God’s Law is One… Yet Distinctions Between Moral, Judicial, Ceremonial Remain

There are those Theonomists out there who advocate getting rid of the distinctions between “Moral Law,” “Civil/Judicial Law” and “Ceremonial Law.” They want to insist that as God’s law is one we should not make these distinctions. Still, one can believe that God’s law is one and at the same time continue to insist that the above distinctions are necessary.

We need the distinctions in the law (Moral, Ceremonial, Civil/Judicial) that the Scripture gives us because without those distinctions idiots would be out there involved in the silliest of things like trying to keep the feasts and festivals. (Those come to mind because I just bought a book that details how Christ fulfilled all the feasts and festivals and therefore to go back to requiring those to be practiced would be to go back to the shadows.) The OT feasts and festivals, just like the OT sacrifices belong to the Ceremonial law that was fulfilled in the completed work of Jesus Christ.

The Moral law is distinct from the civil law the way our Constitution is distinct from our case laws that are a result of decisions made based upon the Constitution. God in His graciousness gave us not only the Moral Law (Constitution) but also the civil/judicial case laws that find the Moral Law applied.

The civil law abides both in its general equity (the principle lives on that animated the original civil law such as we find in the OT with railings providing protecting from injury) and when warranted in its exact prescription (such as the consanguinity laws). However, the civil law remains distinct from the Moral law. With the Moral law (10 Commandments) we don’t suggest that it may not be applicable any longer. With the Civil law we do suggest that there may be times when it is not applicable the way the Hebrews applied those case laws. Hence there is a distinction between moral law and civil (judicial) law.

Hence we need the distinctions “ceremonial,” “civil” (or “judicial” if one prefers) and “Moral.” What we don’t need is Ministers who insist that merely because a law is judicial/civil that therefore means we can automatically dismiss its ongoing validity without asking questions like, “what was the principle of the Moral law that was driving this civil law and how can we incarnate that Moral law principle today.”

As you know, if we don’t do that then men become autonomous in establishing their law order and that is the very definition of humanism. If we will not see the relationship between God’s covenant Law rightly interpreted and God Himself we will reinterpret man to be God as seen in the fact that man is the one issuing laws that men must walk by. To say that we want God but not His law properly understood and applied is like saying we want God and we don’t want God. Separating God from His law is separating God from Himself. When we separate God from His law we have fashioned new gods reflecting our new laws.

Many Pastors want to hold on to the Moral law while giving up completely the judicial law merely because that law was the application of the Moral law (R2K is famous for advocating this) are men who really don’t take the Moral law seriously. The Moral law for men like this is a mere shibboleth… something someone tips their cap to but doesn’t really take seriously. In brief, men who won’t take the judicial law seriously and who insist that it has completely passed in every sense with the eclipse of OT Israel and so is no longer relevant for us in terms of law order governance are not ministers of Christ but of Baal.

Author: jetbrane

I am a Pastor of a small Church in Mid-Michigan who delights in my family, my congregation and my calling. I am postmillennial in my eschatology. Paedo-Calvinist Covenantal in my Christianity Reformed in my Soteriology Presuppositional in my apologetics Familialist in my family theology Agrarian in my regional community social order belief Christianity creates culture and so Christendom in my national social order belief Mythic-Poetic / Grammatical Historical in my Hermeneutic Pre-modern, Medieval, & Feudal before Enlightenment, modernity, & postmodern Reconstructionist / Theonomic in my Worldview One part paleo-conservative / one part micro Libertarian in my politics Systematic and Biblical theology need one another but Systematics has pride of place Some of my favorite authors, Augustine, Turretin, Calvin, Tolkien, Chesterton, Nock, Tozer, Dabney, Bavinck, Wodehouse, Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Schaeffer, C. Van Til, H. Van Til, G. H. Clark, C. Dawson, H. Berman, R. Nash, C. G. Singer, R. Kipling, G. North, J. Edwards, S. Foote, F. Hayek, O. Guiness, J. Witte, M. Rothbard, Clyde Wilson, Mencken, Lasch, Postman, Gatto, T. Boston, Thomas Brooks, Terry Brooks, C. Hodge, J. Calhoun, Llyod-Jones, T. Sowell, A. McClaren, M. Muggeridge, C. F. H. Henry, F. Swarz, M. Henry, G. Marten, P. Schaff, T. S. Elliott, K. Van Hoozer, K. Gentry, etc. My passion is to write in such a way that the Lord Christ might be pleased. It is my hope that people will be challenged to reconsider what are considered the givens of the current culture. Your biggest help to me dear reader will be to often remind me that God is Sovereign and that all that is, is because it pleases him.

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