We live in a world that is constantly changing. Cultures change, times change, people change,
scientific theories change, technology changes, presidents change, our health
changes, we change our minds, etc. How
many of you have all of the same passions that you did ten to twenty years
ago? The reality of change may be on of
the few constants in the world! How many
political campaigns are promoted around the promise of a change for the better
if elected?
In a constantly changing world, the Bible declares
that God does not. The author of Hebrews
says, “Jesus Christ is the same
yesterday and today and forever.” (Hebrews
13:8) This attribute of God is called His immutability. It means that God is unchanging. [6] “For
I the LORD do not change; therefore you, O children of
Jacob, are not consumed.” (Malachi
3:6)
Remember that God’s attributes fall into two
categories: communicable (those more
shared with us) and incommunicable (those less shared with us). God’s incommunicable attributes are meant to
make us feel an incredible amount of distance between God and ourselves. In these attributes, I want us to think about
how “unlike” Him we really are. One way in which we are very “unlike” God is that
we change and He does not. Today we are
going to consider first what God’s Immutability does mean and then what it does
not mean. In a nutshell, we are going to see that God is unchanging in His being, nature, purposes, and promises, but He
does act differently and feel different emotions in response to different situations.[1] Now let’s unpack that sentence:
I.
What God’s Immutability Means:
a.
God’s BEING Does Not Change
[25] Of
old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your
hands. [26] They will perish, but you will remain; they will all wear out
like a garment. You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away, [27] but
you are the same, and your years have no end. (Psalm 102:25-27 ESV)
This passage contrasts God with the earth and the
heavens themselves. These are two things
that we consider almost constant. People
and nations come and go, but the heavens and the earth have been here for a
long time! But even they, the psalmist
says, will eventually “wear out like a
garment” and “pass away.” They will eventually get old and need to be
changed. This is not true of
God. He will not wear out. He doesn’t age or mature. He will never need a knee replacement or back
surgery or heart surgery or cataract surgery, etc. He will never get “over the hill.” He will never go bald! We change, all creation changes, but God does
not.
Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck said, “The doctrine of God’s immutability is of
the highest significance for religion.
The contrast between being and becoming marks the difference between the
Creator and the creature. Every creature
is continually becoming. It is
changeable, constantly striving, seeks rest and satisfaction, and finds this
rest in God, in him alone, for only he is pure being and no becoming. Hence, in Scripture God is often called the
Rock…”[2]
You see, if God did change, it would mean one of
three possibilities. First, if God were
perfect as we read in the Scriptures and He changed, He would no longer be
perfect because He would not be what He was before. It would be a change for the worse. A second
possibility God changing for the better, but that would mean that He is less
than perfect now. It would mean that He
currently has room for improvement. This
is simply not the God that we read about in the Bible. The God of the Bible has no room for
improvement because He is the pinnacle of perfection. And finally, change could also imply that God
is in need of maintenance to remain perfect.
It would mean that God needs a periodic “tune up” to remain who and what
He is. But as we read in the Psalm
above, God is not like His creation an never needs His oil changed.
b.
God’s NATURE Does Not Change
In saying that God’s being doesn’t change, we are
saying that “what” God is does not change, and now in saying that His nature
does not change, we are saying that “who” God is does not change. God does not change in His perfections. This is the point of Malachi 3:6: “For I the LORD
do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.”
This is a rich passage! There are two ideas implied here in the
statement, “I the LORD do not change,”
one coming into this phrase and another flowing out of it. The verse begins with the word, “For.”
So God has just said something and that has been said because He does not change. What has just been said?
[5] “Then
I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the
sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against
those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless,
against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the LORD
of hosts. (Malachi 3:5 ESV) Here God
is speaking of judgment to come because of the sin and injustice of His
people. So the first idea is this: that
God is going to judge the sin and injustice of His people because He does not change.
The second idea is found in verse 6 and is flowing
out of this statement that the Lord does not change: “For I the LORD do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are
not consumed.” The second idea is
that because God does not change, His people will not be consumed. So there is something that does not change
about who God is that will not allow sin to go unpunished and will also not
allow His people to be consumed. Friend,
that is the gospel! Romans 2:25-26 says that Jesus was the one “[25] whom God put
forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to
show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over
former sins. [26] It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so
that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” Because God will never stop being just and
righteous, sin must be punished and because God will never stop being loving,
merciful, and gracious, Jesus Christ was sent to bear God’s wrath in the place
of His people so that they would not be consumed. It is no coincidence that the “judgment” that
Malachi describes will be the work of God’s messenger that He will send. This messenger will do a work of judgment
that will cause His people to worship Him in righteousness (Malachi 3:1-4).
The gospel is a testimony to the truth that who
God is will never change. He will never
not be just, righteous, holy, wise, faithful, trustworthy, merciful, gracious,
loving, good, jealous for His glory, wrathful towards sin, sovereign, etc. His nature will never change.
c.
God’s PURPOSES Do Not Change
[8] “Remember
this and stand firm, recall it to mind, you transgressors, [9] remember
the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and
there is none like me, [10] declaring the end from the beginning and from
ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will
accomplish all my purpose,’ [11] calling a bird of prey from the east, the
man of my counsel from a far country. I have spoken, and I will bring it to
pass; I have purposed, and I will do it. (Isaiah 46:8-11 ESV) There’s
not a lot of explanation needed for this verse!
Here we simply see that when God sets His face like flint to do
something, it will be done. What He
ultimately purposes to do will not change.
d.
God’s PROMISES Do Not Change
[19] God
is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his
mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not
fulfill it? (Numbers 23:19 ESV) This
verse is part of Balaam’s second oracle, where Balak was seeking to place a
curse upon the people of Israel. One of
the things that God reveals here is that He is not like human beings in that He
does not promise something and then change His mind. He has already promised to bless His people,
so He will not be persuaded by Balaam to now curse them. God says that this is because He does not “change his mind.” He is not a covenant breaker but a covenant
keeper. He keeps His promises.
Now any of us who have read much of the Bible at
this point should be asking a question.
How do we reconcile the truth that God does not “change his mind” with places in the Bible where He seems to? God seemed ready to destroy the people of
Israel and start over with Moses in Exodus
32:9-14, but “relented of the
disaster that He had spoken” in response to Moses’ prayer for mercy for the
sake of God’s great name. Or what about
God staying His judgment upon Nineveh when the people there repented in
response to Jonah’s message (Jonah
3:4,10)? To solve this dilemma, we
also need to understand what God’s immutability does not mean.
II.
What God’s Immutability Does Not Mean:
a.
That God is Immutable does not Mean That God Does
Not Experience Different Emotions in Response to Different Situations.
That what God is and who God is and what He
purposes and promises do not change does not mean that God doesn’t have
different experiences in response to different situations. Situations do change and the truth that who
God is does not change is precisely why He experiences different emotions in
response to these different situations.
An example of this would be Genesis
6:6, where God says that He was “sorry
that he had made man on the earth.”
He was “grieved…to His heart.” This does not mean that if God
could do things over again that He would do them differently (that He would
change His plans). We’re talking about
God here, who COULD go back in time and do it differently if He wanted to! As Wayne Grudem says, this simply means, “God’s previous action led to events that,
in the short term, caused him sorrow, but that nonetheless in the long term
would ultimately achieve His good purposes.”[3] God’s grief and sorrow are responses to the
present situation of man’s wickedness and the necessary expressions of those
aspects of who He is that do not change.
This sorrow is analogous to the sorrow that a parent feels when they
allow a child to follow a course of action that they know will produce greater
good in the long term. (REDMAN)
b.
That God is Immutable does not Mean That God Does
Not Act Differently in Response to Different Situations.
Also, God’s immutability does not mean that God
does not act differently in response to different situations. God threatening to destroy the Israelites was
a true declaration, provided that the situation remained the same. But the situation did not remain the
same. Someone prayed earnestly!
In the case of Jonah and the people of Nineveh, we
need to remember that the purpose of all of God’s warnings in the Bible are to
bring about repentance on the part of the people being warned. Every proclamation of judgment was a true
proclamation provided that the situation did not change, but was also a warning
to the people to repent and thereby change the situation. As a matter of fact, it is Jonah in a round
about way says that it is God’s immutability that led Him to run from God
instead of preach to the people of Nineveh in the first place (Jonah 4:1-2)! So again, we see that it is actually God’s
immutability that causes Him to feel and act differently in response to
different situations.
Why is all this so important and how does this
affect our personal lives? Church, think
about this: Only a God who doesn’t
change can truly be TRUSTED. And
because God does not change, He can in fact be trusted. He is our constant, our anchor, in an
ever-changing world.
[1] This statement is a slight modification of Wayne
Grudem’s description, Systematic Theology, 163
[2] Herman Bavinck, quoted by Grudem, Systematic Theology, 164
[3] Wayne Grudem, Systematic
Theology, 165
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