It is easy to say in the Sunday School environment that God is unchanging – the 50 cent theological word for that is “immutability.” But the fact that we live in an ever changing world, where quite literally everything is changing around us, whether it be knowledge, the culture, our attitudes, our ages, and so forth, tends to color our view of God, who is unchanging.
When the culture around us is embracing wickedness and perversions and calling it good, there are those who believe what God had called an abomination in Old Testament must have suddenly changed in these modern times. Has God changed what He calls good and evil? Is not what God called sin in Bible still sin today? But here are the hard unchanging facts that the world overlooks: Sin is still sin. And things (like homosexuality and the like) which God called an abomination to Him in the Old Testament over 3,000 years ago, is still an abomination to Him today. God will still judge sin. And there is no other way to God, but by Jesus. God Himself has said as much:
Malachi 3:6a “For I, the LORD, do not change …
People changed, but God never changed in the past, nor will He ever change in the future. The same God who was present at creation is the same God we have today. And His word which we have in our hands has not changed either. It is in this fact that God does not change that we have an anchor for our soul.
Hebrews 6:17–18
Einstein said that the reason he could construct the theory of relativity was because there is one thing in the world that is unchangeable. That one thing—the speed of light—is the only constant in this physical, material universe. Light travels at the rate of 186,000 miles per second or 300,000 km/sec—seven times around the world at the tick of a clock. [1] It takes 8 minutes 19 sec for the light to leave the sun and reach the earth – (about 93 million miles).
However, in recent years it has been shown that the speed of the light has not been a constant (as we have always thought that is was) as demonstrated by the particle accelerometer on the border of France and Switzerland. In recent history, the Speed of light was exceeded. This is causing scientist to rethink the fundamental principles of the laws of physics. Over the last 30-40 years many top Physicists have formatted the theories that the speed of light, like everything else in the universe obeying the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, is slowing down. Some scientist estimated that some 6,000 years ago the speed of light was at or near infinity. These finding are blowing up the world of science and making the biblical claims of a relatively young universe more viable. Isn’t it interesting, science is only catching up to where the Bible has always been.
But we digress. The point I want to make is the fact that everything in the universe is changing. God and His word is unchanging. In fact, the Bible tells us that one day all of heaven and earth will be pass away and God will create it all new. In our world today, nothings stays the same, except Almighty God.
The questions are being asked: What is constant – what is unchanging – or what is unchangeable? Today truth is no longer a objective constant. Truth is relative – Truth to me may not be truth to you. The world tells us that we are here by chance – meaning we evolved as a result of some cosmic roll of the dice, and we just happened to be here. We are just a product of our environment, therefore truth is what it is to me. We react to predetermined chemical reaction in our brains and being; Then what’s the point? What is truth? And why does it matter?
How often do we search for something constant, something that is unchanging. We need a rock, an anchor we can cling to, something that is not going to move, something that is not going to change. In the New Testament we read:
Hebrews 13:8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
Over this past month, we have covered a number of the attributes of God: God is all powerful – omnipotent; God possesses all knowledge – omniscient; God is larger than the universe–he is everywhere –omnipresent; Now we consider that God is unchanging – He is immutable.
But let’s consider, just for a moment, that God does change or alters Himself, according to A.W. Tozer, one of three things must take place:
1. God must go from better to worse, or
2. He must go from worse to better, or
3. He must change from one kind of being to another.[2]
But We cannot describe God as being any different from what is was in the Bible. The God of the OT is the same God of the NT.
We must be careful about the adjectives we use to describe God. We cannot say God is greater – greater than what? All we can say is God is great – and God has always been and will always be great. We cannot say God is holier– holier than what? God is holy and God has always been and will always be holy. We cannot say God is older or younger. God is God. God is eternal. He exist apart from time and space as we understand it. We cannot say God is less or more. God is what He is and He will always be what He is. Only God can say “I do not change” (Mal 3:6)
I have changed, you have changed. I am different today than I was yesterday and I will be different tomorrow. I would like to say I improve every day, but I know that is not always the case.
In our passage today, we look at what God says about His promises. The promises of God are some of the most sure things in the universe. In the Old Testament, when prophecies from God were proclaimed, so sure where the prophets of the word of God that they spoke of future events in the past tense, as if they already happened (called the prophetic future tense).
The context of today’s passage is God’s promises. Verses 16-20 in Hebrews 6 is one sentence on the Greek. So to keep it all in context, we will consider the passage as a whole. We will begin in verse 13.
Hebrews 6:13–14 For when God made the promise to Abraham, since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, 14 saying, “I WILL SURELY BLESS YOU AND I WILL SURELY MULTIPLY YOU.”
This is a quote from Genesis 22:16–17 after Abraham had attempted to sacrifice Isaac as God commanded him. (Gen 22:15-18)
Hebrews 6:15–16 And so, having patiently waited, he obtained the promise. 16 For men swear by one greater than themselves, and with them an oath given as confirmation is an end of every dispute.
Did Abraham ever see his descendants multiplied? Not in his day, but God’s promise still stood. Now in those times, if promise was made, or a the truth of a matter was in question, then an oath was taken. A man would swear to it. Often a sacrifice was made to seal it.
Today I don’t think we can trust anyone swearing on a stack of Bibles. The truth certified by an oath today is meaningless. A man’s word is no longer his bond, it is not good enough; it has to be in writing. We trust very little in our present world, do we trust our politicians? Do we trust our news sources? Do we trust everything we read on Facebook? Yet there was a time, in the Old Testament, an oath was taken by swearing to something greater themselves.
Hebrews 6:17 In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath,
To make His promise appear more certain, God took an oath.
Swearing on Himself (because there is no one or nothing greater than Himself, refer back to Hebrews 6:13) to make certain the matter, in this case, His promise to Abraham.
God’s promises are certain. His purposes are certain – and unchanging. His purposes were laid out before the earth was formed:
Ephesians 1:4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him.
We were chosen even before the world even began. God had a purpose for us from the very beginning, and none of that plan has ever changed.
Hebrews 6:18 so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us.
The two unchangeable things referred to here is: (1) God Promises – which stands the test of time. (2) God Oath – backing up the truth found in His promises and in His Word. That is why we have hope. God does not change, neither does his purposes.
Neither does God lie. Saying that God does not lie is an understatement. Another way of translating this is to say, “God can not say what is not true” or that “Every word that God speaks is the truth.”
Numbers 23:19 “God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent; Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?
If God has spoken it, it is the truth, His promises He made will happen, His purposes are unchanged over time.
James 1:17 Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.
From James we must understand that God good, and all good comes from God and God does not change, like shadows. God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5). God created the sun which is constantly changing, but God Himself does not. Now concerning the Promise God made to Abraham:
Galatians 3:29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.
That means if we are in Christ, the promise God made to Abraham is our promise too. Now there may be those who quickly point out – There are places in the Bible where God changed His mind, God “repented” (KJV).
Jonah 3:10 When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it.
Genesis 6:6 The LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.
Did God change His mind? Did God say he made a mistake in creating man?
The Bible often writes in human characteristics for God to aid in our understanding. God’s nature, or his character never changes. However, when we view is character, His nature from different aspects, it’s like driving by this building from West to East. I see the west side of the building with parking lot and office and the door to the fellowship hall. Then as I move to the east and see the east side of the building it all looks different. The building didn’t change. I changed.
God has stayed the same. It is man that has changed. His judgments are just as sure. His compassion and His love is just as powerful.
God's attitude toward sin has never changed. But when a person repents of their sin and turns towards righteousness – God righteousness, God’s dealing with us also changes. As we study the judgment of God, His mercy and His love, we find that all are consistent with Who He is. God loved His creation of man so much that He sent Jesus to pay the price for our sins. The Jesus, being the God we can see is like God in that He too is unchanging.
Hebrews 13:8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
We need to heed Jesus’ words.
Matthew 24:35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away.
We can count on the word of Jesus, God’s word in the Bible. It will not ever suddenly change on us. God’s standards are eternal, His truth is absolute. In this day and age of change – faster than most of us can keep up with, there is something that will never change. That why we talk about the rock. That is why we call Jesus our anchor.
Hebrews 6:19 This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil
The veil referred to here is the veil in the temple that separated the place of God from the common people. With this Hope of an unchanging God, unchanging in his promises, unchanging in his purposes, we can enter God’s presence with confidence.
This is the anchor, the rock on which we stand. Do you have this anchor? Do you have the eternal unchanging Jesus?
Is your very soul secured to the only thing that is unchanging in the universe. Or are you adrift in this ever changing world. We cannot change God, but I praise God that He can change me.
[1] Paul Lee Tan, Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations: Signs of the Times (Garland, TX: Bible Communications, Inc., 1996).
[2] A. W. Tozer and David E. Fessenden, The Attributes of God, Volume 2: Deeper into the Father's Heart (Camp Hill, PA: WingSpread, 2001-), 92.
