One of the common matters that arises when talking about Christianity is the Law. It's not surprising, as it's a very important topic to our faith and interaction with God. But there seems to be a lot of confusion surrounding how to approach it. As such, a quick look at how to study the Law seems to be in order. One of the key things to remember about the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament and the foundation for the majority of legal discussion in the Bible, is that it actually contains three different kinds of laws, which each require a slightly different approach.
The most commonly understood type of laws in the Torah are the Moral Laws. These are matters that serve as direct transgressions against the nature of God and His intended design. As such, they are universal in scope: they remain the same throughout all times and in all places. If something is a sin, it always has been and always will be a sin, and there is no room for change or negotiation on the matter.
Then there are the Ceremonial Laws. These are no less important than the Moral Laws, and will frequently overlap or tie in closely to them. For the most part, if the terms 'clean' or 'unclean' are used in relation to the dictate, it is probably a Ceremonial Law. This category also includes matters of priestly life, operation of the Temple/tabernacle, holidays, and sacrifices. It's a broad category, but serves a specific purpose. Namely, it serves as the example of what great lengths must be taken for us to be cleansed of our transgressions against the Moral Law and come anywhere near a just a holy God.
The third category are Civil Laws. These ones are designed specifically to manage the operations of ancient Israel. They include punishments, taxes, land rights, and other matters of state. This category has the most narrow scope of the three: while it is not stated that they are not useful outside the specific nation addressed, they are rules governing the daily activity of Israel itself.
The confusion surrounding these distinctions comes from the fact that they are not separated from each other in the Bible, but instead grouped by subject matter, for the most part. The laws concerning sexuality and reproduction in Leviticus, for instance, have all three types woven together. The actual act of sex itself goes through all three of these phases, with the emission of semen discussed in terms of ceremonial uncleanness while certain sexual pairings are described in moral terms and the ways to handle such infractions are civil in nature. The end result, without a careful eye, is that we have so many who have taken every word of the Torah and elevated it to moral laws, while others look at the fact that some don't fit that model and reduce all of them to civil laws. Both readings are incorrect.
The primary things Christians need to understand about the Law are its role, its permanence, and our relation to it. We are under grace rather than the Law – but that doesn't mean the Law isn't important or that we can't learn from it. God did not abolish the Law when He paid for our sins. It still exists as the standard for what man would have to do to earn his own salvation. And while only the moral law is still actively in place (the ceremonial laws went out with the external temple, and the civil laws are specific to a state that most of us don't live in and could be argued to not even really exist anymore), all of it is useful for understanding the nature of God.
The task laid before the ancient Israelites with these dictates was to stand as an example of God's nature, a representative of what good gifts He provides to those who obey Him, an object lesson about what happens to those who oppose Him, and a brief image of Heaven. Remember that these laws tend to forbid people that showed signs of sickness or incompleteness to be seen in the culture – they provide an image of a place free from pain and sickness and death, yet paid for in blood at the temple. So we must be careful, in studying the Law, that we do not undermine its usefulness to us; yet, we must also be careful that we understand what it means to be free from judgment and covered by grace.
Comments