As a general reminder, these notes that I took are based on Philip S. Ross' March 2010 address to a Presbytery. Later on that same year, Christian Focus Publications published a book length treatment of Ross' research into the Threefold Division of the Law. This is part five of a seven part series.
Here's how I have broken down Ross' address into seven parts:
- Introduction
- Five Old Testament presuppositions that shape the New Testament's understanding of law
- Jesus and the Gospels
- The Apostolic Interpretation of the law in the Book of Acts
- The Epistles of the Apostles
- Conclusion
- Sabbath Extracts
Some passages that are relevant to the three categories of the threefold division. (pg. 266)
The study of Paul the law is an area of interminable debate, but much of those debates aren't directly relevant to this precise issue. (pg. 265)
The New Perspectives on Paul challenges the centrality of moral law in confessional soteriology more than it challenges the details of the threefold division. (pg. 266)
Beginning with ceremonial law, which the confession speaks of as 'typical ordinances' and 'moral duties', there are solid grounds to say that Hebrews 9 makes a purposeful and unavoidable demarcation of cultic laws. (pgs. 266 - 267)
This is not a demarcation, as certain scholars claim, that Hebrews imposes on the law but one that's derived from the law. (pgs. 266 - 267)
From the ceremonial law's first deliverance to Moses, they were intended to be shadows that proclaimed the existence of heavenly things and good things to come; the reality of Christ. (pgs. 267 - 275)
The same vocabulary emerges in Colossians 2:16 - 17, where Ross rejects the view arising from the hypothetical Colossian heresy that this passage refers to extra-Mosaic practices. The use of cult prostitutes, for example, can hardly be a shadow of things to come. (pgs. 273 - 275)
Rather the food and drink in view envisages all the dietary laws of the Old Testament (OT) and the OT usage itself suggests that 'Sabbaths' in that context serves as shorthand for the activities of those days and not the day itself. (pgs. 276 - 278)
The verses in Colossians 2:14 - 15 and Ephesians 2:14 - 18 speak of a wall of separation and of the breaking down of ordinances. (pgs. 279 - 280)
Commentators will argue that these two passages either refer to expansions of the law or to the law as a whole. (pgs. 280 - 284)
However, the law as a whole did not divide and why would God need to abolish man made laws at all?
Ephesians 2 and Colossians 2 may emphasize different things, but both deal with the laws of separation, which have gone with the rent veil. (pg. 284)
The veil was rent because of what Peter tells us about in 1 Peter 1:19 'the sacrifice of the lamb without blemish'. (pgs. 290 - 292)
Many theologians, following German theologians, dismiss the idea of vicarious suffering, rejecting any link between Peter and Leviticus, or arguing that in the Leviticus passage there is no idea of the transference of guilt to the goat. (pgs. 287 - 288)
Place taking is, however, central to Leviticus and to Isaiah 53, the lens through which Peter reads Leviticus, and if Jesus is a lamb without blemish his fulfillment of ceremonial law must depend on moral fulfillment. (pgs. 288 - 291)
For Peter, as for Matthew, Christ's fulfillment is moral, soteriological, and eschatological. (pg. 286)
As said earlier, the confessional approach to ceremonial law was not so crude that they failed to recognize that it also spoke of moral duties. (pg. 292)
These, 'moral duties', are the implied moral demands of ceremonial law that we see, for example, in 1 Corinthians 5 which calls on Christians to be what they are: the unleavened bread symbolizing discontinuity and a break with the past. (pgs. 292 - 293)
In such cases, Paul preserves inviolate the core significance of the ritual law while maintaining it is not binding. (pg. 295)
What the threefold division calls judicial, or civil, laws exist almost by default in the Epistles. (pg. 296)
But do they (the Epistles) support the idea that God always intended those laws (judicial) to have temporal standing? (pgs. 296 -298)
The mere fact that the Apostles called for Christians to submit themselves to secular authorities suggests as much, although that does not mean they (judicial laws) are irrelevant. (pgs. 298 - 299)
Hebrews shows us that although the penalties may have expired, they still speak. (pg. 299)
Paul's reference to oxen, 1 Corinthians 9:8 - 10, shows that the general equity of the law still applies. (pg. 300)
For God does not care about oxen, which is why Paul's point depends ultimately on the Decalogue substructure that undergirds the quotation Deuteronomy. (pgs. 304 - 306)
In that context, in Deuteronomy, the themes of integrity and contentment unite the ninth and the tenth commandments. (pg. 303) [As an aside from Ross, for a moment, this would be numbered the eighth, ninth, and tenth commandments in both the Lutheran and Roman Catholic churches. Both Lutherans and Roman Catholics along with others Christians throughout the centuries have separated the tenth commandment into two commandments numbered nine and ten. The Reformed tradition along with other Christians throughout the centuries have maintained a slightly different numbering of the Ten Commandment which means that Ross is talking about the commandment to not lie and to not covet.]
We would also think of the two witness rule quoted in 2 Corinthians 13 and 1 Timothy 5. (pgs. 304 - 306)
It is a straightforward application of Mosaic equity, but it does not demand literal application of the law since it (the two witness rule) too depends on the substructure of Deuteronomy. (pgs. 305 - 306)
Deuteronomy at the point of being quoted is concerned with the preservation of life. (pg. 305)
Such examples indicate that the Westminster Confession's 35 words on judicial law do not comprise an imposition upon Scripture, but reflection of biblical teaching. (pg. 308)
For many Christians the threefold division's most controversial claim is that the moral law, the Decalogue, is an ever binding perfect rule of righteousness and an obligation, which for Christians, is strengthened by Christ in the Gospels. (pg. 308)
When you think of Epistolary passages that support this (the Decalogue as an ever binding rule of righteousness) you might mention 1 Timothy 1:8 - 11; Romans 13:8 - 10; or James 2:8 - 11, and you would be right to do so. (pg. 341)
Despite the reluctance of someone like Douglas Moo to see royal law as a specific reference to the Mosaic law. (pg. 336)
Perhaps all that such reluctance shows is that by the time we come to the Epistles, whatever our position, the interpretive frameworks that we have developed play a decisive part in our exegetical conclusions.
In the Apostolic illusions to the Shema in 1 Corinthians 8 or James 2:19; in the call to love our neighbor in Romans 13 or Galatians 5 we hear an echo of Christ's voice, we hear Apostolic agreement with the principal that the two greatest commandments are a précis (meaning: 'a type of summary of abridgment) of the Decalogue. (pgs. 334 - 341)
For some interpreters, any notion of Apostolic agreement with the law is unthinkable - Paul was schizophrenic at best, about as constant in his affections for Moses as was Saul for David. (pgs. 308 - 318)
According to Heikki Räisänen, Paul's view of the law is 'full of difficulties and inconsistencies'. (pg. 309)
Ironically, Räisänen is so convinced that the Mosaic law consists of different elements that he thinks the threefold division handles the material better than Paul (pgs. 309 - 310)
A Dutch Reformed minster, T.E. Van Spanje, has produced a lengthy answer to Räisänen's charge of theological schizophrenia, but we should not be afraid to see tension in Paul's attitude to the law. (pg. 310)
If his (Paul's) view of divine revelation is rooted in the Old Testament we should expect tension, but that's not the same as inconsistency.
The idea that divine revelation may bring blessing or curse, brokenness or hardness, life or death, weaves its way from the Pentateuch through the Psalms and Prophets into the Gospels where the same word that cuts off every dead branch and prunes every live branch and weaves its way into the Epistles. (pgs. 311 - 313)
In 2 Corinthians 3, the law brings a deadly holocaust to the Jewish people that cannot be ended unless the life giving Spirit intervenes (pg. 313)
It is no negative commentary on the law, but recognition of the law's impotence to bring life and lasting glory.
The tension continues in the new order, the law will still kill you if you read it with a veil and new covenant ministry that may be the fragrance of life to some is the odor of death to others - it produces its own holocaust. (pg. 314)
Paul is not the only one to be charged with hostility to the law. (pg. 314)
In the eyes of Michael Morrison, the author of Hebrews has no place for the law at all since law in Hebrews quotation of Jeremiah 31:33 found in Hebrews 8:10 and 10:16 should be understood in the widest possible sense as instruction. (pgs. 314 - 315)
Jeremiah, however, will not let Morrison off with the charge (of the law having no place in the book of Hebrews) so easily. (pg. 315)
When the prophet speaks of 'My law' the context is suggestive of Sinai and Jeremiah 31:33 is, Ross believes, addressing the same commandments as at Sinai. (pgs. 315 - 316)
These 'ten words' are the only laws that God inscribes. (pg. 316)
Hebrews is not talking about a redrafted morality. That is not what makes the New Covenant 'New'. (pg. 316)
It is not 'new' because the New Covenant believers' obedience is qualitatively superior to Abrams'; it is all about Jesus Christ. (pg. 317)
This covenant is better because it is enacted upon better promises, not necessarily those promises) contained within it (new covenant), but those promises made to Christ, 'You are a priest forever', God will not change His mind, Christ's priesthood will not fail. (pg. 317)
All the circumcised hearts in the cloud of witnesses, every law inscribed heart in which the Father makes His home is only so because of our Mediator. (pg. 318)
Far from rendering obsolete the laws inscribed in stone His all eclipsing priesthood makes them a lively script that will never pass away. (pg. 318)
Part of the argument in the WCF for ever-binding moral law is that this law is ineffably inscribed on human hearts. (pg. 318)
Romans 2:15, which speaks of Gentiles who have the work of the law written on their hearts, is a key passage. (pg. 318)
But what Gentile hearts?
'Not any Gentile hears,' says N.T. Wright, Jewett, and Gathercole, 'Paul is talking about Gentile Christians'. (pg. 318)
Gathercole's defense of this view is the most comprehensive, but Ross believes is seems inconceivable that there could have been Gentile Christians who were, as Gathercole says, 'actually not hearers of Torah at all'. (pgs. 319 - 320)
Just how did these Christians manage to avoid the Psalms, the Prophets, the Sermon on the Mount, and debates about the law? (pg. 320)
Why should the idea that all people, in some sense, do what the law requires have been foreign to Paul?
Surely, in view of the Pentateuch's assumptions about the law, that the laws of Sinai were self-understood from the beginning, it would have been natural for him (Paul) to think like that.
In fact, the suggestion from Akio Ito that Paul may have been alluding to Deuteronomy 30:14 may support that point, especially if Matthew Henry was right to see in the text of Deuteronomy a reference to 'the law of nature, which would have been found in every man's heart, and every man's mouth, if he would but have attended to it.' (pg. 322)
So Paul, then is reflecting Scripture-wide presuppositions about the Decalogue. (pg. 323)
Paul is, as John Murray says, answering 'the question arising from verse 12, namely: If the Gentiles are without the law, how can they be regarded as having sinned?' (pg. 323)
How else can we make sense of verses 15 - 16 of Romans 2? (pgs. 323 - 324)
It is not Gentile Christians who will be in turmoil on that day, but unbelievers, who having suppressed the truth find exposed upon their hearts an inscription of the law that reason could not erase and darkness could not hide. (pg. 324)
On this understanding of Romans, the opening section of chapter 19 of the WCF provides a coherent expression of Apostolic teaching. (pg. 324)
When that day comes when God judges the secrets of men's hearts by what standard will He judge? On what basis will men be convicted of their sin? What is sin?
Strangely enough, you might get a more conservative definition of 'sin' from a lexicographer than a theologian.
While the Oxford English Dictionary happily defines 'sin' as 'transgression of the divine law' some NT scholars prefer the generality of 'evil' or 'iniquity'. (pg. 325)
Even when the passage involved is 1 John 3:4. which defines 'sin' as transgression of the law, or lawlessness, Stephen Smalley wants to argue that the connection between sin and lawbreaking in the OT is not strong. (pgs. 325, 327)
None of the attempts to separate lawlessness from law are convincing. Especially when the alternative definition of sin that these writers generally propose, such as, 'opposing God' describe things that are transgressions of the law anyway. (pgs. 328 - 329)
Not only does John define sin as lawbreaking; James 2:8 - 12 indirectly defines sin as transgression of law from the Decalogue, or the summarizing great commandments. (pg. 329)
Sin is not a roughly defined problem.
Righteousness is not a fluctuating ideal.
The great Day of judgement will be according to the self-understood norms of the Decalogue, and that is an implicit assumption in Romans 2 and elsewhere.
When Romans 1 meets a litany of iniquities with unvarying response of judgement none of those death-deserving deeds go beyond established or plausible applications of the Decalogue. (pg. 332)
The only lawgiver and judge employs no double standard.
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So, there you have it. The threefold division is biblical and comes to full expression in the Epistles. However, it is important to note all the threads that begun in Genesis up through Acts in the previous four parts that lead to the full revelation of how we need to understand God's law. The next post, on this topic, will be a much shorter conclusion of the entire address. This part covered chapter seven in Ross' book, which is 85 pages.
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