Equip 2024: Our Blessed and Boundless God #4 - He Who Changes Not: Divine Immutability

Divine Immutability as Comfort in a Changing World

For our next session, and think about divine immutability. And then we won't be so easy in our final session.

Looking at impassibility.

But if you, and if you have a Bible, if you want to make your way towards Malachi, we'll kind of camp there a little bit, but I'll be bouncing around as well. But divine immutability is, in one sense, just a consequence of everything we've already been saying, but also is a vital, explicit attribute of God that He communicates often in His Word for the comfort of His people.

Most of us are very familiar with it. In fact, it may be one of the attributes that we cling to most often. We think of Robert Chisholm's hymn from 1923, Great is Thy Faithfulness. Most of us probably know the first verse by heart.

Great is thy faithfulness, O God, my Father. There is no shadow of turning with Thee. Thou changest not, thy compassions they fail not. As thou hast been, thou forever will be. And really, the answer to our sometimes deepest question is how do we know God's compassions will never fail?

Is because He never changes. He changest not. He will forever be, so His compassions, they fail not. And that's our assurance. That's how we know that our last sin will not be the last straw for God, because He never changes.

He's immutable. He's unchanging. And that's all divine immutability means. It means God's unchangeable. God doesn't mutate. He doesn't change. The Puritan Stephen Charnock gave this definition.

Excuse me.

God is unchangeable in His essence, nature, and perfection.

And that's a good definition.

God is unchanging in His essence, nature, and perfection. So that means when we say things like God is blessed, God is good, God is love, we mean that unchangeably so, perfectly so. He's always loving, always good.

He's always, as we've said, blessed. Now, sometimes folks object to God's immutability because they reason that if God is truly loving, then He must change and adapt in relationships with His beloved, because that's what love does.

I mean, if our human relationships involve response and change, then how can a relationship with God be real if He doesn't change? That's how the reasoning goes. But as we'll see, when you make God more like a man, He actually grows more distant.

You lose Him, you lose God and yourself, and it's a bad bargain. The Reformers, otherwise, said things like this. You have to go before the modern therapeutic era, and they said things like this. The immutability of God is the fulcrum of our faith and the foundation of our hope.

Thomas Manton said that God's immutability is the church's comfort in the saddest condition. Or Samuel Willard said, live upon God's immutability. It's enough to keep up your spirits. Well, imagine that.

It's God's immutability that we can live upon. It can encourage us, can maintain our spirits. Now, everything we've already considered logically entails immutability. God is blessed because who He is is eternal, independent, and irreducible.

If God is independent of creation, and if He is irreducible, He's not made up of things, then He's not subject to change. If He's eternal, that means He's outside the sequence of change that is measured by time, so He's not susceptible to change as a creature.

If God is self-sufficient, He is and always will be who He is, He cannot change. All change must come from a cause, and there is no cause before God. God has, He's uncaused. Charles Hodge put it this way.

He says, as an infinite and absolute being, self-existent and absolutely independent, God is exalted above all the causes of and even the possibility of change. That is, not only has God hasn't changed, but it's impossible for Him to change.

He's above even that potential. Or Stephen Sharnock again said, if God did change, it must either be to a greater perfection than He had before, or to a less. That's the only way to change,.

Is to grow better or grow worse.

And he goes on, if it's to the better, He was not perfect, and so was not God. If it's to the worse, He will not be perfect, and so can be no longer God after that change. It's simple logic at one level.

If God is infinite perfection, for Him to change would mean either He was not actually infinite perfection, or somehow He could lose it, so He would not be God. So to be God means He must be unchangeable.

God is changeless. This is why John Owen said, any suggestion of mutability in God is actually atheism. He says, to ascribe the least mutability to the essence of God is transcendent atheism in the highest degree.

That is, if we were to predicate any kind of change in God, we are effectively saying God is a creature. Because what's constituent of creation is change and motion. God is the creator of all things. He cannot change.

He is.

No one can add to or subtract anything from His being. No one can increase or decrease His blessedness,.

A Brockles said.

And again, this reminds us that just as we talked about God's independence, God is immutable,.

Not like a rock.

He's immutable like an infinite fountain, like boundless light. There is no shading His perfection. And this is how God argues in Scripture. So, one place to go to think about divine immutability is Malachi chapter three.

And I should have been there myself, turning there. Malachi chapter three, the Lord is arguing with His people because of who He is, He does not change, and they should remember that. That's their comfort and their correction in all their changing circumstances.

So, in Malachi three, verse six, He says, for I, the Lord, do not change. Therefore, you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed. It would even be better to translate verse six as, I am the Lord, and the new sentence, I do not change.

God is arguing from His being, just as we looked at last session. God is pointing to who He is, and because He is Yahweh, the one who is, He is, as Hodge says, exalted above all the possibility of change.

God effectively says to His people, I am who I am, I cannot change. Now, why does God point to His immutability here in this point of Israel's history? It's because of just what Israel has been arguing.

In chapter two, verse 17, we see Israel wearying the Lord with their words by saying, everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and He delights in them. Where is the God of justice? So, Israel is looking around at their circumstances, the plight that they're in, and going, where is God?

He must now like evil, because evil is prospering, so God must no longer be good. And so, in the view of this kind of complaint, God addresses His immutability as the consequence of His perfect being.

God, Calvin says here, reasons from His own nature. It's impossible for me to have change because I am the Lord. So, as people are looking at circumstances, God is arguing with them, you can't draw this conclusion because I am who I am.

It's impossible for me to have changed. He asserts His immutability out of His own nature. We see this elsewhere in Scripture, like Psalm 102. In Psalm 102 is the prayer of one afflicted. And what do we pray when we're afflicted?

We lament, we bring our sorrows to the Lord, and that's what happens in verses one and two in Psalm 102, we lay out our cries. And then in verses 25 to 27, this is what the psalmist says of Psalm 102.

Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. 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.

But you are the same, and your years have no end. So the psalmist brings to look at those seemingly most stable parts of creation. The mountains, the fixtures of creation, the earth and sky. Even these change and deteriorate.

And God will take them off like a jacket. Like a garment, picturing creation. But He will remain. And in verse 27, the ESV has you are the same. The Hebrew here is literally you are He. That is, you are.

I am who I am. God is. And because you are, you transcend, you are separate from all the changing circumstances.

Of creation.

They will all wear out, creation will change. But He is limitless. And as the psalm ends in Psalm 102, it's that very point that gives the psalmist hope. In verse 28 of Psalm 102, the children of your servants shall dwell secure, their offspring shall be established.

How do you know the people of God will never end, even though seemingly everything is constantly changing, and there is no certainty around the corner? It's because God is He. He remains. He never changes.

And so we can be assured that God's promises and purposes will never fail, because He doesn't change. This is the same logic that God gives to Israel in Malachi 3. God is basically saying to them, you should be praying Psalm 102, not complaining.

You should be looking and remembering me. I never change. So my covenant promises are secure. I have not become unfaithful. God grounds His faithfulness to His promises and His word in His immutable being.

The reason we know God's promises can always be trusted is because God never changes. God repeatedly reasons this way in Scripture. So for example, in Genesis 22, verse 16, God says to Abraham, by myself I have sworn.

I swear by myself. Now, none of us can do that because we know we change. And even if someone does that, we know in the back of our minds, regardless of what we know of someone's character, there's a possibility they may not pull it off because we change.

But Paul picks that up in Hebrews 6, verses 13 to 18, and he makes this important observation. He says, when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement.

Two unchangeable things. What are the two unchangeable things that give us encouragement? God's word and God. God is unchangeable. It's God Himself. God's covenant faithfulness is explained by His unchangeable being.

The reason we know God's word will never fail and will come to pass is because the God who spoke it is immutable and He never changes. He's completely unchangeable. And it's His immutable being that establishes His unchangeable promises.

If God could change somehow, we could not be assured that His word and promises wouldn't somehow expire also. But because He never will, we know His word stands forever. God's immutability is the glory that unites all the other attributes of God.

Sharnock again said that God's immutability is like the enamel of all the rest of God's perfection,.

The glue of the perfections of God.

What makes God's love and goodness and justice so wonderful is they're immutable. They're unchanging.

They don't diminish.

They don't need to be increased. They are perfect and they are. Another analogy that persisted through the Puritans is like a string that threads pearls together. And if you think of the attributes of God, each one like a pearl, it's immutability is the thread that holds them together that assures us that they are actually divine perfections.

And what binds the perfections of God as perfections is that they are perfections that will never change or alter or diminish or corrupt or grow weary. God is. So His mercy's unchanging. His love is immutable.

His grace is unfailing. His justice never alters. It's the immutability of the divine perfection that makes them perfections. That's what gives us assurance. And this is the logic that God is pressing on Israel in Malachi's day, that God cannot change.

And so whatever you've encountered, there are circumstances that are poor. The cause is not in God's infidelity. Certainly not. It's not in His forgetfulness and His negligence. This is why we can trust the Word of God even when our circumstances are less than optimal, shall we say, or even distressing.

We can know God's covenant never changes because God never does. This is the encouragement that James gives us in the New Testament. In James chapter one, he writes to Christians who meet trials of various kinds.

He says in verse two, they have various temptations and tests. And he says there to us explicitly in verse 13 of James one, we must never say I'm being tempted by God. And he goes on instead in verse 17 and says, for every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

So even though the sun and moon vary and creation shifts from light to dark, God doesn't. There's no variation of change in our God. And so that means when we face trials, it must not be because God has changed and is no longer happy with us.

Or now God no longer loves us. Rather, His perfect gifts come in various ways, but from the same source. And even perfect gifts to test and to chasten and to form us. So we're reminded that our varying circumstances may often vary from beneficial to adverse.

Those are not signaling shifts in God. They are signaling the varied outworkings of the single, simple God in His immutable love and gracious purposes to us. And those purposes, those outworkings do change, but because God doesn't, we can be assured in even the darkest day that even our deepest trials is not because God's forgotten love and faithfulness.

It's because His love and faithfulness is working itself out in a different way to shape and form us to be more like His Son according to His covenant love. And this is the very perspective that God gives to Israel even here in Malachi 3, if you're still there.

He says to them, "'From the days of your fathers,' in verse seven, "'you have turned aside from My statutes "'and have not kept them. "'Return to Me and I will return to you,' "'says the Lord of hosts.'".

Now, the perspective that God gives Israel here, He says, from the days of your fathers, that's going back to the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and even Jacob himself. And He's talking about the sin that has characterized Israel for their entire history.

So God says, you think now that I'm sort of checked out and I've abandoned you? Well, let's have some perspective. You've been rebellious your entire history, and yet I still am the God who never changes.

That's why, verse six, you're not consumed. You've had My patience and grace all this time, these many centuries. But what then hope does God lay out to His people? Well, what is necessary to know that you can come back if you're in a far country?

Well, there's someone to return to. So God says, return to Me and I will return to you. You see, if God is unchanging, that means His covenant promises haven't voided. And that means that God is still willing to forgive today, even now, even after all this rebellion.

You see, God is appealing to His rebellious people. I am the God who doesn't change, so therefore, my faithfulness to forgive and to restore and to redeem those who return to Me remains. In unfathomable mercy, God is still there to receive everyone who repents and returns to Him.

God appeals with the hope of His grace. No one is so far gone because God never changes. This is our great hope as we pray for our loved ones outside the faith, as we hold forth the Gospel and evangelism, and someone says to us, well, you don't know what I've done.

You don't know the life I've lived. I say, well, I don't, but I know God, and I know He's immutable. And so His promise of forgiveness is not contingent and never diminishes, never changes, because He's unchangeable.

So we can always return to God, always,.

Because He never changes. I spoke to a gentleman at a coffee shop. I was studying at a coffee shop. It's a frequent occurrence in my life, and often have wonderful conversations when people see Bibles and theology books open.

And I had a gentleman tell me that his God, he wanted me to know that his God was out there. He pointed out the window of the coffee shop and the birds and the trees. And I said, that's very unfortunate, because you know the thing about all those birds and trees that you're looking at?

They admittedly look pretty on a spring day. They're all gonna change. They're all changing now. They're all decay and die. So where's your hope? Because you have no grasp on it. God is wholly other from His creation.

He's unchanging. He's self-sufficient. And that is our hope. We can hope that He is. He hasn't altered. He hasn't changed.

We change.

We rebel. We sin, sometimes gravely and significantly. God never changes.

He is.

And we can always return to Him in His grace. And it is His immutability that reminds us again of His nearness and our communion with Him. When you think about our human relationships, it's the reality of change that always makes them a bit tenuous.

You probably have friends who are not like they used to be. Or you might sometimes always say to somebody, I don't recognize you anymore.

Why?

We change.

And it's the factor of change that makes every human relationship have an asterisk in it because people can change and relationships can change. The fact that God never changes, He is who He is, means we can always seek Him, rely on Him, and trust Him, and be assured of His promises.

They'll never void. They'll never expire. God will never abandon us. God will never leave us. And when we've rebelled and we've sinned, we can return into His grace and His forgiveness and His love. Return to me and I will return to you.

He says He's never left. It's always us. So, sometimes people suggest that God's immutability destroys our communion with God, or our relatedness with Him. I just have to say, they have no idea what they're talking about.

God's immutability is the basis of our communion with God. It's our hope to seek Him. It's our confidence to go to Him. And it gives us the wonder of the Gospel. The One who never changes entered our changing world and assumed humanity for us.

But the incarnation didn't change God. God added changeable human nature to Himself in the person of the Son. He assumed the Son and took up the human nature of the Son. And in Christ, the divine and human nature were joined without mixture or confusion.

And so Christ didn't come some third being, but true God and true man. And as true man, Christ lived for us and died for us, and He rose and ascended and assured us that His vicarious life and death and resurrection are truly ours if we trust Him.

And we have good news that all the work of Christ in saving us is secured by divine immutability. The Bible says in Hebrews 13 .8,.

Jesus Christ is what?

The same yesterday, today, and forever. That is, He's immutable. So the work of Christ is secured by divine immutability. You have unchanging hope. We have unchanging hope in our own life. We have unchanging hope to hold out to our dying world that Jesus Christ is the same.

Edward Lay said, whom God loves once, He loves forever. God's people shall never fall from grace, shall never be wholly overcome of temptation. And John Owen said this, a great statement, God has laid the shoulders of the unchangeableness of His own nature to this work.

That is, in the work of salvation, God put the shoulders of His immutability to this work. And so we can trust He will perfect it. We can trust it's constant because God never changes.

Amen.

Malachi’s Rebuke and the Promise to Return

Let me pray.

Father, we adore You as being the God who never changes. And we rejoice that this is the enamel of all Your perfections, so that we know that You are love and joy and goodness, even in our darkest days.

Help remind us and garrison our hearts that even as we suffer and struggle, this indicates no change in You, but Your perfect eternal love, outworking Your very purpose toward us to make us like Your Son.

We ask that You would help us to rejoice in You in all things, because You never change. And may this hope be often on our lips and held out to others, even in varied situations, knowing that You, the God who is, has come to us in the Lord Jesus and holds out hope to everyone that they might be rescued by faith in Him.

We pray this in Christ's name, amen.