Do the Ten Commandments apply to Christians today?

[Hobie]

Here is a good question I came across..

Scripture shows us that Gods Law was there from the beginning otherwise how could Adam and Eve have sinned. We see that Job and Enoch followed God and that means his law, and scripture clearly outlines that Abraham followed the law.

Genesis 26:5
Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.

and we see Christ clearly shows the Ten Commandments place in having eternal life...

Matthew 19:17
And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.

and we see the Reformers clearly upheld the validity of the Ten Commandments..

I wonder exceedingly how it came to be imputed to me that I should reject the law of Ten Commandments....Can anyone think that sin exists where there is no law?...Whosoever abrogates the law must of necessity, abrogate sin also. Martin Luther, Luther's Works (trans., Weimer ed.), Vol. 50, pp. 470-471; originally printed in his Spiritual Antichrist, pp. 71, 72.

He who destroys the doctrine of the law, destroys at the same time political and social order. If you eject the law from the church, there will no longer be any sin recognized as such in the world. Martin Luther, quoted in M. Michelet's Life of Luther (Hazlitt's trans.), 2nd ed., Vol. 4, p. 315.

We must not imagine that the coming of Christ has freed us from the authority of the law, for it is the eternal rule of a devout and holy life, and must, therefore, be as unchangeable as the justice of God, which it embraced, is consistent and uniform. John Calvin, Commentary on the Harmony of the Gospels, Vol. 1, p. 277.

So do they apply today?

[Wycliffes_Shillelagh]

Yes, but not in the same way they applied to the Israelites under Moses

[pppp]

Yes, the Ten Commandments apply to Christians even today, but they function under The New Covenant of grace.
Matthew 5:17 — "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."
Galatians 3:24-25 — "So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian."

Nine out of the ten commandments have been repeated and reaffirmed in the New Testament by Jesus and the apostles.
Some of them given below that have been reaffirmed ...
OT-Exodus 20
"You shall have no other gods before me.''
NT-
1 Corinthians 8:6 "yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist."

OT-Exodus 20
4 "You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.........
NT-
''....keep yourselves from inanimate objects"

OT-Exodus 20
7 "You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.
NT-
.....so that God's name and our teaching will not be discredited." — 1 Timothy 6:1

OT-Exodus 20
12 "Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.
NT-Ephesians 6:1–2

NT-
Ephesians 4:28
28 Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with their own hands, that they may have something to share with those in need.
NT-Romans 7:7
"You shall not covet."

NT-
Colossians 2
16 Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. 17 These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.

Matthew 22;37-40
37 Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

[yogi bear]

I am in agreement with the yes but answers

[Dave...]

The Law is negatives, "you shall not", "you shall not". Jesus summed up all the commandments with "love you Lord God with all your heart mind and soul, and love your neighbor as yourself." That's a summery statement and a positive statement. Some people make that distinction between that and the negative of the OT, and also other religions by saying that the golden rule is positive, while the OT and other religions are negative, called the silver rule.

The positive always fulfills the negative. Love, if used as Biblically defined, with always fulfill the negative. Romans 13:9-10

The Golden rule (NT) always fulfills the silver rule (OT Law).

The silver rule will still guide us and lead people to Christ by convicting them, but in the NT we are to concentrate on the Golden rule of grace, not the silver rule of Law. In other words, the negative rules act as boundaries and restrain evil. Kind of like a child in their formative years. It's used to protect them. But when they've grown, a love matured, or perfected, casts away all fear. That's when we obey out of gratitude and love.

The commandments still have a purpose, and act mostly as a mirror to make people aware of how sinful they really are, but I do believe that as Christians we're told to concentrate on the love part, and all the negatives will be fulfilled as a byproduct of that positive.

Galatians 3:24-25 Paul contrast the Law (OT), to grace (NT). It's that way with individuals also. The Law brings us to Christ. Was this the true intent of the OT Law to begin with, to point to the NT of grace? Jerimiah 31:33, which points to Ezekiel 36:26-27 and the giving of the Holy Spirit. 

Sometimes I think that the atonement demands obedient from the negatives, but the righteousness of God may have been focused on the positives. Colossians 2:14, 2 Corinthians 5:21. The legal part of atonement is satisfied in negative, the Law, but should we say the legal part (atonement) was satisfied by the positive part (the righteousness of God), but is also practical [sanctification]? Even the cross was an act of love, right?

Dave