Few subjects receive as much criticism when it comes to Adventist theology than that of the law. Many former Adventists are shocked to learn that the tripartite, or threefold, division of the law is not unique to Adventism. The understanding that scripture teaches the law is divided into moral, ceremonial and judicial is something that was believed and understood by Christians, almost universally, long before the birth of the Seventh-day Adventist movement.
English reformer, William Perkins, for example, writes:
The law in general, is that part of God’s Word, which commands things just, honest, and godly, and being thus conceived, it is threefold: ceremonial, judicial, and moral.
The ceremonial law, is that part of God’s Word, which prescribed to the Jews, ceremonies, rites, and orders, to be performed in the worship of God. This law is laid down in the books of Moses, especially in Leviticus.
The judicial law, is that part of God’s Word, which prescribed ordinances for the government of the Jews’ commonwealth, and the civil punishment of offenders. The ceremonial law concerned the Jews only. The judicial law did indeed principally concern them, but yet so far forth as it tends to the establishing of the moral law, having in it common equity, it concerns all people, in all times and places.
What the moral law is, I will describe in three points:
1. It is that part of God’s Word, concerning righteousness and godliness, which was written in Adam’s mind by the gift of creation; and the remnants of it be in every man by the light of nature, in regard whereof, it binds all men.
2. It commands perfect obedience, both inward in thought and affection, and outward in speech and action.
3. It binds to the curse and punishment everyone that fails in the least duty thereof, though but once, and that in thought only: ‘Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the law to do them’ (Gal. 3:10).
The sum of the moral law is propound in the Decalogue or Ten Commandments, which many can repeat, but few do understand. That we may further conceive aright the moral law, we must make a difference between it and the gospel, for the gospel is that part of the Word which promises righteousness and life everlasting to all that believe in Christ.
William Perkins, The Works of William Perkins, 1:243-44
What Perkins notes was not unique to him but is an understanding of scripture in a long line of theologians preceding him. And the key to this discussion is found in the final sentence of his quote. In order to properly understand this subject, one must understand the distinction between the law and the gospel—something the Seventh-day Adventist system of theology does not understand.
Francis Turretin, another Protestant reformer, in his Institutes of Elenctic Theology, writes:
The law given by Moses is usually distinguished into three species: moral (treating of morals or of perpetual duties towards God and our neighbor); ceremonial (of the ceremonies or rites about the sacred things to be observed under the Old Testament); and civil, constituting the civil government of the Israelite people. The first is the foundation upon which rests the obligation of the others and these are its appendices and determinations. Ceremonial has respect to the first table determining its circumstances, especially as to external worship. Civil has respect to the second table in judicial things, although it lays down punishments for crimes committed against the first table.
Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, pg. 145
It’s important to understand that, in this discussion, the Seventh-day Adventist Church did not novelly concoct this idea out of thin air. Like many areas, they have taken something that was readily understood by sound theologians and then filtered it through their extra-biblical Great Controversy Worldview which distorts this biblical truth, resulting in serious theological errors and practical applications. Without understanding this, Christians will miss where the true rub is.
The Biblical Case for the Tripartite Division
This division is arrived at by examining the diversity of the names that are used in scripture to designate the varying aspects of the law. The moral law is very often referred to as “precepts,” the ceremonial by “statues,” and the judicial/civil by “judgments”—such as in Deuteronomy 5:31; 6:1, 20; and 7:11 as well as Leviticus 26:46. This is not to say that all 613 commands are not rightly referred to as God’s law, but within that we very clearly see distinctions to a certain degree.
As Francis Turretin also writes:
The distinction appears principally from the nature of the thing and the office of the law (whose it is to settle the order according to which man is joined to God and his neighbor). Now man is joined to God first by a certain internal and external likeness—in love and justice, holiness and truth, whose rule the moral law delivers. Again by the external signification and testification of those acts of divine worship (marks and symbols being employed) whose use the ceremonial law prescribes. Finally, what duty man owes to man, the civil law (applied more distinctly to the Israelites) explains. The moral law regards the Israelite people as men; the ceremonial as the church of the Old Testament expecting the promised Messiah; the civil regards them as a peculiar people who in the land of Canaan ought to have a republic suiting their genius and disposition.
Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, pg. 145-6
Put another way, the civil law, for example, was distinct to national Israel and not expected of the surrounding nations. The civil laws were given to Israel to be a distinct part of their functional theocratic system. However, murder, for example, was not distinct to only Israelites. It was universally wrong for all peoples, in all places, at all times. Such as with Cain in Genesis 4 which long preceded national Israel. This is because the moral law of God is written upon the conscience of all humans beings, as Paul explains in Romans 2:14-16. Murder being a part of that moral law. The ceremonial and civil law is not a part of natural law, hence, it is not written upon the conscience.
The one major caveat being that the Jews were in covenant with the entirety of the law which added a unique aspect to their relationship to the law that the surrounding nations did not possess. With this came unique covenant stipulations and penalties.
Earlier I showed how William Perkins noted that the key in this area is understanding the law gospel distinction. The problem Answering Adventism would take with Seventh-day Adventism in this area is not over the tripartite division of the law, something almost universal in Christian understanding before the 19th century, but their unlawful use of the law and the systems inability to distinguish between the law and the gospel.
The law of the Lord our God that was handed down to His people through Moses is partly ethical, partly sacrificial, and partly political. The ethical portion shows in what way each person must be disposed of both toward God most of all, then toward his neighbor. And so, as it stands in judgment upon us for condemnation in our own persons because of the accompanying threatenings joined to it that are against those who have transgressed the law even at the smallest point, so in Christ, who has been made our righteousness by most abundantly fulfilling the law for us at the same time as has he has also satisfied the penalties we owed, the law is so far from harming us that, on the contrary, in Christ, who is laid hold of by faith, we are absolved from its condemnation, we gain the crown which the law promises to those who keep it, and the law itself shows to us who are sanctified by the Spirit of the gospel the path of the good and straight road.
Theodore Beza, A Clear and Simple Treatise on the Lord’s Supper, pg. 171
All of us have sinned against God and have violated His law (Romans 3:23, 1 John 3:4). Which is why we stand condemned as sinners. It isn’t that we have all violated the civil or sacrificial law of Israel, but the actual moral imperatives that God desires for us to live up to as His image bearers in the world. This is why Paul could state that Jesus has freed the believer from the curse of the law (Galatians 3:13). There is an aspect of the law that all of humanity is bound under and stands condemned apart from Christ. But Christ fulfilled all of the law perfectly, freeing believers from it’s condemnation, and by being “in Him” we can be seen in God’s sight as if we have never violated it one single time.
This is another area where we would argue the Adventist system has vestiges of truth, but has distorted this truth leading to errant conclusions. Namely, how the law is to be used in the Christian life.