One of my parishioners came to me and said, "I have some questions on Immutability." If God is unchanging and unchangeable and by Scripture, He is the same yesterday, today and forever - He changes not. Genesis 6:6 "The Lord was sorry that He made man on the earth,
and He was grieved in His heart." He repented of
creating man. Since God is perfectly symmetrical and perfectly unified and integrated, could He change His mind and heart regarding man, without changing His
essential character? In what ways is he unchanging?"
First of all Genesis 6:6 says," And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart."(KJV) God never changes in His love for us, but he is our Parent. Our Father in Heaven.
Like any loving parent He teaches, disciplines and helps us to grow in a straight and proper way. It is like a young tree that has just been planted. You know over time that you will have to train it to stand tall
and straight so it will grow upward. You also know that if you do not train that tree to stand straight and tall, it will become bent over and crooked. It will grow in many different directions and be confused as to which way it should really grow. So it is with any parent and child. A parent who truly love their child or children will do their best to make
sure that their child(ren) grow up straight and tall in all the laws and commandments of God; while showing and giving them the Love that can only come from God.
So in answer to your first question: Could God change His mind and heart regarding man without changing his essential character? Yes, He could, but that would not be the God we know and love. Remember He may have been sorry for creating man on earth; but let’s take a look at why God felt this way. Remember that in the books of Matthew where Jesus spoke of the "end-times" and referred to it as in the days of Noe(Noah) ? Here again
we see God’s hear grieved. Why? Because he had created man out of love and man has and had become totally wicked. What lead up to this grief in the Lord’s heart and why he was sorry that he had created man on earth
was the fact that Satan was on the earth as well and was the source of the wickedness to begin with.
If you remember, God thru satan out of heaven and down to the earth for his wickedness and jealousy. Satan once called Lucifer was exalted above all the angels. he was the light bearer, the music of heaven and he was
an archangel. In other words he was both arch-angel and cherubim for God. God did not make mindless angels for robots, he gave them thought and love and all the good attributes; but for satan, somewhere in his heart he became jealous of God and wanted to exalt himself above God and that was not only the first sin against God but a deadly sin against God. That is the beginning of God’s grieving. God grieved for creating
man on earth because when satan was cast down to earth he stole it from man and then instilled his evil into their hearts. (Adam & Eve) The second and third evil/sins was lies and deception that Satan committed
against God and His creations. Satan , in essence tricked Eve into eating of the Tree of Good and Evil, when God has specifically told them not to. Adam knew this and was standing right there when Satan tempted
EVE and never said a word or told Eve that God had forbidden it. The fourth sin that Satan Committed was to steal from man what God had given him..The earth and dominion over it. So to this point we see that Satan has already committed five major sins against God and man.
The Lord was very grievous over what had taken place and He began to regret creating man and putting him on earth. Not only because of eating of the tree of Good and Evil opened Adam & Eve’s eyes, it also planted
the seeds of evil in them as well and God like any Loving and Good parent began to grieve over the way his "children had turned out. The fifth sin that came from this came from man, himself. That sin was
disobedience. So now in only a short time we have the sins of (a) Jealousy,(be) Lies, (c) Deception, (d) Stealing and (e) disobedience.These soon became compounded by murder (Cain killing Abel), greed,
drunkenness, fornication, covetness and prostitution just to name a few. The whole world was full of evil and God Cried and was grief-stricken. In his grief, God decided to destroy the whole earth once again and
remake it. This time God had a different plan. He found one truly righteous man and His family and he would save them. This man. was Noah. God commanded Noah to build an ark and put two of every kind of his
creation into the ark along with his family. Noah obeyed, inspite of all the ridicule and persecution that he suffered during the construction of the ark. He obeyed God to the utmost detail. When all was accomplished and everyone was in the ark that should have been, God flooded the entire earth with water, killing and drowning all that he had created
and God Cried. Don’t you think for one minute that He didn’t. What he created out of love chose to do evil and listen to and yield to the temptations of Satan. God Grieved. You bet He did! But he save on
righteous family to replenish the earth once more. Yet in all that , you would have thought people would have learned, but out of one of the son’s lineage the sins that abode in the heart of his wife took hold and
evil and sin once again took hold.
After the flood, God promised Noah that He would never again destroy the earth by flood and sealed His covenant with Noah with a Rainbow. This didn’t say that God would not destroy the earth again. Remember that. The earth will always be but what is on and in the earth that is evil and sinful God Will destroy...this time with Fire. God is unchangeable,
but he is not one who tolerates and will allow man to continue in his evil ways for too long. When His patience runs out He destroys all that is bad and makes it anew. No where did He ever say that he would let evil abide forever and man just go his own way or in the way of sin and evil with out doing something about it. If that were the case then why should we bother being Godly and trying to be righteous and pure in His sight, if he is going to nothing about evil and sin ? Yes, God did give us Free will to chose our path in life, whether it be to follow Him and receive the gift of Salvation or to take the path to hell and follow Satan. Why? Because He loves us and because he certainly didn’t want mindless obedient creatures who would be nothing more than the equivalent of a flesh and blood "robot" . He wanted to give us His love
to and for us to love Him in return. Again as any decent and loving parent would.
When he repented of making man, it was because of the presence of evil upon the earth. when God sent His son to die for us, His son became the second Adam and the earth will be given back to Him. I suppose that you
are probably going to find this next statement hard to believe, but from what God has revealed to me (God forgive me if I misinterpreted it) He has allowed Satan to continue to exist until such time, as prophesized in the Bible in the Old and New Testaments, that He will once and for all put an end to it. From my mere mortal understanding, it seems that
God and Satan reached an agreement over how much time God’s creations would have to decide to follow God or to Follow Satan. When that agreement comes to an end Satan knows the ultimate consequences and end
for those who follow him and for himself as well. It was agreed that man’s free-will would continue for a certain length of time and when that time was over, there would be no more evil ever again. That time is
coming to a rapid close. Yes, God was sorry he put man upon the earth in the circumstances that existed because of satan, but at the same time He loves what He created - US ! He wants us to love Him, but we must Choose Him; for it can not be a "forced" love. It has to come from the heart and spirit . It has to be true and real. If you do not think that God doesn’t not grieve anymore..think again . Every time a soul chooses
Satan over him He cries ! Every time a soul curses and Blasphemes the Holy Spirit, He Cries! Every a child of His walks away because they have been mislead by "False Prophets" He cries. Can you just imagine the Pain he is in all the time ? Can you imagine how it would feel as a parent who raised your children to love and be righteous, turns their backs on you and despises you? Now compound that by the Billions of Children of God who have since, the Flood of Noah and you have a pretty good Idea of How God and His son feel. Is God sorry (resentful) of his human creations? I do not think so. I think that he is sorry that His
creations, for the most part have turned out badly and have chosen the things of the earth and of satan over Him and His Kingdom of Love, Salvation, Mercy and Eternal life.
If God had wanted to destroy the earth and all that was in it again..He could have done that a million times over. Instead He sent His Son, Jesus as the Ultimate price that had to be paid for the sin of all
mankind and still give his creations the option to choose Him or satan until such time, as prophesized in the Bible, that even that option would not longer exist and neither would evil.
In your second question, you asked in what ways is God unchanging? He never changes in His Love, Mercy, Patience, Compassion and Forgiveness towards us. He Is a Loving father who gives His child every opportunity
to get on the right track before he severely punishes them.God has already seen the future before it ever began. He knows the "complete story" and how it will all end. We do too! It is in His Word. God will not change in His final judgment of earth or us. Whatever path in life we chose and we are walking when His Judgment comes, that is what He will Judge us for. If we have chosen satan, then God "knows us not" . If we chose the path of righteousness, then we will be judged
accordingly to what we have or have not done in the name of the Lord.
God may consider changing his mind on certain things as He did with Abram(Abraham) and the matter concerning Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18:20-33 ;19:1-26). In the end we see that even when God did give Abram a promise that he would not destroy Sodom and Gomorrah if a certain number of people (first fifty then forty,then twenty and finally ten) were found righteous. When none of these numbers of people were found and only one family was found that was less than ten. God proceeded to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Had there been even ten, God would have changed his mind and spared them because of Abraham’s request. God knew
there wouldn’t be ten, but because He loved Abraham, He gave Abraham a chance to fight to save Sodom and Gomorrah. So God is not so rigid that He will or may not change his mind on certain issues. What we have to
realize is that He is an all-knowing God and the He has the answers to all things...even if we do not. We may seek to try to change this or that with God, but in the end His Will prevails because (a) He has all
the knowledge of all things and (b) is the Creator of all things that are good and righteous and pure. As we saw with Abraham, God did say He would spare Sodom and Gomorrah if fifty, forty,twenty or even ten were
righteous. Again, God knowing all things knew this would not be the case, but he still told Abraham, he would spare them if it were so.
