Divine Immutability
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SIMPLY PUT, IMMUTABILITY MEANS “God cannot change.” He has always been and will always be unchanging. There has never been a time when He did not exist, nor will there ever be a time when He ceases to be God. “For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed” (Mal. 3:6). He is the immutable “I AM.” There is a comfort in the doctrine of divine immutability.
WHAT COMFORT WOULD IT BE?
Puritan clergy and author, Stephen Charnock, had this to say about the idea of praying to a God that continually changed. “What comfort would it be to pray to a god that, like the chameleon, changed color every moment? Who would put up a petition to an earthly prince that was so mutable as to grant a petition one day and deny it another?”1 However, my Bible builds my faith and guides me to pray to a God I know cannot change!
YOU CANNOT IMPROVE ON PERFECTION
It is impossible for God to evolve, grow, or improve. By its very definition, perfection cannot become better. From the day God said, “Let there be,” until this moment, God has not changed for the better or for the worse. If he had, He would have ceased to be God.
Mankind, on the other hand, has changed. “As fallen creatures, we are not only mutable, but everything in us is opposed to God” (A.W. Pink). Since the fall, mankind has forever been in a state of constant change. Without God, man is continually spiraling into an abyss of destruction, death, and decay.
THE DEVIL’S SUGGESTION
Satan offers a suggestion on how to deal with this separation: either elevate man to God’s level or lower God to man’s level. It doesn’t matter to him which one man attempts. He wins either way. If man cannot change God, then he can at least become a “little god” or a “little Jesus.” The argument used is that everything produces “after its own kind” (Gen. 1:11-12, 21, 24). God has produced man after His own kind; therefore, he is a “little god.”
IMAGE
Let’s look at Genesis 1:26, “And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness.” The word for image is “tselem,” which means a reflection, not a reduplication (Strong’s H6754). We were made in the image of God and not as “little gods” or “mini-deities.”
JUST CHANGE JESUS!
Since men cannot be “little gods,” they take the devil up on his second suggestion: bring God down to man’s level. Man is to simply change Jesus into a modern “god,” one who is more pliable, one who is more compassionate, and one who understands the temptations mankind faces in this lust-filled world. If you don’t like the rules, change them. If you don’t like God’s demand, change it. Better still, change Jesus into whom you want Him to be.
JESUS 2.1
In advertising for the book Jesus 2.1: An Upgrade for the 21st Century, written by Thomas W. Shepherd, we read, “Every generation has reinvented Jesus to meet the needs of the times … Dr. Tom affirms that it’s time for our generation to create a more interactive version of Christ.” If that were indeed possible, they would end up with a Jesus who is not the Jesus of the Bible, just as the Mormon Jesus is not the Jesus of the Bible, or the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Jesus is not the Jesus of the Bible.
GOOD NEWS
Good News! God is immutable! He changes not! His love, grace, and mercies are new every morning. That is divine immutability!
1 Attributes of God, A.W. Pink.
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