The Three-fold Division of the Law

Why is it that "You shall not commit murder" is still considered a binding law from the Old Testament, but "You shall not wear a garment upon you of two kinds of material mixed together" is not considered binding on New Testament Christians today? Are we just being inconsistent? Are we hypocrites? Are we just arbitrarily picking and choosing which commandments we think are worth keeping from the Old Testament, while dismissing the ones we don't like? Actually, no. There is a very good reason why we abide by the former and don't observe the latter. It has to do with the different kinds of law found in the Old Testament. There are three: moral, ceremonial and civil (judicial). Moral law, contained in the ten commandments, is binding on the entire human race throughout time. It is timeless. Ceremonial law includes all those statutes that served to either separate Israel frolm the Gentiles or prepare them for the advent of Jesus Christ, the Messiah. Once Christ came and was crucified, raised and ascended, there was no more need for prepartory laws. It was at that time that Christ took down the dividing wall between Jews and Gentiles and took away all those statutes which served to separate the two groups (such as the food laws). Civil laws are the laws uniqe to Israel as a theocratic nation. In the new covenant, the people of God consists of the church and there is no one nation state where they live. Church and government are considered different entities (Rom. 13). The government handles the death penalty and other penalties for law breaking (Rom. 13), and the church uses church discipline (1 Cor. 5; Matt. 18:15-19). So, the New Testament gives us the interpretive grid.