Exploring the Character of God: God's Unchangeable Nature

Today we explore God's immutable nature. We start our journey by investigating God's immutability, His unchangeable nature, character, and essence. We'll shine a light on scripture passages that reassure us of His consistent love, wisdom, and holiness. And for those parts of the scriptures that seem to depict God changing His mind or expressing regret, we'll delve into anthropomorphism to understand that these are but different stages in the unfolding of God's grand plan.

By the time we conclude, you'll find comfort in the unwavering goodness and faithfulness of God. So, come along as we remind ourselves that despite the whirlwind of change around us, one thing remains the same: God, our unchanging refuge - yesterday, today, and forever.

Resources for further study
The Attributes of God: A Journey into the Father’s Heart, vol. 1& 2 by A. W. Tozer
The Nature of God by A.W. Pink
Systematic Theology 2nd edition by  Wayne Grudem  
Christian Theology  by Millard J. Erickson  

Do you want to learn how to study the Bible? Check out the YouTube channel Faithfullyliven youtube.com/@faithfullyliven

Do you want to read about how to live faithfully? Check out the blog http://lyfe102.org

Get a free Road Map to get started learning how to study the Bible https://mailchi.mp/88f9c9405da0/bible-study-road-map

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

Welcome to Faithfully Living, the podcast where we learn how to live for Christ in our daily lives. I am Dwayne, your host, and I would like to invite you on a journey with me to explore and learn how to be a faithful follower of Christ. Change is an inevitable part of life. It propels us forward, encourages personal growth and opens opportunities, among many things. Change is a constant in our lives and can take many forms. It can be a small adjustment in our lives to our routine, or it could be a profound shift that can alter the course of our life. Change can be planned or unexpected, welcome or unwelcome, but it always challenges us to adapt and grow. Many of us are creatures of habit. I know I am. You'll find some comfort in the familiarity of life, but change is what keeps our lives dynamic and exciting. We change as individuals and change affects us in many different ways.

Speaker 1: 1:29

This cannot be said of God. One of His attributes is that he is immutable. What exactly do I mean when I say the immutability of God? Immutability refers to the divine attribute that God is unchanging in His character, nature and essence. It means that God is not subject to growth or development or alteration in any way. So when we say God is immutable, we're saying that God is eternally consistent and constant in His attributes. It assures us that God's love, wisdom, holiness and other attributes are unwavering and reliable. God remains the same yesterday, today and forever. The Bible provides us with passages that affirm God's immutability Psalms 102-25-27,. I'm reading from the NLT. It says Long ago you laid the foundation of the earth and made the heavens with your hands. They will perish, but you remain forever. They will wear out like old clothing, you will change them like a garment and discard them, but you are always the same you will live forever. Micah, malachi 3-6 says For I am the Lord, I change, not Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today and forever. And that's in Hebrews 13, 8.

Speaker 1: 3:10

Awp, a English Bible teacher, helps us to put some perspective on this attribute of God. He says there never was a time when he was not. There never will come a time when he shall cease to be. God has neither evolved, grown or improved. All that he is today, he has ever been and ever will be. He cannot change for the better, for he is already perfect, being perfect. He cannot change for the worse.

Speaker 1: 3:40

Awtoser in his book the Attributes of God deeper than the Father's Heart in volume 2. He breaks it down a little bit more. He says for God to alter or change at all, to be different from himself, one or three things has to take place. God must go from better to worse, or he must go from worse to better, or he must change from one kind of being to another. Therefore, if God is to change and God either has to, either has to get better or worse, or different. But God can't go from better to worse because he is a holy God, because God is eternal, he has eternal holiness. He cannot be any less holy than he is now and of course, he never can be any more holy than he is now, because he is perfect, just as he is.

Speaker 1: 4:38

There will never be a change in God, no change necessary, and I like what Miller Eckert says in his Christian theology textbook. He explained it like this there is first, no qualitative change. God cannot increase in anything because he is already perfect, nor can he decrease, for if he were to, he would cease to be God. There's also no qualitative change. God's nature does not undergo any modification. So God is self-sufficient, self-existent, he's eternal, he's omnipresent and immutable. There will be no reason for him to change, because God changes not His nature. His attributes are eternally unchanged.

Speaker 1: 5:34

Tosa also reminds us about the triumn nature of God, meaning the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. He says you can run through the gamut of the attributes of God, and what you say about the Father you can say about the Son without modification. What you say about the Father and the Son you can say about the Spirit without modification, for there is one substance that are together to be worshiped and glorified. So when they say God is the same, we're saying that Jesus Christ is the same, the Holy Spirit is the same. All that God ever was and still is, all that he was and is, will ever be. So one challenge to reconciling the idea of the unchanging God with the idea of how God interacts and responds to creation. God's nature doesn't change, so it doesn't preclude him from engaging and being dynamic with humanity.

Speaker 1: 6:45

So I'm going to go back to Erikson again, because he explains it so nicely here. He says what then are we to make of the passages where God says to change his mind or to repent over what he has done? So these passages can be explained in several ways. So some of them are to be understood as anthropomorphism and they are simply descriptions of God's actions and feelings in human terms, from a human perspective, including their representation of God as experiencing pain or regret. So in order for us to understand the actions of God, they were put in terms as like human terms, how we see the world, like our emotions. That kind of help us relate a little bit better to God, even though we don't relate exactly to God because he's God. But they have to put it in terms where us as humans could understand.

Speaker 1: 7:47

And then he also goes and says what may seem to be changes of mind may actually be new stages in the working out of God's plan. So he's saying that, god, remember, if you go back to the episode about the sovereignty of God, god has planned out everything from beginning of time, and so our free will, kind of, is worked into God's plan. So when there's something new that happens, it doesn't take God by surprise. It's like the working of God's plan just being fulfilled as he planned it to be. So he says an example of this is the offering of salvation to Gentiles. While a part of God's original plan, it represents rather a sharp break into what had proceeded. Meaning you know, first God, israel was God's chosen people. And then, when Jesus came, he went to the Jews. And then, as when Jesus died, rose again and he ascended into heaven, the disciples carried on Christ's ministry and they went to the Jews, but then they also went to the Gentiles. So that's what he's kind of articulated there.

Speaker 1: 9:02

And then, thirdly, some apparent changes of mind are changes of orientation resulting from humans move into a different relationship with God. He says God did not change when Adam sinned. Rather, humanity had moved into God's disfavor. This also works in reverse, even in the case of Nineveh. So remember, in the book of Jonah he says in effect, god said 40 more days and Nineveh will be destroyed unless they repent. So that's the condition on there. Nineveh repented and was spared. It was humans who had changed, not God's plan, since the biblical view is not that God is static, but that he is stable. He's active and dynamic, but in a way that is stable and consistent with his nature.

Speaker 1: 9:52

So what we are dealing with here is the dependency of God. He will be the same tomorrow as he is today. He will act as he promised, he will fulfill his commitments. A believer can rely on that. And then he goes on the site. The faithfulness, the faithful love of the Lord never ends. His mercy, mercy's never cease. Great is that faithfulness. His mercies begin afresh each morning. That's lamentations, three, twenty, two to twenty-three, and then first John one nine says if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful, and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So these are God's promises. His promise is to be faithful. He renews his mercy each day and then he promised us that if we confess our sins he will forgive us. So forgiveness is a promise and the cleansing from our unrighteousness is a promise.

Speaker 1: 11:01

So Wayne Grudem, in his book Systematic Theology, gives us a definition of God's unchangingness, as God is unchanging in being, perfection, purposes and promises. Yet God does act and feel emotion. He acts and feels differently and responds to different situations. So remember, when God acts and responds to different situations is already his plan from the beginning. So what may seem to us as changing God, changing and acting different situations, is really. You know, god is the same. He's still acting according to what he is planning long ago. So he's going to give us a little bit more understanding of why it seems that God might change his mind to us when he really is not.

Speaker 1: 11:52

So Dr Grudem is going to talk about this a little bit more. He says yeah, when we talk about God being unchanged in his purposes, we remember. We wonder about scripture, where God says he will judge his people. And then, because of prayer, our people's repitants are both God relents and did not bring judgment as he said he would. So the examples of such withdrawing from threatening judgment include the successful intervention of Moses this is prayer to prevent the destruction of the people of Israel. In Exodus 32, verses 9-14. And then another one would be the additional 15 years of the life of King Hezekiah. So he says these are not cases where God's purposes are these not cases where God's purposes in fact did change.

Speaker 1: 12:49

And there are other patches where God is said to be sorry or that he carried out some previous action that he was sorry for doing what he did. So one thing of the time before the flood, where it said that the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth and agreed him to his heart. Part of the time when God told Samuel that he had regretted that he had made Saul king, he had turned his back from following the Lord. So Dr Grudem says these instances should be understood as two expressions of God's present attitude or intent with respect to the situation as it exists at that moment. If the circumstances change, then of course God's attitude or expressions of intent will also change. This is just saying that God responds differently to different situations. Remember, god responds differently to different situations, but he already has planned this out beforehand.

Speaker 1: 13:55

So he says in the cases of God regretting that he had made man or that he had made Saul king, these should be understood to mean that A God felt sorry when considering the sinful result that had come after his earlier actions. But this is still consistent with the idea that God knew that these events that caused him grief would still fulfill his long-term purpose of showing his justice and holiness when he brought judgment on sinful behavior. So you see, it's all a part of God's long-term plan. He says these verses should not be understood to mean that God thought that he had made a mistake or that if he could start again and act differently, he would in fact not create man or make Saul king. The verses should be understood as expressions of God's presence, this pleasure towards the sinfulness of man. His previous actions led to events that, in the short term, cost him sorrow, but nonetheless, in the long term, would achieve his good purpose.

Speaker 1: 15:07

So he says one thing to remember is that God knows the future. He has a plan that was made long before he created the earth. He knew what will happen. He knows what we're going to do, yet Our free will, our prayers, please for help, are woven into his plan. So learning about the immutability of God should bring us comfort.

Speaker 1: 15:43

So the immutability of God underscores his absolute reliability. So, unlike us as human beings, we change our minds, our intentions, but God's promises are unwavering. When he makes a covenant or a commitment, it stands firm throughout time. It speaks of God's faithfulness. Regardless of our changing situations, god remains faithful in his love, his grace and his care. So this assurance of God's unchangingness should give us a sense of the future. It gives us comfort and security to know that we can place our faith in him. If we know this character of God, it gives us the ability to trust him fully.

Speaker 1: 16:31

So the recognition of God's unchanging behavior should inspire us to heartfelt worship and gratitude. So remember, you know, in our darkest days, when it seems like there's constant pain and hurt, we feel like there's no hope. God is the constant hope in our lives. James 1, 17 says Every good and perfect gift is from above and comeeth down from the Father of Light, which whom is no variedness, our shadow of turning. So an unchanging God gives good gifts to those that love him. So, in a world that is marked by constant change, the immutability of God stands as an unshakable foundation for our faith.

Speaker 1: 17:20

All right, so that's it for our episode today. So I hope you take away from our exploration of the immutability of God that God can be trusted because of this attribute of him faithful to his promises. He can always be trusted. He's always trustworthy, he never breaks a promise. So thanks for listening and remember the God is always good and is always faithful. Thank you for listening to the podcast. Do me a favor by following the podcast and leaving a review to help spread the word. I look forward to hearing from you.