God's Gift in the Ten Commandments
By Pastor Benjamin Glaser - Posted at Thoughts From Parson Farms:
How the Preface Teaches Us to Love By Grace Through Faith
Good Morning,
In this week’s Larger Catechism lesson we are going to begin to get into the Ten Commandments themselves after spending several weeks in preparation. We looked at the benefits of the law for the believer (and the unbeliever) as well as how we are to use the law wisely. Ironically enough our first foray into the Mosaic Ten isn’t actually one of the commandments at all. Yet, it is impossible to understand the context of what the LORD is doing at Sinai if you don’t begin with His premise, His reasoning for providing the law written on stone upon the mountain.
To call the first verse of Exodus 20 a preface is to use that word in the same way you would in any other circumstance. It is a help to focus the readers (or hearers) mind as to how we are to approach this portion of Scripture. There is a redemptive purpose, which we’ll get into here in a second, that is inescapably part of the Lord’s work. The therefore at the beginning of the First Command tells us everything we need to know about this opening testimony to God’s love to the very people He saved. Remembering the place of the Mosaic Covenant in the wider administration of the covenant of grace is central to seeing how the law in its third use helps us in our daily application of what is being taught in the first and second tables at Sinai.
In this week’s Larger Catechism lesson we are going to begin to get into the Ten Commandments themselves after spending several weeks in preparation. We looked at the benefits of the law for the believer (and the unbeliever) as well as how we are to use the law wisely. Ironically enough our first foray into the Mosaic Ten isn’t actually one of the commandments at all. Yet, it is impossible to understand the context of what the LORD is doing at Sinai if you don’t begin with His premise, His reasoning for providing the law written on stone upon the mountain.
To call the first verse of Exodus 20 a preface is to use that word in the same way you would in any other circumstance. It is a help to focus the readers (or hearers) mind as to how we are to approach this portion of Scripture. There is a redemptive purpose, which we’ll get into here in a second, that is inescapably part of the Lord’s work. The therefore at the beginning of the First Command tells us everything we need to know about this opening testimony to God’s love to the very people He saved. Remembering the place of the Mosaic Covenant in the wider administration of the covenant of grace is central to seeing how the law in its third use helps us in our daily application of what is being taught in the first and second tables at Sinai.
Q. 101: What is the preface to the ten commandments?
A. The preface to the ten commandments is contained in these words, I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Wherein God manifests his sovereignty, as being JEHOVAH, the eternal, immutable, and almighty God; having his being in and of himself, and giving being to all his words and works: and that he is a God in covenant, as with Israel of old, so with all his people; who, as he brought them out of their bondage in Egypt, so he delivers us from our spiritual thralldom; and that therefore we are bound to take him for our God alone, and to keep all his commandments.
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