"The law is good if one, uses it
lawfully." - (I Tim. 1:8)

ONE OF THE DIFFICULTIES in dealing with the subject of the law is the word itself. It is used in many different ways in the Bible. Sometimes law refers to the whole Bible; sometimes it refers to the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible); sometimes it refers to the ceremonial system; other times it refers to the civil or judicial code, which was peculiar to Israel as a theocracy. The different meanings of the word in expressions such as 'the law of Moses," "the law of Christ,' "the law of sin," and "the law of love," make it very difficult to exegete specific texts accurately.

Samuel Bolton, a renowned seventeenth-century scholar, was so highly esteemed by his peers that he was chosen as one of the Westminster divines, who met in 1643 to introduce a second Reformation in English Christianity. He was a successful minister of parishes in London and later became the vice-chancellor of Cambridge University. In a little volume entitled True Bounds of Christian Freedom, ([reprint; Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1977], 54-56), Bolton addresses the antinomian controversy of his day. He says this about the scriptural uses of the word law:

(1) What is meant by the word "law"? I answer: the word which is frequently used for "the law" in the Old Testament is "Torah." This is derived from another word which signifies "to throw darts," and comes to signify "to teach, to instruct, to admonish'; hence it is used for any doctrine or instruction which teaches, informs, or directs us: as, for example, in Proverbs 13:14: "The law of the wise is a fountain of life, to depart from the snares of death." Here "law" is taken in a large sense for any doctrine or direction which proceeds from the wise; so, too, in Proverbs 3:1 and 4:2.

In the New Testament the word "law" is derived from another word which signifies "to distribute," because the law distributes, or renders to God and man their dues.

In brief, this word "law," in its natural signification both in the Old and New Testaments, signifies any doctrine, instruction, law, ordinance, or statute, divine or human, which teaches, directs, commands, or binds men to any duty which they owe to God or man. So much, then, for the first matter.

(2) In what senses is this word "law" used in Scripture? I shall not trouble the reader with all the uses of the word, but shall confine myself to the chief of them:

(i) It is sometimes taken for the Scriptures of the Old Testament, the books of Moses, the Psalms, and the Prophets. So the Jews understood it in John 12:34: "We have heard out of the law that Christ abideth for ever." So also in John 15:25: "This cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law. They hated me without a cause" (Ps. 35:19). Similarly, we have I Cor. 14:21: "In the law it is written," where the apostle is repeating the words of Isa. 28:11, and he says they are written in the law.

(ii) The term "law" is sometimes used as meaning the whole Word of God, its promises and precepts, as in Ps. 19:7: "The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul." Conversion is the fruit of the promise. Neither justification nor sanctification is the fruit of the law alone. The law commands but gives no grace, so that here the psalmist includes the promise of grace in his use of "law"; or else conversion, as he speaks of it here, does not mean regeneration.

(iii) "Law" is sometimes taken for the five books of Moses, as in Gal. 3:21: "If there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law." Likewise, in John 1:45: 'We have found him of whom Moses in the law ... did write." Similarly in Luke 24:44: "All things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses," meaning the five books of Moses; see also Gal. 4:21.

(iv) 'Law" is used for the pedagogy of Moses, as in John 5:46: "Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me." See also Josh. 1:7-8.

(v) Sometimes "law" is used for the moral law alone, the Decalogue, as in Rom. 7:7,14, and 21.

(vi) ... Sometimes "law" refers to the ceremonial law, as in Luke 16:16.

(vii) Sometimes "law" refers to all the laws, moral, ceremonial, and judicial, as in John 1:17: 'The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ': "grace" in opposition to the moral law, "truth" in opposition to the ceremonial law which was but a shadow. Thus Chrysostom comments on this passage: "The ceremonial law was given right up to the time of the coming of the seed promised to Abraham."

Among all these different usages, the controversy lies in the last mentioned, where the word "law" signifies the moral, judicial, and ceremonial law. In respect of two of these varieties of law, we find considerable agreement; the main difficulty concerns the moral law.

Moral, Ceremonial, and Civil

Since there are so many uses of the term law, in any serious study of the law it is absolutely necessary to make a proper distinction between the moral, ceremonial, and civil laws. Failure to make clear and proper distinctions will always lead to either legalism or antinomianism.

All of the time-tested, respected historic creeds, confessions, and catechisms, as well as Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, divide the laws given to Israel at Sinai into ceremonial, civil, and moral.

Although the Bible does not use these three words to divide the law, we discover these distinct uses of the term law as we bring all the Scriptures to bear on the subject. We are not like the Jehovah's Witnesses, who deny the Trinity because they do not find the word Trinity in the Bible. We believe in a triune God because the Scriptures clearly show us the work and attributes of all three persons of the Trinity. They are all active in Creation, redemption, and providence.

By bringing the whole Bible to bear on the subject of the laws given at Sinai, we learn that some laws pertained to procedures in worship and not to ethical conduct. Other laws stipulated the civil duties of Israel as a theocratic nation and were not binding on the Gentile nations. Still others were the Creator's moral mandates for the conduct of all His creatures. These moral laws are eternal and unchangeable.

Dr. Zacharias Ursinus clarifies the three kinds of laws and their differences.

WHAT ARE THE PARTS OF THE LAW, AND WHAT THEIR DIFFERENCES? ...

The divine law is ordinarily divided, or considered as consisting of three parts; the moral, the ceremonial and the judicial.

The moral law is a doctrine harmonising with the eternal and unchangeable wisdom and justice of God, distinguishing right from wrong, known by nature, engraven upon the hearts of creatures endowed with reason in their creation, and afterwards often repeated and declared by the voice of God through his servants, the prophets; teaching what God is and what he requires, binding all intelligent creatures to perfect obedience and conformity to the law, internal and external, promising favor of God and eternal life to all those who render perfect obedience, and at the same time denouncing the wrath of God and everlasting punishment upon all those who do not render this obedience, unless remission of sins and reconciliation with God be secured for the sake of Christ the mediator.

Harmonising with the eternal and unchangeable wisdom of God: That the law is eternal is evident from this, that it remains one and the same from the beginning to the end of the world. We were also created, and have been redeemed by Christ and regenerated by the Holy Spirit, that we might keep this law, or love God and our neighbor as it requires, both in this and in the life to come. 'I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which you had from the beginning' (1 John 2:7).

Afterwards often repeated: God repeated the law of nature which was engraven upon the mind of man: 1. Because it was obscured and weakened by the fall. 2. That what was still left in the mind of man might not be regarded as a mere opinion or notion, and so at length be lost.

Ceremonial laws were those which God gave through Moses in reference to ceremonies, or the external solemn ordinances which were to be observed in the public worship of God, with a proper attention to the circumstances which had been prescribed; binding the Jewish nation to the coming of the Messiah, and at the same time distinguishing them from all other nations; and that they might also be signs, symbols, types and shadows of spiritual things to be fulfilled in the New Testament by Christ. Ceremonies are external solemn actions which are often to be repeated in the same manner and with the same circumstance, and which have been instituted by God, or by men to be observed in the external worship of God, for the sake of order, propriety and signification. The ceremonies which have been instituted by God, constitute divine worship absolutely; while those which have been instituted by men, if they are good, merely contribute to divine worship.

The judicial laws were those which had respect to the civil order or government, and the maintenance of external propriety among the Jewish people according to both tables of the Decalogue; or it may be said that they had respect to the order and duties of magistrates, the courts of justice, contracts, punishments, fixing the limits of kingdoms, &c. These laws God delivered through Moses for the establishment and preservation of the Jewish commonwealth, binding all the posterity of Abraham, and distinguishing them from the rest of mankind until the coming of the Messiah; and that they might also serve as a bond for the preservation and government of the Mosaic polity, until the manifestation of the Son of God in the flesh, that they might be certain marks by which the nation which was bound by them, might be distinguished from all other nations, and might at the same time be the means of preserving proper discipline and order, that so they might be types of the order which should be established in the kingdom of Christ. (The Commentary of Dr. Zacharias Ursinus on the Heidelberg Catechism, trans. G. W. Williard [Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, n.d.], 490-91)

It is important to note that in the precepts of the moral law we find the goal of all other laws. The ceremonial law would not have been necessary, nor would it make sense, if it were not for sins against the moral law. The civil laws applied the principles of the moral law to the specific context of national Israel. Though we are not bound to the particular civil laws themselves, they embody ideals that remain valid to us, though in new ways.

The division of the law into moral, ceremonial, and civil is clear to us with a New Testament in our hands and Christ's having come. But was there any way for Old Testament believers to recognize these distinctions? Yes, there are good reasons to believe that some Old Testament saints did see a difference.

1. Consider the drastic difference in how God revealed them. He revealed the ceremonial and civil laws to Moses, who wrote them on vellum or parchment. But God Himself wrote the Ten Commandments, and not on perishable skins, but on tables of stone (Deut. 9:10) a symbol of the permanence of the Ten Commandments.

2. Some statements of Old Testament believers indicate a conscious distinction between the moral, civil, and ceremonial laws. For example, David contrasts them when he says, "You do not desire sacrifice ... You do not delight in burnt offering" (Ps. 51:16). Here David is speaking about religious ceremonies. Yet God does desire conformity to the moral laws "You shall not commit adultery" and "You shall not murder," which David disobeyed. That violation made it necessary for him to offer sacrifices provided he did so with a broken and contrite heart. When offered in true faith, such sacrifices appealed to and pre-figured the one and only real and final sacrifice, Jesus Christ.

Likewise, in Psalm 40:6-8, David contrasts the ceremonial law with the law written on his heart: 'Sacrifice and offering You did not desire; my ears You have opened; burnt offering and sin offering You did not require. Then I said, 'Behold, I come; in the scroll of the Book it is written of me. I delight to do Your will, 0 my God, and Your law is within my heart."

Surely these statements do not mean that David felt no obligation to observe the external ceremonial ordinances. They were the means by which Christ was administered to him through shadows and types. But these words indicate that David saw a difference between ceremonial and moral legislation. His words anticipated the end of the one and the continuance of the other. Likewise, Jeremiah, the prophet, saw the difference (Jer. 7:22-23), as did Samuel (1 Sam. 15:22).

3. The ceremonial law also evidenced its temporary nature by its inability to make perfect those who observe it: "For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these sacrifices, which they offered continually year by year, make those who approach perfect" (Heb. 10:1). "And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins" (Heb. 10:11). The Holy Spirit testified of something better-the one oblation of Jesus (Heb. 10:14-17; cf. Jer. 31:33ff).

4. Another indication that the Old Testament saints saw the difference is that the predictions of the coming sufferings of Christ were given in ceremonial terms (Isa. 53:11; Dan. 9:25-27; Zeph. 1:7-8). These show the temporary character of the ceremonial law. It was abrogated at Calvary when the real sacrifice was offered once and for all.

In any consideration of the law of God, these distinctions must be very clear. Where they are not, there will always be confusion and error in some cases, heresy.

It is of the utmost importance, therefore, to discern the differences between the ceremonial law, which pertained to the worship of Israel and prefigured Christ; the civil or judicial laws, which detailed the duties to Israel as a nation (having their roots in the moral law, particularly in the second table); and the moral law, by which the Creator governs the moral conduct of all creatures for all times.

A Summary of the Differences

1. The moral laws were spiritual and had to do with internals and externals. That is implied by the tenth commandment, which speaks of the desires of the heart that lead to outward violation of the other commands: "You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's" (Ex. 20:17). This commandment suggests that the other commandments are to be interpreted in terms of internal, spiritual issues, as well as outward actions. Paul makes the same point in Romans 7:14, when he says, "We know that the law is spiritual." He attributes his own conversion to this very fact: "What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin, except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, 'You shall not covet" (v. 7).

It was this fact that drove him from a legalistic, Pharisaic view of the commandments to an evangelical view and led him to say, 'Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good" (v. 12). If Romans 7 teaches us anything, it teaches that the law is spiritual and requires internal as well as external obedience.

2. The ceremonial and civil laws were types and figures. The moral law is neither type nor figure. What was a sin in Eden is a sin now and until the end. Before Sinai, it was a sin to take the Lord's name in vain, to steal, to commit adultery, to murder, to lie, to covet, etc., and it will be a sin to do so as long as there is a Holy God in heaven and there are people on earth. As B. H. Carroll has said, "The time will never come when it will be right for a man to kill, to steal, to commit adultery, to covet, and no matter who does any of these things, whether saint or sinner, it is sin."

3. The prophets foretold the end of the ceremonial and civil laws, but not the end of the righteous standard of the moral law.

4. Christ and His apostles, in different places and at different times in the New Testament, declared the end of the ceremonial and civil laws, but never an end of the righteous standard of the moral law (cf. Heb. 7:11-20; 8:8-13; 9:1-4).

5. When the purposes of the other laws ended, the laws themselves ended, but the purpose of the Ten Commandments will never end. It will always be necessary

The moral law, as a rule, can no more be abolished or changed than the nature of good and evil can be abolished or changed. The substance of the law is the sum of doctrine concerning piety toward God, charity toward our neighbors, and temperance and sobriety toward ourselves. For believers, the moral law is abrogated in respect to its power to justify; but it remains full of force to direct us in our lives. It condemns sin in the faithful, though it cannot condemn the faithful for sin. It is not the way of life, but it is the rule of life.

While distinctions between moral, ceremonial, and judicial laws are of the utmost importance, a caution is necessary. It would be wrong to imagine that any of God's statutes given to Moses were arbitrary or that the three kinds of law were unrelated. Both ceremonial and judicial statutes of the Old Testament were firmly anchored in the moral law. For this reason a special reverence was given to the pure moral law—the Ten Commandments. The whole of the Mosaic system was built upon the "ten words."

Were it not for offenses against the righteousness of God (the moral law), there would have been no need for a Savior and His great salvation. A Messiah and His cross rise out of a broken moral law, a law that must be satisfied if anyone is to be saved. The ceremonial law therefore depicts the person, offices, and acts of Christ, which everywhere call attention to moral principles. The ceremonies point forward to Christ as the answer to a broken moral law.

Civil laws administered moral and ceremonial regulations on a nationwide scale. Each judicial statute built its pedagogy for young believers around a moral core. Thus, even ceremonial and civil laws in Israel rose ultimately from the righteousness of God.

All three kinds of law are woven tightly into a unified covenant administration in Moses. Seldom can a text be labeled entirely moral, ceremonial, or civil. It would be a mistake to read through Exodus or Deuteronomy and attempt to label one verse ceremonial and another moral. In many instances all three are intertwined so that it is impossible to make such neat identifications.

The Ten Commandments are the glaring exception. This feature of Moses' law has tempted some to declare all statutes moral. It has led others to declare all ordinances null and void for the Christian. Both conclusions constitute a cavalier approach to the interpretation of the Bible. The one would shackle Christians under a new bondage. The other would rob the Christian of a large segment of Scripture.

IN THIS CHAPTER we have examined one of the difficulties in dealing with the subject of the law, that is, the different ways the little word law is used in the Bible. In our next chapter we will consider some further areas of difficulty-antinomianism, legalism, and Christian liberty.