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 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
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