The Civil and Ceremonial Laws (1)
Our question for this issue of the News concerns the Old Testament civil and ceremonial laws: “Is it true that the Lord Jesus teaches in Matthew 5:17-19 that all the laws of Moses, including the ceremonial and civil laws, are binding and must be ‘fulfilled’ by believers in the New Testament age?”
Generally speaking, the ceremonial laws are those laws of the Old Testament that have to do with Israel’s religious life: the priesthood, the sacrifices, the temple, the feasts, etc. The civil laws are those that have to do with its every-day life: food, clothing, diseases, marriage, work, crime, punishment and Israel’s relations to other nations. The latter are sometimes referred to as “judicial” laws but that term, in the opinion of this writer, is inadequate, since they do not all have to do with judicial matters. Nevertheless, the terms judicial and civil are used more or less interchangeably in the theological literature. The Ten Commandments and all the laws associated with them are usually referred to as God’s moral law.
The question is whether any or all of these laws are still binding on New Testament Christians, as some believe and as Matthew 5:17-19 might seem to teach. Matthew 5:17-19 reads, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”
Those who are familiar with the Westminster Standards and the Three Forms of Unity will know that neither of these groups of Reformed creeds recognize the civil and ceremonial laws as being binding on New Testament believers. In chapter 19, “Of the Law of God,” the Westminster Confession teaches,
3. Besides this law, commonly called moral, God was pleased to give to the people of Israel, as a church under age, ceremonial laws containing several typical ordinances; partly of worship, prefiguring Christ, his graces, actions, sufferings, and benefits (Heb. 9; 10:1; Gal. 4:1-3; Col. 2:17); and partly holding forth divers instructions of moral duties (I Cor. 5:7; II Cor. 6:17; Jude 23). All which ceremonial laws are now abrogated under the New Testament (Col. 2:14, 16-17; Dan. 9:27; Eph. 2:15-16).
4. To them also, as a body politick, he gave sundry judicial laws, which expired together with the state of that people, not obliging any other now, further than the general equity thereof may require (Ex. 21; 22:1-29; Gen. 49:10; I Pet. 2:13-14; Matt. 5:17, 38-39; I Cor. 9:8-10).
Article 25 of the Belgic Confession is entitled, “The Abolishing of the Ceremonial Law.” It makes no distinction between civil and ceremonial laws: “We believe that the ceremonies and figures of the law ceased at the coming of Christ, and that all the shadows are accomplished; so that the use of them must be abolished amongst Christians; yet the truth and substance of them remain with us in Jesus Christ, in whom they have their completion. In the meantime we still use the testimonies taken out of the law and the prophets, to confirm us in the doctrine of the gospel, and to regulate our life in all honesty to the glory of God, according to His will.” Both the Reformed and the Presbyterian traditions, therefore, view these laws as non-binding. The Westminster Confession uses the words “abrogated” in relation to the ceremonial laws and the word “expired” in relation to the civil or judicial laws. The Belgic Confession uses the word “abolished,” and refers to these laws as “figures” and “shadows” that have “ceased” and “are accomplished” or fulfilled.
It is not the subject of this article but we believe that Christians are obligated to obey God’s moral law, not as a way of salvation but out of thankfulness for their salvation in Christ: “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). Jesus cannot be saying of these moral laws, “I am not come to destroy, but to bring them to an end” (cf. Matt. 5:17). He would then be contradicting Himself.
The word “fulfil,” however, is not a good word to use to describe the Christian’s obedience to the law. Matthew 5:17-19 is not talking about Christians fulfilling the law by obeying it but about Christ as the One who fulfils the whole law. Christians cannot fulfil the law. Only Christ could do that, and He did it by a sinless life of perfect obedience and by His sacrificial death on the cross. Fulfilled does not mean, though, that the moral law is abolished and done away as many teach, i.e., that Christians only obey what they call “the law of Christ” but not the Ten Commandments.
The question remains, however, whether Christians are also bound to obey some or all of the civil and ceremonial laws. This issue has been important for quite some time. Those who call themselves “Theonomists” or “Christian Reconstructionists” have been teaching that the civil laws must not only be obeyed by God’s children but must also become the foundation of a Christian postmillennial civil society. Society must be “reconstructed” not only on the basis of God’s moral law but even on the foundation of Old Testament civil law, which remains binding. These laws are to be imposed even on those who do not believe in the Son of God.
Generally, they believe that any law which is not explicitly abrogated in the New Testament is still in effect for Christians. One or another of them will insist that men must have beards, that Christians must not eat pork, that a house with a flat roof must have a parapet around it (Deut. 22:8) and, by extension, a swimming pool must be fenced, and so on and on. They disagree among themselves as to which laws are binding and how they apply to us in the New Testament, and the influence of the movement has declined. But the requirement of Old Testament civil law for the construction of a Christian society and for Christian dominion is still around.
This imposition of the civil laws on Christians and on others as the basis of a reconstructed Christian society is a new legalism insisted on by these modern Judaizers. It is a denial of everything Scripture says about salvation by grace alone.
We follow the teaching of the Westminster Confession and the Belgic Confession, and believe and teach that the civil and ceremonial laws are not binding on New Testament Christians. As the Belgic Confession says, they have their “completion” in Christ.
In the case of the ceremonial laws, this completion means that Jesus and those who are in Him have become all that those laws required. He is the high priest, the temple or tabernacle, the sacrifice and the altar. His prayers are the incense; His flesh the veil. He is the mercy seat, the budding rod, the manna, the passover lamb, the lamb of atonement and the scapegoat. The rest were only ever shadows and figures that vanished in the presence of the reality: “Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ” (Col. 2:16-17). To attempt to resurrect these is not only to prefer the shadow to the reality but is to deny Christ’s saving work.
Those ceremonial laws were given, therefore, to point the Old Testament people of God to Jesus. To cling to these things now would be to do what the Pharisees did, when, having rejected and despised the true passover lamb, they went to eat lambs whose blood could not save them from the angel of death and whose flesh was no more than meat between their teeth. The use of these ceremonies “must be abolished amongst Christians” (Belgic Confession 25).
Thus few, outside so-called Messianic Jews and the Hebrew Roots movement, advocate the observance of the ceremonial laws. There have been charges that Rousas J. Rushdoony, the founder of the Christian Reconstruction movement, advocated animal sacrifices but his son, Mark, denies that his father ever taught such a thing. Generally, the focus of the Theonomists and Christian Reconstructionists has been on the civil law as a basis for a Christian civilization. That will be the subject of the next article, DV.
One thing more, however. That the Jews cleaved to things that were only shadows is a reminder to us of how easy it is to cling to observances, rituals and earthly things, and so miss the necessity of believing in Christ Himself. We must always remember Hebrews 10:1: “For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.” Instead, we must “see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man” (2:9). Rev. Ron Hanko
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