Tablets of Stone and the History of Redemption Quotes

“Every attempt to produce holy living by applying Moses to the conscience is an attempt to give Moses a job God never intended him to have. It also denies the true bridegroom his full rights as the new husband.”
― John G. Reisinger, Tablets of Stone & the History of Redemption

“Christians are not under the authority of Moses as their lawgiver.29 They are under the authority of Christ, the new lawgiver. Christians are not under the Old Covenant and do not use it to define their moral absolutes any more than they use it to define their diet. They are under the New Covenant, and it defines everything in their life and worship either by clear precept or personal application of a principle.”
― John G. Reisinger, Tablets of Stone & the History of Redemption

“There is a very great difference in the respective importance of those same things under the New Covenant. In other words, how an Israelite lived in order to obey the commandment ‘be ye holy’ was different in many respects from how a Christian lives today in obedience to the identical commandment. The duty to ‘be holy’ is just as essential for a Christian as it was for an Israelite, but how each one fulfils that duty is radically different. The way to ascertain that difference is definitely not by the arbitrary creation of a ‘civil law’ list, a ‘moral law’ list and a ‘ceremonial law’ list.”
― John G. Reisinger, Tablets of Stone & the History of Redemption

“When Israel is treated as exactly analogous with the body of Christ, then Moses must be not only equated with Christ as an equal lawgiver, Moses actually must be made the greater lawgiver and Christ merely the greatest interpreter of Moses, because Moses came first.”
― John G. Reisinger, Tablets of Stone & the History of Redemption

“We continue to emphasize that our position is that the Ten Commandments were done away only when considered as a covenant document. We are not saying that the principles expressed in the demands of the individual commandments have ceased. Our Lord Jesus Christ retains the principles that underlie commandments regardless of where those commandments are found in the Old Testament Scriptures.”
― John G. Reisinger, Tablets of Stone & the History of Redemption

“In the New Testament Scriptures, Christ and his apostles deliver the laws that are necessary to govern a community based on grace. The full and final authority over the church’s life and worship is not Moses and the laws of the earthly theocracy. Her full and final authority is the Lord Jesus Christ, the new lawgiver who replaces Moses.”
― John G. Reisinger, Tablets of Stone & the History of Redemption

“First, even though the law, as codified covenant terms, has a historical beginning at Sinai, the underlying principles all of those laws, except the sabbath, were already revealed to man through the original creation. Neither knowledge of God and his character, nor the reality of known sin began at Sinai. Secondly, even though the law, viewed as a covenant document, ended when Christ established the New Covenant, the unchanging ethical elements that underlie the commandments written on the tables of stone are just as binding on us to day as they were on an Israelite.”
― John G. Reisinger, Tablets of Stone & the History of Redemption

“We see that when Paul speaks in negative terms about the law, its weaknesses, or its final demise, he is referring to the law covenant (Ten Commandments) written on the Tablets of Covenant. When Paul speaks of the law in a good sense and applies it to us today, he is either speaking of “the law” as (1) special revelation, or the Bible, as in Psalm 19:7 and Psalm 1:1, 2 (see also quotation by John Owen, or (2) he is speaking of the ethical duties contained in the individual verses which continue after the Ten Commandments, as the covenant document, are finished.”
― John G. Reisinger, Tablets of Stone & the History of Redemption

“When I say that the Ten Commandments are finished, I mean as a covenant document, or as the tables of the covenant. I am NOT talking about the morality contained in the individual commandments. I am talking about the Ten Commandments considered as a single document, specifically as a covenant document. The moral duties commanded on the tablets of stone did not begin at Sinai, but the use of those duties as the basis of a covenant did begin there. The content of nine of those ten rules was known by men, and infractions thereof were punished by God long before God gave them to Israel as covenant terms at Sinai. Men were punished for violations of every specific duty commanded in the Ten Commandments except the Fourth, or sabbath, prior to Mount Sinai, and likewise, every commandment except the Fourth, is repeated in the New Testament Scriptures.”
― John G. Reisinger, Tablets of Stone & the History of Redemption

“I being now upright without it, and that too with that righteousness, with which this law speaks well of and approveth; I may not, will not, cannot, dare not, make it my Saviour and Judge, nor suffer it to set up its government in my conscience; for so doing I fall from grace, and Christ doth profit me nothing.22”
― John G. Reisinger, Tablets of Stone & the History of Redemption

“As the New English Bible puts it, ‘Christ set us free, to be free men.’ Our former state is portrayed as a slavery, Jesus Christ as a liberator, conversion as an act of emancipation and the Christian life as a life of freedom. This freedom, as the whole Epistle and this context make plain, is not primarily a freedom from sin, but rather from the law. What Christ has done in liberating us, according to Paul’s emphasis here, is not so much to set our will free from the bondage of sin as to set our conscience free from the guilt of sin. The Christian freedom he describes is freedom of conscience, freedom from the tyranny of the LAW, the dreadful struggle to keep the law, with a view to winning the favor of God. It is the freedom of acceptance with God and of access to God through Christ. 21”
― John G. Reisinger, Tablets of Stone & the History of Redemption

“The tablets of the covenant (Ten Commandments) in the ark represent the just demands of the law covenant. There you see the ‘just, holy, and good law’ of God. The lid of the ark covers the broken covenant of law inside the ark with the blood of atonement. There you see the free gospel of sovereign grace. There is not an ounce of grace or gospel in the law covenant document in the box. It is pure law, demanding perfect obedience as the condition of blessing and death as the consequence of disobedience. The blood on the mercy seat covers and hides the broken covenant and the sins against that covenant”
― John G. Reisinger, Tablets of Stone & the History of Redemption

“Everything that pertained to Israel’s special national relationship to God, including the tablets of the covenant (Ten Commandments), ended when Christ, by his obedient life and death, met every claim and demand of the Old Covenant. Deliverance from the just claims of that covenant was necessary before the true Israel of God could be created and established under the New Covenant. In order to set those under the law ‘free from the sins committed under the first covenant,’ Christ, acting as a surety, had to be ‘born under the law’ covenant in which he was acting as a surety (Gal. 4:1-7).”
― John G. Reisinger, Tablets of Stone & the History of Redemption

“The sabbath forced Israel to think about two things every week. First, the sabbath-rest reminded them of an Eden they had lost because of sin and rebellion. Their life of sweat and tears was a constant reminder of the life of ease and joy they had lost because of their fall in Adam. Secondly, the sabbath was a constant reminder of the promise that one was coming who would establish a greater sabbath-rest that could not be destroyed by anything. The sabbath was a constant reminder of both the burden of sin and the hope of salvation.”
― John G. Reisinger, Tablets of Stone & the History of Redemption

“When Jesus said ‘THIS do in remembrance of ME,’ he was contrasting the New Covenant, and its remembrance sign, with the Old Covenant and its remembrance sign. He was saying, “Instead of keeping the sabbath in remembrance of the old creation and Israel’s redemption, THIS do in remembrance of me and the deliverance I have accomplished at Calvary.” In other words, remember and think about what the new creation is and how Christ brought it about.”
― John G. Reisinger, Tablets of Stone & the History of Redemption

“Breaking the sabbath renounced the whole covenant relationship with God. To profane the Sabbath by performing even the slightest physical work was to deny all of the vows taken at Mount Sinai. It was an action equivalent to a man deliberately spitting in God’s face and then, in defiant self-sufficiency and rebellion, breaking the most important law of the covenant by walking away and picking up some sticks or doing some other physical work.”
― John G. Reisinger, Tablets of Stone & the History of Redemption

“The sabbath was the sign of the covenant that God made with Israel and therefore it had to be part of the covenant document of which it was the sign.”
― John G. Reisinger, Tablets of Stone & the History of Redemption

“The greater glory of the New Covenant is not that the standards or laws have been lowered or removed. It is not that the morality that undergirded the duties demanded on the tables of stone is no longer binding on a Christian. The greater glory of the New Covenant is that the terms that must be met in order to come into God’s presence require no obedience on our part at all. This is true simply because the very terms of the tablets of the covenant have been finally and fully met in the person and work of our surety, the Lord Jesus Christ.”
― John G. Reisinger, Tablets of Stone & the History of Redemption

“(1) Did God specifically promise to make a new covenant, or did he promise a new administration of the same covenant? (2) Was the Old Covenant made with Israel at Sinai or was it made with Adam in the Garden? What does Scripture say? The great difference between the nation of Israel and the Gentiles was that of ‘having the law’ as a covenant and the gospel as a promise, as opposed to ‘not having the law’ and being without a covenant or hope”
― John G. Reisinger, Tablets of Stone & the History of Redemption

“At the very moment that the veil was rent, Israel’s national status and privileges were ended,14 along with everything that was connected to that special covenant relationship. Aaron’s priesthood was finished, the sacrifices were done, the tabernacle was no longer holy, and the tables of the covenant (Ten Commandments) in the ark of the covenant were no longer in force as the covenant foundation of God’s relationship to Israel.”
― John G. Reisinger, Tablets of Stone & the History of Redemption

“God did not give the Ten Commandments to a ‘redeemed [regenerate] people for their sanctification.’ Such a view is not tenable simply because most of those people were not regenerate believers. God gave the Ten Commandments as a legal covenant of life and death to a nation composed of a mix of mostly proud sinners and a few regenerate believers as a means of driving the former to faith in the gospel preached to Abraham. As we shall see later, the primary function and goal of the Ten Commandments was a ministry of death by means of convicting the conscience of guilt.”
― John G. Reisinger, Tablets of Stone & the History of Redemption

“The tablets of stone, upon which God wrote the Ten Commandments, were not only a distinct and summary covenant document; they were the specific legal covenant document that established Israel as a special nation before God at Mount Sinai.”
― John G. Reisinger, Tablets of Stone & the History of Redemption

“To think of the Ten Commandments as something separate from the ‘words of the covenant’ written on the tablets of stone is to think non-biblically. Nowhere in the Bible are we instructed to think of the Ten Commandments in terms of the eternal, unchanging moral law.”
― John G. Reisinger, Tablets of Stone & the History of Redemption

“When we think of the Old Covenant, there are two ideas, both of which must be held at the same time. (1) We must see that the Ten Commandments are the basic covenant document that established Israel as a theocratic nation. At the same time, (2) we must see that all of the laws, holy days, priesthood and sacrifices became part of the ‘Old Covenant.’ Scripture, in Exodus 24:1-8 and other places, clearly makes this distinction.”
― John G. Reisinger, Tablets of Stone & the History of Redemption

“I no longer say that the Ten Commandments/tablets of stone are, one on one, the Old, or first, Covenant. I now say that the Ten Commandments/tables of stone are the summary document of the Old Covenant.”
― John G. Reisinger, Tablets of Stone & the History of Redemption

“The Ten Commandments, considered as a covenant document, have been replaced by the New Covenant. The individual commandments stand, fall, or are changed according to Christ’s treatment of them. Nine of them are clearly repeated, with some changes, under the laws given to the New Covenant people of God in the New Testament Scriptures and therefore are just as binding today as when given at Sinai.”
― John G. Reisinger, Tablets of Stone & the History of Redemption

“We are never told or encouraged to think of ‘unchanging moral law’ when we read the words ‘Ten Commandments’ or any of its synonymous terms. We are to think ‘covenant document.’ We are to think of a specific code of law (the Ten Commandments) that was made the covenant terms of a specific covenant document. We are always to remember that the Ten Commandments were the specific terms, written on stone tablets, of the covenant that established Israel’s special relationship with God. The Ten Commandments, Israel, Sinai, and covenant all go together.”
― John G. Reisinger, Tablets of Stone & the History of Redemption

“some people may have difficulty applying these facts to their theological system. For instance, if a person says, “I believe the Ten Commandments are the rule of life for a Christian today,” that person should realize that he is also saying, “I believe the words or terms of the covenant given to Israel and kept in the ark of the covenant are the Christian’s rule of life for today.”
― John G. Reisinger, Tablets of Stone & the History of Redemption

“The Ten Commandments are a covenant document given to Israel alone; they are not an unchanging moral code for all people in all ages.”
― John G. Reisinger, Tablets of Stone & the History of Redemption

“Any discussion of the Ten Commandments that in any way separates that phrase from the ‘words of the covenant’ written on the tables of stone and given to Israel at Sinai does not follow the scriptural pattern for use of those terms. We must read these verses carefully and listen to what they say in order to understand correctly the nature, place and function of the Ten Commandments in the history of redemption.”
― John G. Reisinger, Tablets of Stone & the History of Redemption