Should We Post the Ten Commandments in Public Spaces?

A Biblical Rejection of a Culture Warrior Proposition

This week I led our church through 1 Timothy 1:6-11, in which Paul excoriates those who use the law to get the first century equivalent of clicks and likes, but ultimately have no idea what they’re talking about. As I processed through the text, it hit me that this conversation has direct relevance to our own culture wars.

Conservative groups have been trying to get the Ten Commandments posted in schools or courthouses for years now. To be honest, I’ve never quite understood the appeal. I mean, I’m all for bearing witness to the truth of God, and I certainly believe that God’s law is good for everyone. But what’s up with a disembodied Ten Words hanging as wallpaper? I think the logic is that, if we can get enough people to read the Ten Commandments, and internalize them, then society will become a more just, and more righteous place.

I’m skeptical.

Now, there is a good and robust conversation to be had about secularism, and the separation of church and state. After all, I think that secularity-as-neutrality is ultimately a myth. There is far more religion in society than the dominant proponents of ostensible secularity would like to admit. This type of discussion should be brought to the fore.

However, the passive publication of OT law is not the solution.

This point could be argued on social or political grounds, but believe it or not, the Bible gives us the clearest corrective. Let me explain.

The Purpose of the Law

Christians are no longer under the old covenant; the Mosaic law no longer serves as our “constitution,” as it were. It still reveals the shape of God’s righteousness, because after all, the God who gave the law is the same God who sent Jesus Christ. But in revealing the shape of God’s righteousness, the law could only point us to what we were supposed to be. It couldn’t get us there.

Paul makes this point elegantly in Romans 7. There, he explains how he didn’t know sin until the law pointed it out and said, “that’s covetousness; it’s sin.” At that point, his heart, rather than joyfully accepting the word of God, instead perked up and said “ooh, how do I covet?”

The law exposed the true nature of our hearts: we are twisted and corrupted. As soon as the law drew a line, we sought to jump over it. Yes, it gave us the boundaries and shape of God’s righteousness, but when that shape came into contact with our sinful hearts, we sought nothing more than to break out of that shape and carve out our own way.

The point that Paul makes, and that we need to be clear on, is that the law rightfully exposes God’s righteousness, and our sin. But it cannot, on its own, make us righteous.

The Purpose of the Gospel

Of course, Jesus was sent into the world to do what the flesh-weakened law could never do: he condemned sin in the flesh and fulfilled the law, such that all who are united to him in faith are justified, and fulfill the law through him (Rom. 8:3ff). And this reality is our stewardship. It is the message we boldly proclaim throughout the world.

Paul writes, “The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.” (1 Timothy 1:5 ESV) The law cannot and never will produce this kind of love, because it cannot produce a pure heart, or a good conscience, or a sincere faith. Only Jesus can produce those things.

The law, therefore, while it certainly has benefit in illuminating the shape of God’s righteousness, ultimately points to the Savior who did what it could never do.

In this new covenant, as ministers and stewards of that new covenant, it is theological malpractice to preach law without resolving its demands in Christ, and pointing our hearers to the hope of salvation.

This is why Paul has stern words for those who flippantly play with the law in 1 Timothy 1, and it is why we must think very carefully about how we are using it.

Posting a Christless Law

I understand the impulse to post the Ten Commandments. All truth is God’s truth, all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable—I believe these things. But to decontextualize the word of God by stripping it of its place in the salvation historical context—that is, in light of the gospel of Jesus Christ—is to employ the law unlawfully. It is not, friends, merely a useful heuristic for proper classroom conduct. It is the a declaration of the shape of God’s righteousness.

But because God has also revealed the way by which people are justified in the gospel, to withhold that information is to preach a Christless law—which can only spell condemnation.

At the end of the day, the Christian cultural warriors who want to see the Ten Commandments posted in schools and public spaces simply do not go far enough. If they want to bear witness to the truth of God, then they must post the whole truth of God, including the gospel of Jesus Christ. If we post the Ten Commandments, then by all means, follow it up with the declaration that “Scripture imprisoned everything under sin’s power, so that the promise might be given on the basis of faith in Jesus Christ to those who believe.” (Galatians 3:22 CSB) And then call all who hear to believe!

Barring this, then we are no better than those who “have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions.” (1 Timothy 1:6-7 ESV)

—Till tomorrow.