There are Christians today who teach that the Decalogue (or Ten Commandments) are inseparable from the Law of Moses and that the Law of Moses (as framed in Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy) is inextricable from the Old Covenant in which it was given. Thus, as such, the Law of Moses (including the Ten Commandments as given through him) is not the positive rule of life for the believer, as we are not under the Old Covenant, but the New. These teachers include most who would identify themselves as “Dispensationalists,” but also those who hold to the recent movement in biblical theology called “New Covenant Theology.” However, the Reformed tradition going back to such reformers as Calvin, Zwingli, and Bucer and reflected in Reformed confessions would understand the Ten Commandments (the Decalogue) as in force today. They would be in good company, as many in the patristic and medieval churches would honor the Decalogue as a rule of life for Christians, reflecting God’s moral law as consistent with His moral character. This same moral law, incidentally, is viewed as concurring harmoniously with the natural moral law revealed in the heart of humanity (Rom. 2:14–15).

The present differing opinion between the abrogationist position and the continuationist position relates to an age-old debate regarding the right and proper uses of the Law for Christians. Most Protestants in the Reformation agreed (and still agree) that the Law of Moses (including the Ten Commandments) was intended to function for the Christian as a Sündenspiegel—a “mirror of sin,” revealing that we have sin and are guilty before God. It is also a Sündenriegel—or “restraint against sin,” holding back sin in our lives by revealing God’s disfavor of certain acts. However, a third use of the Law for the Christian was a point of some contention between some Lutherans and Calvinists—whether the Law (including the Ten Commandments) was intended to be a Lebensregel, or “rule of life,” that Christians were to positively follow as an external code, including the rule to keep the Sabbath.

Abrogationists take the position that the entire Law of Moses as codified and expressed in the commands and ordinances given at Sinai was part of a particular covenant relationship with Israel and with nobody else. Thus, technically, the Ten Commandments were given for Israel. Why? Because the Church does not relate to God through the Old Covenant of Moses but through the New Covenant of Christ. Does this, then, mean that abrogationists believe it’s permissible under the New Covenant to murder, commit adultery, worship other gods, or bear false witness against one’s neighbor? Is this antinomianism or libertinism? No. Those who hold that the Law was abrogated by Christ believe the Ten Commandments were covenantal and contextualized articulations of God’s positive eternal principles of love, goodness, justice, etc. They affirm that the Ten Commandments do reflect God’s eternal moral law, which is also reflected non-verbally in the heart as the law of nature. But the fact that God articulated the Ten Commandments as negatives (do not murder, do not commit adultery, etc.) would suggest to abrogationists that God’s eternal moral principles are refracted through the prism of a particular covenantal relationship at Sinai. That is, phrasing the commands in the negative implies that the people addressed would be inclined toward murder, adultery, lying, covetousness, etc. One would expect God’s moral principles, in conformity with His eternal nature and character, to be expressed positively—love life, be faithful, be truthful, be content.

Abrogationists would accept that the Ten Commandments are perfectly valid for showing a person how they fall short of God’s moral will; but the positive rule of life for the believer would be more like what the New Testament refers to as the fruit of the Spirit. That is, it is the Holy Spirit producing in the truly regenerate believers a spontaneous desire to love God and love others and thus manifest the “fruit of the Spirit.” Paul the Apostle said, “But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law. Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law” (Gal. 5:18-23).

Thus, in the abrogationist perspective, for Christians walking in the Spirit, neither the Ten Commandments nor any other laws, commandments, and statutes of the Old Covenant of the Mosaic code are the normal “rule of life.” This is not lawlessness; it is lawfulfillness. This would be the typical view among abrogationists who view the Ten Commandments as essentially inseparable from the moral, civil, and ceremonial laws as well as from the hundreds of other commandments that expound on details of the covenant life of Israel. Nor are they separable from the promised benefits or condemnations that came along with obedience or disobedience of the Law. As such, the Ten Commandments may be a contextualized and covenantal reflection of God’s eternal moral will for His people, but to the abrogationist, the eternal ethic is actually positive. When a confessing Christian fails to walk in the Spirit and thus fulfill the eternal moral law of God, the Ten Commandments can be appealed to as a Sündenspiegel to show a person their transgression—like guidelines and guard rails on a road. But those guards are not the road itself, and they only come into play when a person swerves from the path they’re supposed to be following (Sündenriegel). The abrogationist will generally argue that to use the Ten Commandments as the Lebensregel or “rule of life” could lead to a kind of superficial self-righteousnessthat says, “I haven’t murdered, so I’m okay with God” or “I haven’t committed adultery, so I’m good.” It would be like a driver saying, “I haven’t gone into the ditch, so I’m a good driver,” all the while swerving back and forth erratically and running over road hazards.    

As a rule, confessional Reformed Christians hold the Ten Commandments to be a revelation of God’s moral law that is binding on believers as a rule of life. Most are bound to this view by their governing confession of faith. However, other theologians from various traditions and confessions are free to discuss different perspectives on how the Ten Commandments and other Old Testament laws and statutes may or may not apply directly or indirectly to the life of the disciple of Jesus. The questions are not irrelevant. Are we obligated to rest on the seventh day (Saturday)? Or on the first (Sunday)? Or at all? Must we tithe ten percent of our income to the church? Stone disobedient children? Can we eat blood sausage (Blutwurst)? Bacon? How old and obsolete (and thus abrogated) is the Old Covenant Law for those under the New Covenant? Doesn’t the command to love God and love one another fulfill the spirit of the Law—that is, the eternal moral Law of God? The abrogationist would appeal to the New Testament idea that with the changing of the priesthood, the Law also is changed (Heb. 17:12); and that the death of Christ has abolished the Law of commandments (Eph. 2:15).

Abrogationists do not believe Christians under the New Covenant are free to murder, commit adultery, blaspheme, etc.—things forbidden by the Ten Commandments. What they say is that Christians are not a party to the Mosaic Covenant given at Sinai, where Israelites placed themselves under the Decalogue and the other ordinances and statutes as a response to their redemption from Egypt and as part of a unique covenant relationship with God. However, though the Ten Commandments were not for the Church, this doesn’t leave Christians without moral imperatives. In fact, the commandments of the Law of Christ to love God and love others, to reflect faith, hope, and love in everything, and to manifest the fruit of the Spirit in all situations—these things are more demanding, as Christ articulated in His Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5). To fulfill Christ’s law of love is to surpass the external stipulations of the Ten Commandments, as Paul taught in Galatians 5:18, 22-23.

Though this abrogationist approach may not be in conformity with the written confessions of the Reformed churches, this approach is not a novelty and not a heresy. It is similar to the view articulated by the second century Christian apologist, Justin Martyr (c. AD 150), in his Dialogue with Trypho, a dispute with an unbelieving Jew. Justin writes, “Nor have we trusted in any other (for there is no other), but in Him in whom you [Jews] also have trusted, the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob. But we do not trust through Moses or through the law; for then we would do the same as yourselves. But now—for I have read that there shall be a final law, and a covenant, the chiefest of all, which it is now incumbent on all men to observe, as many as are seeking after the inheritance of God. For the law promulgated on Horeb is now old, and belongs to yourselves alone; but this is for all universally. Now, law placed against law has abrogated that which is before it, and a covenant which comes after in like manner has put an end to the previous one; and an eternal and final law—namely, Christ—has been given to us, and the covenant is trustworthy, after which there shall be no law, no commandment, no ordinance” (Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 11).

Similarly, Irenaeus of Lyons, a late second century student of Justin Martyr and defender of the faith against heretics like the Gnostics and Marcion, put it this way: “Since, then, by this calling life has been given (us), and God has summed up again for Himself in us the faith of Abraham, we ought not to turn back any more—I mean, to the first legislation. For we have received the Lord of the Law, the Son of God; and by faith in Him we learn to love God with all our heart, and our neighbour as ourselves. Now the love of God is far from all sin, and love to the neighbour worketh no ill to the neighbour. Wherefore also we need not the Law as a tutor. Behold, with the Father we speak, and in His presence we stand, being children in malice, and grown strong in all righteousness and soberness. For no longer shall the Law say, Do not commit adultery, to him who has no desire at all for another’s wife; and Thou shalt not kill, to him who has put away from himself all anger and enmity; (and) Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s field or ox or ass, to those who have no care at all for earthly things, but store up the heavenly fruits: nor An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, to him who counts no man his enemy, but all men his neighbors, and therefore cannot stretch out his hand at all for vengeance.” (Irenaeus, Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching 95).

Besides this, we have the evidence of the “Two Ways” section of the Didache, a first-century pre-baptismal catechetical manual (c. 50-70), the earliest of its kind writing during the age of the apostles themselves. In its opening chapters describing the “way of life” of a consecrated disciple of Jesus, the author gives no sustained, orderly articulation of the Ten Commandments as a Lebensregel. The ethical and moral principles reflected in the Ten Commandments are clearly present, but the expectation of the disciple of Jesus is quite clearly deeper, broader, and loftier than the stipulations of the Law. The Didachist writes, “And the second commandment of the teaching is this: Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not sodomize, do not commit sexual immorality, do not steal, do not practice magic, do not use potions, do not murder a child by abortion, do not kill the just-born one, do not yearn after the things of your neighbor. Do not commit perjury, do not bear false witness, do not speak evil of anyone, do not bear a grudge. You will be neither double-minded nor double-tongued; for being double-tongued is a snare of death. Your speech should not be false or empty, but filled with action. Do be not greedy, or vicious, or a hypocrite, or spiteful, or proud. Do take up not an evil plan against your neighbor. Do not hate any person, but some you should correct, others you should pray for and others you should love even more than your own life” (Didache 2.1–7). This articulation of the Christians’ “Do Nots” are not a framed, embossed, or stained-glass repetition of the Ten Commandments. These are much closer to Paul’s “deeds of the flesh” vices (Gal. 5:19–21).

In short, the abrogationist position on the replacement of the Ten Commandments as a rule of life (Lebensregel) by Christ, the law of love, and the fruit of the Spirit is certainly not the same as the later patristic catholic church, the Medieval Catholic Church, or the standard Reformed catholic confessions. But it is in keeping with some of the orthodox leaders of the earliest catholic Christianity of the first and second centuries. The Ten Commandments were not presented by the earliest Church as the foundation of its catechetical moral instruction, as evidenced by the first-century Didache.Yes, the Ten Commandments portion of the covenant with Israel at Horeb eventually worked its way into the deontological ethic of the church and became immortalized as a Lebensregel in especially the Reformed confessions. This is not disputed. But its place as a rule of life in the earliest apostolic and post-apostolic periods is not at all clear or secure. At least the abrogationist call for a deeper, broader, and loftier application of the eternal law of love and fruit of the Spirit, against which there is no Law, cannot be regarded as heresy without defining heresy as “taking a position that differs from our provincial denominational confession written less than 500 years ago.” The testimonies of Justin, Irenaeus, and the earliest church do not allow such a declaration.

My hope here is not to change anybody’s mind from a continuationist to an abrogationist position on the role of the Decalogue in the Christian life. It’s to clarify what is and isn’t being held and taught by the different positions. This isn’t a matter of orthodoxy and heresy, but a matter of confessional commitment. Incidentally, my own position lands somewhere in the middle. I’m neither a full abrogationist nor a complete continuationist. At the same time, I have sympathies with both perspectives. I fully embrace the function of the Decalogue as a Sündenspiegel and Sündenriegel. However, I also think the Ten Commandments can (and probably ought) to have an important pedagogical function as a Lebensregel for children being raised in the covenant community of the church and for new believers finding their footing in the Christian life. However, with Paul I also acknowledge that regenerate believers walking in the Spirit who manifest the fruit of the Spirit and fulfill the spirit of the Law have no need to constantly consult the Decalogue as a rule of life. Beyond this, I also believe the Ten Commandments serve an important function as a means by which God holds back wickedness in the church, which is necessarily, though not ideally, a mixed community of regenerate and unregenerate people. The Ten Commandments can also have a similar function in societies in which the church has exerted some influence on the morality and ethics of the culture.