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What would your reaction be to a political candidate whose preeminent campaign promise was that if elected, he/she would seek to support leigislation that repealed the law of gravity?
In every campaign speech and every media interview, the candidate would talk incessantly about the intolerable restraints of traditional gravity and how narrow-minded and bigoted “gravity supporters” were. And, suppose that several anti-gravity legislators were able to pass into law a decree that declared the end to the law of gravity. Would you or I then be able to go to the highest floor of the tallest building downtown, climb out a window and not experience a sudden drop of over 2,000 feet?
Sounds laughable, doesn’t it? It is laughable. It’s laughable, because there are certain immutable laws of God that have governed human existence since the creation of this world. The law of gravity (such as the laws of thermodynamics, biogenesis and others) is immutable. Human beings, regardless of how much they may dislike it, cannot change, repeal or overrule one of God’s immutable laws.
Not only does God have immutable scientific laws, he also has put in place immutable spiritual laws. For example, the apostle Paul in Galatians 6:7-8 mentions the immutable law of reaping and sowing that governs the spiritual world just as it does the scientific world. “Be not deceived,” he writes, “God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap eternal life.”
In Matthew 19, Jesus spoke of certain laws governing marriage that are immutable – laws which have been governing human existence since the Garden of Eden. Jesus talks about God’s spiritual laws of marriage that have been from the beginning of the creation and are still in force. Jesus declares that there are three immutable laws of marriage.
First, there is the persons of marriage. According to Jesus, one reason why human beings were made male and female is so that a man (one male) could leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife (one female). God’s immutable law for the persons of marriage is one man and one woman.
Second, there is the purpose of marriage. According to the one who was in the beginning with God, the reason why one man and one woman get married is so that they can become one flesh. The idea of “one flesh” certainly involves sexual expression; therefore “marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled, for fornicators and adulterers God will judge” (Hebrews 13:4).
The idea of “one flesh” also includes the ideas of companionship, sacrificial love and emotional intimacy. God’s immutable law for the purpose of marriage is “one flesh.”
Third, there is the permanence of marriage. In light of God’s first two immutable laws of marriage, Jesus concluded, “Therefore what God has joined together, let no man separate.” “Until death do us part” is not a quaint, idealistic, old-fashioned notion about marriage; it has been expected of humanity since the day of Adam and Eve’s wedding.
God’s immutable law on the permanence of marriage is probably best stated by the prophet Malachi: The Lord God hates divorce.
Since the beginning of creation, human beings have occasionally challenged God’s immutable laws of nature. No one has ever successfully defied them; no one ever will. Wisdom demands that we learn what immutable laws of God govern us physically and spiritually and that we then deliberately live in harmony with them. All the human legislation and governmental decrees in the world won’t change a thing.
