Pathway to Freedom: How God's Laws Guide Our Lives

By Alistair Begg and Charles Colson

God’s code of conduct is as relevant and insistent today as it’s always been.

The landscape of contemporary society reveals that we neither know nor care much about the Law of God. There is:

• A general lawlessness in the lives of professing Christians.
• An absence of the fear of God in public worship and private living.
• A growing confidence in ourselves and doubt concerning God and His Word.

Amidst this moral crisis, the message of the Ten Commandments can give us order, direction, and hope.

With dynamic implications for how each of us lives every day, Pathway to Freedom will challenge you to think long and hard about the significance of God’s Law. 

“We have entered into a time of moral crisis in our culture and in the church as well. Stories about divorce, adultery, and the individualized picking and choosing of doctrines abound. Pathway to Freedom is forthright and necessary teaching that today’s church cannot afford to ignore. How now shall we live? The beginning of the answer must be in obedience to God’s moral law summarized in the Ten Commandments.” 
—CHARLES COLSON, PRISON FELLOWSHIP MINISTRIES, WASHINGTON, D.C.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Moody Publishers
• Release date: Oct 5, 2021
• ISBN: 9780802473943

Alistair Begg

 Alistair Begg serves as the senior pastor of Parkside Church near Cleveland, Ohio. He has been in pastoral ministry since 1975 and served eight years in Scotland at both Charlotte Chapel in Edinburgh and Hamilton Baptist Church. He has written several books and is heard daily on the radio program Truth For Life. He and his wife, Susan, have three grown children. 

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© 2003, 2021 by

ALISTAIR BEGG

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Scripture quotations marked (ESV) are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible® (NASB), Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.Lockman.org

Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version.

Cover design: Matt Yokom

Interior design: Erik M. Peterson

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To Cameron, Michelle, and Emily

These commandments … are to be on your hearts.

—Deuteronomy 6:6

To see the law by Christ fulfilled

And hear His pardoning voice

Changes a slave into a child

And duty into choice.

—William Cowper

Love Constraining to Obedience, 1772

Contents 

Foreword

Preface

Prologue

The Ten Commandments

1. No Other Gods

2. Graven Mistakes

3. What’s in a Name?

4. Holy Day or Holiday?

5. Family Life, God’s Way

6. Life Is Sacred

7. You Shall Not Commit Adultery

8. I Was Only Borrowing It!

9. The Truth Matters

10. The Other Man’s Grass

Epilogue: Good News for Lawbreakers

Notes

Friend,

Thank you for choosing to read this Moody Publishers title. It is our hope and prayer that this book will help you to know Jesus Christ more personally and love Him more deeply.

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The Moody Publishers Team

Foreword

This book addresses a subject of critical and urgent importance.

This past summer the National Association of Scholars released the report of their survey of a random sample of graduating seniors about what they had learned in college about ethics and morals in the workplace. Nearly all the respondents said that college had prepared them ethically for their professional lives. At the same time, three-quarters reported that they had been taught that what is right and wrong depends on differences in individual values and cultural diversity. That is, they believe they are prepared ethically to live in a world where ethical behavior is purely circumstantial and can change from day to day.

Meanwhile, several years ago, their parents were polled and asked if they thought the Ten Commandments were relevant for living today. Two-thirds of all Americans said they were—and indeed, they are; the Decalogue is the very foundation stone of Western law. Yet when asked to list the Ten Commandments—so relevant for living today—most people could not even name five. Dismal biblical ignorance!

We have entered into a time of moral crisis in our culture, and the sad fact is that we have entered into a time of moral crisis in the church as well. Stories and statistics about divorce, adultery, lying, and the individualized picking and choosing of doctrines abound.

Into our confused world and church, one of the most gifted communicators I know, Alistair Begg, brings the one message which can give us order, direction, and hope. For the reader, he brings to life in the most readable way God’s commands, which God Himself wrote on the tablets Moses delivered to the covenant people.

Drawing on the Scriptures along with Puritan and other rich sources, Begg carefully helps the reader avoid the two great dangers associated with the Ten Commandments: legalism and license. He points out to the legalist that obedience to the Commandments is not the source of our justification or our sanctification. God does not love us more if we obey the Commandments and less if we do not. His love for us, our justification, our sanctification, and our final glorification were settled once and for all by the perfect faithfulness of Christ on the cross, not day by day by our grossly deficient faithfulness. Legalism is thus ruled out.

He goes on to point out the dangers of license, of ignoring the Commandments. After all, some argue, we are beyond the law—beyond the Ten Commandments. Jesus commanded us to love God and love our neighbors. Isn’t that enough? Hardly. Our sinful nature easily twists love into any shape that seems convenient to us at the time. And it is here that we desperately need moral direction from God, which He gives us in the Ten Commandments.

The Ten Commandments spell out what love for God and our neighbor looks like. The content of our love for God and neighbor is not for us to decide. We are too sinful, too selfish, and too foolish to make our own decisions about these matters. Without divine holiness, love, and wisdom we will go wrong, and the Holy Spirit, who superintended the writing of the Scriptures, uses the Ten Commandments to guide us.

This book had its genesis in a series of sermons about the Ten Commandments delivered to the congregation at Parkside Church, where Alistair Begg serves as the much loved and respected senior minister. Though rich in exegetical insight and theological depth, this is not a book of exegesis or theology. While thoroughly scholarly, the book reflects the heart of its author. Alistair Begg is above all a pastor and a preacher—and a great one. As a result, this is a practical book for Christians who, out of love for the God who has saved us, sincerely want to walk in His ways and live out His will out of love for Him and our neighbors.

Pathway to Freedom is forthright and necessary teaching that today’s church cannot afford to ignore. How now shall we live? The beginning of the answer must be in obedience to God’s moral law summarized in the Ten Commandments.

CHARLES W. COLSON

Prison Fellowship Ministries, Washington, DC

2003

Preface

When I preached a series of sermons on the Ten Commandments at Parkside Church in the fall of 1993, the response of the congregation was one of what might be called intrigued affirmation. They were, I think, largely caught off guard by an approach to the moral law which underscored its permanent validity in living the Christian life. For some, these commandments had never been considered since religion classes at parochial school. Others, brought up on an earlier diet of dispensationalism, had been taught that the law belonged to another place and time and consequently had no pressing relevance. There were those whose political concerns caused them to be agitated by the removal of the Ten Commandments from public display. They were certain about the civil or political use of the law but at the same time were at best confused about its function in their personal lives. In the goodness of God, by the time the series concluded, each of us in the congregation had a new appreciation for the words of the psalmist:

The law of the LORD is perfect,

refreshing the soul.

The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy,

making wise the simple….

By them is your servant warned;

in keeping them there is great reward.

(Ps. 19:7, 11)

When the series aired on the radio, once again there was a significant response. The largest mailbag came after the fourth commandment. This did not surprise me, because nothing illustrates the challenge in dealing with the abiding sanctity of God’s law more than the sorry state of the Lord’s Day in contemporary evangelicalism. Actually, the biggest response was from Seventh Day Adventists, who wrote to correct me on what they regard as the mistaken notion that the Lord’s Day should be celebrated on Sunday.

Given the response to these sermons, my friends at Moody Publishers persuaded me to turn the spoken word into the written word. This has proved to be a far harder task than any of us imagined—first, because although I wrote full manuscripts when preparing to preach this series, I wrote to speak and not to be read, and there is a considerable difference between the approaches. The second obstacle is related to the first. In preaching the series, I chose to tackle each commandment as a separate entity. I did not address important surrounding issues. However, when it came to the printed page, I could not ignore the inevitable questions arising in the mind of the reader. For example:

• the crucial relationship between law and love

• the place of the law, since we are not under the law (Rom. 6:14)

• our Lord’s understanding and teaching of the law

• the contemporary disregard for God’s law in both church and culture

• the age-old battle between legalism and license

The third obstacle was simply that I was unconvinced that this series of sermons would make any necessary and useful contribution to the significant number of helpful books on the Ten Commandments already in circulation. I was helped over this hurdle in reading Ernest Kevan’s observation on the many voluminous expositions of the moral law that had come from the pens of the Puritans. Their value was found not so much in the substance of the expositions themselves, but in the underlying pre-supposition that the commandments are still obligatory.¹ They had no problem with the paradox that only by obedience to the Law was the believer truly free from it.²

For the same reason, then, I hope that this book will prove helpful. I find my small voice absorbed in a vast chorus of those who throughout the ages have sung the psalmist’s song: Let me live that I may praise you, and may your laws sustain me (Ps. 119:175).

Overcoming these obstacles has not happened without the help and encouragement of friends, colleagues, and family. My dear friend Sinclair Ferguson read the prologue, and although he should not be found guilty by association, his kind insight was a great help. Robert Wolgemuth’s friendship, encouragement, and guidance have made a vital contribution, and I thank him.

Once again, I am grateful to Greg Thornton and all the team at Moody Publishers, who have with seasoned grace not simply tolerated all my fits and starts and stops but treated me with undeserved patience and grace.

I am immensely grateful to Judith Markham, who responded generously to my cry for help. Her ability in bridging the gap between the spoken and written word is so well-known that my acknowledgment, while being superfluous, is nonetheless sincere. My assistant, Joy, has helped me immensely at every turn. Her ability is matched by her selflessness, and I am ever thankful for her happy disposition.

To my colleagues and congregation at Parkside, without whose loyalty and love I would be completely at sea, my humble thanks. A special thank you to the elders at Parkside, who generously gave me sabbatical leave, making it possible for Susan and me to have time not only for rest and reflection but also to make possible the completion of this project. Paul and Betsy Seegott provided us with such a lovely place to relax and write, and we will not forget their generosity.

Without Susan’s prayerful, kind, steadying, and encouraging influence, this project would have ended up in the file marked Unfinished Business. For all the times she bit her tongue when she no doubt wanted to give me a much-needed verbal kick in the pants, and for not saying, Do you know how long you have until this manuscript is due? and for almost fifty years of constancy—I thank her.

Prologue

Every well-taught English schoolboy knows that Admiral Lord Nelson defeated the combined French and Spanish fleets at the Battle of Trafalgar. Although mortally wounded by a French sharpshooter, Nelson was able to send a final signal from HMS Victory to his navy. At 11:15 a.m. on October 21, 1805, just minutes before the commencement of the battle, this flag signal was raised on the mizzenmast:

England Expects That Every Man Will Do His Duty

And so, in the performance of duty, they pushed on to victory and bore testimony to the love of country that filled their hearts. Their motivation was love, but that love was defined by their obedience to command and the fulfillment of duty.

This simple illustration provides an immediate challenge, because if we are prepared to be honest, we face the fact that in contemporary evangelicalism, duty along with truth has fallen in our streets. The average church attendee has grown accustomed to responding to sermons that appeal to their sense of well-being. They are prepared to be coaxed but not to be commanded, particularly if the call to duty would prove a source of personal inconvenience. Neil Postman observed that effectiveness in TV preaching was in part tied to making sure that the preacher avoided making any demands upon his listeners.¹ This is sadly also true in the preaching of too many local churches.

The cultural climate is one in which there is plenty of room for personal preferences and little if any for eternal principles. Instead of the church seizing the opportunity to proclaim God’s law and sin as an offense against that law, it is guilty of an embarrassing silence. A Nelsonian call to duty is often regarded as the very last thing God’s people require. This idea surfaces in sermons that begin by seeking to put the people at their ease. The preacher may begin, I’m not going to preach, I just want to suggest some ideas for your consideration, and it is my sincere desire that you will all leave feeling much better about yourselves than when you arrived. With such a strategy there is little possibility of the listeners being cut to the heart and asking, What shall we do? as they did when Peter preached at Pentecost (Acts 2:37). From this perspective, Paul clearly missed the mark by confronting Felix and Drusilla with a discourse on righteousness, self-control and the judgment to come (Acts 24:25)!

A negative reaction to the idea of duty is also prevalent in contemporary Christian literature. In the introduction to his book Wild at Heart, John Eldredge states that what men require is permission to live from the heart and not from the list of ‘should’ and ‘ought to’ that has left so many of us tired and bored.² Perhaps the author is simply debunking a sterile moralism that has an appearance of wisdom but which lacks any value in restraining sensual indulgence (Col. 2:23). But I wish he had not put it in those terms. He creates the impression that the should and the ought to of duty are antithetical to an adventuresome passion for God. But what God has joined together—namely, law and love—no man should endeavor to pull apart. Jesus told His disciples: If you love me, keep my commands (John 14:15).

I remain unconvinced that the issues I and other men face are fatigue and boredom resulting from a call to arms. I am more inclined to believe that my problem is that I am fat and flabby and that Dr. J. I. Packer is right when he says, Here, then, is the root cause of our present moral flabbiness; we have neglected God’s law.³

In contrast to the confusion in contemporary Christianity about this matter of Christian duty, when we turn to the Shorter Catechism we discover a refreshing clarity. The Westminster Assembly of Divines intended this brief compendium of theology as a teaching basis for an introduction to the Christian faith. Many of us have neglected to our impoverishment the concise summaries of faith provided in the Apostles’ Creed and the Catechism. It is not too late to rectify the problem and to employ these supplemental aids to guide us on the journey.

There is in the Shorter Catechism a logical progression that is as helpful as it is clear.⁴

Question 1: What is the chief end of man?

This most basic question confronts each of us. Why am I here? What is the reason for my existence? What is the purpose of my life? The catechism, on the basis of 1 Corinthians 10:31 and Psalm 73:25, provides the familiar answer: Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.

Question 2: What rule has God given to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy Him?

We do not look within ourselves for the answer. Instead, the Word of God, which is contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy Him.

Question 3: What do the Scriptures principally teach?

The Scriptures principally teach what man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man.

We then have to wait until question 39 picks up the theme and further develops it:

Question 39: What is the duty which God requires of man?

The duty which God requires of man, is obedience to His revealed will.

Instead of this leading to some kind of subjective quest whereby we attempt to discover the direction in which God is apparently moving and then join Him, the Westminster Divines send us straight to the Bible itself. They were convinced of the

Reviews for Pathway to Freedom

[dannywahlquist · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed this fresh look at how God’s Laws should guide our lives. Some of my favorite quotes include:
"Unless there is a God who is himself Goodness and Justice, there can be no ultimate moral basis for the law. For if there is no God, nothing can take his place. No human standard-no person, no group of people, no document is immune to challenge." Arthur Leff
Ironically, legalism seems to breed best where the Law of God is regarded as having no abiding place as a rule of life in the child of God.
“If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.” Martin Luther
It is not enough to worship the correct God. We must worship the correct God correctly.
“When Sunday is swallowed up by the weekend and loses its uniqueness, its holiness, as the Lord’s Day, then you and I are the inevitable losers. We cannot, by taking shortcuts, gain what the Sabbath is designed to give us. McSabbath may satisfy the immediate itch, but it cannot satisfy our souls.” from Celebrating the Sabbath by Bruce A Ray
God’s Provision
How deep the Father's love for us,
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure
How deep the pain of searing loss,
The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the chosen One,
Bring many sons to glory
Stuart Townend

In Christ alone my hope is found
He is my light, my strength, my song
This Cornerstone, this solid ground
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm
What heights of love, what depths of peace
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease
My Comforter, my All in All
Here in the love of Christ I stand
Stuart Townend and Keith Getty