The 10 Commandments & the Great Commission
Introduction
We are halfway through the Ten Commandments in our sermon series through Exodus, and I trust your experience so far has been like mine. Camping out here and working through the commandments one at a time has been deep and rich. I have no doubt we could linger here for a long time and continue to come away with treasure for our souls,
My goal in this post is to show that there is a crucial connection between the Ten Commandments and the Great Commission. As we grow in our understanding of each commandment, not only are we growing personally as disciples, but God is equipping us to be more effective disciple-makers.
The Mission of the Church
The Great Commission outlines the mission of the church.
“And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’”
—Matthew 28:18–20
Jesus gave his Church a clear mission: make disciples. Many activities may compete for our attention—humanitarian projects, charities, social issues, political platforms, etc., but Jesus commissioned his people to make and multiply disciples.
In the Great Commission, Jesus tells us not only what to do—disciple the nations—but how we are to do it. We are to make disciples by going to the nations, baptizing those who turn to Jesus in repentance and faith, and teaching them to obey Jesus. I am going to focus on that last point—teaching.
Our mission doesn’t stop at evangelizing the world, or even converting the world. Our mission is to disciple the world—that is, to teach all people everywhere to obey all that Jesus commanded. Going is necessary. Proclaiming the gospel is critical. But the mission is not complete until the nations have learned to obey King Jesus from the heart.
If disciple-makers are to teach the nations to obey Jesus, we have to know what Christ commanded. A brief survey of Jesus’ teaching from five texts in Matthew—the immediate context of this version of the Great Commission—shows that the commands of Jesus were rooted in and grew out of the ten commandments.
The Sermon on the Mount
Matthew 5–7 contains the teaching from Jesus known as the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus says this:
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
—Matthew 5:17–20 (emphasis added)
Speaking of God’s commandments delivered through Moses, Jesus said, “Whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:19, emphasis added). There is no one greater than Jesus in the kingdom of heaven, and Jesus came to both do and to teach the law.
First, Jesus fulfilled the Law (Matthew 5:17). Not only did he fulfill all that the prophets foretold, but he also perfectly obeyed God’s holy law. In doing so, Jesus proved that the law of God is holy, righteous, and good (Romans 7:12). Sometimes the law is pitted against the gospel as though the law is bad and the gospel is good. But God’s moral law really does reveal the way of righteousness, and Jesus perfectly walked in that way.
One reason Jesus had to fulfill the law was so that he could be the sinless substitute who could redeem lawbreakers. If Jesus did not perfectly keep the law, he would be a sinner like us. In that case, he would have deserved to die for his own sins and he never could have died for ours. In order to die in our place and pay the penalty the law demands for our disobedience, he had to fulfill all the righteous requirements of the law.
But Jesus also taught the Law. He explicitly said that he did not come to abolish the law (Matthew 5:17). That is, he did not come to repeal or replace the law as though it was God’s failed first attempt. Rather, Jesus corrected common misconceptions and traditional misinterpretations of the Law of Moses and the Ten Commandments.
That’s what Jesus meant in verse 20 when he spoke of righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees. He was not calling for a greater quantity of righteousness—as though the Pharisees have a truckload of righteousness and you must have two truckloads of it. He meant that your righteousness must be an entirely different kind of righteousness. Quality not quantity. A basket of fresh fruit is far better than a truckload of rotten fruit.
The scribes and Pharisees were infamous for their hypocrisy. They loved to look good without being good. Their “righteousness” was superficial and shallow. It consisted of outward appearances that thinly veiled their dead hearts. Those who belong to the kingdom of heaven, however, are marked by righteousness that comes from the heart.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught through several of the ten commandments to prove this. Jesus started with the sixth commandment, the one that prohibits murder. Most people feel pretty good about this one. “I’m not perfect,” people say, “but I’ve never murdered anyone.” Jesus says the spirit of the sixth commandment requires more.
“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.”
—Matthew 5:21–22
Jesus taught the ten commandments, and he taught that God forbids hatred in our hearts, not just the ultimate act of murder. Jesus does the same thing with the seventh commandment (Matthew 5:27–30). God prohibits lust in our hearts and minds, not merely the act of adultery.
Traditions and Commandments
In Matthew 15, Jesus confronted the traditions of the Pharisees and scribes. They were bothered that Jesus’ disciples didn’t keep “the tradition of the elders” (Matthew 15:2), but Jesus rebuked them: “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?” (Matthew 15:3, emphasis added).
Jesus went on to uphold the validity of the fifth commandment, which requires us to honor father and mother. The Pharisees had come up with a practice to provide a loophole so people could avoid the obligation to financially support their elderly parents. But Jesus called out their hypocrisy and disobedience and affirmed the ongoing rightness of the fifth commandment. In fact, Jesus said that those who disregard the fifth commandment “made void the word of God” (Matthew 15:6).
The Greatest Commandment
In Matthew 23, one of the Pharisees tried to test Jesus with a question.
“‘Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?’ And [Jesus] said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.’”
—Matthew 22:34–40
Once again, we see that Jesus did not set aside the Law and the Prophets, but upheld the Old Testament. Love for God is the first and greatest commandment. The first four commandments—what we call the first table of the law—spell out how we love God. We love God when we love him exclusively and have no other gods except for him. We worship God by listening to his word and not making images to represent him. We love God by bearing his name in a way that causes his name to be revered and not reviled. And we honor God by setting aside one day in seven to rest and worship, imitating God’s rest and rejoicing in Christ’s new creation work.
The last six commandments—the second table—define how we are to love our neighbor. As Paul writes in Romans 13:9–10, “For the commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,’ and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.”
This is exactly what Jesus taught.
The Weightier Matters of the Law
In Matthew 23, Jesus pronounced seven “woes” against the scribes and Pharisees. In the fourth one, Jesus said, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!” (Matthew 23:23–24).
In other words, the Pharisees were completely lopsided and disproportionate in their priorities. They may have been meticulous with their spices and their kitchen scales, down to the tenth of a gram, but they neglected what Jesus called “the weightier matters of the law.”
Jesus rebuked them by saying, “These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.” Jesus didn’t dismiss tithing, but he did say that something is seriously amiss in your heart if you care more about mint, dill, and cumin than you do about justice, mercy, and faithfulness. These are the weighty matters, the big rocks, the important issues. If you don’t get this, it doesn’t matter how scrupulously you tithe from your spice rack.
While much of the Mosaic Law dealt with ceremonial laws that governed Israel’s worship and civil laws that applied to Israel as a nation, the moral law of God is summed up in the ten commandments. And the ten commandments clearly define the weighty matters of justice, mercy, and faithfulness.
The Kingdom of Heaven
With all this talk about Jesus and the law, you might wonder where the gospel is. Let’s look at one more text, back at the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry. Matthew writes, “From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’” (Matthew 4:17).
This is the first of Christ’s commands in Matthew’s gospel, and it comes with the announcement that the kingdom of heaven has arrived in the person and work of Jesus. A kingdom implies citizenship, and entering the kingdom of heaven requires a transfer of citizenship. If true righteousness is inside-out, if it entails not just looking good but loving what is good, then the first step in discipleship is to repent and turn to Christ for the forgiveness of our unrighteousness.
Unfortunately, many people stop there, as though the gospel is the good news that God will turn a blind eye to your unrighteousness and leave you unchanged. Fortunately, the gospel is much greater news than that. Not only has God provided his Son to be the sinless sacrifice to atone for our unrighteousness, but he has also promised to change our hearts and empower us to obey by uniting us to Christ through faith.
Everything Jesus taught about the law simply explained what life in his kingdom looks like. Living under the kingly rule of Christ means trusting and obeying Christ. And now that his Spirit lives in us, we may enjoy that kingdom life now.
Conclusion
A brief survey of Matthew’s gospel makes it clear that rightly knowing, interpreting, and applying the Ten Commandments is relevant for the great commission. Jesus kept the Law perfectly to fulfill all righteousness and to be our sinless substitute. But Jesus also taught the Law, and he has commissioned us to teach the nations to obey his law. Through his teaching, we know that his law is not obeyed when we fake outward compliance or begrudgingly go through the motions, but when our hearts are transformed by the Spirit as we rely on Jesus. Those who repent and believe in Jesus have entered his kingdom and live under his rule. They love God’s law and delight to walk in his ways. The mission Jesus has given his Church is to teach the world to do the same.