Sunday Sermons
God IS... Immutable
When we speak of the immutability of God what we mean is that God is unchanging, and that He remains the same in His divine nature and purposes. “By the immutability of God we mean that in essence, attributes, consciousness, and will God is unchangeable. All change must be to the better or the worse. But God cannot change to the better, since He is absolutely perfect; neither can He change to the worse, for the same reason. He can never be wiser, more holy, more just, more merciful, more truthful, nor less so. Nor do His plans and purposes change” (Lectures in Systematic Theology, Thiessen, p. 127).
Declared in Scripture
“God is not a man, that He should lie; neither the son of man, that He should repent” (Numbers 23:19); Psalm 102:26-27 “Even they will perish, but You endure…But You are the same”. Malachi 3:6 “For I, the Lord, do not change”. James 1:17 “Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow”. “Who is Himself never subject to change” (TCNT). “Change in the degree or intensity of light, such as is manifested by the heavenly bodies” (Vincent p. 732), is not present in God, rather He is constant.
God does not have bad days in which He tempts people, rather He consistently gives good gifts, and He gives good things on a constant basis(James 1:5; Matthew 7:7-11). “As constant as the heavenly bodies are, they do exhibit changes as man perceives them: Seasonal variations, eclipses, phases of the moon, clouded skies, and the shifting shadows seen hourly on the sundial, but God’s character and nature are unchanging. He does not shift from good given to occasional evil giving” (Kent p. 56). Do we ever thank God for not being moody? Are we thankful that God is always the same, that He is consistent, and that He does not keep changing the rules on us? “For one thing, this means that God is always approachable. We can always find Him” (Draper p. 47). It also tells us that God always loves us and is always wishing for the sinner to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9), and that God will always forgive us—if we seek forgiveness.
The immutable nature of Jesus
Hebrews 13:8 “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever”. “Perhaps some had a tendency to feel that times had changed since their first encounter with the Christian faith, and that their former leader’s faith was no longer relevant to them. Faith reposed in Him needs no basic alterations; it merely needs to grow continually firmer” (Kent p. 282). “Jesus Christ cannot be anything but ‘the same’ in regard to all that this letter has said of him. The only question is whether the faith of the readers with also remain the same” (Lenski p. 477).
Benefits to Believers
His faithfulness and My faithfulness: Making the mistake of placing your confidence in someone who is undependable is a very unpleasant experience, “Like a bad tooth and an unsteady foot is confidence in a faithless man in time of trouble” (Proverbs 25:19). An undependable person is both useless and painful. Both the bad tooth and the lame foot are incapable of performing; they are both painful and ineffective. “The bad or loose tooth and the lame foot are apt illustrations of someone that fails you when you need him most” (Alden p. 184). Wisdom will enable us to shift between the reliable and the unreliable. This verse informs us that people should not be given responsibilities---merely to make them feel better about themselves. When you take a stand for something and place yourself in the public spotlight the last thing you want to happen is to find out that what you stated so strongly was false! I can have total confidence in God’s word, I can build my entire future on the foundation of His truths, because God keeps His promises and He is absolutely faithful. The individuals mentioned in Hebrews chapter 11, who are presented as examples of faith, had their faith rooted in the fact that they considered God to be faithful to His promises (Hebrews 11:11 “since she considered Him faithful who had promised”; Romans 4:20-21 “yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that what God had promised, He was able also to perform”). Thus, placing all our hope and trust in God is not going out on a limb, rather it is finally getting off the limb that is about to break and getting upon solid ground! (Matthew 7:24ff). See also Psalm 36:5; 119:90; Lamentations 3:23; 1 Corinthians 1:9; 1 Thessalonians 5:24; 2 Thessalonians 3:3; 2 Timothy 2:13; Hebrews 10:23; 1 John 1:9).
Peace of Mind: “In this world where men forget us, change their attitude toward us as their private interests dictate, and revise their opinion of us for the slightest cause, is it not a source of wondrous strength to know what the God with whom we have to do changes not? What peace it brings to the Christian’s heart to realize that our Heavenly Father never differs from Himself. In coming to Him at any time we need not wonder whether we shall find Him in a receptive mood. He is always receptive to misery and need, as well as to love and faith. He does not keep office hours nor set aside periods when He will see no one. Today, this moment, He feels toward His creatures, exactly as He did when He sent His only begotten Son into the world to die for mankind. God never changes moods or cools off in His affections or loses enthusiasm. His attitude towards sin is now the same as it was when He drove out Adam and Eve from the eastward garden, and His attitude toward the sinner is the same as when He stretched forth His hands and cried, ‘Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest’” (The Knowledge of the Holy, A.W. Tozer, p. 59).
Courage and Confidence During Trials: 1 Corinthians 10:13 “and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it”. 1 Peter 4:19 “Therefore, those also who suffer according to the will of God shall entrust their souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right”. “The word which Peter uses, entrust, is a vivid word. It is the technical word for depositing money with a trusted friend. In the ancient days there were no banks and few really safe places in which to deposit money. So, before a man went on a journey, he often left his money in the safe-keeping of a friend. The friend was absolutely bound by all honor and all religion to return the money intact” (Barclay p. 310).
The Reliability of God’s Word: If God does not change and neither does His counsel or truth, “The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of His heart from generation to generation” (Psalm 33:11). For the faithful Christian this is refreshing and invigorating, but for the unbeliever, “the knowledge that God does not change can be terrifying. God has said that the soul that sins will die. He will not altar His decree. His Word says that the wages of sin is death, and that will be just as true at the final judgment as it was when it was written. Although He may feel grief, God will not soften His position on sin. The Bible says in Psalm 119:89 “Forever, O Lord, Thy word is settled in heaven’” (The Ultimate Priority, John McArthur, Jr., p. 51). The standard that the Bible presents for judgment is exactly the same standard that will be in force on judgment day (John 12:48; Matthew 7:21). “Men sometimes say things they do not really mean, simply because they do not know their own mind; also, because their views change, they frequently find that they can no longer stand to the thing that they said in the past. All of us sometimes have to recall our words, because they have ceased to express what we think; sometimes we have to eat our words, because hard facts refute them. The words of men are unstable things, but not so with the words of God. They stand forever, as abiding valid expressions of His mind and thought. No circumstances prompt Him to recall them; no changes in His own thinking require Him to amend them” (Knowing God, J.I. Packer, p. 70).
Hope when we fail: God ever stands ready to forgive us when we humbly confess and repent of our sins (1 John 1:9). “Again, what comfort could it be to pray to a God, that like a chameleon changed colors every day, every moment? What encouragement could there be to lift up our eyes to one that were of one mind this day and of another mind tomorrow?” (Charnock p. 848).
When God does “Change”
For centuries critics of the Bible have tried to argue that passages such as Genesis 6:6 “The Lord was sorry (repented) that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart”, contradict passages that declare that God does not change. Thiessen reminds us that “God’s immutability is not like that of a stone that does not respond to changes about it, but like that of the column of mercury which rises and falls according as the temperature changes” (p. 128). God never changes His standards or truth, but God has told us that sin will always be punished and righteousness rewarded, thus if we change from good to bad or bad to good God will adjust the rewards or consequences (Jeremiah 18:8; Joel 2:12-14). What this means is that God’s standards are so unchanging that a Christian who becomes unfaithful can lose their salvation (2 Timothy 2:13), and a hardened sinner who repents can be forgiven and saved!
Compare Genesis 1:31 “God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good” with Genesis 6:6 “The Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth”. God is pleased when man is obedient, but is displeased with man is rebellious. This is what is unchanging about God: God is always pleased with faithfulness, no matter who you are (John 3:16), and God is equally always displeased with unfaithfulness, no matter who you are. God’s standards do not shift with individuals or personalities, rather the same uncompromising measure applies to everyone. Therefore, we should not be surprised when God makes plans to replace the disobedient king Saul (1 Samuel 15:11), or when God spares the rebellious city of Nineveh when that city repents (Jonah 4:1ff).
Applications
· God’s remorse or grief over the actions of a sinner does not move Him to change His standards. God had truly appointed Saul king but later said, “I regret that I have made Saul king” (1 Samuel 15:11) because of Saul’s rebellion. What this means to every person is that God will allow you to end up lost forever if you are not faithful. God will not adjust the standard of judgment for you, neither will He bend the rules so that you can be saved without repentance. “To sum up, if man changes, the very immutability of God’s character requires that His feelings should change toward the changed man” (Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible, Haley, p. 66).
· At the same time, God’s unchanging nature means that He is always eagerly awaiting the return of the repentant sinner (Luke 15:20; 2 Peter 3:9).
· The promise of eternal life in Christ Jesus for all who obey Him remains unchanged (Hebrews 6:17-20).
· We live in a world of constant flux where values are constantly changing and what is popular today or who is popular now is abandoned or forgotten next year (Ecclesiastes 4:15-16). How comforting to know that the God whom we serve is not fickle, but rather is dependable and His standards and expectations are unchanging from generation to generation.
