The Immutability of God

Today on Renewing Your Mind… It's hard for anyone to go a day, even an hour, without changing in some way.

Our thoughts and emotions are in constant flux in that we can't look at a photo album without noticing how we've changed physically over the years. God, however, never changes. He is an immovable rock, a mighty fortress in this ever-changing world. Today on Renewing Your Mind, Dr. Stephen Lawson continues his series, The Attributes of God. In this series, we're talking about having a high view of God, and the church has always stood the strongest when she has had the highest view of God. For example, the Reformation of the 16th century, that was a time when the church came back to the high ground of a wholly transcendent, sovereign view of God. When John Calvin wrote his magnum opus, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, he began with the knowledge of God. He understood that all of theology rests upon the character of God. And as church history has unfolded when we come to the great Puritan age, for example, that was a time in which the Puritans became trumpets for the attributes of God and the glory of God. When I was first introduced to the attributes of God, I was reading a Puritan reprint by Thomas Watson, the title of which was, A Body of Divinity.

And I opened it and looked simply at the table of contents, and I learned more just in reading the table of contents than I learned from most books that are written today. The first half of the table of contents was just the attributes of God. The second half was all the rest of theology. The Puritans got it right, and of course we come to the great awakening of the 18th century, Jonathan Edwards, sinners in the hands of an angry God, God glorified in man's dependence. Virtually every other sermon title by Edwards has God in the title, because God was so prevalent in his preaching and in his teaching, and there was a high view of God that was restored.

That's what I long for, for our Christian lives and for the church again, for us to recapture a lofty, high, majestic view of God. And that is our focus in this series on the attributes of God. And in this session, we come to the next attribute, which is the immutability of God. The immutability of God means that God is unchangeable in his character and in all of his ways, that God is fixed in who he is. He is unalterable, that it's impossible for God to either increase or decrease. If God were to increase, that would mean that he is less than what he will become, or if God were to decrease, that would mean that he is declining in all of the fullness of his attributes. No, God is the God who was and who is and who is to come, and we must be firmly rooted and grounded in this glorious truth.

Now, in this session, I want us to consider the immutability of God, and there are four main headings under which I want to place our thoughts. First, God is unchanging in his character, in his attributes, in his essence, in his perfections, in his being. God is who he is from age to age.

He is forever the same. We are unlike God. God is unchanging. We are ever-changing.

For most of us, there is a decline with the coming years in physical, although an increase in wisdom and spirituality and walking with God. But with God, he is forever the same. Now, let me give you some verses that will clearly underscore this. Malachi 3, verse 6 says, For I, the LORD, do not change.

Therefore, you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed. God is unchanging in his person. Psalm 102, verses 26 and 27 says, Even they will perish, referring to God's created order, 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. Another text, Psalm 103, verse 17, For the lovingkindness of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting towards those who fear him. It's very clear that in God's attributes, every single one of them is immutable. His holiness is immutable. His omnipotence is immutable. His wisdom is immutable. Every attribute of God is unchanging.

James 1, verse 17 is a classic text. It says, Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, now listen to this, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. God is, He is changeless from age to age. The God that you knew as a child is the God who gave you strength in your teenage years. He is the God who was with you as you began your family. He is the God who was with you in your older years. He is the very God, the same, that you will stand before one day in heaven. He is forever the same. His unchanging character.

What an encouragement this should be to us. Every time we go to the throne of grace, God is the same. He is not in mood swings. He is not good day, bad day, different God, lesser God, greater God.

No, every time we turn to the Lord, He is a rock. He is a refuge. He is our fortress. He is ever the same. Now second, He is unchanging in His Word.

Not only is He unchanging in His character, but He is unchanging in His Word. God's Word can never change. It can never be altered.

It can never fail to come to pass. What God has spoken is etched in stone, written with a pin of iron. It can never be altered. Numbers 23 and verse 13 speaks directly to this in which we read, God is not a man that He should lie.

What does that say about us? That says even the best of us have twisted the truth, withheld the truth, altered the truth, covered up the truth, not spoken what is true, but that can never be said of God. Every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God is pure, unadulterated truth. God is not a man that He should lie, nor a son of man that He should repent, meaning He will never have to take back something that He has once said because it was not true. Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?

Everything that God has said in His Word, it shall come to pass. Psalm 119 verse 89, you're familiar with Psalm 119, the entire Psalm, 176 verses is all directed to the perfections of the Word of God. Twenty-two stanzas, eight verses each. And it stands as a towering testimony to the unchangeable perfections of the Word of God. And just a footnote, by the way, that one Psalm is longer than thirty individual books in the Bible. That's quite a Psalm.

It's the Mount Everest of the Psalter. Well, in verse 89, this wonderful verse, Forever, O Lord, your word is settled in heaven. Throughout all of the ages to come, God's Word is fixed, it is firm, it is unchangeable. Psalm 119 verse 160, every one of your righteous ordinances is everlasting.

Don't you just love that? That when you memorize a verse, it's going to be the same, and you're not going to have to pull it out of your memory bank. It is always in your heart.

It is forever there. As a younger man, after I graduated from college, I went to law school. And I thought that I wanted to be a lawyer until I got into law school. And once in law school, I studied and I studied and I studied, and that wasn't the part that I did not enjoy because I've studied even more now that I'm a pastor.

But here's what I remembered. I would stay up all night. I would be studying case law. I would be studying constitutional law. I would be memorizing cases, knowing that one of us would be called on in class every day.

We wouldn't know who it would be. And the entire grade was your final exam. So you never knew until the last day really even how you stood, where you stood, how it would be. And when I went in and took my final exam, one thing that struck me is that as I was answering these questions during the course of the semester, some of these laws had changed.

How frustrating. I gave up watching football games so that I could study. And then when I come to the final exam, they've already changed the laws. And in my mind, exactly what I thought was, I want to study a law that never changes, that is forever the same, that when I study this law, it will be etched permanently in the eternal counsels of Almighty God. That is the Bible. Isaiah 40, verse 8, the grass withers, the flower fades away, but the word of the Lord, the word of our God stands forever.

In Matthew 5, verse 18, Jesus said, until heaven and earth pass away, not the slightest letter or stroke shall pass from the law. Now, the smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet is called a yod. And you know what a yod looks like? A little apostrophe. It's like an eyelash. And the smallest stroke is just a little tiny extension from one letter. It's like a seraph.

It would be, for example, what differentiates in our English alphabet, a lowercase l from a lowercase t. Or a capital P from a capital R. It's just one little stroke. Jesus said, down to the smallest letter, down to the smallest stroke, it shall not pass away, it shall all be brought to fulfillment. This is the unchangeable character of God in His own Word. We continue to read in Luke 16, in verse 17, Jesus said, it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one stroke of a letter of the law to fail.

Is that not amazing? Jesus said it would be easier for the whole universe to go out of existence than for just one little letter to fail, to be accomplished, and to come to pass. This all testifies to the eternality of God's Word, the unchangeableness of God's Word.

We can bank our lives on the Word of God. When we wake up tomorrow morning, we can know for certain that what God said yesterday will be forever true. In other words, when we read the Bible, right is always right. Wrong is never right.

Wrong is always wrong. And from one generation to the next, there is not a new standard. And what is right and wrong in the south is right and wrong in the north, with no exceptions.

And what is right and wrong in America is right and wrong in Asia. The Word of God is the same for every generation, for every continent, for every age, because it is always the same. The way of salvation is forever the same. God's standard for the family is forever the same. God's standard for morality is forever the same. God's plan of redemption is forever the same. The immutability of the Word of God. All of His promises are yea and amen, 2 Corinthians 1 verse 10 says.

So, what have we said? God is unchangeable in His character. God is unchangeable in His Word. God is unchangeable in His plans. That which God foreordained in eternity past, in His eternal decree, can never be altered within time.

God is never in heaven stroking His chin and going, Hmm, I wonder what we need to do tomorrow to make this right. God has one plan. It is plan A.

There is no plan B. There is no plan C. One plan from before the foundation of the world, God will not alter His plans. Man makes his ways, but God directs his steps. And it will be ultimately the sovereignty of God that will prevail. Let me give you some verses.

Psalm 33 verses 10 and 11. The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing, meaning all their plans, all those big shots who have risen to be monarchs and ministers of state and all this authority that even God Himself has bestowed upon government rulers. The counsel of the nations will be brought to nothing.

He makes the plans of the people of no effect. The counsel of the Lord stands forever. And the plans of His heart from generation to generation. There is this immutable, fixed, established, eternal purpose and plan of God.

And it moves forward relentlessly. Proverbs 19, 21. Many plans are in a man's heart, but the counsel of the Lord will stand. Aren't you glad that the counsel of the Lord stands? Aren't you glad that the plans of other people are not overturning what God has planned for you and planned for me?

Remember, God's immutability is inseparably bound with His wisdom, with His love, with His grace. We can trust what this unchanging plan of God is for our lives. We can rest assured that it will be for His glory and for the good of His people.

Isaiah 14, 26 and 27 must be heard at this point. This is the plan devised against the whole earth. And this is the hand that is stretched out against all the nations. For the Lord of hosts has planned it. And who can frustrate it? And as for His stretched out hand, who can turn it back?

Those are rhetorical questions again, the answer of which is no one. God's plan moves forward from generation to generation, from age to age. It is forever the same, the unchangeableness of His plans. And when we turn to the end of the Bible and we see how God will bring about the consummation of the age, and we will enter into the eternal state, God's plans will move forward unhindered, unrivaled on into the ages to come.

Now there's a final aspect of this that I want you to see. Not only is He unchangeable in His character and in His Word and in His plans, God is unchangeable in His salvation. This is so important for us to note that those in eternity past whom God chose to be a bride for His Son, those whom God set His heart upon in eternity past with electing love, God will bring about their salvation through the death of His Son, the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, the granting of repentance and faith, and they will be kept secure in His love, never falling from grace, never falling away. No believer will ever become an unbeliever.

No one who enters into the kingdom will ever be put out of the kingdom. The unchangeableness of God's salvation. I think of Romans 8, 29 and 30. Those whom He foreknew, He also predestined. And those whom He predestined, He also called. And those whom He called, He justified.

And those whom He justified, He glorified. God's golden chain of salvation. And what is so encouraging is the group that God began with in eternity past is exactly whom God brings to completion in eternity future. There are no dropouts along the way.

I remember when I was in college trying to get my GPA up, I would sign up for a lot of classes, go to those first classes, and then drop two of them that I thought would be harder to have good grades, and I was just adding, dropping, adding, dropping. God's salvation does not work like that. There are no dropouts from the school of grace. Once we are brought into God's eternal saving purposes in eternity past, we are just as certain for heaven that moment as though we have already been there 10,000 years. And this gives all the glory to God, does it not? I think of the eternal security that we have in Christ. I went through the gospel of John and just jotted down some verses, and I want you to hear what it says. John 3, 16, we have eternal life. Now listen, if you could be a Christian for five years and then lose your salvation, you didn't have eternal life.

You only had five-year life. If you could be a Christian for ten years and lose your salvation, you had ten-year life. You didn't have eternal life. Eternal life means, number one, that the life of the ages to come has already now residing in us. It's the life of God and the soul of a man.

But it also speaks of the duration of this life, that it shall go on throughout all of the ages to come. John 4, 14, Jesus said, you will never thirst. Now if you drink of this water, you will never thirst. Now I'll guarantee you this, if you could fall from grace and descend to hell, that would not be said of you.

You would be thirsting throughout all the ages to come. But we will never thirst. John 5, 24 says, we'll never come into judgment. John 6, 35 says, we will never hunger and never thirst. John 6, 39 says, that we will be raised on the last day unto life. John 10, 28 says, we will never perish. John 11, 26 says, we will never die.

And John 14, 16 says, that the Comforter will be in us and with us forever. All of these verses speak strongly to the eternal security of the believer and the perseverance of God in the saints. This is the immutability of God, the unchangeableness of God, unchangeable in His person, unchangeable in His Word, unchangeable in His plans, unchangeable in His sovereign grace. How we thank God that once He has set His heart upon us and set His heart upon His eternal plans that it shall come to pass because He is the God of heaven and earth. And there's no greater assurance than that. If you are in Christ, God will never change His mind about you.

He loves you, and He'll never let you go. God's immutability has been our focus today here on Renewing Your Mind. Dr. Stephen Lawson taught this lesson as part of a series on the attributes of God, helping us understand God's goodness, grace, love, wisdom, and many other attributes. Request this two-DVD set today along with Dr. Lawson's new book, Show Me Your Glory, Understanding the Majestic Splendor of God. Both resources are available to you for a donation of any amount to Ligonier Ministries.

You can make your request and give your gift online at renewingyourmind.org, or you can simply call us at 800-435-4343. With all the instability in the world, it's easy to become fearful. Our lesson today reminds us that God is a firm anchor in the storm. No matter how fickle our friends may be, no matter how shaky our own hearts may be, God never changes. His purpose is fixed. His will is stable. His Word is sure. And tomorrow's lesson is another anchor point for our souls. Join us for the lesson titled, The Truthfulness of God, Friday on Renewing Your Mind. .