Theological term
Threefold Division of Law
2 sermons · All terms
The Sixth Commandment
Exodus 20:13 — 'You shall not murder' — receives a full exposition covering the Hebrew term ratza, the threefold division of law, the three uses of the law, the internal dimensions of the commandment, the three biblically warranted exceptions to the prohibition against killing, and the theological foundation of all human life in the imago Dei. The sermon moves from careful lexical and exegetical analysis to a sustained application across abortion, capital punishment, just war, self-defense, and the protection of every stage of human life from womb to grave. Hearers are called to pray for civil government, preach the law as a tutor to the cross, and hold fast to a biblical anthropology in a culture that systematically devalues image-bearers of God.
The Seventh Commandment
Deuteronomy 5:18, the seventh commandment, prohibits adultery and by extension the full range of sexual sins Scripture condemns throughout both Testaments. This sermon works through the basis of the commandment in God's threefold purposes for marriage, catalogs the specific sexual sins the commandment forbids — adultery, fornication, incest, rape, sodomy, bestiality, unlawful divorce, polygamy, prostitution, and pornography — and then treats the internal disposition of heart lust that Jesus expounds in Matthew 5. The sermon concludes with practical counsel drawn from Proverbs 5 and 6 on the three means of protection against sexual sin, and closes by applying the civil, pedagogical, and normative uses of the law to the contemporary church and culture.