What role do the Ten Commandments have in the Christian life?
Christ nailed the Ten Commandments to the Cross, ending the Law's binding power over believers. They no longer function as legalistic religious dogma. Yet they retain a valid moral role in Christian experience: believers still live under the moral code of the Ten, not under its binding power.
Les teaches that the handwriting of ordinances was against us and contrary to us because human nature was always bumping them. Christ took it out of the way by nailing it to His Cross, and that finished it. The Cross was the end of the Law, and this includes the Ten. Therefore believers are not under the Ten Commandments' binding power. But Les stresses that this does not remove their moral role. We still live under the moral code of the Ten, and they have a valid role in Christian experience. That role, however, is not a religious dogma or legalism. Much preaching and teaching remains in the area before the Cross, which is why people hang on to legalism and the strings in the commandments.