Dividing Up the Law: The Bible Itself Makes the Distinction

It seems trendy today to argue that "they," apparently referring to the Jews, would not have divided up the law into moral, civil, and ceremonial. It is surmised that the Bible never does it as well. Of course, this is a deceptive claim because what it really means is that the Bible doesn't use the words "moral," "civil," or "ceremonial," or that it does not divide up the law into parts. Actually, however, it does.

It is also odd to argue what the Jews would have done with the law, as Christ and the apostles obviously disagree with their view of the law, especially their emphasis on ritual law.

First, Jesus argues that there are "weightier matters of the law." In Matthew 23:23, He states:

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!”

Notice, in continuity with Jesus' distinction between moral and ceremonial law, Jesus implies that the act of tithing is less weighty than the activity of justice, mercy, and faith. The Torah "instruction" here likely refers to the Hebrew Bible as a whole. There are weightier matters and less weighty matters. Of course, tithing still takes care of people, i.e., the Levites, so it is still a good, and so are told that they should have done both, but, given the other things Jesus says about Pharisaical practice, it is likely being performed by them as a ceremonial practice.

The distinction yet again surfaces in Matthew between doing good and observing ceremony on the Sabbath. In Matthew 12:1-8 (also see Mark 2:23-28 and Luke 6:1-5), the following exchange takes place.

At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. ² When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.”
³ He answered, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? ⁴ He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. ⁵ Or haven’t you read in the Law that the priests on Sabbath duty in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent? ⁶ I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. ⁷ If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’^[a] you would not have condemned the innocent. ⁸ For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
⁹ Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue, ¹⁰ and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to bring charges against Jesus, they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”
¹¹ He said to them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? ¹² How much more valuable is a person than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”
¹³ Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he stretched it out and it was completely restored, just as sound as the other. ¹⁴ But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus.

 The traditions of the elders that seek to apply cleanliness laws are pitted against the moral law in Matthew (15:1-9).

Likewise, in the clearest example possible, the food laws are pronounced null and void as opposed to the moral issues that truly defile a man (Matt 15:10-20). Mark records Jesus declaring that His statements here make all foods clean (7:19).

The civil law might be seen to be upheld in the Synoptics by the statement concerning paying taxes to Caesar, transitioning civil responsibilities to the state and away from the spiritual kingdom. 

This is all in the context of Christ proclaiming that He did not come to abolish the law, but to bring it to its fullest expression (Matt 5-7).

The Book of Acts argues that circumcision is not something that continues on into the church, nor any of the ritual laws that distinguish the nation of Israel from Gentiles, but what does continue on are the commands against false religion, represented by idolatrous practices (strangling and eating meat sacrificed to idols in worship festivals dedicated to them) and immorality represented by the prohibition against sexual immorality (Acts 15). Again, the ceremonial is discounted and the moral upheld.

Paul, in Galatians, pits circumcision and the doing of the whole law (especially cleanliness laws that would separate Jews from Gentiles) against the morality that comes from faith working through love and producing the moral law. Again, he looks to fulfilling the law, not doing away with it (Gal 5:14; also see Rom 13:8-10).

The author of Hebrews argues that Christ has fulfilled all of the sacrifices, festivals, etc., but then reminds the people that God will damn the sexually immoral and adulterers, to remember the doing of good, etc.

Romans, perhaps, has the best break up of the law, as Paul, after arguing that the church is Israel, now seeks to apply how the law might relate to those who are no longer seeking to be justified by it. He begins in Chapters 12 and 13 by arguing that the law of love as it expresses itself in morality toward one another is absolute. Then, in Chapter 13, he caveats that the civil law belongs to the state and not to the church. Hence, Christians should defer judgment of crime to it and pay taxes to support it. Finally, when commenting on the ceremonial portion of the law (i.e., foods, holy days, etc.), he states that these are a matter of conscience and what each believer wishes to partake in by faith. They are optional, but not a part of holiness (Chapters 14-15).

Whether we divide these up with the nomenclature is irrelevant. We're just debaiting semantics at that point. The fact of the matter is that Paul says Christians are to do X, when X refers to things that look moral, and to give Y to the state, when Y look like things that are civil, and to not judge one another over the preferences of Z, when Z refers to things that look ceremonial/ritual. What we call them is of no consequence to the argument that the New Testament, in fact, does divide up the law in this way. 

There are weightier matters of the law that reflect God's activity as Creator toward His people, and His people are to join Him in that activity, but there are other laws that reflect His activity through state, and yet, other laws that merely picture the holiness God desires of His people in their being loyal, exercising mercy, and doing justice. The new Israel worships the same God with the same moral principles, i.e., the same wine. It simply is not required to worship God with the same wineskins.