All right, well we are working our way through our knowing God series right now and
We're trying to do this. We're calling it foundations knowing God
We're trying to do a foundation series every semester a short series on on theology really and on knowing God knowing Christ knowing scripture
All sorts of things like that. So of course we're working through
doctrine of God here and tonight we come to
The statement that God is unchangeable. So we're gonna think about that together. God is unchangeable
Let me pray and then we'll dive in. Lord we ask for help as we think about you
And we know God that we can't know you unless you reveal yourself
And so we give thanks for your revelation and we also ask for
illumination that the Holy Spirit would help us in our hearts to know and see and
Learn and grow in the light of our fellowship with you. And so tonight teach us Lord
What you mean by the fact that you are unchangeable speak through your word to us and show us the implications and the reality of
The fact that you don't change and so we ask for that help in Christ's name. Amen
All right, so we're
doing the series because
First down one we know that we have fellowship with God and we want to know the God that we fellowship with and
Just like any anytime you are in a relationship
You don't you don't progress in that relationship
Without knowledge of the other of the person that you're in relationship with and so we're in covenantal relationship
That's the way we think about our relationship with God
And so we want to grow in our knowledge of him and part of that is
Engaging the mind so in this series and all these foundation series. We're really
Listening to the command of Jesus when he tells us
The old commandment in a new form love the Lord your God with all your heart soul mind and strength
So Christ gives a very clear
command that
The mind of the Christian actually has to be engaged in the knowledge of God just like the will the emotional life
All of it has to be engaged in the knowledge of God
So we're thinking about this and really trying to grip the mind in order to change our affections as well
So let me start by saying this
It is difficult to talk about God
It's difficult to think about God and it's difficult to talk about God and that's actually a good thing not a bad thing and
What I mean by that is two things one that God is so other
so
absolute in
Contrast to our creatureliness
That when we talk about him we must do it in inadequate ways we have to
We can never capture him with our speech with our reflections with our thought and so a lot of times the theologians will
Stay stuff like this that you can never
Comprehend God you can only apprehend and that's a way of getting at this distinction between
Knowing God as God knows God which is completely something that we can't even imagine and
Knowing God as we know God which is a very creaturely way of knowing God
And so that that's the first thing the second thing is this at the same time
Our knowledge of God is completely inadequate in one sense and at the same time we say true things about God also and
Both of those things are true actually simultaneously
And that's been kind of the Christian confession for century after century
That we know we say true things about God because God has told us what to say about him
Right, so how do we know that we speak true truly of God because God tells us what to say
And he tells it to us in the revelation of God and mainly in holy scripture and in the revelation of Jesus Christ, right?
so
the Bible
Is it's very important to think about the Bible in this way because the Bible is God's word to us about him in
human words
Right, so we don't believe the same thing that Islam believes about the Quran right where the Quran is actually
God's word directly dictated an angelic speech
Rather we think that the Bible we know that the Bible is God's word in the form of human words speaking
through human beings
By way of inspiration and so John Calvin when he talks about that
He says that every single sentence of the Bible everything every single thing that God says to us about himself is
Baby talk that's Calvin's really exact way of putting it
He said that anytime you read a statement about God in the Bible and read any word in the Bible
It is God
Lisping to you like a mother
Talks to their baby
It's kind of him getting on one knee and saying look you can't understand the adult talk
Which is how God knows himself, but let me give it to you and baby talk and so our
Artheology in some sense is baby talk. It's baby talk about God because it's creaturely and he's absolute
And so only he knows himself as he truly is fully and we know in very limited ways very limited ways
And yet we know truly at the same time because it's God who gives us the baby talk
Okay, so that's what we're doing here and
That's actually a good thing because it means that God is absolute and we have a God that we can depend on
He's that big. He's that great that our speech about God is inadequate if it wasn't then he would be a God we could capture
And contain all right now that leads us directly into what we're saying today
I want to just give you three things three things
We confess we believe that God is unchangeable
Unchangeable and so let me say three things that that means and why it really matters for us three things
Okay, so first let's read together. We'll just have a verse for each of these and we'll flip around
so
I think we have Bibles out somewhere if you'd like to grab a Bible there's some of these chairs over here if you want one
Psalm 102
Two verses three verses from Psalm 102
Psalm 102 verses 26 to 28 says this
They will perish
But you will remain that's the earth the heavens and the earth they will all wear out like a garment
You will change them like a robe so God will change
Creation like taking off a robe and
They will pass away, but you God are the same
And your ears have no man you God are the same
So there we've got the doctrine laid out by the psalmist right really clearly
You are the same and he's directly contrasting God to the heavens and the earth
You are not like the heavens and the earth they pass and they will pass
But you are the same you're always the same
Now last week Derek taught or last week two weeks ago Derek taught that God is
Eternal and infinite there was the spirit eternal and infinite those were the three attributes that he looked at
What does it mean to say God does not change and
In some ways all we need to do is replay the talk that Derek gave two weeks ago
Actually, that would be enough to treat the statement that God does not change right
So let me I do this every time I teach here and it usually fails, but let's try
What what does it mean to change?
period
Anything anything and anything anybody can shout out. What does it mean to change?
To grow right so you move from something you're not to something you become
right so in the in older speech when it when we talk about change we think of
potential
So right to be able to change is to have potential
right so
Rock has potential to roll and you have potential to grow and we can talk about that potential in thousands of ways
Potential to grow in stature potential to grow in wisdom whatever it might be that those are all forms of change
Yeah, right. What else can we say about change anything? There's no wrong answer here
I don't it's hard to get the idea of change wrong. I think so
To become something different absolutely now
The question then is what are the conditions in which one has to be in order for change to take place and there's basically two
Conditions now this sounds complicated at first, but it's actually really really easy and obvious once you hear it
You are a creature of change if you live in space and time
Right anything that is in space and in time
Changes it has to so if you live in time, there's always change taking place
Your your taking time is changing all the always in relationship to you, which means you're also changing in relationship to it
So if you're if you are if you live in space time then you're changing
Okay, and we all live in space time
And most things do and that means that everything Derek said last week is really just the definition that God does not change
Because the doctrine when we say when we say God is eternal
Do you remember anybody remember what that means?
It means that God has no relationship to
To change to when we say God is eternal that means he is not bound by
Time and when we say God is infinite it's just saying God is not bound by space
so
Everything we say about God is basically taking who we are and what we are in negating it first
I'm bound by space and time and God is not therefore. He is eternal and infinite
and that means if you're not bound by space and time then you are
Unchangeable
And so the Bible says God's unchangeable. It means he's not bound by space and time
It's literally just to say once more he is eternal and infinite. It's really the same thing
Now actually what that teaches us to bring this point home and move on
Is that when you start to look at any single attribute of God and you tug on it a little bit
What you find is that you're actually saying the same things about God over and over again through the lens of every other attribute
So you can let's say we laid out 10 attributes of God and we picked one to talk about
Immediately we have to talk about the other nine. They're all completely connected
So to say God is unchangeable is the same thing as saying he's infinite eternal immutable and his being witness
Wisdom goodness power justice glory. I think I've got the order wrong on that
confessional statement, but we're always saying really the same things and that is to say that one of the most foundational
statements we say about God and Derek mentioned this last time
is just to say God we confess God is simple and
That is a special word in theology that refers to the fact that God is not like me
That's really what it means
God is simple and the meaning of God is simple
and the meaning of that is that he is not complex like I am and
What does it mean to be complex? It means to be made up of stuff
You know to have what are you? You're you're you're one person
Nevertheless, you are full of parts all of you
You know, you've got arms and legs. You've got hair. You've got feet
but also you've got soul and in that soul you've got
intellect will emotions
All sorts of divisions and they don't all agree with each other
You know, you know, your soul is kind of cut up in pieces when your emotional life doesn't make sense with your intellectual life when you're
crying but your reason tells you it doesn't make any sense
Right that that means that your soul is actually in some sense in pieces. It's not one thing and
God is not complex in that way. He's simple simple meaning
He is
His being just is he's not made up of a bunch of different parts and so every time we say he's infinite. He's eternal. He's love
He's justice
We're really just using human language to try to talk about something we cannot comprehend
Which is the fact that he is
And if he is then he's unchangeable
And that's what it means to say he's simple or unchangeable or infinite or eternal
They're all really to say the same thing
Okay, and of course you think about that and you say I don't understand what that means and exactly right exactly
You know what? We don't understand what that means and that's exactly the point the fact that he and so this is the first little application
and we move on a
Couple things one is
We don't understand that
Because he is absolute and we are creaturely and that is a good thing. That is good news tonight. It's good news
He's not like the other gods of the other religions
Who are graspable?
That's precisely why it's futile to make an idol of him
To put him into wood and stone as a medium
He's he's too big for that. He's too absolute his simplicity. Just want to allow it
And so it's good news today that we have a simple God an unchangeable God now
There's more specific reasons we're gonna come to those in the next two points. So let's go to point two
Point two and let's flip over to a nut the next verse Malachi three six
The last book of the English Bible Malachi three six it says
What does it say it says?
For I the Lord do not change
Okay, so
That's a straightforward verse for I the Lord do not change therefore you a children of Jacob are not consumed
I the Lord do not change it says now
This when we say God is unchangeable secondly
It's not just about trying to speak well about God's essence, which is what we're just trying to do we're trying to
Talk in human terms baby talk about the essence of God
It's not just about that
And this is where we come to see that that's true
We don't confess God is unchangeable just to try to do a theological exercise not at all and
Here he Malachi tells us why God tells us why through Malachi, okay?
So let's look at the context just the next verse is all really and all we need to look at for that
The Lord do not change therefore you a children of Jacob are not consumed
From the days of your fathers you have turned away from my statutes. You've not obeyed you not kept the you've not kept the law
Return to me and I will return to you says the Lord of Hosts, but you say how shall we return?
Will man Rob God let me stop there
What's the context here in which it says maybe we can have I think you can say this in just a couple words
What's that? What's the what's happening here? Why why does God say I do not change?
In response to what who's he comparing himself to there?
Us yeah, yeah, certainly us more specifically in this context, right? It's Israel already talking about Israel, but human beings
Yeah, and but more we can get more specific
He's talking about the people that he's in covenant relationship with
So he's specifically speaking here of people that he has bound himself to by a covenant an everlasting
relationship and they to him and
He's saying I don't change, but you do
Meaning you humans that I have covenanted with you know a covenant is just to say you have a religious relationship with God
He knows you and you know him that's a covenant and
and
He's saying here. I don't change
Children of Jacob my covenant people, but you do and the way you change is that you break the covenant
You break the conditions of the covenant you break the laws you don't honor me you make idols you disobey me constantly
You're a bunch of rebels and
yet
What's the conclusion I Lord do neither Lord do not change therefore you are not consumed
And you see what he's saying he's saying that because I don't change and
Because I promised and covenanted myself to you in grace and mercy
You are not consumed even though you absolutely deserve to be
So that's what he's saying here now. He's comparing himself subtly to the gods of the ancient Near East and
he's saying that
Israel know that if if you were worshiping a demonic figure which the gods of the ancient Near East often are
their capricious
their little G gods meaning they're actually rebellious spirits against the true God and
Any God that the nation's worship is a God who judges
Directly immediately
And he's saying but because I don't change I show mercy
And so in other words what what God is doing here is he's appealing to his covenant promises and
Saying that the essence of God the unchangeability of God's essence
Manifest when he comes down into the world and it becomes the fact it becomes the God who keeps covenant
And so the second dimension of the immute we unchangeability. We also call this by the way immutability
God God does not change also can be just called immutability. It's the same meaning
It's so important because it is the foundation of all covenant relationship
All right, so understand understand what we're saying. We're saying this
If God was changeable there would be no grace
If God was changeable there would be no cross
If God was changeable you would not have a savior nor salvation
But it's God's immutability his unchangeability
that
Grounds all of the covenants of mercy and grace
Because in every single one of them you break it and he keeps it
He doesn't judge you even when you break the covenant and
Jesus Christ comes through that through that covenant of grace that covenant lineage
And so his covenant faithfulness, you know, that's something we talk about that's something Christians talk about is something the Bible talks about
Covenant faithfulness is a product of the immutability or unchangeability of the living God
Which means that when God is unchangeable in his essence and he comes down into creation
He keeps it that way. He retains his attributes. He does not change
Even when he condescends
Okay, he's always unchangeable
All right, so we can give thanks for the doctrine of God's immutability
Because if you if you don't have that reality you don't have Jesus
And so it's a big deal
Grace is the product of the unchanging promise of the unchanging God. All right thirdly and finally
So God's essence is immutable God's covenant grace is the product of his immutability and then finally
I'm gonna flip over to James 117
James 117 is a very famous verse
For this idea it says every good and perfect gift is from above
Coming down from the father of lights
With whom there is no variation or shadow
Due to change
All right this verse I've always found tricky
With God there is no variation or shadow
Due to change and he is the father of lights
Do you see the metaphor that's being used here?
Anybody got it? What is it?
He's the father of lights and
He doesn't make shadows God doesn't make shadows
What's the contrast I
Shouldn't have asked this question. This is one of those bad. You don't do this when you're teaching moments. I always do this
the contrast here is
God and the and the lights right so what are the lights the lights are the Sun the moon the stars and
when the Sun's out and the Sun and we well we move Sun moves a little too, but we move
What happens when you're standing if you stand still in one place out in the middle of the afternoon for three hours?
What do you notice about the ground around you?
The shadows moving right so he is the father of lights the Sun men and stars and
With him there is no shadow
Meaning as God moves about he doesn't he doesn't cast a shadow
That's what it's saying
Therefore God unlike the Sun Moon and stars does not change
So God doesn't move around like the Sun and therefore doesn't cast a shadow like the Sun does
That's what it's saying there
And so this is a classic New Testament statement of the immutability of God. God doesn't change like the heavenly bodies
God's not
Cyclical he's not moving a bet round in those ways. He doesn't change
now I want to read that verse to actually create a problem for us and
Let's go to this is the one one section point three that we're gonna read just a few passages very quickly
Numbers back to the Old Testament to numbers 23
Numbers 23 verse
19
And numbers 20 3 19 is another classic it says
God is not a man that he should lie or a son a man that he should change his mind
So it's saying that not only is God's
You can't say that God's mutable based on his condescended
Presence
So even if God is working in the world, you can't say that he's like the Sun
Casting shadows. He doesn't change even though he comes into the world. That's James
Then you come back to numbers and it says also
You can't say that he like a human being changes his mind
So he doesn't decide to do something and think God that was a bad idea and
Turn around and do it do it a different way. He doesn't he's not that he's simple
He's not composed of parts his mind is his eternal will
They're completely one thing and so it net there's no change there at all now
Maybe you can anticipate the problem
And the problem that we're gonna create for for three minutes in a dress is found in a
Bunch of places, but let me give you just two two more and
that would be
Since we're in numbers just flip back to Genesis 6. This is probably the most famous and most difficult of the passages
Genesis 6 verse 6 very famously said
The Lord
Regretted that he had made man and it grieved him to his heart. So then he decides to judge
Heaven and earth earth with the flood
So the word there is regretted. It's also the word that in Hebrews also just repent
It's also the word in Hebrew that just means change the mind
So you can translate it that way you can say God changed his mind. He regretted
He flipped the script in his mind on this
Okay, so then you've got let's just give you let's just give one more Jeremiah
2613 it's the last one we'll flip to
Now therefore mend your ways and your deeds
Israel and obey the voice of the Lord your God and the Lord will relent of
The disaster that he has pronounced against you same word for changing the mind or repenting
So they're using a very specific translation here relented though if you if you will change the Lord will
Repent or repentance really just means to change
To he'll relent. He'll back away
He'll he'll decide to do something different than he was doing. It's the same verb. It's the same word that we have there
So numbers 23 don't think don't everything that the Lord is
Is like a man who changes his mind or repentance and
Then at least five times in the Old Testament. We've got the same verb
Being used of God
That he does do that now. What do we say? What do we do with this?
And this is important to treat because a lot of people who are questioning Christianity will bring this up
This is one of the common things
If they know if they know what they're talking about if they know the Bible very well at all
This is something that is often brought up
Now what we say what we've said for centuries now as Christians
And this was something that they were dealing with all the way back in the early church is
That we have to always remember that because God's word is God's word. We let it we let scripture interpret scripture
And so that's a fundamental rule of interpretation
And so when we come across scripture and we see at least three or four major moments
Where it couldn't be clear for the text to say
God does not change. He does not change. He does not change and he doesn't change his mind
And of course, we know that as soon as we start thinking about God that must be the case that it's a logical requirement as well
As soon as we see that then we can come back and say, okay
We've got a bit of a rule developed
Whereas we need it
We need to go and read the rest of the Bible through the lens of what we know about God and its clearest statements
And so when it comes to passages like this
It's actually a little easier to deal with I think then we might think and this is this is what John Calvin says about it
And you can never go wrong by just saying what John says John says that
John says that this is actually part of God's baby talk to us
That's how he deals with it and that's how most Christians have throughout the centuries is that we need to go across the Bible and
Let what God says in clarity about himself be true because it is and
Then we need to go through and understand that these narritival places and these are stories these narratives
these narritival places are
Are speaking to us in very very human ways Calvin says this is where God's baby talk is at its maximum to us
So in other words we can go to back to Genesis 6 and say there's no change here in the simple God when he says I
regret that I made man
instead what's being shown to us there is
That God hates sin
That's the actual doctrine underneath the statement
And so we know God doesn't change we know God doesn't change his mind
But in the way God has chosen to speak to us through that story
He's chosen to say I regret and you grieve me and
That's that's baby speech. There's no change in the God who stands outside of space and time
In that moment none at all if there was then everything else would fall down
everything we believe and
We've got clear enough statements to the contrary
But instead what's happening in that moment is God saying
Let me explain it to you like you would say to another person
That sin really is so bad that it grieves me
But it doesn't change him in other words his plan has always been the same
God knew the flood was gonna happen because his eternal will determined it from eternity
And I don't even know what that means. I don't know how to talk about it
But he doesn't change he doesn't change at all
And so we we let the clear statements of scripture determine the harder things
And especially in these narratives and so here's the last thing I'll say
I think this Jeremiah 26 passage that I read actually really helps us because here the same verb is being used God
Repents or relents or changes his mind
But what does he say he says to Israel if you will bow the knee if you'll put away the idols if you'll repent then
I'll come I'll come to you all relent from your
Exilic plight that I've put upon you now that doesn't mean that the counsel of God's will has changed from eternity
It doesn't have to mean that no not at all. It's simply God exercising the normal thing
He always says to humans right and that's be obedient
Be obedient and God honors that God wants to respond to that
But it has nothing to do with changing the God who stands outside of space and time who's determined all these things
From before the foundation of the world
That's not a problem for us at all. I don't think
now
Let me close with this. Let me close with this
One of the reasons that we know that and this is the last word one of the reasons that we know that is
Because Jesus Christ came into the world
And what we start to learn as we read the Old Testament is that
Even though there are moments where God says things like I'm repenting. I'm changing my mind
even even though he says that we realize throughout the Old Testament that the
underlying story is actually that God has never had a plan B that
That starts to come out really clearly over the course of the Old Testament and so in Genesis 50 20 you've got that famous place where
Jacob God says through Jacob, you know you my brother's meant to kill me and
There was only evil in your heart
But God intended this and he intended it for the good
And then we come to Romans 8 and we realized that everything God's done is for the good of him who purposed it all and
That maximal good is in the midst of the maximal evil of the cross of Jesus Christ
You know, there's been nothing more heinous in human history than murdering the Son of God and
nothing that's been
Nothing that's even touched upon the salvific nature right nothing that's been more good we can say in the crudest sense
than the cross of Christ and
So in the cross of Christ we realized that the plan of God has always stayed the same that he's immutable and unchangeable in his
Covenantal purposes and we can say that in Christ the unchangeable God took on the changeable
Jesus Christ is the unchangeable God who has taken on the changeable. He's taken on a changeable nature
He's taken on a changeable body. He died after all
that's a big change and
that means
That Christ is immutable from eternity the Son of God and mutable in history
And that's exactly where the immutable God chooses to save us
That's exactly how he chooses to save us
The God who stands outside of space of space and time has come into space and time and that's been his plan from the beginning
So let me leave you with this meditation one line
God is
All is and always will be unchangeable and
He is and always will be unchangeable in his love
Toward you
and
That's why it's so important
Let's pray father. We ask now that you would apply
The truth about you to our hearts that we would have assurance assurance because you are unchangeably loving to us
And we pray this in Christ's name. Amen