The Immutability of God, Part 1

October, 2007

by: Brad Kelley

Change. Do you like it? Do you fear it? Some have commented that the only certainty in this life is change. Many have argued that in order to be “successful” in this world, a person must be good at handling change.

Some kinds of change are eternally important. If we couldn’t change — or be changed by God — our salvation would be impossible!

In this article I’d like to share a few thoughts about God’s unchanging nature — His immutability — from two saints who have “gone before us”. My hope is that you’ll be encouraged and challenged to further study, “looking into” God’s amazing character.

As you gaze upon the Lord, may He make you more like His Son: “But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:18)

Scripture clearly teaches that God doesn’t change — God Himself declares it: “For I, the LORD do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed.” (Malachi 3:6) James reminds us (1:17) that “Every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation, or shadow of turning.”

A.W. Tozer, in his Knowledge of the Holy (Chapter 9), wrote the following about God’s unchangeableness:

The immutability of God is among those attributes less difficult to understand, but to grasp it we must discipline ourselves to sort out the usual thoughts with which we think of created things from the rarer ones that arise when we try to lay hold of whatever may be comprehended of God.

It takes a certain amount of “backward thinking” to consider God’s incommunicable attributes (the perfections of His character in which we as created beings cannot share).

Tozer again: “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. 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.”

Arthur W. Pink (1886-1952) wrote the following regarding God’s immutability: “GOD IS IMMUTABLE IN HIS ESSENCE. 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, nor 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; and being perfect, He cannot change for the worse. He is perpetually the same. He only can say, “I AM THAT I AM” (Exodus 3:14).

“GOD IS IMMUTABLE IN HIS ATTRIBUTES.” Whatever the attributes of God were before the universe was called into existence, they are precisely the same now, and will remain so forever. The attributes of God can no more change than Deity can cease to be. His veracity is immutable, for His Word is “forever … settled in heaven.” (Psalm 119:89) His love is eternal: “I have loved you with an everlasting love” (Jeremiah 31:3) and “Having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end.” (John 13:1)

“HEREIN IS SOLID COMFORT. Human nature cannot be relied upon; but God can! However unstable I may be, however fickle my friends may prove, God changes not. But, all praise to His glorious name, He is ever the same. His purpose is fixed, His will is stable, His Word is sure.”

Finally, Tozer again: “In this world where men forget us, change their attitude toward us … and revise their opinion of us for the slightest cause, is it not a source of wondrous strength to know that the God …changes not?

“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 eastward garden … God will not compromise and He need not be coaxed. He cannot be persuaded to alter His Word, nor talked into answering selfish prayer.”

Change. We live in a changing world. Perhaps you’re facing changing circumstances right now — either “favorable” or unpleasant. Ask God to help you focus on His unchanging character: “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.”

As you gaze upon the Lord, He will make you more like His Son.