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What good is it for me to believe if He changes His mind?
The promises of God and all that He reveals of himself is not just to bow in awe and say “How mighty and awesome God He is” but to seize in pure faith with a humble heart and live His kingdom right now.
He is the First and the Last; the Alpha and Omega, the same yesterday, today, and forever.
As an infinite and absolute Being, self-existent and absolutely independent, God is exalted above all the causes of and even above the possibility of change.
God is absolutely immutable in his essence and attributes.
He can neither increase nor decrease.
He is subject to no process of development, or of self-evolution.
His knowledge and power can never be greater or less.
He can never be wiser or holier, or more righteous or more merciful than He ever has been and ever must be.
He is no less immutable in his plans and purposes. Infinite in wisdom, there can be no error in their conception; infinite in power, there can be no failure in their accomplishment. He is “the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” (James 1. 17.) “God is not a man that He should lie; neither the son of man that He should repent; hath He said and shall He not do it? or hath He spoken, and shall He not make it good?” (Num. 23. 19) “I am the lord, I change not.” (Mal. 3.6) “The counsel of the lord standeth forever; the thoughts of his heart to all generations.” (Salmos 33. 11.) “There are many devices in a man’s heart; nevertheless, the counsel of the lord, that shall stand.” (Pr 19. 21.) “the lord of Hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand.” (Is 14. 24.) “I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure.” (Is. 46. 9, 10.)
Those passages of Scripture in which God is said to repent, are to be interpreted on the same principle as those in which He is said to ride upon the wings of the wind, or to walk through the earth. Refer to lesson 1.
To say that God is immutable is to say that He never differs from Himself. The concept of a growing or developing God is not found in the Scriptures.
For a moral being to change it would be necessary that the change be in one of three directions. He must go from better to worse or from worse to better; or, granted that the moral quality remain stable, he must change within himself, as from miniature to mature or from one order of being to another. It should be clear that God can move in none of these directions. His perfections forever rule out any such possibility.
God cannot change for the better. Since He is perfectly holy, He has never been less holy than He is now and can never be holier than He is and has always been. Neither can God change for the worse.
As there can be no mutation in the moral character of God, so there can be none within the divine essence. The being of God is unique in the only proper meaning of that word; that is, His being is other than and different from all other beings. We have seen how God differs from His creatures in being self-existent, selfsufficient, and eternal. By virtue of these attributes God is God and not some other being. One who can suffer any
slightest degree of change is neither self-existent, self-sufficient, nor eternal, and so is not God. Only a being composed of parts may change, for change is basically a shift in the relation of the parts of a whole or the admission of some foreign element into the original composition.
Since God is self-existent, He is not composed. There are in Him no parts to be altered. And since He is self-sufficient, nothing can enter His being from without.
God never changes moods or cools off in His affections or loses enthusiasm. His attitude toward sin is now the same as it was when He drove out the sinful man from the garden, and His attitude toward the sinner the same as when He stretched forth His hands and cried, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
God will not compromise and He need not be coaxed. He cannot be persuaded to alter His Word nor talked into answering selfish prayer.
In all our efforts to find God, to please Him, to commune with Him, we should remember that all change must be on our part.
“I am the Lord, I change not.” We have but to meet His clearly stated terms, bring our lives into accord with His revealed will, and His infinite power will become instantly operative toward us in the manner set forth through the gospel in the Scriptures of truth.