Each time one man communicates with another, whether he knows it or not, even if he is the greatest blasphemer that ever lived or the atheist swearing at God, even when he swears, even when he says, “There is no God”—he bears testimony to what God is. God has left himself a witness that cannot be removed. —Francis Schaeffer, Genesis in Space and Time
Author: Josh King
Y = Blue (Exodus 21:1–11)
Ideate one of those paint-by-number jobs. 1=B, 2=R, 3=Y, etc. Got it? You follow the directions and its hideous. You blame the publisher; it was published in some backwater country after all. But then you learn that it was published in that country, for citizens of that country, and that “Y” stands for a word in their tongue that corresponds to your blue.
Folks can get all twitchy when you get to passages in the Bible that talk about slavery and they start doing all kinds of weird things to the text. Some have proposed that we replace the word “slave” with “servant.” This is taking a play out of the postmodern politician’s playbook. When you want to legitimize evil, give it a slick name. But we don’t need to fool people into liking the Bible. The way forward isn’t to impose some new word on the Scriptures, but to immerse people in the world of the Bible. In other words, the way to paint the picture correctly is to inform them what “Y” looks like in that other world.
The reason even Christian’s get slavery jitters when dealing with the Scriptures is because their trying to paint ancient slavery with modern colors. But this isn’t that. Let us all agree that the African American slave trade was an abomination and that modern human sex trafficking is horrendous. But this ain’t that. Those aren’t the colors that the Biblical canvass is calling for. For example, in Romans slavery, not ancient Old Testament, Moses-given Scripture slavery, but in Roman slavery, consider that a slave could be better educated than his master, hold esteemed positions and vocations such as being a doctor, and have a higher social standing than a free man. Picture a slave in Caesar’s household, living in luxury, carrying out important duties for the state, looking down on the free man who is a day worker living in poverty. This isn’t to defend the institution of Roman slavery, nor to say that all Roman slaves were treated well—many were not. The point is simply that when you read “1=B,” B may not mean what you think it does.
Slavery is our history and we want to revise. Slavery was their story and they preserved. God redeemed His people out of slavery and into a slavery to Him. The only way to really begin to paint this picture rightly is to see the glorious gospel colors with which the law paints slavery. The Hebrew slave sold himself into slavery (Leviticus 25:39–40). Seven years later, all debts are cancelled (Deuteronomy 15:1–2). He is set free and sent out liberally (Deuteronomy 15:12–15). All these laws are in place to provide and care for the poor and to bless the slave. Now imagine you’ve struggled to eek by. You’re in continual fear of what you might loose due to debt. You’ve sold yourself for the second time to a generous master who cares for you and your family better than you’ve ever been able to do yourself. As his slave, your total well-being is his responsibility. Under him, you feel most free and loved. You bind yourself to him forever (Deuteronomy 15:16–17).
The boring through of the ear likely represented an open ear towards your master. This is likely the imagery at play in Psalm 40:6, “In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required.” Hebrews 10 quotes this verse with a slight change and puts the words in the mouth of Christ. “Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, ‘Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure.’ ” Jesus’ body was an open ear of obedience unto the Lord for us. In Isaiah both the Messiah and Israel are referred to as the Servant of YHWH. They have the same title because the Messiah stands in place of the people being the servant they should’ve been. Jesus obeys for us and purchases our redemption with His own blood. To call Him Lord is our joy and to live unto the Father following His example is our heart’s desire.
Once you’re painting painting Biblical slavery with these vivid gospel colors, colors of deep and glorious red, richest royal purple, mingled with the humblest of earth tones against the darkest backdrop contrasted with bright resurrection light, well, then you don’t hesitate to introduce yourself as Paul did, as “a slave of Christ Jesus (Romans 1:1).” We sing with the psalmist, “To you I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens! Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maidservant to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the LORD our God, till he has mercy upon us (Psalm 123:1–2).”
The Apologist: There Are Only a Few Possible Answers and Only One Intelligent Answer
Man is shut up to relatively few answers. I think we often fail to understand that the deeper we go into study at this point, the simpler the alternatives become. In almost any profound question, the number of final possibilities is very few indeed. Here there are four: (1) Once there was absolutely nothing and now there is something, (2) Everything began with an impersonal something, (3) Everything began with a personal something, and (4) There is and always has been a dualism. —Francis Schaeffer, Genesis in Space and Time
Gaudy Ungodly Worship (Exodus 20:22–26)
Who you worship determines how you worship. God spoke, therefore, they shall not make an idol of silver (Exodus 20:22, 23). Capiche? Deuteronomy teases out the logic a bit more.
“Therefore watch yourselves very carefully. Since you saw no form on the day that the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves, in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth (Deuteronomy 4:15–18 ESV).”
Because they saw no form, but only heard a voice, they are not to make an image. Our God is a talking God, therefore our worship is a listening worship. The worship of God’s people is to be centered in God’s word. Who you worship determines how you worship.
Allah is a monad. Our God is triune. Allah cannot be love. He can be power, but he cannot, in his essence, be love. This impacts how Muslims worship. When you worship Molech, you sacrifice babies. When you believe in evolution, you abort them. How is an outworking of who. If the how is ugly, the who is ugly. When the Who is beautiful, the how will be beautiful.
There is an elegant simplicity to Christian Worship. We gather to preach the word, read the word, hear the word, sing the word, pray the word, and see the word (in the sacraments). When the visual begins to dominate our worship, idols of silver and gold are being crafted. When man’s production dominates and draws, when we want less holiness and more Hollywood, then like Ahaz we’ve brought a Damascus altar into a Jerusalem Temple. We didn’t choose the altar simply because of its practical superiority; it was aesthetically appealing because of our idolatry. Desiring to be like the cool Canaanites we loose what makes us distinctly Christian. Man’s fog and lights replace the revelation of the God of flashes and smoke. We work our altars of stone, chiseling the names and images of our gods on them—ourselves. Our work, not the Word of His work receives the limelight.
How you worship reveals who it is you’re really worshipping. Does your worship speak of a God who spoke from the fire (Deuteronomy 4:11–12)? Does it tell of a God whose word is the power of God unto salvation (Romans 1:16)? Does it demonstrate that you really believe faith comes by hearing the word (Romans 10:17)? Does it testify to the God who causes dry bones to live by His word (Ezekiel 37:1–14)? Does indicate trust that the new birth comes by the word (1 Peter 1:23)? Does it display that the sanctifying of the church happens by His word (John 17:17)? Does it evidence the sufficiency of the word to make us complete (2 Timothy 3:16)?
The Apologist: They’re Living Defeats their Believing
The fact is that if we are going to live in this world at all, we must live in it acting on a correlation of ourselves and the thing that is there, even if we have a philosophy that says there is no correlation. There is no other way to live in this world. Even the person who holds theoretically the most consistent concept of unrelatedness (for example, Hume) lives in this world on the basis of his experience that there is a correlation between the subject and the object and cause and effect. He not only lives that way, he has to live that way. There is no other way to live in this world. That is the way the world is made. So just as all men love even if they say love does not exist, and all men have moral motions, even though they say moral motions do not exist, so all men act as though there is a correlation between the external and the internal world, even if they have no basis for that correlation.
What I am saying is that the Christian view is exactly in line with the experience of every man. But no other system except the Judeo-Christian one—that which is given in the Old and New Testaments together—tells us why there is a subject-object correlation. Everybody does act on it, everybody must act on it, but no other system tells you why there is a correlation between the subject and object. In other words, all men constantly and consistently act as though Christianity is true. —Francis Schaeffer, He Is There and He is not Silent
Holy Beyond Words Known by Words (Exodus 20:18–21)
God is holy. Israel was staggered by the manifestation of this truth at Sinai. It wasn’t just the production that jolted them, it was the propositions. God’s holiness was manifest not just in His delivery, but the content delivered.
Smoke and fire—we’ve seen these before at this mountain. At this mountain God declared His name to Moses, YHWH, built on God’s declaration, “I AM WHO I AM (Exodus 3:13–15).” The manifestation matched the declaration, and the declaration is the clearer and fuller revelation. The Words are not a less, but a more explicit and a more abiding revelation of the holiness of God. In His name are implications for many of God’s attributes, including His incomprehensibility, immutability, eternality, and aseity. The bush that burns without being consumed harmonizes with His name. The words give clearer perception into the manifestation. A picture is worth a thousand words they say, but Biblically, it’s words that give the clearest picture.
And so at Sinai, there is smoke and fire, thunder and lightning, trumpet sound and trembling earth, but the words, well, they are words from the fire. The propositions themselves, even more than the production, speak to God’s holiness. By this I do not mean that they simply reflect God’s moral purity as we are called to be holy as He is holy. No, holy fundamentally means that God is other. From the very first command we see that God is so other that there is not another. A NBA star stands out from many, but there are others. He is other, but there are others. God is so other, there is not another. He is God alone. Likewise with the other commands we see the majesty, glory, holiness, and beauty of God. The second table of the law is just as potent. The imago Dei is what underlies the seriousness of the commands to love our neighbor. Slaughtering an animal is different from murdering a man, because man is made in God’s image. Man’s uniqueness speaks to God’s uniqueness.
The words tell us that the flames and cloud, the flashes and crashes, the shaking of earth, and booming voice are not just a production. This isn’t pomp and ceremony for the sake of a special covenant ceremony, though this is a manifestation for a special covenant ceremony. My point is that God didn’t get all did up only to go home and let loose. God is holy. This is God all natural. We say clothes make the man, but when God puts on clothes, it is a veiling, a coming down, an expression of humility. This is who God is, or rather, it is a limited manifestation of His infinite glory. God is not less than this, He is more; and it is the words from the fire that more fully disclose just how Holy the God who is a consuming fire is.
The Apologist: I Don’t Think that Word Means What you Think It Means
Epistemology is the theory of the method or grounds of knowledge—the theory of knowledge, or how we know, or how we can be certain that we know. Epistemology is the central problem of our generation; indeed, the so-called “generation gap” is really and epistemological gap, simply because the modern generation looks at knowledge in a way radically difference from previous ones. —Francis Schaeffer, He Is There and He Is Not Silent
All Sizzle and No Bang? (Exodus 20:17)
Bursts of swirling blue, splatters of crackling gold, and explosions of racing red fill the sky, and then, for the finale, some kid comes out and twirls a sparkler. Is that what we have with this final word from the fire? Has the fire died so that were left with only smoldering embers. No, we may have left the glories of the heavens, but now we are plunged to the depths. These ocean depths can be as mysterious as the starry heavens.
All the other commands, taken on the surface, deal with external obedience, this one goes down to the heart, and thus, acts as commentary on all the Decalogue. Listen to the testimony of M&M&M:
“The tenth commandment is where the Decalogue ends, but it is, in fact, the point at which every breach of the law begins—when by our ‘own evil desire’ we are ‘dragged away and enticed’ (Jas 1:14). —Alec Moyter
“Improper desire is the root of all evil. It can seldom be reached by human legislation, but it is open to the Searcher of hearts. The intent is that which, in the last resort, determines the moral character of the act. This last ‘word’ is, therefore, the interpreting clause of the whole Decalogue (Rom. Vii. 7).” —J.G. Murphy
“It [the tenth commandment] is presented here as the last commandment because it points to the root of all breaches of the covenant as coming from wrong inner disposition.” — John Mackay
You must read all other commands in light of this one. You don’t understand God’s law until you see it as dealing with the heart. All the law is only a sizzling fuse with no bang when read heartlessly. When Jesus says, “You have heard it said, but I say unto you (Matthew 5:21–48),” He isn’t contradicting the law, but the Pharisees heartless reading of the law. His disciples are to display a righteousness superior to that of the Pharisees (Matthew 5:20), a righteousness that is superior, that is true righteousness, because it springs forth from the heart.
God’s love kindles our love. God’s love both ignites and fuels ours. We love because He first loved us (1 John 4:19). Redemption sets the heart right (Deuteronomy 30:6). Redemption replaces a heart of stone with a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 11:19). We come to these words of law through a preface of grace, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery (Exodus 20:2 (ESV).” When the redeemed heart hears, “You shall not covet,” it responds, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you (Psalm 73:25 ESV).” When a redeemed heart meets the law of God its like sparks of love meeting a powder keg—from the depths, glory to heaven.
The Apologist: God Isn’t a Romantic Shouting “You Complete Me”
If this were not so, we would have had a God who needed to create in order to love and communicate. In such a case, God would have needed the universe as much as the universe needed God. But God did not need to create; God does not need the universe as the universe needs him. Why? Because we have a full and true Trinity. The Persons of the Trinity communicated with each other, and loved each other, before the creation of the world. —Francis Schaeffer, He is There and He Is Not Silent
Cleveland Is More Potent than Camelot (Exodus 20:16)
Each one of God’s ten words functions like a set of big brackets to bundle families of sin together. Thus anger was a violation of God’s command to not murder (Matthew 5:21–22). The head of each family was listed as a federal head representing all his lesser offspring. Murder heads up hatred, anger, wrath, malice, and cruelty and so on.
Who is the head of the family of lies? Spiritually, it’s Satan of course (John 8:44), but I’m speaking of the sin itself? What form of lies causes the greatest potential physical harm to our neighbor? Legal lies. That’s what is with the odd language of this command. Often this command is summarily cited as “You shall not lie,” and this is entirely justified, because daddy lie here brings all his kids in tow.
But we shouldn’t opt for the shorthand. Memorize and site the full thing. The legal context of the original commandment is best recalled because it speaks of the power of lies and truth. “You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness. You shall not fall in with the many to do evil, nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit, siding with the many, so as to pervert justice, nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his lawsuit (Exodus 23:1–3 ESV).” By lies, evil is done and justice is perverted. A false accusation could mean death. Lies ultimately always bring about some form of death. In God, truth and life are linked together. To take the lie, is to reject the One who is life. Lies run in the opposite direction of life. All human suffering and evil were birthed into this world through a serpent’s lie.
Words are powerful. We serve a God who spoke and there was light. We serve a God of powerful words, and we are made in His image. Our words have immense power. In a passage in Reflections on the Psalms, where C.S. Lewis is making a point that is completely wrong, He says something brilliantly right, “Myth can be truer than historical fact.” As one of Lewis’ disciples put it, “A good adventure story is truer than dull history.” Here’s my point, in the magical tales we see that words have power, but here we’re told, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” Bah! Your words, my words, man’s words are much more powerful than that—for good and ill. If Camelot were real and Cleveland the tale, Merlin would blush with envy over the power of our words.
We’ve not only believed a lie, for which we are culpable because we loved the lie, we’ve also spread the lie, a lie about God. For our loving and believing the great lie, for our rejecting the God of all truth in who is life, we are dead in our sins. But in Jesus, truth and life have come for our Redemption. When Jesus says “I am the way, and the truth, and the life,” He is saying that He is truth and life for dead liars. As by believing the lie of Satan we died, so by believing the truth of the Savior we live.
No Other Boast 