What is the immutability of God?

But this brings us to the second question of the psalmist: "has His word failed for all generations?" Here, too, is an impossibility; but let us see what it implies. It is "His word" that is in question, not "His promise"; and this makes it much more weighty. God has been pleased to give us His word, and this indeed is "loving-kindness" to do so, and the parallelism of the verse is complete. He has written Himself out on the page of Scripture, — given us to see His heart, His mind: it may be in His dealings with this or that person, in His announcement as to this or that event. All this rests (as to its blessing to me) upon the immutability of His nature, the assurance that I shall find Him for myself the self-same God that He has been to others. Were He changeful, capricious, limited, I could argue nothing, find comfort in nothing: — for all generations His word would be practically gone. Were His "loving-kindness" anything but the infinite fount of blessing that it is, no declarations of it for another would help me, no words of other times would avail me now. But blessed be God, this cannot be. He is Himself, always Himself, no attribute at strife with another in His changeless and perfect nature. How I can rejoice, then, that Abraham's God is mine; and what unfailing assurance any one that will, may gather from His word!

God Himself is spoken of as "the incorruptible God." What absolute assurance the knowledge of this imparts to the soul. "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and who is to come." Every attribute of the blessed God is to be seen in relation to the holiness of His nature. Thus every promise, every act of love, every movement in grace, every dispensing of mercy, is in absolute accord with His nature and in relation to His eternal purpose. His Name is "the SAME;" He abides faithful; He cannot deny Himself; with Him there is "no variation nor shadow of turning." Neither the corruptness of man nor the power of death are able to divert His will. His way is perfect, whether in the Sanctuary or in the sea; His principles are unchanging; His word is stable; His every promise "Yea, and Amen" in Christ. From "eternity to eternity" He is God; and the moment is coming when the whole earth will be full of His glory, every mark of death and corruption will have gone for ever — "Death shall not exist any more;" He will dwell with men — their God.

If this God is our God, we may claim Him wherever we find Him. All histories of His past ways become light for us. No laws of His in nature are so unchangeable as He Himself is. As He has ordained for us as His creatures a world of fixed realities amid which to walk, this spiritual world in which we find ourselves, living, and walking, and having our being in Him, is still as far beyond it as eternity beyond time, or heaven beyond earth. Here there is no caprice, but immutability itself, inviting absolute confidence. No dispensations — though they may variously reflect Him — change the Eternal. And this is how the very histories of Scripture become for us types and prophecies, and (in another sense than the Preacher meant it) "that which has been is that which shall be."

(5) His Unchangeableness. "Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled" (Matt. 5:18). "Have ye not heard that He which made them at the beginning made them male and female," etc. (Matt. 19:4); "As He spake by the mouth of His holy prophets, which have been since the world began" (Luke 1:70). Such scriptures as these show the unchangeable character of God. There has been no alteration in His purposes and of course none in His Being.

Three things are said to be unchangeable: God's counsel, His word, and His oath. Heb. 6:17-18. To these certainty may be attached. In Mal. 3:6 we read, "I am Jehovah, I change not," and the Lord is "the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever." Heb. 13:8.

1st. God is owned as unchanging and eternal. "Thou art the Same, thou alone Jehovah" (6, N. Tr.). Amidst all changes in times, seasons, circumstances, and men, we have in the Lord One who knows no change and will never pass away. As we read in another scripture, "Thou remainest" and "Thou art the Same" (Heb. 1). 2nd. God is owned as the Creator of all. The heaven of heavens and all their host, the earth too and all things that are therein, the seas and all that is therein, are the work of His hands. 3rd. God is owned as the Sustainer of all. All creation is preserved by God and dependent upon God (6). 4th. God is owned as Sovereign. He chooses whom He will. He calls Abram out of Ur, and He changes his name (7). 5th. God is owned as the Giver of unconditional promises to those whom He has called according to His sovereign choice (8). 6th. God is owned as faithful to His word. He performs that which He has promised (8). 7th. God is owned in His ways of grace and power by which He delivered His people from Egypt, brought them through the wilderness and established them in the Land (9-15).

But now He goes farther, showing Himself the unchangeable and eternal God, the God who was indeed as a governor true to the promise He had made of old. Accordingly this is precisely what is involved in the name of Jehovah. Here He was ready for His part to accomplish. There might be unreadiness on their part, but He at any rate was able to make good all He had promised. And thus fittingly He, as Jehovah their God, pledges before them His own unchangeable character to accomplish His promises. Whether it would come to a result or not depended on altogether different circumstances — not on any failure in Him.

The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews speaks of “the immutability” of God’s counsel (6:17), showing that God, in His goodness comes down to meet man in his weakness, and to show that what He promises He will assuredly fulfil, He confirms what He has promised with His oath. God’s counsel is indeed immutable, it can never be altered; there is no power in earth or heaven that is able to turn God away from what He has set Himself to do. How blessed it is that His immutable counsel has decreed our blessing.

But the unconditional promises of God, as made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, are not subject to repentance. "The gifts and calling of God are without repentance." Rom. 11:29. "God is not a man that he should lie; neither the son of man that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it?" Num. 23:19; 1 Sam. 15:29; Malachi 3:6. And this must hold good in regard to every purpose of His will.

This requires little development. The purpose is an "eternal purpose," from eternity, embracing an eternity to come. God does not shape His thoughts according as circumstances arise, but the circumstances are controlled by His thoughts and plans. How blessed to know that He is absolutely Master of all things; that even "He maketh the wrath of man to praise Him, and the remainder of wrath He restrains." It is the only thing that can give the smallest comfort in the midst of such a scene of confusion as that around us is. Thus He goes on with His own thoughts. In another sense than Job meant, "He is of one mind, and who can change Him?" Redemption was not with Him an impulse, (impulse comes from without,) but the fruit of a purpose which was His before the world was. Eternity will be the seal of His approbation of what is the fulfilled purpose of His own mind.