W. Jackson Watts

Over 20 years ago I had a brief but memorable conversation with Matthew McAffee. McAffee was then a bright, new faculty member at Welch College with wise insights into many subjects. [1]

Somehow the topic of the Mosaic Law came up. Most of us know the conventional, three-fold division of the law: moral, civil, and ceremonial. McAffee said something like this: “I think we’ve sometimes overstated those divisions as if they’re hard and fast distinctions. We make it sound like the civil and ceremonial weren’t moral.” That’s at least how I remember the conversation.

Over the years McAffee’s brief sentiment morphed into a slightly fuller thought: While the traditional tri-fold division of the Mosaic Law into moral, civil, and ceremonial laws is generally helpful, if pressed too far, it can mislead us about the character of God’s law in the Old Testament. At best, the distinction introduces a division that isn’t always consistent in the Torah. At worst, it can cause us to imagine that some of God’s laws, statutes, or precepts were somehow amoral.

To think carefully about this, we need to revisit the conventional perspective on the topic, one that most of us utilize when teaching and preaching.

The Conventional Perspective

The Moral law refers especially to the Ten Commandments. Thus, the Moral law has the distinction of having enduring, practical relevance. All Ten are restated in the New Testament, the Sabbath excepted. (This is perhaps hints at Scripture’s more nuanced theology of Law as we move from the Old to New Covenant.)

As a side note, it’s also important to remember that “Moral Law” in this discussion refers specifically to the Ten Commandments, and not exclusively the “Moral Law written on the heart” (Rom. 2). Those subjects are certainly related, but they aren’t always identical.

Jesus does show in the Sermon on the Mount that obedience to these commandments is more than skin-deep. It’s more than outward actions. Unjust anger and lustful intent are both violations of the Sixth and Seventh Commandments, respectfully. Keeping these commandments requires not only external action, but a pure inner life. This demonstrates that we’ve grasped the beating heart of the second table of the law: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Lev. 19:18; Mt. 22:39) Nothing could be more practical and relevant.

The Civil and Ceremonial laws are the parts of the Mosaic Law that provoke more concern. Their strangeness and severity trouble unbelievers. (Incidentally, this is how many believers experience them, also!) But once we look closer at Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy, we begin to see their unique function in the life of Israel.

These laws touch every area of life from worship to agriculture to hygiene to diet. God cared about everything concerning in Israel’s life. In addition to His comprehensive care for them, the scope of these laws served as God’s guidance to His people before the watching world. On the one hand, the distinct way of keeping God’s Law set Israel apart as holy (qodesh). On the other hand, this holiness testified to the character of God himself. It even caused the nations to marvel at the greatness and wisdom of Yahweh. Deuteronomy 4:5-8 express it well:

See, I have taught you statutes and rules, as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should do them in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. Keep them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’ For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is to us, whenever we call upon him?  And what great nation is there, that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today?

The Civil Law deals especially with how the people live together in community and how to uphold justice, equity, and righteousness. It also provides specific provisions for how to right the wrongs when they occur. While some of the penalties seem severe, we should be slow to shrink away in disgust. First, perhaps our disgust reveals our own laxity concerning evil and injustice. Second, we should remember that God was both setting His people apart from the nations and establishing the seriousness of sin as a means of deterring people from it. These are just a few of the reasons why God was specific in ordering Israel’s civil affairs. It was for the good of them and their neighbors, as well as God’s name among the nations.

Speaking of nations, this is precisely why the Civil laws aren’t applicable to believers today. God’s purposes for the entire world meant that Israel would eventually give way to a global, multi-national people who would live under all kinds of legal and political arrangements. This is why the Moral law is so important: it provides the foundation and framework for God’s people, regardless of what governmental regime they live under. The church is a “holy nation” (1 Pt. 2:9), but it isn’t a specific geographic entity with a specific flag.

Finally, the Ceremonial laws typically refer to the sacrificial system, along with its instructions and provisions for holiness, purity, and sanctity. They are, in terms of pure word count, the most extensive of all of God’s law. This is understandable. After all, consider the range of potential offenses, the intricacies of the tabernacle and temple, and the extensive provisions for atoning for sin!

However, the situation is dramatically different for the New Testament believer. We could list any number of verses which point to the fulfillment of the law. In Future Grace, John Piper summarizes what I’m describing as the “conventional Protestant-evangelical perspective”:

Of course, significant parts of the law are no longer binding on Christians. You can see this in the verse just quoted [1 Cor. 7:19], where circumcision is made optional and actually contrasted with ‘the commandments of God,’ even though circumcision was one of the ‘commandments’ that Israel was to keep in the Old Testament times. The reason that parts of the Old Testament law are no longer binding on God’s people is that there has been a great fulfillment in Christ; and the way God is pursuing his redemptive plan is very different now than it was in the Old Testament, when most of his focus was on the ethnic people of Israel.

For example, the death of Christ has brought to fulfillment and to an end all the laws relating animals sacrifice (Hebrews 9:12). Moreover, laws that were designed to keep Israel ritually distinct from the nations, like food laws, and even circumcision, no longer function in the same binding way, because God’s New Testament plan is to overcome all ethnic barriers and assemble a new people from every tribe and tongue and nation (Mark 7:19; Matthew 21:43; Galatians 6:15). (pgs. 158-159)

Piper’s summary of these issues is helpful. Thankfully, it isn’t merely the reasoning of a New Testament scholar. Any Christian can open his Bible to many passages and spot some of the “turning points” in redemptive history that Christ’s ministry initiated. Consider Mark 7:15-20:

There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.” And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable. And he said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him.

The context of Mark 7 shows Jesus at odds with the Jewish leaders and their demanding understandings of ritual purity. The language of defilement/cleanness in reference to various foods tips the reader off to subjects addressed in Leviticus. Jesus is clearly introducing a new understanding of holiness, one which goes much deeper, one that refocuses moral scrutiny not on one’s diet, but one’s heart and actions toward others.

There are quite a few passages like this in the New Testament. Hebrews is full of them, passages in which the work of Christ is shown as putting the entire Old Testament “system” in proper perspective. (Hebrews 9:1-14 is helpful on this.) Yet something is still missing. Piper’s words above aren’t incorrect, but there is more to say about the three-fold division of the Mosaic Law and how the believer today views it.

A More Nuanced Perspective

Consider again 1 Corinthians 7:19 – “For neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commandments of God.” Once we establish that circumcision isn’t commanded for believers today, we’re still left with the question: “Which commandments should be kept?”

Part of the answer is found in the Mosaic law itself: The Ten Commandments. In several instances the commandments resurface in the teaching of Jesus or the apostles (e.g., Mt. 19:17-19; Rom. 13:8-10). But such passages make clear that the commandments are summed up in the great commandments: Love God and love neighbor. We might say the two tables of the law are specific ways in which God and others are loved and honored. Of course, there are many ways to murder besides with our hands (e.g., thoughts, words). There are many ways to commit adultery (e.g., thoughts, eyes). But the commandments provide a kind of grounding for the many other ways we might love (or not love) God and neighbor.

According to both the Old and New Testament, law, life, and love are intimately connected. Is it possible to worship God with our lips while our hearts are far from Him? Absolutely. Is it possible to render external obedience while our hearts are impure? Of course. However, the biblical authors would come back and say, “The former isn’t worship at all, and the latter isn’t obedience at all.”

The first nuance, then, that contemporary Christian teaching must make clear about the law is that obedience is a multi-dimensional exercise in loving God and neighbor.

The foundations for this are laid in the Old Testament law but fleshed out more fully as Scripture unfolds and the work of Christ is completed. To cite one of many connections between law and love, consider 1 John 5:2-3:  By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. We keep these commandments with our mind, desires, and will.

Second, as we look back at the Mosaic law, we need to see that the civil and ceremonial laws were integrated into and often flowed from the moral law. You might even say that the civil and ceremonial were manifestations of the moral law in very concrete instances.

Consider Leviticus 6:1-7:

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “If anyone sins and commits a breach of faith against the Lord by deceiving his neighbor in a matter of deposit or security, or through robbery, or if he has oppressed his neighbor or has found something lost and lied about it, swearing falsely—in any of all the things that people do and sin thereby— if he has sinned and has realized his guilt and will restore what he took by robbery or what he got by oppression or the deposit that was committed to him or the lost thing that he found or anything about which he has sworn falsely, he shall restore it in full and shall add a fifth to it, and give it to him to whom it belongs on the day he realizes his guilt. And he shall bring to the priest as his compensation to the Lord a ram without blemish out of the flock, or its equivalent, for a guilt offering. And the priest shall make atonement for him before the Lord, and he shall be forgiven for any of the things that one may do and thereby become guilty.

Here Yahweh brings together all three “forms” or “divisions” of the law in one passage. The law concerns someone who has broken one or perhaps two commandments: stealing and bearing false witness. What is the remedy? Restitution is appropriate to the offense—a provision of Civil Law. But that’s not all. The priest is involved because a sacrifice must be made as a guilt offering, making atonement for the thief/liar—a provision of the Ceremonial Law.

Such a passage is helpful if for no other reason than it highlights the full impact of Christ’s sinless life and sacrificial death. His substitutionary sacrifice made it possible for theft and lying to be forgiven by grace through faith. Now, might the laws of one’s state call for a specific kind of punishment for such offenses? Yes, and he must submit himself to the governing authorities in such an instance. However, in terms of a full cleansing from sin and the prospect of forgiveness, one need only bring his sin to the feet of Jesus, who bore the curse of sin for thieves and liars alike.

Third, many passages show that the three-fold division of the law isn’t nearly as stark as we’ve often made it out to be. They remind us that God took all forms of obedience seriously.

 Leviticus 19:17-19 is another example:

You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord. “You shall keep my statutes. You shall not let your cattle breed with a different kind. You shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed, nor shall you wear a garment of cloth made of two kinds of material.

Sometimes the versifications in our English Bibles make impossible to discern where one “thought” or principle ends and another begins. Regardless of versification, these verses at least exemplify how seamlessly the Holy Spirit led Moses to compile the law—despite the apparent differences in material. These verses set love of neighbor, livestock breeding practices, agricultural practices, and apparel guidelines side by side. They remind us that when God gives a Word to His people, all of it matters.

Finally—and this is the real kicker—the apostles sometimes offer portions of the Mosaic Law as enduring wisdom for believers and the church today.

I won’t pretend to know all of the legitimate examples, but I’ll focus on a distinct agricultural practice repeated twice in the New Testament.  

Deuteronomy 25:4 says, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain.” Presumably, it is cruel to the animal to press it into hard service while keeping it from being nourished through its own labor. On its face, this is a kindness to God’s creature. However, the Holy Spirit showed the apostle Paul (and by extension, his audience) a specific, New Covenant application: pay your pastors fairly.

Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. For the Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,” and, “The laborer deserves his wages.” (1 Timothy 5:17-18)

Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working for a living? Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard without eating any of its fruit? Or who tends a flock without getting some of the milk? Do I say these things on human authority? Does not the Law say the same? For it is written in the Law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain.” Is it for oxen that God is concerned? Does he not certainly speak for our sake? It was written for our sake, because the plowman should plow in hope and the thresher thresh in hope of sharing in the crop. (1 Corinthians 9:6-10)

Who knew that being likened to an ox (for reasons besides strength) could be favorable? Gospel workers—pastors, evangelists, missionaries—are worthy of financial remuneration. They have given their life to the preaching and teaching of the Word and tending the flock. Their labors, their “plowing and threshing,” warrants sharing in the fruit of their work.

Imagine a church knowingly and willfully withholds giving, and in turn, not compensating (or fairly compensating) their pastor(s). What should we call that? Wrong? A sin? Unloving? Those are moral descriptions. When God’s commands are broken—regardless of their “type”—it is immoral.

When God’s people sinned in the Old Testament, it violated not merely a specific category of law with its accompanying punishments. It was a deeply moral act—immoral in the case of disobedience.

Likewise, for believers today, all disobedience is immoral. Now, are there “weightier matters of the law”? Jesus said so in the context of debates with the Pharisees and scribes. Some were zealous to tithe, but not zealous about love, mercy, and justice. It remains possible for us today to engage in partial obedience, which is ultimately just disobedience. The point of bringing the Mosaic Law into this discussion is to remember that those vast portions of the Torah aren’t just strange and severe. They reveal God’s wisdom to His people Israel among the nations–and even in some instances, ongoing wisdom for life today.

I will stress that because of the way Christ fulfills the Old Covenant, we should not primarily attempt to mine the various Mosaic laws for “practical guidance or wisdom.” Instead, we should mainly do what the author of Hebrews does: see how Christ as the glorious and awe-inspiring fulfillment of all the laws neither we nor Israel could ever keep! This should be our focus. We shouldn’t speculate about the shadows but celebrate the substance (Col. 2:17; Heb. 10:1). Christ’s work is the ground of all proper Christian obedience.

Conclusion

One significant contribution of the Mosaic Law, namely, the Civil and Ceremonial, is that they show the lengths to which God goes to call out a people for His own glorious name. They show that despite our complaints about “not knowing God’s will,” even were that will to be given in minute detail, why should we think we would succeed in keeping it? Israel was given a moral roadmap like no other, and they careened into the ditch repeatedly.

The greater contribution of such laws is that they highlight the glory, greatness, and genius of Christ’s provision for sinners in the New Covenant. He kept the Law at all points. He corrected religious experts’ misunderstanding of the Law in countless ways. Then he let dozens of lawbreakers betray him, arrest him, beat him, condemn him, and crucify him. He did this to show himself to be the Lord of life, law, and love.

Even if the Law of Moses’s meaning to Christians today requires careful theological and spiritual discernment, it was always moral and will always be meaningful.

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[1] Coincidentally, I was blessed with bright, young Old Testament professors both at Welch College and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (SEBTS). While at SEBTS, I studied with Dr. Heath Thomas. Though now the President of Oklahoma Baptist University, Thomas was then an impressive young faculty member who brought passion and precision to the study of the Old Testament. I suspect McAffee and Thomas had many things in common in that respect.