words 'and he died'. 
Genesis 6:3

Death, like life, is physical and spiritual. Physical death ends our participation in earthly life. Spiritual death (Eph 2:5) is a loss of fellowship with God, the Lord of life. Unless interrupted by God's grace, spiritual death leads to eternal death, to permanent separation from God and therefore from his blessing (John 3:36). 

BUT...
Romans 6:2-4! 
Acts 3:15
Ephesians 2:1-5 
John 1:4; 3:15-16; 4:14; 5:26; 6:35-58; 10:10; 12:50; 14:6; 20:31

God delights in life. It is a measure of the seriousness of sin that death pervades it. It is a measure of the greatness of salvation that in Christ death is swallowed by life (2 Corinthians 5:4). 

The Doctrine of the Christian Life (Theology of Lordship) p684-5

You know it won't kill you to smile?

Q 135: What are the duties required in the sixth commandment?

A: The duties required in the sixth commandment are, all careful studies, and lawful endeavors, to preserve the life of ourselves and others by resisting all thoughts and purposes, subduing all passions, and avoiding all occasions, temptations, and practices, which tend to the unjust taking away the life of any; by just defense thereof against violence, patient bearing of the hand of God, quietness of mind, cheerfulness of spirit; a sober use of meat, drink, physic, sleep, labor, and recreations; by charitable thoughts, love, compassion, meekness, gentleness, kindness; peaceable, mild and courteous speeches and behavior; forbearance, readiness to be reconciled, patient bearing and forgiving of injuries, and requiting good for evil; comforting and succoring the distressed, and protecting and defending the innocent.
[Larger Catechism]

Some readers may be surprised to learn that a lack of cheerfulness violates the sixth commandment! ... [I was one of them!]  The Puritans saw, among other things, that 'a joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones' (Proverbs 17:22). As modern medicine is discovering anew, cheerfulness has physical consequences. It promotes life. So the sixth commandment calls us, among many other things, to be cheerful.  The Doctrine of the Christian Life (Theology of Lordship) p686.

Positive about Sunday

The Taste of Sabbath:
How to Delight in God's Rest


Notes on Ch 2 From Sabbath to Lord's Day
Bryan introduces the following distinction: 
Moral law (sometimes called natural law) describes those scriptural commands which proceed from the very nature of God and can never be changed. Positive law describes laws that proceed from the will of God (such as circumcision) and can be changed 

In making such a distinction I sense we quickly enter into deep water, and should proceed with caution and probably some further distinctions! But with that acknowledged Bryan says that the Sabbath is positive law not moral law. Given the context of the chapter (concerning the change of day from Saturday to Sunday) and given the content of Ch 1, I am certain he only means this with regard to the when of it: 

Worship on a specific day is not intimately intertwined with the nature of God any more than circumcision. God commanded His people to observe Saturday as the seventh day of the week -as the day or rest and the Sabbath - and so it became obligatory. He could have chosen a different day in seven or even created the world in a different number of days. 

And this means: 

There is nothing incongruent, therefore, in some changes or modifications being made to the Sabbath commandment. The form of the command can be altered without implying any change in God's character or in the heart of the command. 

That this change of day is likely is demonstrated when we consider the OT Sabbath. 

The OT Sabbath is linked to Creation [Exodus 20:8-11, esp v11]

• Isaiah 51:16; 65:17-19; 66:22-23 make it clear that the return from exile accomplished by the Servant of the Lord will be a re-creation of the world
• Mark 1:1-3 picks up Isaiah’s language (Isaiah 40:9; Isaiah 40:3) and declares that God’s promises are fulfilled in Jesus.

The OT Sabbath is also linked to Redemption [Deuteronomy 5:12-15]

• Isaiah 43:14-21; 49:7-12 makes it clear that the return from exile accomplished by the Servant of the Lord is a new exodus.
• Mark (and the whole NT) declares that this redemption has come to fruition
  

So, two questions emerge from this:

Since Exodus associates the 7th day Sabbath with the old creation, is the Sabbath transformed by the dawn of this new creation?

What happens to the Sabbath with the arrival of the new redemption?

Well, when we turn to the New Testament we find:

-    Jesus rose on the first day of the week: Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:1-2; Luke 24:1; John 20:1, 19

-    Jesus appeared to the disciples as a group on a Sunday (John 20:26)

-    Jesus pours out His Spirit on the day of Pentecost, a Sunday (Acts 2)

-    The disciples began meeting on the 1^st Day of the week:

-          upholding concern for the poor (Galatians 2:10; 1 Cor 16:1-2)

-          establishing a regular time for corporate worship (Acts 20:7)

-    John says in Revelation 1:10  ‘I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day, and I heard behind me a loud voice, as of a trumpet.’

And here is a tit-bit Bryan throws in for good measure. Look at Psalm 118:22-24 in the light of all this we see in the NT.

v22-23 happened on the 1^st Day of the week when Jesus rose, vindicated, from the dead. In other words, on Sunday.

So what? Well now read v24

Mmmm. Interesting, isn't it? 

True, we find Paul saying that no day is inherently superior to another (Romans 14) and that we are to let no-one stand as our judge regarding a new moon, or a festival or Sabbaths (Colossians 2:16).

But Romans 14 seems to be about all the feasts and festivals in addition to the Sabbath. With the coming of Christ these are not obligatory, but neither are they banned. Jewish Christians who have celebrated them all their lives are free to continue that practice provided that they didn’t require their Gentile brothers to do the same.  BUT even if Paul were addressing the weekly Sabbath, he is certainly addressing it’s abuse. So in Colossians Paul argument is with those who want to add rituals and experiences to Jesus Christ FOR SALVATION. Since only Christ can reconcile us to the Father, all such stuff, including the Sabbath, is useless when we try and use it that way. Which isn’t the same as saying we can’t use it rightly as those God has approved and delivered only through Jesus Christ.  BUT in any case, Christians don’t observe the Jewish Sabbath but the Lord’s Day or Christian Sabbath. 

Conclusion:

Through Christ the new heavens and the new earth, as well as the new redemption have come. There is a New Creation and a New Exodus, and it is this we celebrate every Lord’s Day. 

The Taste of Sabbath: How to Delight in God's Rest

Demos or Theos?

The Appetiser

This is the conclusion of Ch 1: 
Given that the weekly Sabbath embodied standards of justice that continue in the New Testament era; given that the weekly Sabbath regulated the public worship of God's people, worship that continues to be prioritized in the New Testament; and given that the weekly Sabbath is a creation ordinance that reflects God's own pattern of work and rest which we as Christians are called to imitate, we must conclude that the Sabbath was intended to be a perpetual institution. (The Taste of Sabbath: How to Delight in God's Rest, Stuart Bryan)

inside the 'box'

The 10 Commandments are not isolated moral commands but a summation of the law of the covenant.

Then the LORD said to Moses, "Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel." 28 Moses was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant--the Ten Commandments. Exodus 34:27-28

(NB. these words come at the end of a chapter including laws on making treaties, keeping feasts, instructions about sacrificial offerings and one of the 'famous' laws: 'Don't cook a young goat in its mother's milk'!)

So the 10 Commandments are connected to the rest of the 'law' in Exodus - they are a summary of them.
In turn the 10 Commandments themselves are summarised. Jesus & Paul tell us about the 2 ‘greatest’ commandments that sum up all the law and the prophets:

One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36 "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" 37 Jesus replied: "`Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it:`Love your neighbour as yourself.' 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." Matthew 22:35-40

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?" 29 "The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this:`Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' 31 The second is this:`Love your neighbour as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these." 32 "Well said, teacher," the man replied. "You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. 33 To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbour as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices." 34 When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." And from then on no-one dared ask him any more questions. Mark 12:28-34

On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher,"he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" 26 "What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?" 27 He answered: "`Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and,`Love your neighbour as yourself.'" 28 "You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live." Luke 10:25-28

The commandments, "Do not commit adultery," "Do not murder," "Do not steal," "Do not covet," and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbour as yourself." 10 Love does no harm to its neighbour. Therefore love is the fulfilment of the law. Romans 13:9-10

The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbour as yourself." Galatians 5:14

We can see that the first 4 have to do with our duties towards God and the last 6 have to do with our duties towards each other. And of course they are all attached and connected in all kinds of ways.

The 10 Commandments are a summary of all God’s law.
In turn they are summed up by the 2 'greatest commandments'.
And so we can say that all our moral obligations are contained within this ‘box’ of the 10 Commandments.