The Ceremonial Laws – A Kingdom Catechism

The Ceremonial Laws

A Kingdom Catechism

The ceremonial laws guided ancient Israel in the ways to love God.

Q 9: What are the religious or ceremonial laws?

A 9: The religious or ceremonial laws guided ancient Israel in the proper ways of loving and worshiping God; these have passed away with the cessation of the Israelite priesthood and the inauguration of our great High Priest, Jesus Christ. (Heb. 7-10)

The ceremonial laws consisted of guidelines for worshiping God and means whereby a sinful people could maintain a favorable relationship with Him. All the components of the religious laws were provided by the grace of God, and only because of His grace were any of them able to accomplish the purposes of revival and renewal among the people of God.

The writer of Hebrews makes it clear that, with the coming and work of our great High Priest, the Lord Jesus Christ, a change in this facet of the Law has come about. It’s not that, in the era of grace, the Lord offers no instructions concerning how His people must approach Him. The principles of holiness, cleanness, humility, and so forth, which are encoded in the ceremonial laws of ancient Israel, continue today and come to expression in the requirement of Christians to honor the Lord’s Day, assemble for worship, submit to baptism, participate in the Lord’s Supper, and seek the Lord through the various means of grace.

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In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore, editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001, 2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.