CHAPTER THREE

The Law Before Sinai

"Where there is no law there is no
transgression." (Rom. 4:15)

IN THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER, we considered the law written on the hearts of our first parents at creation. Although, as the heads of the human family, they were created perfect and good, they sinned against their Creator and thus lost their proper heritage of life and blessing. This, however, did not negate their responsibility to keep God’s perfect rule of righteousness.

After the Fall, all the precepts that had been written on Adam’s heart budded forth as God gave His servant Moses, and through him the Israelites, the Ten Commandments. This same law was summarized by our Lord in two great precepts of love to God and love to man. It was exactly this law in its fullness and perfection that was impressed upon the hearts of our first parents and continues to have a place in the hearts of their posterity

We have seen that the moral law addressed to Adam is also addressed to all creatures. All those created in God’s image are obliged to live up to His ethical image. In a later chapter, we will see that at the time of regeneration, the same moral principles are written on the believer’s heart resulting in cheerful, loving obedience. That relationship of heartfelt submission to and communion with God is summarized by the author of Hebrews: "I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people" (Heb. 8:10).

The Moral Law from Adam to Sinai

We could say that the moral law written on Adam’s heart was Adam’s lease when God made him the tenant of Eden. But what happened after Adam fell into sin and was evicted from the garden? What role did the moral law play between the Fall and Sinai?

Paul makes clear in Romans 4:15 that where there is no law there is no sin. He adds in Romans 5:13 that "sin is not imputed when there is no law." That raises the question. Could people be held responsible for violating the moral law before the Ten Commandments were revealed?

In this chapter I wish to demonstrate clearly that the violation of each of the Ten Commandments was either severely punished or openly rebuked before Sinai. Before the law was given to Moses, there was indeed sin in the world. We could paraphrase Romans 5:13 this way: "Sin is not recorded against the sinner, when there is no law forbidding it." But if people were punished or rebuked for sin before Sinai, that implies that laws must have been in place, because "where there is no law there is no sin."

The sins punished and rebuked were sins against the perfect law written on Adam’s heart at creation. That fact teaches us that the moral law did not have its historical beginning at Sinai. It came to more vivid expression there in the Ten Commandments. And just as the moral law predates the giving of the tablets to Moses on Sinai, so too the moral requirements of the Ten Commandments did not end at Calvary. They remain the standard of obedience today.

Something unique and wonderful happened at Calvary when Christ made atonement for sin. Jesus both paid for sin and upheld the law. He fulfilled the moral law not by bringing an end to it or by setting a new standard of righteousness. Christians are delivered from sin, not from what is holy, just, and good (Rom. 7:12). They are freed from their disobedience to the commandments, not from the commandments themselves. The believer is not redeemed from what is right; his relationship to what is right has changed. In particular, what has changed is his power and desire to do right, not his duty to do right.

Be careful, then, how you think. False premises produce false conclusions, even when one’s reasoning is logically sound. If you assume that the moral law had a beginning at Sinai, you might as well assume that the law had an end at Calvary. But we know that all sinned before Sinai, therefore breaking some commandment—some law—as Romans 4:15 and 5:13 indicate. Before the commandments were given in plain, written form "on tables of stone," the moral law must have been known in some other form. Otherwise the sins of lawbreakers could not have been punished.

Punishable Sins Before Sinai

The First, Second, and Third Commandments
Before the Ten Commandments were revealed on Mount Sinai, the first three commandments (Ex. 20:3-7) were broken by Pharaoh and his people:

• They had false gods—a breach of the first commandment.
• They had false worship—a breach of the second commandment.
• They blasphemed the one true God—a breach of the third commandment.

Therefore, God severely punished the Egyptians with plagues (see Ex. 5-7).

Earlier, Jacob was declared guilty of breaking the second commandment when he failed to "put away the foreign gods that are among you" (Gen. 35:2).

Many other examples of breaking the first, second, and third commandments before Sinai could be cited, but these are sufficient to prove that God held people accountable for these commandments before they were given to Moses.

The Fourth Commandment
When the Israelites broke the Sabbath commandment (Ex. 20:8—11) before Sinai, they were chastised, as the following incident illustrates:

Now it happened that some of the people went out on the seventh day to gather [bread from heaven], but they found none. And the LORD said to Moses, "How long do you refuse to keep My commandments and My laws? See! For the LORD has given you the Sabbath; therefore He gives you on the sixth day bread for two days. Let every man remain in his place; let no man go out of his place on the seventh day." (Ex. 16:27-29)

The Fifth Commandment
Noah’s son Ham broke the commandment to honor one’s parents (Ex. 20:12) when he looked on his father’s nakedness. As a result, Ham’s descendants, the Canaanites, were cursed (Gen. 9:18-29).

Ishmael dishonored his father, Abraham, by mocking him, and he was punished by being cast out (Gen. 21:9—10). Lot’s sons-in-law were punished in Sodom for not honoring their father-in-law (Gen. 19:14—15).

The Sixth Commandment
Cain broke the sixth commandment (Ex. 20:13) when he murdered his brother, Abel. As a result, Cain received a punishment greater than he thought he could bear (Gen. 4:13). After the Flood, God declared to Noah the punishment for breaking the sixth commandment: "Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed" (Gen. 9:6).

In 2 Peter 2:5 we are told that Noah was a preacher of righteousness. Therefore, he must have had a true standard of righteousness to preach. The one true, perfect standard of righteousness is the Ten Commandments. Peter’s reference to Noah shows us that between Adam and Sinai God made known His commandments by His prophets and preachers.

The Seventh Commandment
The seventh commandment, against adultery (Gen. 20:14). was broken at Sodom, and the Sodomites were punished by their utter destruction (Gen. 19:24-25). The New Testament comments on this incident in Jude 7: "Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire."

In another example, the fellow townsmen of Hamor and his son Shechem were slain by the sword for Shechem’s violation of Dinah, Jacob’s daughter (Gen. 34:1—26).

The Eighth Commandment
The eighth commandment (Ex. 20:15), which prohibits stealing, was broken when Adam and Eve took of the forbidden fruit. By breaking this commandment, they brought the curse of death upon themselves and their posterity (Gen. 2:16—17). In Genesis 31 we have the record of Rachel’s stealing her father’s idols (Gen. 31:19-32), an offense that Jacob considered worthy of death. (He did not know that his own wife Rachel was the culprit.) Jacob’s attitude toward stealing in general grew out of a knowledge that it was unlawful in the sight of God. "Where there is no law there is no sin."

The Ninth Commandment
Cain broke the ninth commandment (Ex. 20:16) when he lied to God about his brother’s death. "Then the LORD said to Cain, ‘Where is Abel your brother?’ And he said, ‘I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?"’ (Gen 4:9). As a result, the ground was Cursed so that his labors would not bring forth fruit from the earth: "When you till the ground, it shall no longer yield its strength to you. A fugitive and a vagabond you shall be on the earth" (Gen. 4:12). How severe is the punishment for breaking the sixth and the ninth commandments!

The Tenth Commandment
When Abimelech coveted Abraham’s wife, thus breaking the tenth commandment (Ex. 20:17), he was threatened with death unless he returned her to Abraham (Gen. 20:3). For this sin the Lord closed the wombs of Abimelech’s house (Gen. 20:18).


I HAVE OFFERED only a few examples of sins against the Ten Commandments from the time between Adam and Sinai. These examples demonstrate clearly that all the commandments were broken before the Ten Commandments were written on Mount Sinai, and that those guilty of breaking these commandments were either severely punished or sharply rebuked. This point alone should forever put to silence the argument that the commandments had a historical beginning with Moses at Sinai.

Why am I taking a whole chapter to prove that the moral law did not come into being at Sinai?

• To show that the moral law is for all time. All have sinned before Sinai and after Sinai, before Calvary and after Calvary. Where there is no law there is no sin.
• To demonstrate that the moral law is for all people. It is the mandate of the Creator to every person created in His image. When someone becomes a new creature in Christ, he or she does not cease to be a creature under God’s authority. A person’s basic moral duties do not change.

The Importance of the Law for All

This moral law encoded in the Ten Commandments is of absolute importance and indispensable to all men for at least four reasons.

First, the moral law reveals the holy nature and will of the Creator. The nature of God determines what is right, and the will of God imposes that right standard on humanity as a moral obligation and duty, thus binding every creature to walk accordingly.

Second, the moral law of God convinces creatures of their inability to obey this perfect standard of morality, thus revealing to them not only the sinfulness of their lives, but the sinfulness
of their hearts and nature.

Third, when the Spirit brings home to the heart the spirituality of the law (Rom. 7:14), it humbles sinners, giving them a true sense of their sin, and misery apart from Christ.

Fourth, all of this is to lead them to the only remedy for their lost and helpless condition. That remedy is the perfect person and perfect work of Christ the Lord—His perfectly obedient life, His manifestation of the law through His shed blood on the cross, and His provision of an honorable pardon to all who come to God through Him.

This external moral standard of righteousness is of special use to Christians because, although we Christians are not under the condemnation of the law in respect to our justification and acceptance with God, we are still creatures responsible to our Creator. We should not bring our conscience under the curse of the law. But as creatures and as loving children of God, we must bring our whole life, mind, affections, conscience, and will under the law as to our duty to both God and man.

The moral law, therefore, is of special use to the Christian. It shows us how much we are bound to Christ because He has fulfilled its righteous demands and endured the curse in our place, thus making us more thankful to Him for such love and mercy. It also gives us the proper rule for obedience, thus delivering us from all false standards of righteousness.


IN SUMMARY, because God created us in His moral image, we are obliged to keep our Creator’s rule of righteousness. This moral cede was written on Adam’s heart and that of his posterity. Since violation of each commandment resulted in rebuke or punishment before the law was written at Sinai, and since the Bible says where there is no law, no transgression is imputed, we must conclude that these commandments were impressed on the human heart and were a duty before, as well as after, Sinai. This should convince us of the timeless character of God’s moral law and make us all the more thankful for Christ’s love and mercy

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