Glory Be to Our Great God | Day 7 - God is Immutable
Give Thanks to the Unchanging God
Lord, You will never change
You will never change
From everlasting You are God
Your love forever will endure forever
Your promises are sure
To everlasting You are God
- Sovereign Grace Music, “You Will Never Change”Immutable, You are beautiful
You never change, You remain the same
Immutable, beautiful
You never change, never change
Forever You reign, You remain the same
You will never change, You will never change
Immutable, beautiful
You never change, never change
- Shai Linne, “Immutable”You are unchanging, faithful, unfailing
Now and forevermore
God everlasting, sovereign, and reigning
Now and forevermore
- Sovereign Grace Music, “You are Unchanging”The Lord our God . . . immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, Almighty, every way infinite . . . - The 1689 London Baptist Confession (emphasis added)
Great is Your faithfulness
Great is Your faithfulness
You never change
You never fail, oh GodTrue are Your promises
True are Your promises
You never change
You never fail, oh GodSo we raise up Holy hands
To praise the Holy One
Who was and is and is to come
- Chris Tomlin, “Unchanging”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 wilt be.
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see;
all I have needed Thy hand hath provided:
great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!
- Thomas O. Chisholm, “Great is Thy Faithfulness”
Nothing Stays the Same for Us . . . Except God
I grew up in Maryland where the weather has four seasons. Every season has its benefits: fall with sweater weather and Thanksgiving meals, winter with snow days and sledding, spring with cool bike rides, and summer with longer vacations and trips to Ocean City. At times, I would find myself as a kid not wanting one specific season to change because of the fun experience or lack of responsibilities. But seasons change, and, for that matter, nothing in human life ultimately stays the same. Granted, certain realities can never change. For example, I can’t change the fact that I was raised by godly parents as their son, but one day my parents will die and I will not be able to experience an active relationship with either one of them.
Amid so many changing realities—age, location, relationships, finances, health, etc.—the eternal God alone stays the same. In light of God’s simplicity, aseity, infinitude, and eternity, we must marvel at the reality that God is immutable or unchanging in that “God cannot change in his being, character, plans, and purposes since there is nothing outside of him that he depends on.”1
Unchanging God Means Faithful God
You probably can connect God’s immutability with many other aspects of God’s nature and his works, but here are some foundational principles of why God must be unchanging. First, God’s nature and character don’t change because he is eternal. As reflected previously, God lives free from the bounds of time because he is eternal in himself and is the creator of time (Gen. 1:1). Therefore, “God’s immutability is his freedom from change and his being the same at all times past, present, and future.”2 Remember, this God is the “I AM” (Exod. 3:14) who is from everlasting to everlasting (Ps. 90:2), but because he is eternal his being can’t be defined as existence by neverending succession because that would be him always “becoming” or “in process,” not infinite and simple in all that he is.3 Throughout the Scriptures, we learn how God has “no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17) and “I the LORD do not change” (Mal. 3:6). Because God is unchanging in his being, his character doesn’t change. As Wellum writes, “God can never become morally better or worse than he is (Mal 3:6; Jas 1:17). He will never be wiser or more loving; within him is fullness of life. God does not lie or repent; he is the absolute standard or moral perfection; and what God says he will do, he does (Num 5:28; 1 Sam 15:29).”4 Therefore, God’s nature, his life and character, is changeless.5
Second, God’s plans, purposes, promises, and works don’t change. in 1 Samuel 15:29, the last judge of Israel, Samuel, verbally rips King Saul apart by not only stating that God has taken the kingdom of Israel from him but also that God “the Glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man, that he should have regret.” Generations before, the prophet for hire, Balaam tells Balak “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it” (Num. 23:19). By his eternal decree or eternal plan, God has ordained all that he will do in time and thus he doesn’t change his plans because “his plans are made on the basis of a complete knowledge and control which extend to all things past, present and future, so that there can be no sudden emergencies or unexpected developments to take him by surprise.”6
“But wait!” you might say. “Doesn’t the Bible mention how God repented, relented, or regretted? How can you say God doesn’t change when it seems like he changes both in his nature and plans?” This question has rightfully wrangled many Christian minds throughout church history, but when reading these passages, readers must bear in mind both the context and purpose of these passages. In these cases, thirdly, God’s immutable nature and character are revealed to us in time and space. God being immutable and eternal doesn’t mean that he is unable to interact with creation. Instead, according to his eternal decree, we get to see the human condition confronted by his nature and character. When looking at the example of Saul, Matthew Barrett writes that “His intention is to use an experience humans can relate to in order to communicate his displeasure with the sinfulness of Saul’s actions, especially since Saul is to be leading God’s people in holiness . . . . Rather than witnessing a change in God—and an emotional one at that—we are instead witnessing the effects of God’s will on his creatures.”7 J. I. Packer helpful writes that “there is no suggestion that this reaction was not foreseen, or that it took God by surprise and was not provided for in his eternal plan. No change in his eternal purpose is implied when he begins to deal with a person in a new way.”8
Immovable Our Hope Remains
“If God were not immutable, he would not be God.”9 That’s a bold claim from Herman Bavinck but he continues on:
His name is “being,” and this name is “an unalterable name.” All that changes ceases to be what it was. But true being belongs to him who does not change. That which truly is remains. That which changes “was something and will be something but is not anything because it is mutable.” But God who is cannot change, for every change would diminish his being.10
If this is the God of the Bible, can you imagine how wonderful being saved by and belonging to him is? Think about some of these reflections.
First, if God doesn’t change, then Jesus, the immutable Son of God incarnate, doesn’t change in his divinity and thus his work of salvation is unchangeable. The author of Hebrews boldly preaches that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb. 13:8). The eternally begotten Son of God took on a truly human nature and experienced in his humanity what you and I experience, but he lived a perfectly sinless life, died an excruciating death on a cross to take God’s righteous wrath as the penalty for our sins in our place, rose triumphantly over sin and death back to life with a glorified body, and ascended to heaven where he reigns forever. Therefore, all who trust in him as their only Lord and Savior of their lives “have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Heb. 10:10, see also v. 14). Nothing can change Christ’s finished work, and therefore, we who trust in him alone can rest knowing we are truly his.
Second, no matter the changes we experience, we can rest in God knowing that his disposition towards us doesn’t change. And what is God’s posture towards those who are in Christ? Well, how much time do you have? Moses heard God declare to him “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation” (Exod. 34:6-7). Throughout the pages of the Bible, we see God demonstrate his unchanging character and purposes consistently even when the circumstances change for the people he is dealing with. Because God’s character and plans don’t change, we too can expect from God consistency in His dealing with us who have been rescued by Jesus Christ.
To close, I will let Packer have the last word:
This thought brings comfort as we enter into the perplexities of each day: amid all the changes and uncertainies of life in a nuclear age [or digital age], God and his Christ remain the same—almighty to save.11
Father, you never change, and this is good news for a changeable person like me. My circumstances change from one to another, but if you are with me, then I can stand firm through whatever life hits me with. So often, I’m prone to worry about the future or regret what I’ve done in the past, but by one, definite atonement by Jesus, I’m not who I was before. By your Holy Spirit, I am a new creation, and nothing can change that reality because your steadfast love never stops for all who are in Christ. Remind me in my darkest moments that your opinion of me as your beloved hasn’t changed the slightest. Remind me in my highest moments that you love me not because of my track record but because of your immutable character and the work of your Son. In his name, I pray. Amen.
Stephen J. Wellum, Systematic Theology, Volume 1: From Canon to Concept (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2024), 607.
Joel B. Carini, “God’s Immutability,” in Lexham Survey of Theology, ed. Mark Ward et al. (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018).
Matthew Barrett, None Greater: The Undomesticated Attributes of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2019), 93-96, 144.
Wellum, 607-8.
J. I. Packer, Knowing God (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2018), 78.
Ibid., 79-80.
Barrett, 107.
Packer, 80.
Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend, 4 vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003-2008), 2:154.
Ibid.; Quote inside is from Augustine, The Trinity, IV.
Packer, 80.