Does God change His mind?
Few questions unsettle readers more than the places where Scripture says God is not a man who changes His mind, alongside other places where it says He relented over a judgment He had announced. The commentators handle this by asking two questions of every passage: what is actually being said to change, and what does the word "repent" mean when it is used of God?
What the Word Means
The older translations say God "repents." Writers point out that the word describes a change of mind, and then ask whose mind is really in view. Commenting on Jonah's protest that God relents from disaster, one writer traces the change to the human side:
G C WillisIt does not mean a change of mind on God's part, but a change of action caused by a change of mind on man's part. God sends warnings to man, so that man may change his mind, may repent, and so that God may change His action from judgment to mercy. God has not changed His mind. God's mind has always been toward mercy: "You are a gracious God and merciful." But man's sin must bring down the righteous judgment of God, even though He is slow to anger.
Purpose and Gift Never Move
A line is drawn between what God has purposed and given, and what He does in dealing with people day by day. On the first side there is no movement at all:
William KellyIf God is the giver of the blessing, He does not change. The gifts of God are without change of mind on His part. When it is not a gift or a calling of God, He may repent. So He repented of creation (Gen. 6:6), as we are told; and He destroyed it. That was not a gift, but simply an act, however immense. But when in sovereign love He calls poor guilty men to Himself to make them His own, when He makes a gift of eternal life, for instance, or forgiveness of our sins, or the place of a child, such gifts are the gifts and calling of God, and they are without repentance. Here His mind never changes. The children may too often be foolish and sadly wrong, but He does not change.
(Romans 11:29 in the ESV reads "irrevocable" where the older wording is "without repentance.")
When the Object Itself Changes
If God's attitude toward something shifts, the explanation offered is that the thing itself has become something different. On the flood account in Genesis 6, one writer puts it this way:
J. N. DarbyGod changes His mind, but only as to creation (v. 6) or the like — never when there is a purpose. If the thing totally changes, then God judges differently about it. So it was now, and therefore God would destroy man. It is not as if some change took place in God, but the aspect of His mind is changed toward an object that has itself changed.
Threatened Judgment Is Not a Fixed Sentence
Nineveh is the standing example. God announced destruction; the city turned; the destruction did not come. Commentators read this as grace acting exactly as it always meant to, and they add a caution about how such language works:
The Bible TreasuryGod is not a man, that He should repent as to His eternal and unchangeable counsels and unconditional promises, which "are without repentance." But in His grace He may repent of, that is, not carry out, a threatened judgment, as in the case of Nineveh. We must remember that the Spirit of God condescends to express Himself in the human way of speaking, because of our weakness.
As Firm in Judgment as in Blessing
The same words that guarantee blessing were also spoken over a rejected king. Saul was told the kingdom was torn from him, and the reason given was that God does not change His mind. That cuts against reading God's unchangeableness as a comfort only:
W. W. FeredaySamuel used language about the rejection of Saul similar to what Balaam used about the blessing of Israel. Balaam said, "God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind." The blessing of Israel was therefore assured, whatever the enemy might do or say, and whatever unfaithfulness might show itself in the people. Samuel said, "The Glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man, that he should have regret." The divine rejection of Saul was therefore as irrevocable as the blessing of the nation, for once God has pledged His word, He never goes back on it. This blessed fact is the true resting place of faith in every age.
(Both verses are given here in the ESV; older translations use "repent" in each.)
One Nature Behind Both
Why God disciplines His people and why He never destroys them turn out to have a single explanation:
Hamilton SmithAll God's dealings, whether in judgment or in mercy, are founded on the unchangeableness of His nature. For this reason we have the formal declaration of the unchanging character of God before the call to repentance. "I the LORD do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed." God does not change in holiness, and therefore He must chasten His people when they sin. Neither does God change in His purposes of grace and blessing, and therefore His people are not consumed.
Summary
- Nature. God's holiness and His purposes of grace never move; every dealing of His, severe or tender, rests on that one unchanging nature.
- Purpose. Where a gift or a calling is in view — eternal life, forgiveness, the place of a child — His mind never changes, however foolish the children prove.
- Object. Where His attitude does shift, it is because the thing He is looking at has itself changed, not because something changed in Him.
- Warning. A threatened judgment is announced so that people will turn; when Nineveh turned, He did not carry it out, and that was grace doing what it always intended.
- Both ways. The same words that made Israel's blessing certain made Saul's rejection certain — God is as unmovable in judgment as in mercy.