This sermon explores the topic of the ceremonial laws as described in the 1689 LBCF, Chapter 19, Paragraph 3. The speaker discusses the nature and purpose of the ceremonial laws, their relationship to the law of God, and the reasons for their abrogation. The sermon also clarifies the terms used in relation to covenants and emphasizes the unity of the covenant of grace throughout Scripture. It highlights the typological nature of the ceremonial laws and their significance in pointing to Christ's work of redemption. The sermon concludes by encouraging reflection on the coming of Christ and the celebration of His incarnation.

A reading from the Second London Baptist Confession of 1689 comes from, again, chapter 19 of the Law of God, paragraph 3. Besides this law, commonly called moral, God was pleased to give to the people of Israel ceremonial laws containing several typical ordinances, partly of worship, prefiguring Christ, His graces, actions, sufferings, and benefits, and partly holding forth diverse instructions of moral duties, all which ceremonial laws being appointed only to the time of reformation are by Jesus Christ, the true Messiah and only lawgiver, who is furnished with the power from the Father for that end, abrogated and taken away." We continue our study of the law of God. In the last two weeks, we've looked at the moral law both written on our hearts from creation and written by the finger of God on two tables of stone, and we see its continuity as the perfect rule of righteousness both before and after the fall. We remember Archibald Hodge's description of the moral law. This law after the fall, while it ceased to offer salvation on the ground of obedience, nevertheless continued to be the revealed expression of God's will, finding all human consciences as the rule of life.

This week we move on to a different type of law, to a ceremonial law. I'd like to read again the paragraph but without some of the supporting phrases so that we can get straighter to the point here. Besides the moral law, God was pleased to give the people of Israel ceremonial laws containing typical ordinances, partly of worship, and partly of instructions of moral duties, all which being appointed only to the time of reformation are by Jesus Christ abrogated and taken away. So what are the ceremonial laws and why did it please God to give them to the people of Israel? We'll also try to understand where they fit in with the law of God, and why they have been abrogated, which means abolished and taken away.

Finally, I would like to clarify some common misunderstandings regarding the terms that we use from time to time with covenants. Let's start at the beginning with covenants. We've spoken of the covenant of works and the covenant of grace. These should be familiar terms. They are the two main covenants God has made with his people regarding salvation.

Adam failed in his keeping of the covenant of works. Thus mankind no longer is morally able to keep God's commands perfectly, and we have now a corrupted nature passed down from Adam. Immediately after the fall, we find the first indication of a covenant of grace or an idea of God's plan of redemption. It comes in Genesis 3.15, which is called the Protoevangelium. This covenant of grace then flows throughout the rest of scripture, being revealed more and more through various covenants across the Old Testament—the Noic, the Abrahamic, the Mosaic, the Davidic—and then finally in the New Testament with the New Covenant.

I want to make a point here for clarification purposes. As we use the word covenant, we should be clear on how we use it. We should try to be precise to prevent misunderstandings. These various covenants throughout Scripture are all part of the covenant of grace. When you hear someone speak of the Old Covenant, they are referring back to the covenant made with Moses, the Mosaic Covenant.

But it doesn't mean that their redemption was based on the Mosaic Covenant. The people of Israel who were elect were saved just as we are saved through the covenant of grace. There is only one way to be saved, and that is faith in Christ. Besides the moral law, God gave his people Israel ceremonial and judicial laws. And we'll discuss the judicial laws next week.

This week, our focus is specifically on the ceremonial laws, including the dietary regulations. The website gotquestions.org gives a nice description of the moral and ceremonial laws. The moral laws relate to justice and judgment and are often translated as ordinances. They 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 moral law encompasses regulations on justice, respect, sexual conduct, and this includes the Ten Commandments. It also includes penalties for failure to obey the ordinances. Moral law does not point people to Christ. It merely illuminates the fallen state of all mankind.

The ceremonial laws are called chukim or Shukah in Hebrew, which literally means custom of the nation. The words are often translated as statutes. These laws seem to focus the adherent's attention to God. They include instructions on regaining right standing with God—for example, sacrifices and other ceremonies regarding uncleanness, remembrances of God's work in Israel, the feasts and festivals, specific regulations meant to distinguish Israelites from their pagan neighbors, dietary and clothing restrictions, and signs that point to the coming Messiah, the Sabbath, circumcision, Passover, and the redemption of the firstborn. Christians are not bound by the ceremonial law.

Since the church is not the nation of Israel, memorial feasts such as the Feast of Weeks and Passover and others do not apply. We read from Galatians 3, 23, and 25 which explains that since Jesus has come, Christians are not required to sacrifice or circumcise. It says, but before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore, the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith has come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster." The confession states that the ceremonial laws are typical ordinances.

The word here typical is not used in the sense of common or ordinary in a way that we would normally use that. But it refers to typology. The ceremonial laws symbolize, or as Dr. Sproul would describe it, they symbolize a more fully developed reality that comes later. They prefigure things to come.

Pastor John Ruther, in his commentary, puts it another way. The ceremonial laws are the laws given in Exodus and Leviticus concerning the tabernacle, the priesthood, the sacrifices, and purity in approaching God. They are the types, our structures, official persons, actions, offerings, and rituals, which have counterparts that will be manifested in the future. When we speak of a type, we're referring to the picture proclaimed in the structure, like the tabernacle and the Holy of Holies, the official persons or priests, actions, setting up and taking down the tabernacle, building altars, offerings, burnt grain, peace, and guilt, and rituals, ordaining the priests and cleansing after defilements. The ceremonies, therefore, are types of things to come.

For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come and not the very image of the things, can never, with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year after year, make those who approach perfect. Hebrews 10.1. These are a shadow of things to come, but the substances of Christ. Colossians 2.17. The ceremonial laws were given to point God's people to Christ, to point to his people to Christ's work for our redemption.

The confession breaks down these typical ordinances in the categories of worship and instruction and moral duties. What are these? Again, Pastor John Ruther gives some examples. They were the ceremonies that Israel performed as acts of worship in anticipation of the grace, the actions, the sufferings, and the benefits that would be sowed by Christ in the fullness of time. Sinners then drew near to God through the shedding of the blood of the spotless animal sacrifices.

They now draw near to God through Christ, the spotless and sinless Lamb of God. In Israel, God ordained the priesthood to lead sinners to Himself. In Christ, we have the perfect high priest who not only brings us to God through the offering, but who is himself the offering. Who does not need daily is those high priest to offer up sacrifices first for his own sins and then for the people's. For this he did once for all when he offered up himself.

Hebrews 7, 27. In the tabernacle there was a table on which was the lampstand and the bread of the presence. Christ is the light of the world, and Christ is the bread of life. What about holding forth diverse instructions of moral duties? In general, this makes the point that these laws, although abrogated or abolished, possess moral instructions that teach truth.

For example, in Leviticus 19.9-10, the moral instruction is to leave some food for the poor and hungry. And when he reaped the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest, and thou shalt not glean the vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard. Thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger. I am the Lord your God." Although this law has been abrogated, we still should love our neighbor as well as ourself. We should help the needy.

We should feed the hungry. The final point that the confession makes is about the ceremonial laws. They are only appointed for a specific time, a time of reformation, and that they will be abrogated and taken away by Jesus Christ. The law of God, which includes the moral, ceremonial, and judicial laws, is given by God. It can therefore only be changed, abolished, or annulled by God and by God alone.

Robert Shaw comments, these ceremonies were chiefly designed to prefigure Christ and lead them to the knowledge of the way of salvation through him. This law, the ceremonial law, is abrogated under the New Testament dispensation. This appears, number one, from the nature of the law itself. It was given to the Jews to separate them from the idolatrous rights of other nations, and to preserve their religion uncorrupted. But when the gospel was preached to all nations, and Jews and Gentiles were gathered into one body under Christ, their head, the wall of separation was taken down." We see that in Ephesians 2, 14 and 15.

Number two, because these ceremonies were only figures of good things to come, imposed upon the Jews until the time of Reformation and were abrogated by Christ in whom they were realized and substantiated. We see that in Hebrews 9, 9 through 12. Number three, because these ceremonies were given to the Israelites to typify and represent Christ in His death. And since Christ has come and has by His death and satisfaction accomplished all that they prefigured, these types must be abolished. This comes from Colossians 2.17.

Number four, because many of these rights were restricted to the temple of Jerusalem and the temple being now destroyed, these rights must cease along with it. And number five, because the apostles expressly taught that the ceremonial law is abrogated under the Christian dispensation in Acts 15 24 One chief design of the epistle of Hebrews is to prove that this law must necessarily Be annulled in Hebrews 7 verse 12 Thus we conclude that the ceremonial laws have been abolished and taken away by Jesus Christ. Once his work of redemption was perfectly completed, the obligation to follow those ceremonial laws was gone. Remember, the purpose of the ceremonial laws was to point to Christ and His work of redemption. They were the types and shadows and symbols pointing forward to Christ's atoning sacrifice and, again, his work of redemption.

Although they have been abolished or abrogated, they should not be ignored. We should still read them. We should still study them and understand the truths that we find in them. They are still the word of God. Interestingly, we find ourselves in a place in our study of the confessions that focuses us on the coming of Christ.

This was the purpose of the ceremonial laws. We find ourselves about a week away from Christmas, a celebration of the incarnation of Christ, a celebration of the birth of Jesus. Advent is a time to focus on the coming Christ, reading the prophecies and singing the sacred Christmas hymns. I would encourage you to take time, especially this coming week in your family worship time, over the dinner table with your kids, in your Bible readings and in your meditations, to focus on the great love of Christ showed by his condescending himself, by humbling himself as God to be born of a woman and to take on flesh and to live among us. I'd like to close with some words from Stephen Charnock, a Puritan from the 1600s.

What a wonder is that two natures, infinitely distant, should be more ultimately united than anything in the world. And yet without any confusion, that the same person should have both a glory and a grief, an infinite joy in the deity, and an inexpressible sorrow in the humanity. That a god upon a throne should be an infant in a cradle, the thundering creator be a weeping babe and a suffering man. These are such expressions of mighty power, as well as condescending love, that they astonish men upon earth and angels in heaven. Amen.