Journal: Southern Baptist Journal of Theology
Volume: SBJT 26:1 (Spring 2022)
Article: Paul And The Tripartite View Of The Law Of Moses
Author: Joshua M. Greever

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Paul And The Tripartite View Of The Law Of Moses

Joshua M. Greever

Joshua M. Greever is Associate Professor of New Testament at Bethlehem College and Seminary, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He earned his PhD in New Testament at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky. He has written numerous articles and is currently co-editing a book on the topic of justice in the Bible. As an ordained minister, he formerly pastored Pleasant Home Baptist Church, Prague, Oklahoma. He and his wife, Amelia, are the parents of four children, and are active members of Bethlehem Baptist Church.

The question this essay will address concerns the Apostle Paul’s perspective on the use of the law of Moses in the Christian life and in civil government. This is a single question with two prongs of application. One prong concerns the Christian life, broadly conceived, and seeks to address the continuing relevance of the law of Moses for new covenant believers. The other prong addresses the continuing relevance of the law of Moses for civil government at all levels (e.g., local, state, federal), specifically whether the law of Moses should be the standard to which Christians should hold their governments accountable and which Christians should promote through their normal legislative processes. At the heart of the question, which inevitably affects both prongs of application, is whether the Bible portrays the law of Moses as divisible into parts or aspects, and if so, which of these parts are now abolished through Christ and which remain in force.

Within the Reformed tradition, it has been commonplace to construe the law of Moses as tripartite, consisting of the ceremonial, civil, and moral law. Within this schema, a common view has been that only the moral law remains in force, whereas the ceremonial and civil laws have been abolished. Christians are still bound to obey the moral law but are not obligated to

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obey the ceremonial or civil laws, the ceremonial being abolished through the definitive work of Christ and the civil being limited in application to the time and place of theocratic ancient Israel.1 However, within this tradition, some have stressed that only the ceremonial law has been abolished and that, in addition to the moral law, the civil law remains in force today, whether maximally in the details of its legislation or minimally in its principles of justice. This latter approach is associated with the label “theonomy,”2 which in some of its manifestations has roots in the Reformed tradition, had a heyday in a particular form in the late twentieth century,