If the book of the law was nailed to the cross, then the ten commandments were nailed to the cross; for they were all in that book, word for word; and the doing away of the book did them away also. Whoever makes such an assertion, has certainly been very heedless in his reading of the book.
It is not true.
The ten commandments nowhere appear in the books of Moses in legislative form; that is, in a form to drive their authority in any degree from the book. They are but once recorded in set form, as God spoke them, and that is in Exodus 20:3-17. And this is historical and not legislative; it is simply a narrative that God did come down and give that law from Sinai with his own voice; but the law derived no authority from this narrative. Its authority rested upon the fact that it had been spoken by God, and written with his finger upon the tables of stone, and deposited in the holiest spot of the most holy place of the sanctuary.
And though every copy of the book containing this narrative had been destroyed and put out of existence, it would not have affected in the least the fact of the promulgation of that law, nor have touched the tables containing the legislative transcript of the same. What is here stated will apply also to Moses’ rehearsal and paraphrase of the law forty years later, as recorded in Deuteronomy 5:6-21.
With the law of Moses (those written by Moses) it was not so. That was promulgated through the book, and its authority was derived from that record. It had no position elsewhere, and when that handwriting was nailed to the cross, nothing of it longer remained.
This is clearly shown by what law was placed IN the ark (tablets of stone - never changing) and which law was placed OUTSIDE if the ark. That which Moses wrote with His own handwriting (done away with) and it was those laws that were nailed to the cross.
