Does God Repeal His Laws?

After my last post about the Baptist School in Kentucky that expelled a student there were some interesting (and thought provoking) comments from some of my readers and through some private conversations I have had with others the following question has been on my mind. Does God repeal his laws? If you read the comments you will see that the old "Hey, if you don't believe in allowing same-sex marriage then you have to kill anybody that touches a football because it's made of pigskin" argument. I dealt with this weak argument in the comments section and will not rehash that here.

In a private conversation I was asked point blank whether God repealed some of the Old Testament laws. My answer was that in a way, yes, God did repeal some of the Old Testament ceremonial laws, but that none of the moral laws were abolished. Then, without much thought, added parenthetically the world "or more correctly, fulfilled the law". To be completely honest - I hadn't put much thought into the meaning of my words. I just knew that Jesus had said in Matthew 5:17 that he came not to abolish the Law, but instead that he came to fulfill them. Though I never would have said this out loud, subconsciously, I thought this was just a phrase that Jesus had used to kind of fill space. In short, I added the words so that I could sound churchy.

Suffice it to say, there are no words in the Bible that are there to merely fill space and since that email I have been thinking about this verse a lot and have become very excited about what this means to us today. The only correct answer to the question in the email is actually "No". God has not, and will not, repeal his laws because God is unchangeable. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. This gives great comfort to the believer as God has made some pretty amazing promises to us and we know that he will not go back on his word.

So, if God has not repealed any of his laws then why do we not sacrifice animals anymore? Shouldn't we all be refraining from eating unclean animals? And what about the priests? What happened to them? The answer lies in the words that I once thought were space filler. Jesus fulfilled those laws. For example, one of God's unchangeable laws is that without the shedding of blood (sacrifice) there is no forgiveness of sin (Hebrews 9:22). Jesus completely fulfilled this law on the cross. It's not that the law has gone away, it's that the sacrifice of the one and only truly spotless lamb has occurred. Jesus' perfect blood was enough to cover us all and fulfill the law. Another law is that unless you are perfectly clean (holy) then you cannot approach God (i.e. not eating unclean animals, ceremonial cleansing, etc). This law has not changed, but now you have been truly cleaned from the inside and this law is fulfilled. My last example is about the role of priests. Only a priest was allowed in the most precious inner part of the Jewish temple. In other words only a priest was allowed to approach God. Again, this has not changed. Instead Jesus fulfilled this law by making you (if you are a believer) into a Priest (I Peter 2:9).

I don't know if this does the same for you as it does for me, but I am so excited about this idea. I hope that it helps me (and you) to be more obedient to our Lord.

Thanks for reading,

Jason