A. The rule which God at first revealed to man for his obedience, was the moral law.

When we talk about “kinds” of law or the “forms” of the law, there are two divisions that the Christian tradition has referenced. The breakdown of eternal, natural, divine, and human law is most famously set forth in Aquinas’ Summa, but it was assumed by the entire Reformed tradition until Barth and Van Til in the twentieth century. Two early instances of it among the Reformed can be found in Turretin’s Institutes or in The Mosaic Polity of Franciscus Junius. 

A classical passage that unites these two concepts is where Paul speaks of the link between the Gentiles and the Jews in terms of what God has obligated. 

“For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them” (Rom. 2:14-15). 

So since the next question (Q41) more specifically focuses on the moral law, as summarized by the Ten Commandments, here were just going to introduce the grammar of the Christian teaching on law—(1) the Four Kinds of Law in General and (2) the Three Forms of the Law in the Bible; and then we will do some (3) Defending these divisions and hiearchies of law.

The Four Kinds of Law in General

The majority Christian tradition has agreed that there is an eternal law, a divine law, a natural law, and a civil law. The exact meaning of these terms may not be so obvious at first glance. At the risk of oversimplification, we could put things in the following way.

Kind of law     Location of Law

Eternal law  God’s justice in himself

Divine law       God’s law in Scripture

Natural law      God’s law in nature

Human law          man’s law in government

Notice that hierarchy here. A chart for the visual learner can easily be conceived. Eternal law must be placed at the very top and center and stretching over all. It is something in God. Human law must be placed at the bottom, and in particulars moving from left to right, just as moments of time and events of history move from left to right. The eternal is the universal and the human is the particular. But how place natural law to the left in the circle of all created things, and then divine law in a single book within that same circle. The reason for that placement will become evident as we think it through. Now let us get some more definition.

Eternal law is “the immutable concept and form of reason existing before all time in God.”1 Thomas was equally Platonic in calling such law a “type of the things”2 of moral nature. Eternal law may seem like a very abstract category. It may also seem odd to call it law. However, think about this in terms of ultimate grounding for the justness of any law. We understand that justice and righteousness are ultimately divine attributes. 

Since the law of God is rooted in his holy character, the law concerns equity. That means what is due to people. This is the real “fairness doctrine.” This equality before the law is manifest in in the other forms of law, but we especially talk about it in regard to the civil law: “There shall be one law for the native and for the stranger who sojourns among you” (Ex. 12:49). That there is an eternal law is shown in the biblical rationale for the people’s conformity. At the very heart of the Levitical code is the command:

“For I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. You shall not defile yourselves with any swarming thing that crawls on the ground. For I am the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy” (Lev. 11:44-45).

So if anyone is ever wondering whether or not “eternal law” can be justified by particular Scriptures, we reply—Yes. Wherever a command grounds itself in the eternal way that God is. The reason given for the people’s holiness was God’s holiness. The whole of the law is what it is because of what it says about God. 

Natural law is “that which innate to creatures endowed with reason and informs them with common notions of nature, that is, with principles and conclusions adumbrating the eternal law by a certain participation.”3 Thomas said the same in these words, “participation of the eternal law in the rational creature,” or “a natural inclination to [eternal law’s] due act and end.”4 So. natural law is very closely associated with the moral law.

The basic difference is that while natural law is God’s duties communicated through the nature of created things (in this case, moral things), the moral law will be the Holy Spirit inspired and written clarification of that more specific to God’s purposes with Israel. So when the Catechism asks (Q.40) “What did God at first reveal to man for the rule of his obedience?” it means by “at first” that original stock that made up the entire human race. It is not simply talking about Israelites but all human beings. And yet the Puritans who wrote the confession used the term moral law in their answer as being of the same substance as  natural law. So, “The rule which God at first revealed to man for his obedience was the moral law.”

Brakel gives a concise version of the standard Reformed position:

“Man, in the state of perfection, had all this perfectly impressed upon his nature, and after the fall this impression remained in all men, although imperfectly.”5

Divine law is, in the words of Junius, “that which has been inspired by God.”6 All of God’s specific commands in Scripture. But it is too simple to call these the laws given to Israel and the church for reasons that we will see. Thomas had already given four reasons why a divine law was necessary, in addition to the law of nature:

(i) to direct man to a greater end that he can know by nature;

(ii) due to the uncertainty and conflicting human judgments in civil matters;

(iii) to instruct about internal motives, which while not a civil matter, aid virtue;

(iv) to condemn all acts that are above and beyond the civil sphere.7

Human law is straightforward. These are simply any laws or rules that men make—though ordinarily having the connotation of the civil sphere, or human government. This is true for a king’s edict, a nation’s whole constitution, a judge’s ruling, or individual pieces of legislation. At this point, even the secular political philosopher speaks of what is called a “law-legislation” distinction. This is the distinction that recognizes a “law above the law,” or a law that is above the laws of men. Let me illustrate with two quotations, one from the ancient pagan Cicero in his Republic, and the other from Martin Luther King Jr’s Letter From a Birmingham Jail. 

First, to Cicero, 

“True law is right reason in agreement with Nature … it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting; it summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrong-doing by its prohibitions. And it does not lay its commands and prohibitions on good men in vain, although neither have any effect upon the wicked. It is a sin to try to alter this law, nor is allowable to attempt to repeal a part of it, and it is impossible to abolish it entirely. We cannot be freed from its obligations by Senate or People, and we need not look outside ourselves for an expounder or interpreter of it. And there will not be different laws at Rome and at Athens, or different laws now and in the future, but one eternal and unchangeable law will be valid for all nations and for all times, and there will be one master and one rule, that is, God, over us all, for He is the author of this law, its promulgator, and its enforcing judge.”8

Now from Martin Luther King Jr., 

“How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law.”9

One implication of all this is that every temporally-made law is derived from, and a reflection of, the eternal law. It can either conform to it more nearly, or rebel against it. Thomas cites Proverbs 8:15, “By me kings reign, and rulers decree what is just,” to argue, that “all laws proceed from eternal law.”10 So Augustine said, “all laws, insofar as they partake of right reason, are derived from the eternal law.”11 Junius again brings the same into the Reformed tradition, in saying, 

“For the proximate rule of human law is twofold: one innate, which we call natural law; the other inspired, which we call divine law. Moreover, these two laws proceeded from the eternal law, as from its own immutable archetype. Therefore, human law proceeds from these sources. These laws are the birthplace of the human laws. If a law wanders from its source, it is degenerate, unworthy of the name of law.”12

The Three Forms of the Law in the Bible

When theologians speak of the “three forms” of the law, what they ordinarily have in mind is the division of the law of Moses — 1. moral law; 2. ceremonial law; 3. civil law. We should define our terms carefully about this. The ‘moral law’ refers to that sense of the will of God that all human beings have in the form of conscience. It is the law given to human beings as moral agents. Again, Romans 2:14-15 assumes this distinction in linking what the Gentiles have written on the heart to the same substance of commands in the law of Moses.

That is the law for all mankind. And yet we speak of the moral law within the law of Moses, the law given specifically to the Jews. Question 41 next time will get more into this, where it says: “The moral law is summarily comprehended in the ten commandments.” If such had already been given in the conscience of all, why such an inscripturated moral law? Calvin answers that it “removes the obscurity of the law of nature.”13

The ‘ceremonial law’ is that body of rules dictating Israel’s worship. Rules for priests, sacrifices and offerings, the feast days, and then the exact architecture of the tabernacle while in the wilderness, and finally the temple, once in the land. All of this says something about God. But then so do the dictates of the moral and civil law. Here there is a clearer drama of the gospel. As the author of Hebrews said: “They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things” (8:5), and even more specifically,

“For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near” (10:1).

It is in the ceremony, Calvin tells us, that the covenant of grace with God’s people is shown to still be moving along toward Jesus: “Moses was not appointed as Lawgiver, to do away with the blessing promised to the race of Abraham; no we see that he is constantly reminding the Jews of the free covenant which had been made with their fathers, and of which they were heirs.”14 So think of the moral law as “image of God shaped” and the ceremonial law as “priest of God shaped.”

The designation ‘civil law,’ is sometimes used as a synonym for “human law,” as Aquinas used that latter term. Here we will mean the same thing, except that the context is now the Mosaic instruction to the leadership of Israel’s theocratic government. While the civil law is for human use, yet in this case (because it is divine law), they are not of human origin. These are God's imperatives for civil society. In this class of laws we might think of all of the unpacking of Commandments Five through Ten that occur in the following chapters of Exodus. These deal with murderers and adulterers, thieves and false witnesses. but then that raises the question over whether the whole Decalogue—both tables—are really a civil matter. The Reformed tradition historically answered in the affirmative. 

Understanding the three forms of the law goes a long way toward explaining the sense in which we “are not under law but under grace” (Rom. 6:14). Listen to Calvin again on this point, “What Paul says, as to the abrogation of the Law, evidently applies not to the Law itself, but merely to its power of constraining the conscience.”15 There will be even more clues about this as we proceed.

Defending These Divisions and Hierarchies of Law

Let’s start at the simplest arena of debate: Does the Bible clearly teach that there are three forms of the law within the Mosaic? Yes. However, if we have learned anything so far about theology and biblical interpretation, to paraphrase Turretin: We do theology on the concept level and not merely the word level. 

Now it is true that the words “ceremonial” and “moral” are not used in such texts. Just as the word “Trinity” is nowhere found “in the Bible.” But rational beings are not searching for mere ink patterns, but for meaning. Is the thing taught by the words, taken as a whole? That should always be the question.

Consider the words of Jesus. 

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others” (Mat. 23:23).

Some parts of the law “weigh” more than others. But the ones that carry more weight are the attributes of God and not the items that the wealthier religious leaders could find in abundance on their spice racks. In other words, being more like God takes deep moral reflection and courage. That makes it equally hard for everyone. It both levels the playing field between rich and poor in this world, and it forces everyone to always take inventory of their hearts (not that spice rack!). Hopefully we are already beginning to get the sense that a true look into God’s law decimates not only antinomianism, but also its opposite: legalism. The law of God is no light thing over which mere mortals can boast.

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1. Junius, The Mosaic Polity, 42.

2. Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Part II, Q.93. Art.1

3. Junius, The Mosaic Polity, 44.

4. Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Part II, Q.91. Art.2

5. Brakel, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, III:37.

6. Junius, The Mosaic Polity, 49.

7. Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Part II, Q.91. Art.4

8. Cicero, De Republica, III.22.

9. Martin Luther King Jr, A Letter from a Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963

10. Augustine, On the Free Choice of the Will, I.6.

11. Junius, The Mosaic Polity, 55.

12. Calvin, Institutes, II.8.1.

13. Calvin, Institutes, II.7.1

14. Calvin, Institutes, II.7.15