This is long but answers your question.
THE LAW OF MOSES AND ITS APPLICABILITY TO TODAY
Definition: The laws given to Moses consists of a comprehensive set of guidelines to ensure that the Israelites' behavior reflected their status as God's chosen people.
According to Romans 9:6-8, Israel is made up of those who have faith in the promise, according to Ephesians 2:12-19, Gentiles are now fellow citizens of Israel through faith in Messiah, according to 1 Peter 2:9-10, Gentiles are now included among God's chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, and a treasure of God's own possession, all things that were only said in reference to Israel. So because we have been grafted into God's chosen people, Israel, our behavior should likewise reflect our status as such. How can someone be part of a holy nation while refusing to follow God's Laws for how to have a holy conduct?
It encompasses moral behavior, their position as a godly example to other nations, and systematic procedures for acknowledging God's holiness and mankind's sinfulness.
Some of the dietary and cleanliness laws were probably set up by God for health reasons and He may have given them other laws for no other reason than to separate their culture from that of the peoples who lived around them. He wanted a holy, ‘set apart’ people who did not live as other people lived. God also was preparing the Hebrews for the day when He would send His Son to save the world. A major purpose for having a special people like the Hebrews in the first place was to prepare a religious and cultural environment suitable for raising (and later bringing about the sacrificial death of) His Son.
There are night and day differences between the healthiness of clean and unclean animals, so it is certainly reasonable to think that is one of the reasons that God had for commanding dietary laws, however, holiness is about much more than that. It is not about being set apart for the sake of being set apart, but rather it is about being set apart for a specific purpose, so God did not give any commands just so that they would be different from the surrounding cultures, but rather God gave them instructions for how to be holy because He is holy, so it is about acting according to the eternal and unchanging holiness of our God.
In an attempt to better understand the purpose of these laws, Jews and Christians categorize them. This has led to the distinction between moral law, ceremonial law, and judicial law. Some of the latter two types are time-limited and culture-limited laws rather than universal laws meant to apply to all times and places and peoples. Figuring out which laws are which is then an important task so that we can know if they continue to apply to us.
Moral Law
The moral laws, or mishpatim, relate to justice and judgment and are often translated as "ordinances." These moral laws are said to be based on God's holy nature. As such, the ordinances are holy, just, and unchanging. Their purpose is to promote the welfare of those who obey. The value of the laws is considered obvious by reason and common sense. The moral law encompasses regulations on justice, respect, and sexual conduct, and includes the Ten Commandments. It also includes penalties for failure to obey the ordinances. The moral law does not point people to Christ; it merely illuminates the fallen state of all mankind and ultimately to their need for Christ.
I have found that dividing the law into these categories does more of a disservice than it helps. If morality is only in regard to man's relationship with man and not man's relationship with God, then the first four of the Ten Commandments are not moral laws, including the law against idolatry. However, if morality is also in regard to man's relationship with God, then it is immoral to disobey any of God's Laws. Morality is based on God's character and we ought to obey God, so all of God's Laws are inherently moral Laws.
Leviticus 11:44-45 I am the Lord your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy. Do not make yourselves unclean by any creature that moves along the ground. 45 I am the Lord, who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy.
The article that you copied that from claims that the moral Laws are based on God's holy nature, yet it should be clear from the above verses that God's dietary Laws are also based on God's holy nature, but the article puts the dietary laws in that category of ceremonial laws, however, the ceremonial laws are essentially God's instructions for how to have a holy conduct because God is holy. Furthermore, in 1 Peter 1:13-16, we are told to have a holy conduct because God is holy, which is a reference to Leviticus where God was given ceremonial laws as part of his instructions for how to have a holy conduct. It should also be relatively straightforward that God's holy days are based off of His holy nature and part of what it means to have a holy conduct, but they are also categorized as ceremonial laws. God command the His holy days as ordinances lasting forever, so they are also unchanging, just as God's holiness is unchanging. It says that the moral Laws include the Ten Commandments, which means that it is immoral to not keep the Sabbath holy, yet most Christians worship on Sunday instead. All of God Laws teach us about Christ, so they all point to Christ, and obedience to all of them is about growing in a relationship with Him based on faith and love.
Modern Protestants are divided over the applicability of these kinds of laws in the church age. Some believe that Jesus' assertion that the law will remain in effect until the earth passes away (
Matthew 5:18) means that believers are still bound to it. Others, however, understand that Jesus fulfilled this requirement (
Matthew 5:17), and that we are instead under the law of Christ (
Gal 6:2), which is thought to be "love God and love others" (
Matt 22:36-40).
Please see post #20 in regard to what it means to fulfills the Law:
Sin is Lawlessness
Jesus summarized the Law as being about how to love God and how to love our neighbor (Matthew 22:36-40), so saying that he obeyed the Law for us so that we don't have to is like saying that he loved God and our neighbor so that we don't have to, rather he did that so that in part so that we would have an example to follow, and we are told to follow his example (1 Peter 2:21-22). I see no reason to think that the Law of Christ is anything other than the Law of Moses as he taught it by word and lived it out by example.
Although many of the moral laws in the OT give excellent examples as to how to love God and love others, and the NT teaches that freedom from the law is not license to sin (
Romans 6:15), it is clear that we are not specifically bound by the Law.
In Romans 7, Paul said that God's law is not sin, but that it reveals to us what sin is (Romans 7:7), that it is holy, righteous, and good (7:12), that it was the good he wanted to do (7:13-20), the good he delighted in doing (7:22), and the good that he served with his mind (7:25), but contrast that with a law of sin that came about to increase trespasses (5:20), that stirred up sin to bear fruit unto death (7:5), that held him captive (7:6), that gave sin its power (7:8), that caused him not to do the good that he wanted (7:13-20), that held him captive (7:23), and that he served with his flesh (7:25).
Romans 6:14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
God's Law does not fit the description of sin having dominion over us, but rather the law of sin fits that description perfectly, so it is the law of sin that we are not under when we are under grace. According to Titus 2:11-14, our salvation involves God's grace training us to do what is godly, righteous, and good and training us to renounce doing what is ungodly and sinful, which perfectly fits Paul's description of God's Law, so it is essentially saying that if we are under grace, then we are under the Mosaic Law, which again is contrary to interpreting Romans 6:14 as referring to God's Law. Furthermore, it wouldn't make any sense to interpret Romans 6:15 as saying that we are not required to obey God's Law, but we are still required to avoid sinning in disobedience to it.
The ceremonial laws are called
hukkim or
chuqqah in Hebrew, which literally means “custom of the nation”; the words are often translated as "statutes." These laws are not obvious to common sense; for example, the destruction of perfectly good animals for sacrifice and the rejection of food sources such as pork and rabbit. Instead, these statutes are often symbolic and seem to focus the adherent's attention on God. They include instructions on regaining right standing with God (e.g., sacrifices and other ceremonies regarding "uncleanness"), remembrances of God's work in Israel (e.g., feasts and festivals), specific regulations meant to distinguish Israelites from their pagan neighbors (e.g., dietary and clothing restrictions), and signs that point to the coming Messiah (e.g., the Sabbath, circumcision, Passover, and the redemption of the first-born).
Christians are not bound by ceremonial law. Since the church is not the nation of Israel, memorial festivals, such as the Feast of Weeks and Passover, do not apply.
Galatians 3:23-25 explains that since Jesus has come, Christians are not required to sacrifice or circumcise.
There is still debate in Protestant churches over the applicability of the Sabbath. Some say that its inclusion in the Ten Commandments gives it the weight of moral law. Others quote
Colossians 2:16-17 and
Romans 14:5 to explain that Jesus has fulfilled the Sabbath and become our Sabbath rest. As
Romans 14:5 says, "Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind." The applicability of the OT law in the life of a Christian has always related to its usefulness in loving God and others. If someone feels observing the Sabbath aids him in this, he is free to observe it.
Again, everything described as being a ceremonial laws is essentially God's instruction for how to have a holy conduct and we are told to follow God's instructions for how to have a holy conduct (1 Peter 1:13-16), so Christians are bound to obey them and to live according to the holiness of our God. The Greek word "ekklesia" is translated as "church" or "assembly" and it was used in the Septuagint to refer to the assembly of Israel in the wilderness, so Israel is the Church of God and we become grafted into the Church of God through faith in Messiah.
If you look at Colossians 2:16 by itself, it is ambiguous as to whether it is saying not to let anyone judge them for observing God's holy days or for not keeping them. However, if we look at the context of the views of the people judging them, then it becomes clear. According to Colossians 2:8 and Colossians 2:20-23 they were being judged by those teaching philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition, human precepts, self-made religion, severity to the body, and asceticism, so Paul was encouraging the Colossians to continue keeping God's holy days in obedience to His commands and to not let any man keep them from obeying God. God's holys are important shadows that are rich with teachings about Messiah and of God's plan of redemption, so we should not deprive ourselves of the privilege of keeping them.
The context of Romans 14 is stated in the first verse, namely that it is in regard to how handle disputes of opinion, not in regard to whether followers of God should follow God's commands. No one was disputing whether we should be allowed to commit idolatry, theft, murder, adultery, or to disobey any of God's commands, but they did dispute things like what counted as idolatry. For example, meat that had been offered to idols was often later sold on the market, so if someone was at a community meal where they couldn't verify where the meat had come from, then they might be of the opinion that only vegetables should be eaten (Romans 14:2). They were judging those who chose to eat everything at the meal and were in turn being resented (Romans 14:3). In Romans 14:5-6, it is talk about those who eat or abstain from eating, so it is talking about those who esteem certain days for fasting. As a matter of opinion, it had become a common practice to fast twice a week (Luke 18:12) or to commemorate certain events and those who esteemed those days for fasting were judging others and in turn being resented. We are not to keep God's holy days because we esteem them as a matter of our opinion, but because God esteemed them and commanded them to be kept.
The Westminster Confession adds the category of judicial or civil law. These laws were specifically given for the culture and place of the Israelites and encompass all of the moral law except the Ten Commandments. This includes everything from murder to restitution for a man gored by an ox and the responsibility of the man who dug a pit to rescue his neighbor's trapped donkey (
Exodus 21:12-36). Since the Jews saw no difference between their God-ordained morality and their cultural responsibilities, this category is used by Christians far more than by Jewish scholars.
The division of the Jewish law into different categories is a human construct designed to better understand the nature of God and define which laws church-age Christians are still required to follow. Many believe the ceremonial law is not applicable, but we are bound by moral law, particularly the Ten Commandments.
All the law is useful for instruction (
2 Timothy 3:16), but much in NT verifies that God intended a distinction in categories of the Law. Foods, sacrifices, circumcision, etc. were clearly abolished as requirements for Gentiles; note what was determined at the Council at Jerusalem in Acts 15.
It says that Jews saw no difference between their God-ordained morality and their cultural responsibilities, so in other words the distinction between moral laws and civil laws is not found in the Bible and is an arbitrary construction made by Christian scholars in order to confuse the matter. Any disobedience to God's commands is sin and we are told not to sin. Simple. The requirement in Acts 15:1 of Gentiles needing to become circumcised in order to become saved is not found anywhere in God's Law, so it is a man-made requirement, which means that Acts 15 had nothing to do with abolishing any of God's Laws, nor did the Jerusalem Council have any authority to countermand God even if they had wanted to.
Paul taught that Christians are not under the law (
Romans 10:4), certainly not Gentile Christians. Jesus fulfilled the law, thus abolishing the difference between Jew and Gentile
"so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross…" (
Ephesians 2:15-16). But believers want to please God, so they seek to obey the moral laws, and the Holy Spirit enables them in this regard.
Does it make any sense to say in Ephesians 2:10 that we are made new creations in Christ for the purpose of doing good works and then to say a few verses later than Christ came to do away with His instructions for how to do good works? No, this is again referring to man-made laws, such as mentioned in Acts 10:28 that forbade Jews from visiting or associating with Jews.
Romans 10:4 Christ is the
goal of the Law, which leads to righteousness for all who have faith in God.
According to John 5:46, Jesus said that Moses wrote about him, according to Luke 24:27, Jesus began with Moses and the Prophets and interpret to them in all the Scripture the things concerning himself, and according to Hebrews 10:7, the totality of the scroll is written about Messiah, so Law is pointed towards or is directed at Messiah, and Paul was saying in Romans 10:4 that a relationship with Messiah is the goal at which the Law aims for righteousness for everyone who believes. The Law is God's Word and Jesus is God's Word made flesh, so he is the living embodiment of God's Law and he could not end it without ending himself.
