Matthew 4:4. 'But He answered and said, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.'"' You can't decide that this or that part of the Bible is not for you.This was for the people God brought from Egypt, not you.
In his commentary on Hebrews, the Puritan John Owen lists 17 ways in which the old and new covenants differ. Chief among them is that in the O.C. the law was written on tablets of stone, whereas in the N.C. the same laws are written on the hearts of those in that covenant. '"But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days," declares the LORD. "I will put My law in their minds and write it upon their hearts"' (Jeremiah 31:33; c.f. 2 Corinthians 3:3).And Jeremiah says: ““Indeed, a time is coming,” says the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah.It will not be like the old covenant that I made with their ancestors when I delivered them from Egypt. For they violated that covenant, even though I was like a faithful husband to them,” says the Lord.” (Jeremiah 31:31–32).
Not so. We have been here before, so I'm just repeating what I wrote thenAnd the Ten Commandments ARE the Old Covenant the New Covenant replaced. The TEN Commandments ARE the Old Covenant the New Covenant replaced them.
In Exodus 34:28 we read: “And He (God) wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.”
Deuteronomy 4:13: “And He declared unto you His covenant, which He commanded you to perform, even the Ten Commandments.”
Deuteronomy 9:9: “When I was gone up into the mount to receive the tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant.”
Deuteronomy 9:15: “So I turned and came down from the mount . . . and the two tables of the covenant were in my two hands.”
And so on...................
. I absolutely deny that the Decalogue is the Sinaitic covenant. All the 10 Commandments pre-date it as I showed two or three threads ago.
We can certainly agree that the Ten Commandments occupy a higher position than the civil and ceremonial laws. I have agued that constantly. However, the Decalogue and the Sinaitic Covenant are not identical for several reasons:
1. Jeremiah 34:13-14. "I made a covenant with your fathers in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt.....saying, 'At the end of seven years let every man set free his Hebrew brother.......'
Ezekiel 44:6-8. '......When you brought in foreigners, uncircumcised in heart and ...in flesh to be in My sanctuary to defile it.......then you broke My covenant.....'
Hebrews 9:1. 'Then indeed, the first covenant had ordinances of divine service and the earthly sanctuary.
Hebrews 9:18-20. 'Therefore not even the first covenant was dedicated without blood.........'
These verses are Biblical commentaries on the Sinaitic Covenant , but clearly identify that covenant with other things than the Decalogue.
2. Jeremiah 31:31ff says that the Ten Commandments will still function in the New Covenant.
3. Exodus 34:27-28. 'Then the LORD said to Moses, "write these words, for according to the tenor of these words, I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.......' 'These words' cannot be the Ten Commandments, because God wrote those words Himself. 'These words' are Exodus 34:10-26 which God has just relayed to Moses. They are themselves a summary of what had previously been given to Moses in Exodus 20-31. '........So he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights.......And He [the LORD] wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.' When the Lord Jesus said, "This is My body," I hope we both agree that He meant, "This represents or symbolizes My body." Likewise here. The Decalogue was placed in the ark of the covenant to symbolize the covenant that God had made with Israel.
To be sure, the proper motive for keeping the Commandments is love-- love for the God who graciously gave them. But the idea that those commandments are not to be taught and expounded to all believers is a recipe for disaster. This talk of a' law of love' without law is desperately airy-fairy. The world is full of adulterers saying, "But we love each other so much! How can it be wrong?" Or, "I told a little white lie because I loved him/her so much," or, "I did a mercy killing, but it was out of love." God's law needs to be placed regularly in front of our congregations, which will, in the real world, inevitably contain unbelievers. 'All Scripture is .....profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.' Do we need to tell our people that paying bills late is a form of stealing? That keeping things you find is theft? Then we need to be teaching them the Law and God's commentary on it (Leviticus 19:13; Exodus 23:4).We only use the Ten Commandments to convict sinners in evangelism, and to help train new converts in repentance. If you walk in the Spirit, you will keep them with a proper motive - love, by keeping the Two Great Commandments.
Since we have now reached the point where I'm having to repeat myself, I shall bow out of this thread. I shall at some point (DV) post something more detailed on Psalm 119 which is very germane to this discussion.