Were the Ten Commandments Strictly for the Old Testament?

Do we really need the Ten Commandments? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of CORE Christianity. Hi, this is Bill Meyer with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and this is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day.

You can also email us your question at questions at corechristianity.com. Well, what's a parent to do when they get their child to school late? Well, an elementary school in France has put up signs outside their fence with an unusual request for parents, don't throw late students over the closed gate. The Trillot School in Avignon put up signs outside its gate showing a cartoon picture of a parent sending a small child airborne to get over the fence. The text on the sign asks parents, please don't throw your children and instead wait for the gates to be opened again at 10 a.m. Principal Sanyas Mazin says, parents literally threw their kids over the gate when they arrived late to find it closed.

Don't do that, Adriel, please don't do that. Yeah, I'm sorry. It's only happened a couple of times. You have to imagine it had to have been fairly frequent for them to go through all the trouble of making those signs and posting them. I hope the fence was not too tall.

Yeah, I'm guessing it was a fairly low fence and they just sort of helped their kid over the fence, but oh my goodness. Well, let's get to our first question of the day. This came in through our website and it says, how should we deal with the contradictions we find in the Bible? Sometimes people will bring this up as an objection to the Scriptures. One thing I think that's really obvious today, and this has been since the very beginning, is one thing that is under attack is the authority of Scripture, of God's word. Satan wants us to question whether or not we can trust what the Bible says, what God has said ultimately. Wasn't that the very first thing that he did there in the garden with Adam and Eve? Did God really say?

It seems like it doesn't have a lot of new tricks. It's just sort of the same thing over and over again, maybe dressed up in different ways, but getting us to question God's word. And one of the ways that he does that is I think with this kind of objection, there are all sorts of discrepancies and contradictions in the Bible. I used to do evangelism in San Diego here at a big park called Balboa Park. We would post up and share books and talk to people about the Lord, and there was another just down from us booth, I guess you could say.

It was the atheist booth, and they had all these signs up as well, pushing atheism. And they would oftentimes come over to us as we were talking to people about Jesus, and they would say things like, How can you trust the Bible? There are all these contradictions. Well, unless somebody brings up something specific, it's really hard to answer.

I think sometimes people will just sort of throw it out there. The Bible has all these errors, all these contradictions, without really actually looking at them. And so I would say the first thing is we have to look at whatever these supposed contradictions are, and when we do, I think that what we find as we dig deeper is that there really is no problem at all. I mean, a lot of times the issue is we're either misreading the scripture or we're not just letting the scripture speak in its context. So I would say, and I don't know what specific passage you're referring to, if you want to call back or reach out to us and point out a particular text, we could go into that one. But I would say, as people have come to me with various contradictions, and I've dug deeper and looked at the context, a lot of times people will bring up contradictions in the Gospel among the various Gospel writers.

I think that what we find as we look deeper is that there really is no serious issue. Oftentimes what you have is just a matter of perspective. When you think about it with regard to the Gospels, for example, you have these different authors who are thinking about the same events, but from different perspectives. And so they're giving their own sort of snapshot of what took place. And that makes sense if they were recounting history, what it was that they experienced. It makes sense that it would found like this, as opposed to every single detail lining up exactly like they got together and decided exactly what their stories were going to be.

No, that's not what it was. This is a real history, and they're recounting that history for us. And sometimes you do get a little bit of discrepancy, but I don't think that there really is any genuine contradiction. And so the two big things there are, like I said, we need to be confident in God's Word.

And I think that we can be confident in God's Word. And when we get these kinds of questions, rather than brushing them under the rug, if you're being confronted with a particular text in Scripture, don't just embrace the idea that this is a real contradiction. I would say dig deeper and see how it could actually be harmonized and understood in a way that really doesn't call the authority of the Bible into question.

So thanks for your question. And like I said, feel free to reach out to us again if you have a more specific passage that you're thinking about. You know, Adriel, one of the objections that a lot of skeptics bring up is they say, well, the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament seems to be an entirely different God. You have this God of judgment and vengeance and violence in the Old Testament, and then Jesus is all about love and forgiveness and mercy. And there's even one leading pastor in this country who kind of says we should throw out the Old Testament when we're evangelizing because he believes it could trip people up.

I'm wondering how you would respond to that. Yeah, I mean, I've heard this. I remember being in seventh grade, my world history teacher saying that very thing. He talked about how, you know, in the Old Testament, God was all about judgment.

This was just a public school, mind you. God was all about judgment. And then in the New Testament, Jesus showed up with long hair and Birkenstocks kind of like a hippie and was just talking about how we needed to love each other.

And so he painted the picture of this sort of radical shift. Now, he misunderstood the Old Testament and he misunderstood Jesus, obviously, because in the Old Testament, God was about grace and forgiveness and mercy. You think about the entire sacrificial system of the Old Covenant. You think about how long suffering God was with his people who sinned against him over and over and over again in the New Testament. Jesus talked about judgment and hell. I mean, read the Book of Revelation where it describes the second coming and Jesus trampling upon his enemies. There really is no distinction or discrepancy in the sense of, you know, the God of the Old Testament is different than the God of the New Testament. This is one God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit at work throughout redemptive history and ultimately revealing to us his grace, his love, his mercy, but also the reality of his judgment. And by the way, Bill, that particular objection is one of the most ancient objections to Christianity. There was this early heretic named Marcion, and that was precisely what he taught, that the God of the Old Testament was different than the God of the New Testament. And so, like I said, Satan doesn't have a lot of new tricks up his sleeve.

It's sort of the same thing refashioned over and over and over again, and we have to be prepared to respond to it. You're listening to Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and Adriel, here's a call that came in from one of our listeners named Dee. You're listening to Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and Adriel, here's a call that came in from one of our listeners named Dee. Dee, thank you so much for your question, and we're talking about here the Holy Trinity, and so there is some great mystery here.

It makes perfect sense to me why you might have some questions. This is the great mystery of the Christian faith, and yet it's how God has revealed himself in his word, and that's why we embrace this truth. We don't get to invent what God is like or who God is.

Oftentimes, we want to do that. We want to make God in our own image, but God reveals himself to us through his word, and in his word, he's revealed himself to us as one God. Deuteronomy 6, 4, hero of Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, who is three persons, equal in power and glory, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and Jesus is referred to as the word of God, in particular in John's writings. John chapter 1, verse 1, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. And you're right, Dee, to recognize that what John is doing there is he's echoing from the very first book of the Bible, Genesis chapter 1.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Well, John is telling us now that right there at that very beginning point, the word, the word of the Father, the word of God, Jesus, the eternal Son, the second person of the Holy Trinity, was there, and it was through him that all things were made, and apart from him, there wasn't anything made that was made. John is going to go on to say in the next couple of verses there in John chapter 1. And so when we talk about the word, we're referring to the second person of the Holy Trinity.

Now, some people have said that in the Gospel of John word, the focus there is sort of Greek philosophy, because that word, the word, logos, was used in Greek philosophy, and some people thought John was referring to Jesus as this universal principle in philosophy. But really what he's probably doing is appealing to ancient Jewish writing that talked about the word of God in this magnificent way, almost at times even personifying the word, giving it this divine status, and that is who Jesus is. God, the word, the second person, as I said, of the Holy Trinity.

And I think that this reveals something to us of the Trinitarian relationship. Jesus is the word of the Father, which is to say he is always in the Father, and that he comes from the Father. We say that he is eternally begotten of the Father as the Son of God, and he reveals the Father to us.

And isn't that what Jesus says in his ministry? At one point his disciples say, show us the Father, and he says, hey, I'm right here. Not in that he is the person of the Father, but that the Son perfectly reveals to us the Father. Now you talked about the relationship between Jesus' divine nature and his human nature.

Here's what we have to understand. The word, the second person of the Holy Trinity, the Son of God, is a divine person. And when he, in the Incarnation, assumes humanity, when he takes flesh from the womb of the Virgin Mary, he doesn't become a divine and human person. He's not two persons, he's one person. He is one divine person with two natures through the Incarnation.

This is what theologians refer to as the hypostatic union. Now I don't want to get bogged down in all the theology talk right now, but here's what you need to know. It highlights for us the fact that Jesus, the eternal Son of God, when he took on flesh for us, took on everything that it is to be human so that he might redeem us, so that he might be our perfect representative. It really has to do with our salvation.

And so there are two mysteries here, really, that we're talking about. The mystery of the Trinity and the mystery of the Incarnation. And when John refers to Jesus as the Word, he's highlighting the fact that he's the eternal Son of God. But then, of course, in verse 14 of chapter 1, he tells us that that eternal Son took on flesh and dwelt among us.

Isn't that beautiful? Is there any story like this anywhere else in the history of humanity, the eternal God taking on flesh and dwelling with us so that he might redeem us? It really is wonderful, and for all eternity, Dee, we're going to be marveling at this great mystery and rejoicing in the salvation that Jesus has accomplished for us.

Thanks for your question. Dee, thanks so much for calling and for being one of our regular listeners. You're listening to Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. I'm Bill Meyer, and you know, the holidays are filled with a lot of fun activities. But sometimes the hustle and bustle of this season drowns out the most important aspect of Christmas, the fact that in Jesus, God has come to be with us. That's why we're so excited to share a new resource we have here at CoreChristianity.com, our Christmas devotional. It's called Jesus Christ, the Promised Messiah. This is a daily devotional that shows you what Christmas is all about. Each day of December, it highlights prophecies about Jesus in the Old Testament, and then it shows you where these prophecies were fulfilled in Jesus in the New Testament. So take some time every day by yourself or with your family to read the scriptures and meditate on their meaning. Our hope is that you come to Jesus through the pages of the Bible. You and your loved ones will experience his life-giving presence this Christmas. This devotional is free when you sign up for our weekly newsletter. So head over to CoreChristianity.com forward slash Christmas to download.

That's CoreChristianity.com forward slash Christmas. Adriel, here's a question that came in through our website at CoreChristianity.com slash radio. We know that Jesus shed his precious blood for the forgiveness of sins, but how will we know what sins we need to ask forgiveness for unless we have laws to go by, such as the Ten Commandments? Is it possible to know what sins are unless we have a list of rules to follow? Yeah, well, one, that's a great question, and obviously God in his word has given to us his revealed will, his law. And one of the reasons God gives it to us is because we need to hear the law of God. It's what drives us ultimately to Christ. Now, in another sense, God has revealed his law to us even just through nature. Sometimes people refer to this as natural law. It's the idea that we have this sense of God, this sense of right and wrong, and everyone has that right from the very beginning, from birth.

C.S. Lewis talks about this a little bit in his book, Mere Christianity. Some of the great theologians of the church have also talked about this, this sense of God that we have even through creation. You think of what Psalm chapter 19 says, The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge. The very created order reveals to us that there is a God who is all-powerful, and we're accountable just by virtue of that knowledge. This is what the Apostle Paul says in Romans chapter 1. But here's another really wonderful thing is that when you and I believe in Jesus Christ, when we are united to him by faith, God the Holy Spirit does something amazing.

You know what he does? He takes the law of God, and he writes it upon our hearts in a unique way. And this was something that was promised way back in the Old Testament in Jeremiah chapter 31. This was an ancient prophecy promise of what's called the New Covenant, this new promise that God was making with his people, ultimately with you and with me.

Listen to this, Jeremiah chapter 31, beginning in verse 31. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. Not like the covenant I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. After those days, declares the Lord, I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Isn't that beautiful? You think about that scene in the Old Testament where God writes his law on the tablets of stone. And here, the prophet Jeremiah is saying, God is saying through the prophet Jeremiah, my people broke that covenant. You remember the vivid imagery of the stone tablets being broken, Moses throwing them down. God said, you know what I'm going to do in this new covenant?

I'm going to write my law on the hearts of my people. And everyone who believes in Jesus Christ, who is filled with the Holy Spirit, has that law of God written on their hearts. And something strange happens when that takes place. I remember when I first trusted in Christ and God's grace was revealed to me, doing things and thinking things and acting in ways that I had done my entire life that were just totally normal. And all of a sudden, I felt this sense of conviction, this sense of, wait, I think there's something wrong here. And I'd never had that before.

Well, what was that? It was the presence of the Holy Spirit. It was the fact that God had written his law upon my heart. And maybe you've experienced the same thing as a Christian.

And it really is a wonderful thing. And so what I'm saying here is God's law, his revealed will, is so important for us to know. And I think it does highlight for us, oftentimes, ways in which we are sinning and ways in which we need to repent. And our hearts are oftentimes so blind, our eyes are so blind, that we will just sort of overlook certain things in God's law. And that's why we need to be continually reminded and humbled and directed to the gospel, directed to Jesus. But God also writes his law upon our hearts. God's law, God's moral law, is still in effect. And ultimately, it's summarized in what Jesus said, what he taught us, to love God perfectly and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

Now, none of us can do that. That's why that's not the good news of the Christian faith. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, Paul tells us in Romans. And so Jesus came and fulfilled the law so that we might experience God's forgiveness.

And then he fills us with the Spirit so that right now in this life, we begin to hate our sin and love God's law and love God. I appreciate your question and may the Lord bless you as you seek to honor him and to grow in his word and in obedience to his word. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Just a reminder that we are a listener-supported ministry, so we count on people just like you to keep us on the air.

If you would prayerfully consider making a gift, it would be a big help to us. You can find out more at corechristianity.com. Well, here's a question that came in through our Facebook page, Adriel. It's from Kathy. She says, what does it mean to count the cost of being a disciple?

Hi, Kathy, thank you for that question. And I think, you know, we just have to go to the words of our Lord Jesus here, because he talked about this very thing in Luke chapter 14, beginning in verse 26. He said this. If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you desiring to build a tower does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid the foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, This man began to build and was not able to finish. Or what king going out to encounter another king in war will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with 10,000 to meet him who comes against him with 20,000?

And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. It's so interesting to me is, you know, we're not called as Christians, I'm not called as a pastor to make believers or to make disciples of myself. We're called to make disciples. It's what Jesus said when he gave the Great Commission in Matthew 28, go into all the world and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything that I have commanded you. When he talked about the cost of discipleship, he said, Look, it's going to mean laying down your life. And that's precisely what it means to follow after Jesus, to get in line behind him, to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.

It will cost you your life. Now, what does that mean? I mean, you know, in the first century, for many believers, it meant martyrdom. And for people throughout the world today, it does mean that. Ultimately, I think for many of us in the United States, what it looks like is laying down our own wills, our own lives, to follow Jesus in service and service of his people in service of one another.

It means that it's not about us, first and foremost. It's about him and knowing him and walking with him. And I love that when Jesus called us to make disciples there in Matthew 28, he started with baptism. He said, Go make disciples.

And here's how it starts. You baptize. And what is baptism a sign of? It's a sign and seal of the forgiveness of our sins, of our having been washed. You see, we're not saved by the fact that we are perfect disciples.

Not one of us is. I mean, we're like the disciples in the Gospels. We follow Jesus, and then we go astray, or we misunderstand what he says, or we turn away from him like Peter. But Jesus does call us to lay down our lives and follow him, and what saves us is not the fact that we do that perfectly. It's the fact that Jesus did that for us. He is the one who laid down his life, who took up the cross so that our sins might be forgiven, so that we might be baptized into his body by faith. And as a result of that wondrous work of Jesus, what he has done for us, we are called to lay down our lives in service to each other and to him. And we do that not so that we can be saved. We do it because he laid down his life for us. For more information, please visit us at corechristianity.com and click on offers in the menu bar, or call us at 1-833-843-2673. That's 833-the-core. When you contact us, please let us know how you've been encouraged by this podcast. And be sure to join us next time as we explore the truth of God's word together.