CELEBRATING GOD’S IMMUTABILITY

But You are the same, and Your years will have no end – Psalm 102:27                                      

God’s immutability means that He never differs from Himself. He does not grow, evolve, develop, mature, deteriorate, or diminish. He never changes in the sense that humans do. A moral being may change in one of three directions: from better to worse; from worse to better; or change within self, say from immature to mature or from one order of being to another. God can move in none of these directions. His perfections absolutely prevent any such possibility. God cannot change for the better. He is perfect and holy beyond description; has never been less holy than He is now or ever shall be. Psalm 102:26 says: “They will perish, but You will endure; Yes, they will all grow old like a garment; Like a cloak You will change them, and they will be changed” (Psa.102:26).

As there can be no mutation in God’s moral character, so there can be none within the divine essence. Unique in being, God – the Creator – differs from His creatures in being self-existent, self-sufficient, and eternal. God is God and not some other being. Change is basically a shift in the relation of the parts of a whole or the admission of some external element into the original composition. Only a being composed of parts may change. God is whole and complete in Himself! He is self-existent; He is not composed; hence, He possesses no parts that can be altered. He is self-sufficient; nothing need enter His being from without. God is the Unchanging Changer: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Heb.13:8). For, I am the LORD, I do not change; therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed (Mal. 3:6).

All that God is He has always been, and all that He has been and is He will ever be. The immutability of God guarantees that nothing that He has ever said about Himself will be altered, modified, or revised; nothing the inspired prophets and apostles have said about Him will ever be repealed. His immutability stands in perfect contrast to the mutability and mortality of men. In God no change is possible; in men change is inevitable. Humanity is in constant flux; neither man nor his world is fixed. Nothing is permanent. Everything in the natural wears away. Change is the most constant thing in nature. Life is a consistent revolution, a constant cycle of change, from cradle to the grave. Parents hand over batons to children in the dynamics of time: “One generation passes away, and another generation comes; but the earth abides forever” (Ecc.1:4).

Jesus came to earth to bring a change to the eternal destiny of humanity! Things change; people change, but God never changes. He is ever faithful. The law of mutation belongs to a fallen world, but God is immutable, and in Him people of faith find eternal relevance. On this side of eternity, change works for the children of the Kingdom, not against us. The changes that occur in us are produced by the hand of the indwelling Spirit: “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 by the Spirit of the Lord” (2Cor.3:18). As I celebrate the Immutability of my King, I gain stability in this world of flux; I become an Initiator and Catalyst, rather than a Victim or Casualty of change. In my immutable Father-God I find courage, relevance, and eternal solidity!