What was the difference between the moral and the ceremonial law?
In determining the meaning of any term, the first thing to do is to collect all, or at least a large number, of the instances of its use, and set them before the mind's eye at the same time; and from the way in which it is used, we see its meaning.
Now when we begin to apply this method with the terms "moral law" and "ceremonial law," we straightway find that we have no Scriptural basis for determining their meaning, since they are not to be found in the Bible. To some it might seem that this increased the difficulty of our task; but in reality it removes it; for since the terms are wholly foreign to the Bible, it follows that they ought never to be used in religious conversation or writing.
Everything that needs to be known of God and the Gospel, and of the relation of man to God and his fellow-men, may be canvassed without ever once using those terms of human invention; and the less they are used, the less difficulty will people have in understanding the Gospel.
As a matter of fact, all the difficulties in understanding the Gospel are man-made. The Gospel itself is so simple that a child can comprehend it; and the more childlike one's mind and character are, the more easily will it be understood. It is by the invention and use of unscriptural terms, that men have obscured the gloriously simple truths of God's Word.
All the controversies that have disgraced the church, and confused the minds of believers and unbelievers, have been over terms and formulas which for the most part were unknown to those through whom God revealed His truth to the world. The confusion arose from the different meanings which different people attached to these terms; and there was no possibility of arriving in a perfect agreement, since there was no final court of appeal. The terms in use were not in the Bible, and therefore each person was warranted in putting his own construction upon them.
That being the case it is evident that a Pope or a council was the only means of allaying strife. But popes and councils are wholly unnecessary when we hold ourselves rigidly to Scriptural terms. It is for this reason that the expressions "moral law" and "ceremonial law" are never used in Present Truth.
It will not do, however, to leave the matter here; we must take a brief view of law in its various phases, or of the various laws spoken of in the Bible; for there can be no question but that the Bible does mention more than one law. If we understand the Bible use of the term "law," it is of little or no consequence of what men mean by the terms which they have invented.
Readers of the Bible will recall the fact that it speaks most frequently of "the law," indicating that there is in reality but one law worthy of the name. A few texts will enable us to see what this law is. "All the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this, You shall love your neighbor as yourself." (Galatians 5:14) "Love is the fulfilling of law." (Romans 13:10) "God is love." (1 John 4:16) "I know that His commandment is life everlasting." (John 12:50) "And this is life eternal that they might know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." (John 17:3)
These, taken together, show us that the real law is the life of God. There is nothing else that can be named in the same breath with it.
This is the universal law, the law for the universe--for man and beast, for plant and mineral. One life has created all, and one life pervades and upholds all. There is "One God and Father of all, who is over all, and, through all, and in all." (Ephesians 4:6,RV)
His life in each created thing, will, if given free course, bring that thing to perfection, "after its kind,"--will cause it to fulfill God's purpose concerning it. The same life that causes the vine to twine round a support, always turning in one direction, causes the oak tree to grow upright. It is one life that makes each perfect after its kind. The same life brings the beasts to perfection after their kind, barring the curse brought upon them by man, making them fulfill the object of their existence. That same life in man, if wholly yielded to, will make him "perfect in every good work to do His will." (Hebrews 13:21)
Thus we see there is but one life, but an infinite variety of manifestations of it; one law, the law of life. Law is spiritual because it is the life of God, who is Spirit. People are accustomed to speak of "the laws of nature;" but these are but the working of God in the things that He has made. Drummond wrote of "natural law in the spiritual world," which is a complete inversion of terms; for the truth is that spiritual law reigns in the natural world.
But men have faculties that animals and plants have not. They are capable of committing sin or of doing righteousness, terms which cannot be applied to the lower creation; consequently the law which defines the righteousness for which man was created is sometimes called the moral law. This law, put into words, is the ten commandments, which God spoke from Sinai; wrote with His own finger on tables of stone, and delivered to Moses to be put into the ark, in the most holy place of the sanctuary.
These ten words are the form of knowledge and of the truth. (Romans 2:20) They are the statement of law on the Living Stone,--the Lamb slain,--which is in the midst of the throne of God, which is the source of the river of life. This law, "which was ordained unto life," (Romans 7:10) is death to some. All depends on our relation to it. If we yield wholly to "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus," and it is righteousness and life to us (Romans 8:1-4); but if we disbelieve, or doubt, even though we do our utmost to keep the law, it is death to us. "The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." (2 Corinthians 3:6)
The living law working in us and controlling us, is righteousness,--morals,--while the law only in outward form, in letter, is but form and ceremony.
Ceremonialism grows out of the absence of life power. Just to the extent that people lose connection with the life of the Lord, will they multiply forms and ceremonies. They will do as the Pharisees did, attempt to prescribe for every circumstance in life, laying down rules to guide in every detail. Thus while they think that they are enlarging the law, they are really narrowing it down from the infinite breath of God's free life to the measure of their own mind. This is essentially the ceremonial law, if we allow ourselves to use the term; and it is the law in ceremonies, instead of in life.
It will be asked, "Did not God himself give the people laws besides the ten commandments?" and the reply must be, Yes. He tells the story himself in Ezekiel 20. He says of His people: "I gave them my statutes, and showed them my judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them. ... But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness: they walked not in my statutes, and they despised my judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them. ... Wherefore I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live." (Ezekiel 20:11,13,25)
If the people had walked in the steps of the faith of Abraham, they would never have needed even the commandments spoken from Sinai, any more than he did. He lived by faith, and so God said, "Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my commandments, my statutes and my laws;" (Genesis 26:5) and they might have been equally righteous without the written law. But the same unbelief that made it necessary to give them a law on tables of stone,--the shadow of the real, living law,--made it necessary to give other precepts. Their unbelief was a veil interposed between them and the light of God, the law "For the commandment is a lamp, and the law is light." (Proverbs 6:23 ); and that of course made a shadow.
It was bad enough for them so to reject the living, glorious law that God himself had to give them only a shadow; but it was much worse for them to increase the darkness by additions of their own; yet this is always the result when man chooses to serve God in his own way.
Thus the two laws are the law of faith and the law works. One is the law applied by the Spirit, and the other is the same law attempted to be applied by man, with or without the additions which he himself devises. The one is life, the other is death.--Present Truth, November 13, 1902--Original Note: All communications intended for publication, and all questions, whether an answer is desired by letter or through the paper, should be addressed to the Editor of Present Truth, and not to the International Tract Society. Correspondents are requested in all cases to give the name and address, and to take pains to write them legibly. All questions are regarded as strictly confidential, and nobody but the Editor ever has any knowledge of the questioner's identity; but the Editor wishes always to be able to communicate with his correspondents.--E. J. Waggoner, Editor.