The Ten Commandments Before the Fall

The Westminster Confession asserts that “God gave Adam a law…” and that “[t]his law, after his fall, continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness; and, as such, was delivered by God upon Mt. Sinai, in ten commandments, and written in two tables: the four first commandments containing our duty towards God; and the other six, our duty to man” (Chapter XIX:1-2). The Westminster Confession is asserting that the law of the Ten Commandments is the same in substance as the law given to Adam before the fall. Of course, the form is different, but the substance is the same.

The question I want to answer is, is this view correct? Were the theologians who wrote the Westminster Confession correct on this point? I believe that they were, and I wish to defend that viewpoint here.

Before I explain why I believe this is the case, let me note that this viewpoint is much maligned in our day. However, the issue is very important. Francis Turretin explained the importance of this question in his discussion of the permanence and unchangeableness of the moral law. He wrote, “The importance of the question is great because the object of our opponents is no other than to transform the gospel into a new law, and so to establish the righteousness of works in the place of the righteousness of faith” (Institutes, XI:iii.3). Now, not all who deny the Westminster’s position do what Turretin is describing here. However, when we say that the moral law changes, we will more easily affirm that at least part of the reason that Christ is a Savior is that He gave a new law and not because He fulfills it for us and in us. With that in mind, let us provide some reasons why we believe that the moral law given at Sinai and to Adam is essentially the same.

1. All men have the law’s work written on their hearts (Rom. 2:14-15). Patrick Fairbairn gives a good explanation of what this means: “By doing the things of the law, they shew that they have prescribed for themselves as right what the law prescribes, and imposed on themselves the obligation which the law imposes” (The Revelation of Law, 407). Now, this law on man’s heart was surely not written there after the fall but before; therefore, Adam had the substance of the moral law on his heart before the fall.

2. Romans 8:3-4 states that the problem of the law is that it is weak through the flesh. This implies that the “problem” of the law is the sinfulness of man, but this problem is not inherent to the law itself (Rom. 7:12, 14); therefore, the law was given before it was weakened through the flesh.

3. Rom. 7:10 states that the law was for life, that is, ordained to life. It was designed, as Hodge says, “to make men happy and holy.” But this, as the Apostle clearly shows, could not have been the design of the law after sin. Consequently, this law was given to man before the fall. Note also that in Rom. 7 that the law referred to here is the law of the Ten Commandments, since the Apostle quotes the 10th commandment in v. 7.

4. Everything in the Ten Commandments is deduced from the nature of God or man. For example, God cannot but love Himself; therefore, He must command man to love Him and worship Him. The sixth commandment is based on God’s own right over His creatures as their Creator and Judge. The seventh commandment is based on God’s creation of man for monogamous life-long marital relationships. Even the Sabbath commandment is of natural right to a degree. Man is constituted as a creature of body and soul. He must work in the world and focus his attention on many things. God commands that man take a certain amount of time and give his immediate attention to God. This is to occur one day in seven.

From all this, we conclude that the law of the Ten Commandments was in fact given to Adam in substance. He was to love God and to love God’s image, namely man. This moral law remains for all time as the standard for rational human behavior (as opposed to non-rational actions). This is pre-eminently the law that Christ came to fulfill and whose penalty He came to suffer. In Christ’s submitting to the law, we have the greatest confirmation of the utter inflexibility of divine law. As George Buchanan wrote, “In bowing His anointed head to receive the stroke of that law-avenging sword, which shed His infinitely-precious blood, He paid a homage to the law and justice of God, greater far than if that stroke had fallen on ten thousand apostate worlds” (Divine Revelation, 54).