A Spiritual Autobiography—IV
By J. A. L. Derby
The Ceremonial Law and the Moral
IN the last instalment of this account of the growth of my beliefs concerning the law of God, some reference was made to the use of the terms “ceremonial” and “moral.” While it is one of the commonest facts of Biblical knowledge, that the ancient Jewish religion had an elaborate and complicated ritual, and that the practises of this ritual are in all Biblical commentaries called “the ceremonial law,” and that likewise the Decalogue is known as “the moral law”—while the use of these two terms is the usual method of distinguishing the two laws, it will on a little reflection become evident that this mode is more convenient than logical. And here I met with a curious experience. I found, when talking casually with a person, that he would be perfectly free to speak of the Decalogue as the moral law, and of the other as the ceremonial law; but when I called his attention to the fact that “moral” meant “pertaining to duty,” and that if the Ten Commandments constitute the moral law, they are binding, including the Sabbath, he presently began to note that the “ceremonial” law must have been “moral” also, for that it was a binding obligation must be admitted. His purpose, of course, was to show that a “moral” law may be abolished, and hence the Sabbath probably. To forestall such an evasion, it becomes necessary, with people of that sort, to be very nice, very accurate, in our use of terms. The objector is indeed correct in his position that “moral” and “ceremonial” are not antonyms. The opposite of “moral” is “immoral.” This latter character did not, of course, attach to the ceremonial law. Another assumption that usually lurks about the objection just indicated, and about the common distinction of “moral” and “ceremonial,” is that “ceremonial” is synonymous with “non-moral,” or “unmoral.” This matter is easily settled. If morality means obedience to God’s commands, the ceremonial law was, while in force, unquestionably moral. God did not give the Jewish ritual as a thing the observance of which was morally indifferent or optional. I have already mentioned, in a previous article, that the whole law, ceremonies and all, is called the law of God. Some texts on this point are again appended here: Neh. 10:29; 8:8, 1, 14, 18; 2 Kings 18:6; Luke 2:23, 24, 39. There are others also. Another characteristic of the ceremonial law was treated at some length in my last week’s paper; namely, that the ceremonial law was as unchangeable as the Ten Commandments. It could cease to be significant or obligatory, because it was only typical of Christ, His attributes, offices, and functions; but it could not be changed while in force. It was final. Thirdly, it was temporal. It was “a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices; . . . which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances [margin, “rights, or ceremonies”], imposed on them [Israel] until the time of reformation. But Christ being come,” etc. Heb. 9:9-11. Note the phrase, “until the time of reformation,” and its equivalent one, “but Christ being come.” By the coming and death of the Messiah, type met antitype; it was no longer “a shadow of good things to come” (Heb. 10:1); it ceased by limitation. In order to make definite and clear what was abolished by the death of Christ, it is only necessary to read the first nine verses of the tenth chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews. We transcribe it from the Authorized Version: “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. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshipers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. Wherefore when He cometh into the world, He saith, Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldest not, but a body hast Thou prepared Me: in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin Thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the Book it is written of Me,) to do Thy will, O God. Above when He said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin Thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law; then said He, Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that He may establish the second.” Now let us put this scripture in the vernacular, as given in the Twentieth Century New Testament: “The law, tho it was able to foreshadow the better system that was coming, never had its actual substance. Its priests, with those sacrifices which they offered continuously year after year, could not make those who came to worship perfect. Otherwise, would not the offering of these sacrifices have been abandoned, as the worshipers, having been once purified, had their consciences clear from sins? But, on the contrary, these sacrifices recall their sins to mind year after year. For the blood of bulls and goats is powerless to remove sins. That is why, when He was coming into the world, the Christ declared—‘Sacrifice and offering Thou [God] dost not desire, but Thou dost provide for Me a body; Thou dost take no pleasure in burnt offering and sacrifice for sin. So I said, “See, I have come” (as is written about Me in the pages of the Book), “to do Thy will, O God.”’ First come the words—‘Thou dost not desire, nor dost Thou take pleasure in, sacrifice, offering, burnt offering, and sacrifice for sin’ (offerings regularly made under the law), and then there is added—‘See, I have come to do Thy will.’ The former statement is set aside to be replaced by the latter. And it is in the carrying out of God’s will that we have been purified by the sacrifice, once and for all, of the body of Jesus Christ.” The First Taken Away; the Second Established
Notice especially, in the Authorized Version, the clause, “He taketh away the first”—sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offerings for sin—“that He may establish the second”—the “body of Christ.” All this is so clear that the wayfaring man, tho a fool, need not err therein. This says nothing about the abolition of the Ten Commandments, or of the law of tithes, or of the law of clean and unclean meats, or of that concerning usury, or of many other things. Read, for example, the twenty-first, twenty-second, and twenty-third chapters of Exodus. The laws in these three chapters, with few exceptions, were no more abolished by the death of Christ than was the Decalogue. What is to be done with these three chapters, and many other parts of the old law, of the same unceremonial nature? The answer to this question was so easy, I marveled that I did not stumble on it before. It lies in the nature of the kingdom Christ preached. When Persia lay prostrate at the feet of Alexander, or Cæsar Augustus stood at the head of the Roman Empire, or William of Normandy conquered Harold at Senlac, no greater opportunity, or right, or power, was afforded for the introduction of a totally new code of laws than when Jesus Christ came as the new King and Lawgiver of Israel. Not only so, but a new form of the kingdom He did preach. His first preaching, as also that of John the Baptist, was of that kingdom: “In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the Wilderness of Judea, and saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Matt. 3:1, 2. “From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Matt. 4:17. Kingdom Not of This World
If Alexander, or Augustus, or William the Conqueror, continued any of the laws of the8kingdoms they conquered, it was not because they were under any necessity of so doing. Likewise with the form of the kingdom proclaimed by the Messiah; He had the absolute right to transfer to it all, some, or none, of the laws of ancient Israel. Now what was the nature of His kingdom? Listen to the answer of Jesus to Pilate: “My kingdom is not of this world.” John 18: 36. His empire is a spiritual one. In that fact is ignored, rejected, as such, every national law of the Jewish race. Jesus was put to death because, while claiming to be King, He refused the temporal crown. His is a kingdom of eternal principles. “Unto the Son He [God] saith, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever: a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Thy kingdom.” Heb. 1: 8. What, then, is the Mosaic code to a subject of Christ’s kingdom? — It is simply so much divine material with which reason and conscience have to do in formulating principles for spiritual guidance. We do not now put witches to death, but we learn from the old code the abhorrence God has for spiritistic practises. We do not leave for the poor the produce of our fields and vineyards and olive orchards every seventh year, but we understand the tender regard God has for the poor. In concluding this paper, we mention once more that the CONSTITUTION of the new kingdom is exactly the same as the constitution of the old,—the Ten Words.