W. Robert Godfrey

but there is also a moral dimension that there is a day appointed for us to meet with God.

So I think all of these pieces taken together point us very much in that direction in a helpful way.

And that practice then of the church needs rightly to be understood that way.

Now, some people have said, well,

Why isn't this more explicit?

Why isn't the whole Ten Commandments restated in the New Testament?

Doesn't the New Testament mainly focus on a reiteration of the second table of the law?

Obey your parents, love your neighbor, all of those elements of the law, not stealing, not committing adultery, all of those elements of the law.

And that's always interesting to ask, why does the Bible do one thing and not another?

Why does the Bible not do something we think it ought to do?

Well, you know, that probably means we've misunderstood in some way or other.

Well, you can say, well, the Bible doesn't repeat the first table of the law as much as the second table of the law because the first table of the law is really pretty irrelevant in the New Covenant.

Is that going to fly as an argument?

Is that argument going to go anywhere?

that God alone should be our God, that we ought not to be an idolatrous people, that we shouldn't take his name in vain.

Are those things really not important in the New Covenant?

No, of course not.

The reason I think the second table of laws more frequently held up is because people in the New Testament had more trouble with that.

They knew they were only supposed to have one God.

They didn't need to be told that all the time.