The concept is wholly biblical. It's not invented by man. The Puritan Francis Roberts (in his Mystery and Marrow, pp661-662) points out that the foundational text for understanding the three-fold division of the Law is Deuteronomy 4:13-14: "So He declared to you His covenant which He commanded you to perform, that is, the Ten Commandments; and He wrote them on two tablets of stone. The Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that you might perform them in the land where you are going over to possess it." Verse 13 deals with the moral law, the ten commandments. Verse 14 describes the appendages to the ten commandments, which Moses calls statutes and judgments. Here in these verses, Moses clearly distinguishes between the ten commandments (in verse 13), and the other commandments mentioned in verse 14.
On these two verses, John Colquhoun, in his A Treaty on the Law and Gospel, says: “He gave the moral law to them, as the primary rule of the obedience, which he required in this covenant (Deut. 4:13). He gave them also, the ceremonial and judicial laws, as appendages to it. . .The ceremonial institutions, which, in the sacred history, are frequently called Statutes, were, for the most part, reducible to precepts of the first table; and the judicial laws, which, in the same history, are often styled Judgments, were mostly reducible to precepts of the second table.” (p73). The Ceremonial laws were appendages to the first table of the Law, fleshing out what love for God looks like in Israel's time and place. Colquhoun notes these are often called "statutes" (Deut.4:14). The Judicial Laws fleshed out the second table of the Law, what love for neighbor looked like in Israel's time and place, and they are often called "judgments". Again, Francis Roberts had the same observation about these two words in His Mystery and Marrow, pp661-62, adding that the Moral Law had its own terminology as well, and was often called “commandments”, “laws” or “testimonies”.
Aside from Deuteronomy 4:13-14, you see this also in Exodus, in the chapters dealing with what is called The Book of the Covenant. Immediately following the giving of the 10 Commandments in Exodus 20, Moses writes down the following words of the Lord (Exodus 20:22-23:19) in a book (see Exodus 24:4). If you study these chapters, you learn that they are not a series of random commands, but actually a fleshing out of the 10 Commandments of Exodus 20. So, Exodus 20:22-26 deals with fleshing out the 1st and 2nd commandments (ceremonial law). Exodus 21:1-23:9 deal with fleshing out the 5th to 10th commandments (judicial law). And Exodus 23:10-19 deal with fleshing out the 3rd and 4th commandments (again ceremonial law). Again, what's going on here? Moses is fleshing out for Israel what these ten commandments, which he just gave in Exodus 20, will look like for Israel in their time and place.
There's much more that could be said in terms of bringing in Scripture from the NT that is very clear about certain OT laws being either fulfilled in Christ or else transformed in the new covenant (IE, the death penalty in Deuteronomy 22:21 being transformed to excommunication in 1 Corinthians 5:13; the command about an ox in Deuteronomy 25:4 taking on new meaning in 1 Corinthians 9:9). But this is a start.
