God gave His followers a Moral Code written by Himself in stone and put it in a very special place with a repeated charge that His people should follow it all their days.
God also gave His nation, the Israelites, codes and rules to regulate their political/civil and religious life. These were written by a man, Moses, and not written on stone, and not placed in the ark with the Ten, but leaned against the ark on the outside yet in the Holy of Holies.
While all are God’s laws, there is a clear distinction between the moral law and the ceremonial law (worship laws) and the civil laws (governing laws). God brought the civil laws to an end with the conquest of Jerusalem in 586 BC and He clearly indicated the end of the ceremonial laws when He reached down and ripped the great veil in the temple when Jesus died exposing the inner room of the temple – a most sacred and revered place. God ended the civil and ceremonial laws, BUT not the moral law! Too many Christians have “thrown the baby out with the bath water.” Here are some texts to support such an assertion…
Locations –
- Deuteronomy 10:4-5, And He wrote on the tablets according to the first writing, the Ten Commandments, which the Lord had spoken to you in the mountain from the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly; and the Lord gave them to me. Then I turned and came down from the mountain, and put the tablets in the ark which I had made; and there they are, just as the Lord commanded me.”
- Deuteronomy 31:24-26, So it was, when Moses had completed writing the words of this law in a book, when they were finished, that Moses commanded the Levites, who bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying: “Take this Book of the Law, and put it beside the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there as a witness against you.”
The Moral Law –
Jesus – John 15:10, If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.
Romans 13:9, For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not bear false witness,” “You shall not covet,” and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Matthew 22:35-40, Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
II John 1:6, This is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, that as you have heard from the beginning, you should walk in it.
Revelation 22:14, Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city.
The Civil and Ceremonial Laws –
Colossians 2:13-14, And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross… 16 So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.
Keep the baby! Pitch the water!
a PK Musing 
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