The Tripartite Division of the Law
Moral, judicial, ceremonial — and what binds after Christ?
Settled clearly
Background
Patristic and medieval theology had developed a threefold division of the Mosaic law into moral, ceremonial, and judicial (or civil/political) commandments. Aquinas's *Summa* I-II q. 99 is the locus classicus. The Reformed inherited the division and used it to handle the question of OT continuity: the moral law (summarized in the Decalogue) binds perpetually; the ceremonial law (the temple, the sacrifices, the dietary and purity laws) is fulfilled and abrogated in Christ; the judicial law (the civil legislation of Israel) is expired with the Jewish polity, though its 'general equity' may inform later civil legislation. Anabaptists and some radical sects rejected the division (treating the whole Mosaic law as superseded). Some later theonomic readings would press the judicial law as continuing in its substance.
The Assembly’s handling
WCF XIX.3-4 affirms the tripartite division in classical form. XIX.3 handles the ceremonial law as 'now abrogated under the New Testament.' XIX.4 handles the judicial law as 'expired together with the State of that people' (Israel), 'not obliging any other now, further than the general equity thereof may require.' XIX.5 then affirms the perpetual obligation of the moral law. The 'general equity' clause has been the most contested element ever since: theonomists read it expansively; most Reformed read it as a hermeneutical principle for applying biblical wisdom to later legislation, not as a code binding modern magistrates.
Parties
The Assembly's classical-tripartite consensus
The Mosaic law divides into moral, ceremonial, and judicial; the moral binds perpetually, the ceremonial is abrogated in Christ, the judicial expired with the Jewish polity except for its general equity.
- Anthony Burgess (d. 1664)
- Edward Reynolds (1599–1676)
- Edmund Calamy the Elder (1600–1666)
- Anthony Tuckney (1599–1670)
Anabaptist abrogation (rejected)
The whole Mosaic law is superseded by Christ; the tripartite division is a Reformed scholastic invention without scriptural warrant.
Confessional language
WCF XIX.3: 'Besides this law, commonly called moral, God was pleased to give to the people of Israel, as a church under age, ceremonial laws…all which ceremonial laws are now abrogated, under the New Testament.' WCF XIX.4: 'To them also, as a body politic, he gave sundry judicial laws, which expired together with the State of that people; not obliging any other now, further than the general equity thereof may require.'
Ontology placement
This crux bears on the following attribute of the Westminster ontology. The Westminster baseline value is marked WCF.
VI · Law & Sanctification · Tripartite Division
Legacy
The 'general equity' clause has been the locus of the 20th-century theonomy debate. Rousas Rushdoony and Greg Bahnsen pressed an expansive reading of general equity as binding modern magistrates to the substance of the Mosaic judicial code; mainline Reformed (Meredith Kline, the OPC majority) rejected this as misreading Westminster. The Anabaptist abrogation reading has continued in various Mennonite and dispensationalist forms.