Objection:
The Ten Commandments did not exist before the time of Moses.
Answer:
The average reader will probably remark that since we live after the time of Moses, the law applies to us, and we are therefore not concerned as to just when the law was given. Very true, and we might dismiss the matter right here were it not for the fact that the objector is endeavoring to build a plausible argument on this objection. If we grant that the world moved along safely for centuries before Moses without the Ten Commandments, we have halfway prepared ourselves to believe the next objection, namely, that the law was abolished at the cross. Indeed if godly men like Enoch and Abraham didn’t need the Ten Commandments, why should Christians?
Therefore, we must give some attention to this claim that the Ten Commandments did not exist before Moses because of the subtle reasoning built upon it.
Right on the face of it, this is an unbelievable claim. The Ten Commandments forbids men to make idols, for example, not to take God’s name in vain, not to kill, steal, or commit adultery. Could we possibly bring ourselves to believe that such a code of laws was not in force before Moses? There are some things too incredible to warrant belief, and this is one of them.
Nor, indeed, do any of the leading denominations thus believe. There is no point on which the great branches of the Christian church agree more cordially than that the Ten Commandments were in force from the beginning of the world.
The plausible core of the objection before us is the assumption that those who sinned before Moses’ day could not possibly have been transgressors of the Ten Commandments because it had not yet been given. Here is the argument:
“Angels sinned (2 Peter 2:4), but they did not violate the law of Sinai, for it was not given until thousands of years after they fell, and they were not under it anyway. Adam sinned long before that law was given (see Romans 5:12-14); Cain sinned (Genesis 4:7); the Sodomites were sinners (Genesis 13:13) and vexed Lot with their unlawful deeds (2 Peter 2:8). Surely none of these violated the law, which was not given till Moses.”
But the conclusion does not necessarily follow that because the ten precepts of the Ten Commandments were not audibly proclaimed before Sinai or written down before that date; therefore, those precepts were not in existence before that time. An analogy to human laws reveals how unwarranted such a conclusion is. For long centuries England has had what is known as “the common law,” which law is an integral part of the whole system of English, and later, American jurisprudence. But only slowly was the common law codified and placed in written form. For centuries, many of these common-law statutes were passed on from one generation to another with little or no written reference. But even unschooled commoners had passed on to them by their fathers enough of the common law to make them often embarrassingly acquainted with their primary rights under the law. There was no particular moment in English history when the common law was all transcribed in a book and proclaimed by the king as the law of the land. And even if there had been such a moment in England’s legal history, what would we think of the person, who, looking back on the event, declared that previous to that great legal proclamation, such criminals as troubled England never violated this law? Pray tell, what other law did those criminals break in the days before England had a written legal code for all men to see and read?
No, history teaches us that law need not be formally proclaimed or written in a book to be enforced. Even so, with God’s moral laws for man; when Adam and Eve were created perfect and served God with a whole heart. Hence we correctly conclude that they had the law of God written in their hearts. God also talked to them. For a lifetime of nearly a thousand years, they were permitted to pass on the divine instruction they had received. Neither they nor their children needed a code written on parchment or stone. Paul well says that “the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient,” that is, the law as it is ordinarily understood, a formally announced code duly written down. The law is written on the righteous man’s heart.
After Adam’s sin, men soon began a rapid descent into the pit of corruption, as Paul describes it (See Romans 1). Could they excuse their evil deeds on the ground that they were not aware of any law that they had violated? No. Paul emphatically declares that they were “without excuse” (Verse 20). But how could they be without excuse unless they still retained some knowledge of God’s holy requirements and laws? Our accountability for our sins is in terms of our knowledge (See John 15:22). Paul enlarges on the matter by explaining that when the “Gentiles, which have not the law [that is, have no written law, no Holy Scriptures containing the moral code], do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness.” Romans 2:14-15.
We believe there is only one reasonable conclusion from these facts: Though men early fell away from God, the knowledge of Him did not wholly or immediately fade from their minds, nor was the divine code, originally written on the hearts of their first parents, Adam and Eve, suddenly erased. On the contrary, even though the rays grew dim, the troublesome light of conscience ever and anon illumined the faint but heavenly outlines upon the heart. As the Revised Standard Version translates the passage: “They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.”
Unless we hold that the world before Moses knew sufficiently of the law of God to understand the moral import of their acts, we shall be charging God with injustice in destroying them for their evil deeds. The only possible way for the objector to avoid the embarrassing force of this fact is to contend that though men who lived before Moses knew nothing of the Ten Commandments, they did know certain eternal moral principles of heaven. If this reasoning has any validity, it must reside in the assumption that these eternal moral principles—left undefined by the objector—were different from the Ten Commandments. Only thus can it be held that the Ten Commandments are not eternal.
But what principles are more eternally moral than those of the Ten Commandments? And how could God be just in condemning the ancients for deeds that we can describe as sinful only by their nonconformity to the Ten Commandments, if indeed these commandments were not yet in force? Furthermore, if all the evil deeds of devils and ancient men can be judged and condemned in terms of the Ten Commandments, what need is there to invoke some wholly undefined, unrevealed, moral principles to deal with the moral rebellion of those who lived long ago?
And can their deeds be condemned as sinful in terms of the Ten Commandments? Yes. The Bible says that Satan was “a murderer from the beginning” and “a liar.” John 8:44. The Ten Commandments deal with his deeds. He also sought to set himself up in place of God. Here is a violation of the first commandment. Adam and Eve most certainly coveted the forbidden fruit, else they would not have reached for it when God had expressly told them that it was not theirs to have. They both coveted and stole. And the Ten Commandments cover those evil deeds. Cain killed his brother. The Ten Commandments are adequate to judge him. The Sodomites were distinguished by their lustfulness. Christ revealed that the seventh commandment covers both the impure thought and the impure act, and they were guilty of both.
But we are not left to the processes of deduction—conclusive though they be—to conclude that the Ten Commandments were in force before Sinai. The Bible writers have much to say about sin and sinners. And how do they define sin? “Sin is the transgression of the law,” says John (1 John 3:4). And Paul observes: “Where no law is, there is no transgression,” “for by the law is the knowledge of sin.” Romans 4:15; 3:20. We are left in no possible doubt as to what law is intended, for Paul adds, “I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shall not covet.” Romans 7:7. And what law says, “Thou shall not covet”? The Ten Commandments.
When James spoke of those who “commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors,” he also left no doubt as to which law he meant. It is the law that says, “Do not commit adultery,” and “Do not kill.” James 2:9-11.
Some say, and we quote their words, that “sin is a disregard for some law, but not necessarily the so-called ‘moral law,’ or the Ten Commandments.” But that is not what Paul and James say. We do not see how they could more clearly have stated that breaking a specific law is sin and that that law is the Ten Commandments.
Furthermore, the objectors forget to tell us what law John means—1 John 3:4—if he does not mean the Ten Commandments. They do not know, for the Bible throws no light on “some law” morally binding on men other than the Ten Commandments. And the objectors, as well as we, are dependent on the revelations of Scripture. The same was true of those who lived in John’s day. Hence, how incredible he should define sin—that awful thing that keeps men out of heaven—as the “transgression of the law,” without specifying what law he meant if indeed he meant some other law than Paul and James meant when they wrote of sin! The very fact that John offered no explanatory comment as to what law he meant is the most decisive proof possible that he meant the law which his readers, who by now had read Paul and James, understood as “the law,” the Ten Commandments.
A favorite text of those who seek to prove that the Ten Commandments were unknown before Sinai is Moses’ statement: “The Lord made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day.” Deuteronomy 5:3.
The argument runs thus: God declares that the Ten Commandments are His covenant. Moses is here speaking of this covenant and states it was not made with the fathers before Sinai; therefore, the Ten Commandments were not given, in fact, were unknown, before that time.
What strange beliefs we would have to hold if we came to this conclusion! In the immediately preceding chapter, Moses refers to this covenant. He warns Israel: “Take heed unto yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which he made with you, and make you a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, which the Lord thy God hath forbidden thee.” Deuteronomy 4:23. Are we to conclude that none of God’s children before Sinai knew that it was wrong to make graven images? We can hardly believe anyone will answer yes. But the prohibition of images is the second command of the ten. Hence those who lived before Sinai must have known of the Ten Commandments. That is the only conclusion we can reach.
Then what does Moses mean in Deuteronomy 5:3? We think that the simplest explanation is that he viewed the gathered hosts at Sinai as the birth of the chosen nation that God had promised Abraham would spring from him. Through Moses, God told Israel that if they would be obedient to His covenant, “you shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation.” Exodus 19:6. Not until Sinai was it thus possible literally to make a covenant with the “nation” or “kingdom” of the Jews. It is also true that not until Sinai was there any formal proclamation of the Ten Commandments. The fathers before Sinai had never heard God speak His law to them as Israel had. And it was the law thus proclaimed that was the basis of the covenant. Hence in a genuine sense, the covenant made with Israel at Sinai had never been made before.
Commentators differ in their endeavor to clarify this text. Adam Clarke seeks to do so with the addition of parenthetical words, thus:
“The Lord made not this covenant with our fathers (only) but with us (also).”
Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown observe:
“The meaning is, ‘not with our fathers’ only, ‘but with us’ also, assuming it to be ’a covenant’ of grace; or ‘not with our fathers’ at all, if the reference is to the peculiar establishment of the covenant of Sinai; a law was not given to them as to us, nor was the covenant ratified in the same public manner, and by the same solemn sanctions. Or, finally, ‘not with our fathers’ who died in the wilderness, in consequence of their rebellion, and to whom God did not give the rewards promised only to the faithful; but ‘with us,’ who alone, strictly speaking, shall enjoy the benefits of this covenant by entering on the possession of the promised land.”
But says the objector finally: “If the decalogue was in existence before Moses, how is it that it was first proclaimed and first written down at Sinai?” Such a question reveals a forgetfulness of history. We might as appropriately question whether any of the moral instruction of the Holy Bible is binding on us, seeing that none of it was written before Moses. The simple facts are that by the time of Moses and the children of Israel, the knowledge of God and His laws had become so blurred in men’s minds that it became necessary that a written revelation be given to the world. Coming directly out of Egyptian darkness, the Israelites were in particular need of clear-cut declarations on the great moral precepts.
For this reason, God, with His own finger, carved in the everlasting stone the Ten Commandments. No one need then be in doubt. The changing moral conceptions of those Israelites could ever be corrected by the unchanging words graven in the stone.
