Hallowed theological tradition suggest at this point that we distinguish among the various laws by allocating them to one of three categories; moral, ceremonial, and civil. The “moral” commandments, it is assumed, are eternally binding in the form in which they were originally given, while the ceremonial and the civil ones, finding their fulfillment in Christ, cease to act as immediate guides to Christian behavior. In fact, this distinction is vital to many approaches to the law in the New Testament; statements about the law’s continuity are regarded as statements about the moral law, while assertions of the law’s cessation are applied only to the civil and ceremonial law. But this distinction does not hold up under close scrutiny. The structure of the Mosaic law certainly suggest that the Decalogue holds pride of place; but it is not easy even within the Ten Commandments to distinguish clearly between what is “moral” - and therefore, it is assumed, eternal - and what is not. For instance, the promise attached to the 5th commandment (“Honor your father and mother”) is “so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you” (Ex. 20:12). Significantly, when Paul “reapplies” this commandment to his Christian readers (Eph. 6:2-3) he “universalizes” the promise: “that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.” An even thornier problem for those who would elevate the decalogue to the status of eternal moral law is presented by the Sabbath commandment. Thus, in general, it is notoriously difficult to know from the Old Testament itself which commandments should be placed in the category of “moral” and therefore eternally binding in the form in which they were first given. Jews in Jesus’ and Paul’s day certainly did not divide up the law into categories; on the contrary, there was a strong insistence that the law was a unity and could not be obeyed in parts. This being the case, we would require strong evidence from within the New Testament to think that the word “law” in certain text can apply only to one part of the law. Jesus recognized that some requirements within the law were more important than others (Matt. 23:23); but he also insists in this very context that all the requirements must be obeyed. Likewise, Paul reminds the Galatians that they cannot pick and choose which commandments of the law they are going to obey: “I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law” (Gal. 5:3). And James asserts that “whoever keeps the whole and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it” (James 2:10). These points suffice to show that the continuity of the law in the new covenant cannot be founded on such a distinction among the different “kinds” of laws. Douglas Moo
Posted on: Sat, 18 Oct 2014 17:50:58 +0000
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