“All right, so let me say a word about the setting because it’s absolutely crucial for our purposes. At the beginning of chapter 20, it reads this way, And God spoke all these words, saying, I am the Lord, you God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You cannot understand any of the ten commandments unless you understand this as the preface and the premise of the entire passage. Whose we are and therefore who God is, and who we are, and who we were, and what God did. God first, God at the start, God as the fundamental reality, the only non-contingent being from whom all contingent reality and being and matter comes to exist. The only reason we’re here is because God allows us to be here. The only reason that there’s something rather than nothing is because God allowed it to be.”
“The only reason there is a nation of Israel is because God came down and heard their cry, and constituted them, and brought them out. So they are God’s people. They are redeemed out of a house of slavery, and they’re going into the Promised Land, and all these things, whatever else they are, are in the context of this covenant relationship, and that saving act, and the reality that He is our God, and we are His people. Now, as if that all isn’t enough, and that’s a ton, one more thing. And that is the specific setting of this passage in the book of Exodus itself. And I just want to remind you, because when we read in chapter 20, and God spake these words, my question is simply this. In what context, in the flow of the book, are these words actually said? It’s a crucial question.”
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The Ten Commandments, 1516 #cranach #lucascranach pic.twitter.com/WCVDG4prk0
— Lucas Cranach the Elder (@ArtistCranach) March 1, 2021
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