How do we understand the law?

The Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) talks about three categories of law:

I. God gave to Adam a law, as a covenant of works, by which He bound him and all his posterity, to personal, entire, exact, and perpetual obedience, promised life upon the fulfilling, and threatened death upon the breach of it, and endued him with power and ability to keep it.  

II. This law, after his fall, continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness; and, as such, was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai, in ten commandments, and written in two tables: the first four commandments containing our duty towards God; and the other six, our duty to man. 

III. Besides this law, commonly called moral, God was pleased to give to the people of Israel, as a church under age, ceremonial laws, containing several typical ordinances, partly of worship, prefiguring Christ, His graces, actions, sufferings, and benefits and partly, holding forth divers instructions of moral duties. All which ceremonial laws are now abrogated, under the New Testament.  

IV. To them also, as a body politic, He gave sundry judicial laws, which expired together with the State of that people; not obliging under any now, further than the general equity thereof may require.  

V. The moral law does forever bind all, as well justified persons as others, to the obedience thereof; and that, not only in regard of the matter contained in it, but also in respect of the authority of God the Creator, who gave it. Neither does Christ, in the Gospel, any way dissolve, but much strengthen this obligation.  

VI. Although true believers be not under the law, as a covenant of works, to be thereby justified, or condemned yet is it of great use to them, as well as to others; in that, as a rule of life informing them of the will of God, and their duty, it directs and binds them to walk accordingly; discovering also the sinful pollutions of their nature, hearts and lives so as, examining themselves thereby, they may come to further conviction of, humiliation for, and hatred against sin, together with a clearer sight of the need they have of Christ, and the perfection of His obedience. It is likewise of use to the regenerate, to restrain their corruptions, in that it forbids sin: and the threatenings of it serve to show what even their sins deserve; and what afflictions, in this life, they may expect for them, although freed from the curse thereof threatened in the law. The promises of it, in like manner, show them God's approbation of obedience,and what blessings they may expect upon the performance thereof: although not as due to them by the law as a covenant of works. So as, a man's doing good, and refraining from evil, because the law encourages to the one and deters from the other, is no evidence of his being under the law: and not under grace. 

VII. Neither are the forementioned uses of the law contrary to the grace of the Gospel, but do sweetly comply with it; the Spirit of Christ subduing and enabling the will of man to do that freely, and cheerfully, which the will of God, revealed in the law, requires to be done.

The real question is how to understand the implications of these laws.

He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way. (Matt. 19:8)

But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire compassion, and not a sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent. (Matt. 12:7)

These aren't one-off responses or loopholes Jesus is inventing to evade questions. Instead, this is a pattern for understanding the Old Testament law from God's intended perspective.

Do we expect children to understand and behave like adults? Of course not. There is a natural progression of knowledge. For example, Natural numbers do not contain zero. We don't necessarily teach the concept that zero is a number to a three year old learning to count. In the same way, elementary teachers might say their students can't subtract 7 from 5, or divide 10 by 9. Is it "wrong" to teach that way? I don't think it is - the children's brains are not developed enough to understand those abstract concepts. As their minds develop they can handle the concepts of zero, negative numbers, fractions, irrational numbers and so on.

In the same way, we are locked up in childishness with regards to sin. God consistently calls the Israelites "stiff-necked" and "hard-hearted". Paul admonishes the Corinthians:

And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able, for you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men? (1 Cor. 3:1-3)

What does this have to do with the law? Remember that the law of divorce was due to "hard-heartedness". To unroll this further, Israel was a nation where women and children were considered to be property. It was lawful to own slaves, including slaves meant for sexual gratification of men. So, why was it necessary to allow divorce? For the protection of women. In that society, women had very little means of support outside of a male provider. Women who were married were supposed to be provided for by their husbands. So, in Israel, a man could refuse to provide for his wife and yet not officially divorce her (this still happens today). This law was to protect women by allowing them to remarry and be provided for.

So, how do we differentiate between "Moral Law" and "Judicial Law"? What is general equity? Moral Law is the natural order created before the Fall. Judicial laws are applications of the Moral Law to the unique circumstances of the Israelites (including their hard-heartedness).

Consider slavery. There was much to-do about the Biblical justification of slavery - the OT has laws discussing how to acquire and free slaves, and laws talking about the treatment of slaves. This became a huge debate, since those who wanted to justify slavery could easily point to the apparent approval of slavery in the Old Testament. Yet, as we have come to believe, "sanctioning" slavery is not "approval". This becomes an important principle. The law meets us where we are - hard-hearted spiritual infants sucked up in a sinful culture.

So, when we read Paul's instructions, like "I do not permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man", do we understand it from a "Moral Law" perspective, or from a "Judicial Law" perspective. Was Paul's prohibition due to some universal moral principle, or was it due to a specific problem in a specific time and place? I think scripture leads to the latter. 1st century culture still promoted slavery, patriarchy and women and children as inferiors and property. So, Paul, who incidentally CIRCUMCISED Christians to further the gospel, isn't necessarily claiming a universal principle, but is pushing for laws that make accommodations for the hardness of the 1st century Greek heart.

I think this is an important discussion now because so many churches are looking at these specific sanctions in light of more general passages that say, for example, "there is neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female", or "your sons and daughters shall prophesy", and coming to the conclusion that daughters should NOT prophesy. Instead of trying to find roles, they push women to the side. Is God's heart in this really to push women out of any public ministry in the church?