The immutability of God means that He does not change, either in His person or His purposes. This means we can trust Him and fully commit our lives to Him.
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The Immutability Of God
2021 is the year in which we explore what the Scriptures teach about God. We have seen that God is self-existent. That is, God is the uncaused Cause of everything that is. It is the nature of God to be. Therefore He has always been, and always will be. Because He is self-existent, He is eternal and self-sufficient.
We have also seen that God is a triune being. God is one being and three persons. God has eternally existed in the three distinct persons of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Each of those persons is fully God, and yet, there are not three Gods, but only one.
This morning we are going to turn our attention to another one of God’s incommunicable attributes – His immutability. Immutability is not a difficult concept to understand, because we understand what a mutation is, right? It is a change in the structure of a gene. At its base level, a mutation is a change in something. Recently, we have seen Covid-19 develop mutations or changes. So then, God’s attribute of immutability means that He never changes.
God does not grow, evolve, or improve. Neither does He regress, deteriorate, or diminish. God can no more change, than He can cease to be. These attributes are part of His essential nature, and must be so always.
When something changes, it either gets better or worse. So, if God changed, He would either get better or worse, but either of those options is impossible. Jesus said in Matthew 5:48, “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” So, if God is perfect, He can’t get any better, because that would mean He wasn’t perfect before. If He got worse, then He is not perfect now.
In fact, God is the only thing in the universe that is immutable.
- The heavens change. 2 Peter 3:10 tells us there is coming a day in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat.
- The earth changes. The earth experiences floods, earthquakes, fires, tornadoes, and tsunamis that bring changes.
- Plants and animals change. They are born, grow, and eventually die.
- Men change. We age, gain or lose weight, acquire wrinkles, and lose our hair. Not only that, but our moods, attitudes and even zeal for Christ changes from one time to another.
- Angels change. We know that at least some angels changed because Jude 6 tells us that they did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode.
The only One in the entire universe that never changes is God.
This morning we are going to examine the immutability of God in three areas: in God’s Word, God’s Person, and God’s Purposes.
1. The Immutability of God In His Word
Does the Bible actually teach that God is unchanging? Well, let’s take a look at some Scriptures.
Psalm 102:25-27, “Of old You founded the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands. Even they will perish, but You endure; and all of them will wear out like a garment; like clothing You will change them and they will be changed. But You are the same, and Your years will not come to an end.”
This passage is very clear that unlike the heavens and the earth that will change and pass away, God is always the same and does not change or come to an end.
Malachi 3:6, “For I, the Lord, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed.” God had made many promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob concerning their descendants. In Genesis 15:5 God told Abraham that his descendants would be like the number of stars in the heavens. Yet, the sons of Israel had sinned grievously against God. If it were not for the promises God had made with the patriarchs, perhaps He would have wiped them all out. But God did not wipe them out? Why? Because God does not change. Once He makes a promise, He keeps it.
Hebrews 13:8, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” Jesus Christ is God, and He never changes. What He was yesterday, He is still today, and will be forever.
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.” The NIV helps us to get a better sense of this verse, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”
God does not change. That is the testimony of Scripture, Old and New Testaments.
So, that much is clear. But exactly what about God does not change? I’m going to focus on just two things: His Person and His Purposes.
2. The Immutability of God In His Person:
All of the attributes of God which make God, God are unchanging. Was God mighty in the past? He is still mighty now! Was God wise, just, truthful, good, loving in the past? Then He will always be so.
Jeremiah 31:3, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness.” God’s love does not come and go. He set His love on His people from everlasting, and He never changes.
Psalm 100:5, “For the Lord is good; His lovingkindness is everlasting and His faithfulness to all generations.” Here we read of two more attributes of God – His lovingkindness and His faithfulness. Both are unchanging. They are everlasting and unto all generations. God’s lovingkindness and faithfulness do not come and go, depending on His changing moods. They are fixed, constant, and immutable.
The very same God who created the angels, spoke the universe into existence, formed Adam from the dust of the ground, destroyed the world by a flood, called Abraham out of Ur, sent the plagues on Egypt, led Israel into the Promised Land, and sent His Son to die for sins, is your God and will be your God forever! He has not changed since the beginning of the world, and He will never change throughout all the eternal ages in the future.
Whatever God was before the creation of the universe, He is still today, and will be for all eternity.
2. The Immutability of God in His Purposes
- What does the Bible say about the Purposes of God? Want to show you a theology of the purpose of God in Scripture. What does the Bible teach about God’s purpose?
Job 42:2, “I know that You can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.”
Isaiah 46:9-11, “Remember the former things long past, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, ‘My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all My good pleasure.’”
God is the only being who can predict the future with 100% accuracy. Why? Because the future is based on His eternal purposes. Further, His purpose is His good pleasure. God knows the future because He has planned the future. Notice the certainty of His purpose coming to pass – “My purpose WILL be established and I WILL accomplish all My good pleasure; I WILL bring it to pass; I WILL do it.”
Lamentations 2:17, “The Lord has done what He purposed; He has accomplished His word which He commanded from days of old. He has thrown down without sparing, and He has caused the enemy to rejoice over you; He has exalted the might of your adversaries.”
This passage is speaking of the Babylonian invasion of Judah, the destruction of the Jewish temple, and the deportation of the sons of Israel. Notice that God’s purpose is connected to His word which He commanded from days of old. God does what He purposes.
Acts 4:27-28, “For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur.”
Notice that God’s purpose predestined the events of Christ’s crucifixion. That is why Herod, Pontius Pilate, and the Gentiles gathered together against Jesus in Jerusalem to put Him to death. It was God’s predestined purpose.
Romans 8:28-30, “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.”
Verse 28 mentions those called according to God’s purpose. Evidently, it was God’s purpose to call some people. Who are those people? They are those whom God foreknew. What did God do concerning those whom He foreknew? He predestined them to become conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. God’s purpose for these people includes His foreknowledge, predestination, calling, justification and glorification of them. God’s purpose originates in eternity past with His decision to save His elect, and will culminate in eternity future when all of them are glorified. This purpose of God will never change.
Romans 9:10-13, “And not only this, but there was Rebekah also, when she had conceived twins by one man, our father Isaac; for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls, it was said to her, ‘The older will serve the younger.’ Just as it is written, ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.’”
In this passage, God’s purpose is related to His choice of Jacob over Esau. This choice was not regulated by the works of either one. This purpose resulted in God loving Jacob and hating Esau.
Ephesians 1:11, “also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will…”
This passage teaches us that our predestination was according to God’s purpose. And this purpose works all things after the counsel of God’s will.
2 Timothy 1:9, “who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity…”
Our salvation and calling were not be accident. They were on purpose, God’s purpose. This text teaches us that this purpose was formed and granted us from all eternity.
Hebrews 6:17-18, “In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who had taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us.”
The two unchangeable things are God’s promise and His oath. Here we are told that God’s purpose is unchangeable!
So, what have we learned about the purpose of God in Scripture?
- It can’t be thwarted
- It is the reason God can predict the future with 100% accuracy
- It is connected with God’s word from days of old which comes to pass
- It is connected with God’s predestination
- It is connected with God’s sovereign choice
- It includes God working all things according to His will
- It has been set from eternity
- It is unchangeable
As you can see, God’s purpose is not fickle, vacillating, capricious or changeable. Once God purposes something, it will always come to pass. Nothing can stop it.
1. The Westminster Shorter Catechism
In 1646, a synod of English and Scottish theologians (divines) drew up the Westminister Confession of Faith, along with a Longer and Shorter catechism. The catechisms consisted of questions and answers that parents were to teach their children. Here is one of the questions:
“What are the decrees of God?” “The decrees of God are His eternal purpose, according to the counsel of His own will, whereby for His own glory He has foreordained whatsoever comes to pass.”
Now, what does it mean for God to foreordain whatsoever comes to pass? Does that mean God causes everything that happens to come to pass? No, it does not. If it did, that would mean that causes men to sin, and James 1:13 tells us that God tempts no man. It is one thing to say God causes all things. It is another thing to say God foreordains all things. To foreordain all things is to will them. For God to foreordain all things is to simply say that God willed that they should be. It does not mean that God caused them to be. Of course, we all agree that if God is omnipotent and omniscient, He could have stopped anything that has happened from coming to pass. He could have prevented the Fall, man’s horrible sins, the holocaust. But God didn’t stop them. He allowed them to take place. Thus, these things were foreordained.
There are two wrong images of God – a Puppeteer and a Spectator.
Puppeteer: Puppets have no mind, emotions or will. To think of God as a puppeteer destroys man’s responsibility. It seems unjust for God to damn a man for doing what God forced him to do. That would be like a father who takes a hold of his son’s hand and makes him punch his little brother, and then whips the son for doing it! In this view of God, He is either evil or crazy!
Spectator: in this view, God sis on the sidelines of world history and observes the game closely. He is the ultimate armchair quarterback. He roots for his favorite team, offers His help, but is powerless to effect the outcome of the game, unless they accept His help. This view of God destroys His sovereignty.
So, did God cause or permit the following:
- The Flood
- Judas’ betray of Christ (Jn.13:2)
- Your New Birth (1Pet.1:3)
- The Sins You Committed Yesterday
I think we can easily see that there are some things God permits to happen through other means, and some things He steps in and causes directly. But whether God has caused or permitted it, it is all foreordained, because God willed it. He could have stopped it, but chose not to. It was certain to come to pass. But God’s willing for things to take place does not destroy the free choices of His creatures. Did God have to put a gun to Judas’ head in order to get him to betray His Son? No! Judas was a covetous man. God allowed Satan to tempt Judas with money. Judas freely decided to betray the Son of God. If God forced Judas to betray Jesus, how could God justly punish him?
What about the cross? Was it caused or permitted? God did more than hope for the cross; He willed the cross. God sent Jesus for the purpose of dying for sins. But God did not need to cause Judas, Jewish leaders, or the Romans to kill Jesus. They did it because they wanted to.
Jonathan Edwards wrote, “Whether God has decreed all things that ever come to pass or not, all that own the being of a God, own that He knows all things beforehand. Now, it is self-evident that if He knows all things beforehand, He either is willing they should be, or He is not willing they should be. But to will that they should be is to decree them.”
You see, God is free and man is free. But God is freer than man. God’s freedom is not limited by man’s freedom. Man’s freedom is limited by God’s freedom.
The Westminster Confession of Faith put it like this, “God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures…”
1. What Causes A Person To Change Their Plans?
Basically there are two reasons. There is either lack of resources or a lack of foresight. You might make plans to go on a vacation in July to the Bahamas, but when the time gets close discover that you are broke and have no money. Therefore you have to cancel your plans. Or you may make plans to go to the Bahamas in July, but discover that there is a hurricane coming, and therefore have to change your plans. But God does not suffer from a lack of resources or a lack of foresight. He is omnipotent and has all the resources He needs to bring to pass what He wants. He is omniscient and foresees every possible detail that might arise ahead of time.
Charles Spurgeon once said, “God is a master-mind. He arranged everything long before He did it, and once having settled it, He never alters it. Why should God alter His plans? He’s Almighty and can perform His pleasure. He is all-wise and therefore can’t have planned wrongly.”
1. But Doesn’t The Bible Say God Changed His Mind?
Jonah 3:4,10 “Then Jonah began to go through the city one day’s walk; and he cried out and said, ‘Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown”… When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it.”
Is this an example in which God purposed to destroy the Ninevites, and then changed His mind? If so, that would mean God is not omniscient. It would mean that once God learned that the Ninevites had repented, He had the information He needed to change His mind and have mercy on them. But that view reduces God to the level of a finite creature who is still learning and adjusting His choices based on His ever expanding knowledge. Why did God command Jonah to warn the Ninevites of impending judgment any way? Was it not because He desired them to repent, and would have mercy on them if they did? This was a conditional judgment. If the people of Nineveh repented, God would show mercy. If they didn’t, He would destroy them.
Exodus 32:9-14. This passage says that God changed His mind. What exactly are we to understand took place in this situation? If we simply take that phrase at face value what does it teach? It teaches that God was about to make an impulsive and flawed decision, but fortunately for God, Moses was smart enough to see the folly of God’s decision and persuade Him to come up with a better plan. After all, God would look bad to the Egyptians. Without Moses’ help, God would have made a foolish mistake. Sounds blasphemous doesn’t it?! Yet, that is what we are left to if we do not go deeper and seek to discover what was going on. In verse 10, God tells Moses to let Him alone so that He could destroy the Israelites. Why even say this? I believe it was to stir Moses up to intercede on their behalf so that God did not utterly wipe out the nation. God had already purposed not to utterly destroy them, but Moses’ intercession was part of the plan. When all was said and done, it looked from man’s perspective like God changed His mind, but from the divine perspective nothing had changed.
Genesis 6:5-7. This passage says that when God saw the wickedness of man, He was sorry that He had made him, and grieved in His heart, and decided to blot him out from the face of the land. So, does this mean that God changed His mind? Does it mean that God did not foresee man’s sinfulness? It might seem so if looked at superficially. However, this passage does not say that God changed His purposes. It tells us how man’s sinful actions made God feel. He was sorry and grieved. Because God is a person, He has emotions, and is able to feel sorrow and grief. It is not a statement of how God had to change His mind because He did not know man would turn out so bad.
How do I know this so confidently?
1 Samuel 15:29, “The Glory of Israel will not lie or change His mind; for He is not a man that He should change His mind.” Therefore, when the Bible says that God changed His mind, it must be because God is accommodating Himself to language man can understand. We call these expressions “anthropormorphisms.” The Bible uses expressions that we can understand and relate to when describing God. We understand what it means to change our mind. When we see God do something differently than what He said He would do, it looks to us as if He has changed His mind. In reality, He is doing what He has planned to do all along. Nothing catches God by surprise or catches Him off guard. He is the infinite all-knowing One!
Application:
You might think it is not very important to believe in God’s immutability, but it does have some very practical implications.
- God’s immutability means we can know He will never change in His essential being! If God might change in the future, we would never know whether we could really trust Him. What if God might change from being a holy, righteous and good being, into a cruel and evil tyrant in the future? You might be able to trust Him now, but you would never know how He might act in the future. Such a prospect would be terrifying! If God changed for the worse in the future, what kind of God might He become? Would He become just a little bit evil, instead of wholly good? If so, could He become largely evil, or completely evil? If so, there would be nothing we could do about it. We could end up tens of thousands of years in the future, living in a universe dominated by an evil, omnipotent God! How could we ever trust a God like that? How could we ever unreservedly commit our lives to a God like that? We couldn’t! There is absolutely no comfort in a vacillating and changing God. But He is the only constant in the universe. Everything else might change, but He will never change!
- God’s immutability instructs us not to trust in man. Eventually all men will let you down. They are fallible, and weak. They will fail you. Health, riches, friends may fail you, but God will never fail you. Psalm 146:3-7 says, “Do not trust in princes, in mortal man, in whom there is no salvation. His spirit departs, he returns to the earth; in that very day his thoughts perish. How blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God, who made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them; who keeps faith forever.”
- God’s Immutability Provides Security for Christians. It provides much needed security. If He ever purposed to save me, I am secure forever. If He ever loved me, He will love me forever. If He ever forgave me, I am forgiven forever. If He ever saved me, I am saved forever. Isn’t it good to know that my salvation is not dependent on my performance? If it were, I would never have any confidence or assurance of my salvation. Rather, it is grounded in God’s eternal purpose.
- God’s Immutability Is Terrifying To The Wicked. It means that God is not just blowing smoke when He threatens the wicked with eternal damnation. “The soul that sins shall surely die.” “He who has disbelieved shall be condemned.” “The wages of sin is death.” “How will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?” “The Lord Jesus will deal out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power.” My friends, if God has said it, you can bank on it. God’s not going to change His mind about these threatenings. If you show up at the Judgment unsaved, you will perish in the lake of fire. Now is the time to repent, kiss the Son, and follow Jesus. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that God was not really serious when He told you that the broad way leads to destruction.
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