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Good question, Donna. I too would like to know why we traditionally uphold the Ten Commandments while we are expressly forbidden to observe any part of the Law?donnA said:I have been wondering, and pardon me if I have asked this, of it is has been discussed ebfore, and not meaning to start an argument.
But in thinking about the law and the 10 commandments, I wondered why the 10 commandments are listed seperately from all the other laws?
Was just thinking.
No part of the 10 commandments are for us unless they are naturally written on our hearts. We naturally know not to kill or steal. Luther had a lot to say about this topic. In the NT our commandments are summed in two. Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and love thy neighbor as thyself. All the rest fall into these two.Zenas said:Good question, Donna. I too would like to know why we traditionally uphold the Ten Commandments while we are expressly forbidden to observe any part of the Law?
DR. MARTIN LUTHER; 1525: The Law of Moses Binds Only the Jews and Not the Gentiles. Here the Law of Moses has its place. It is no longer binding on us because it was given only to the people of Israel. And Israel accepted this law for itself and its descendants, while the Gentiles were excluded.
LUTHER: To be sure, the Gentiles have certain laws in common with the Jews, such as these: there is one God, no one is to do wrong to another, no one is to commit adultery or murder or steal, and others like them. This is written by nature into their hearts; they did not hear it straight from heaven as the Jews did. This is why this entire text does not pertain to the Gentiles. …
LUTHER: But we will not have this sort of thing. We would rather not preach again for the rest of our life than to let Moses return and to let Christ be torn out of our hearts. We will not have Moses as ruler or lawgiver any longer. Indeed God himself will not have it either. Moses was an intermediary solely for the Jewish people. It was to them that he gave the law.
LUTHER: We must therefore silence the mouths of those factious spirits who say, "Thus says Moses," etc. Here you simply reply: Moses has nothing to do with us. If I were to accept Moses in one commandment, I would have to accept the entire Moses. Thus the consequence would be that if I accept Moses as master, then I must have myself circumcised, wash my clothes in the Jewish way, eat and drink and dress thus and so, and observe all that stuff.
LUTHER: So, then, we will neither observe nor accept Moses. Moses is dead. His rule ended when Christ came. He is of no further service.
LUTHER: That Moses does not bind the Gentiles can be proved from Exodus 20:1, where God himself speaks, "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." This text makes it clear that even the Ten Commandments do not pertain to us. For God never led us out of Egypt, but only the Jews.
LUTHER: The sectarian spirits want to saddle us with Moses and all the commandments. We will just skip that. We will regard Moses as a teacher, but we will not regard him as our lawgiver - unless he agrees with both the New Testament and the natural law. Therefore it is clear enough that Moses is the lawgiver of the Jews and not of the Gentiles. He has given the Jews a sign whereby they should lay hold of God, when they call upon him as the God who brought them out of Egypt. The Christians have a different sign, whereby they conceive of God as the One who gave his Son, etc.
LUTHER: Again one can prove it from the third commandment that Moses does not pertain to Gentiles and Christians. For Paul [Col. 2:16] and the New Testament [Matt. 12:1-12; John 5:16; 7:22-23; 9:14-16] abolish the Sabbath, to show us that the Sabbath was given to the Jews alone, for whom it is a stern commandment. The prophets referred to it too, that the Sabbath of the Jews would be abolished. For Isaiah says in the last chapter, "When the Savior comes, then such will be the time, one Sabbath after the other, one month after the other," etc. [Isa. 66:23]. This is as though he were trying to say, "It will be the Sabbath every day, and the people will be such that they make no distinction between days. For in the New Testament the Sabbath is annihilated as regards the crude external observance, for every day is a holy day," etc.
LUTHER: Now if anyone confronts you with Moses and his commandments, and wants to compel you to keep them, simply answer, "Go to the Jews with your Moses; I am no Jew. Do not entangle me with Moses. If I accept Moses in one respect [Paul tells the Galatians in chapter 5:3], then I am obligated to keep the entire law." For not one little period in Moses pertains to us.
Joseph M. Smith said:I interpret your question in a different way from the other respondents. I hear you to be asking why the Ten are given separate and higher status than the myriads of other items in the Law. I would answer that these are apodictic laws, meant as broad general principles, while the others are casuistic laws, intended as explications of these general principles. They are rather like outline headings, under which a lot of detail is eventually given.