Last week we began discussing how God is different from us. This first attribute was God’s independence. This was defined as: God does not need us or the rest of creation for anything, yet we and the rest of creation can glory him and bring him joy.
The second attribute is God’s unchangeableness. We can define the unchangeableness of God as follows: God is unchanging in his being, perfections, purposes and promises, yet God does act and feel emotions, and he acts and feels differently in response to different situations.
We can find evidence of this in Scripture. In Psalms 102 we find a contrast between things that we may think to be permanent such as earth or the heavens, on the one hand, and God, on the other hand. The psalmist says:
“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.
Psalms 102:25-27 NASB
As a side note, it is significant that this passage is also quoted in Hebrews 1:11-12 and applied to Jesus Christ. Hebrews 13:8 also applies the attribute of unchangeableness to Christ: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” God the Son shares fully in this divine attribute.
Referring to his own qualities of patience, long-suffering, and mercy, God says, “For I, the Lord, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed” (Malachi 3:6). Here God uses a general statement of his unchangeableness to refer to some specific ways in which he does not change.
The definition given above specifies that God is unchanging – not in every way that we might imagine, but only in ways that Scripture itself affirms. The Scripture passages already cited refer either to God’s own being or to some attribute of his character. From these we can conclude that God is unchanging, at least with respect to his “being,” and with respect to his “perfections”.
Does God sometimes change His mind? When we talk about God being unchanging in his purposes, we may wonder about in places in Scripture where God said he would judge his people and then because of prayer or the people’s repentance (or both) God relented and did not bring judgement as he said he would. Examples of such withdrawing from threatened judgement include the successful intervention of Moses in prayer to prevent the destruction of the people of Israel (Exodus 32:9:14), the adding of another fifteen years to the life of Hezekiah (Isaiah 38:1-6), or the failure to bring promised judgement upon Nineveh when the people repented (Jonah 3:4 and 10). Are these not cases where God’s purposes in fact did change?
These instances should be understood as true expressions of God’s present attitude or intention with respect to the situation as it exists at that moment. If the situation changes, then of course God’s attitude or expression of intention will also change. This is just saying the God responds differently to different situations. The example of Jonah preaching to Nineveh is helpful here. God sees the wickedness of Nineveh and sends Jonah to proclaim, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” (Jonah 3:4). The possibility that God would withhold judgement if the people are not explicitly mentioned in Jonah’s proclamation as recorded in Scripture, but it is implicit in the warning: the purpose for the proclaiming a warning is to bring repentance. Once the people repented, the situation was different, and God responded differently to that changed situation.
The situation with Hezekiah and with the intercession of Moses is similar: God had said that he would send judgement, and that was a true declaration, provided that the situation stayed the same. But the situation changed: someone started to pray earnestly. Here prayer itself was part of the new situation and it was in fact what changed the situation. God responded to that changed situation by answering the prayer and withholding judgement.
At first it may not seem very important to us to affirm God’s unchangeableness. The idea is so abstract that we may not immediately realize its significance. If we stop for a moment to imagine what it would be like if God could change, the importance of this doctrine becomes clearer. For example, if God could change, then any change would be would be either for the better or the worse. If God changed for the better, then he was not the best possible being when we first trusted him. How could we be sure that he is the best possible being now? If God could change of the worse, then what kind of God might be become? Might he become, for instance, a little bit evil rather than wholly good? If he could become a little bit evil, then how do we know he could not change to become largely evil – or wholly evil? The idea that God could change leads to the horrible possibilities that thousands of years from now we might come to live forever in a universe dominated by a wholly evil, omnipotent God. It is hard to imagine any thought more terrifying. How could we ever trust such a God who could change? How could we ever commit our lives to him?
A little reflection like this shows how absolutely important the doctrine of God’s unchangeableness is. If God is not unchanging, then the whole basis of our faith begins to fall apart, and our understanding of the universe begins to unravel. This is because our faith and hope and knowledge all ultimately depend on a person who is infinitely worthy of trust – Because he is absolutely and eternally unchanging in his being, perfections, purposes and promises.