We saw in our last post that God’s very essence cannot
and will not ever change. He cannot be greater than He already is and He will
never depreciate in any way, even from within Himself in what could be thought
of as a neutral or lateral change. It is as simple as the fact that we do change. Just as simple as that is, we
ought to be able to understand that God simply doesn’t change, nor is he susceptible or vulnerable to change by
any external force – neither death, life, angels, powers, nor things present,
nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation
will be able to change God. That is why none of these things will be able to
separate us from his love – His adoring attribute, as detailed in Romans
8:31-39.
How can we know for sure that the attributes of God don’t
change? Is that to mean He feels all emotions at the same time like someone who
never knows what to feel at the right time? Not exactly. Is it that he does change in one regard if he shifts
from a judgmental disposition to a merciful one? Or a condemning one to a
commending one? Wouldn’t these attributes be manifested differently depending
on the prayers of the saints, or the circumstances with which men find themselves
in?
These questions are based on flawed assumptions. If God
was not omniscient or omnipotent, then perhaps He would have to re-act to circumstances, rather than
having been pro-active in determining
the circumstances in the first place. Further, if God had a will that could be
imposed on by ours, then perhaps prayers would actually change His mind rather than Him causing men to pray within the
eternal will of His immutable Self. That men have actually reversed the
original intention of God through prayer has never happened, nor will it. For a
helpful look at the point of prayer, in light of God’s eternality, omniscience and
immutability, see my post: "If God's Will Doesn't Change, Is Prayer Pointless?"
The study of God’s sovereignty is no small chore and if
we could sum up everything about God and His sovereignty in a series of blog
posts, then He clearly wouldn’t be an infinite and eternal God. However, we
know He is! And so, we take what has once for all been delivered down to us to
see what the Holy Spirit has revealed in the pages of Scripture, which is sufficient
to equip thoroughly and to build up the body of Christ, so that we may know God
and have life in His Name.
A diligent study of God’s nature and character will only
elevate our thoughts about God, which is what the Church desperately needs. The
higher the mountain of our thoughts and belief of God, the more impossible it
will be for the Devil-pricked philosophies and mentalities to scale it. Our
thoughts of God could never be too high. As A. W. Tozer rightly said, “The
first step down for any church is taken when it surrenders its high opinion of
God.” This moves us to study Scripture, so that our opinions of God are
accurate, being Biblically based. Tozer believed that there were answers in
Scripture that were both full and satisfying saying, “While the name of God is
secret and His essential nature incomprehensible, He in condescending love has
by revelation declared certain things to be true of Himself. These we call His
attributes.”
So the question of the day is: Can God’s attributes change?
In order to approach this properly, we need to remember
God’s eternality. He was here before all creation and time as He was the
Creator that made it happen. Speaking of the oneness of God the Father with the
Son, the Apostle Paul said that “He is the image of the
invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all
things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether
thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through
him and for him.” Paul’s conclusion? “That in everything He might be
preeminent” (Col. 1:15-18). That is to say, first in, or before, all things, be
it succession, rank, time, etc.
John Calvin wrote in his Institutes of the Christian Religion,
“From the power of God we are naturally led to consider his eternity, since
that from which all other things derive their origin must necessarily be
self-existent and eternal” (Book 1, Chap. 5, Sec. 6).
God has also made it known to us that He
has a predetermined plan in the world (Eph. 1:4; Acts 17:26). This will
continue to come up through our studies, as it should, for God would certainly
not be able to have a predetermined plan if He were subject to change in any
way. By the very nature of God – His omniscience, omnipotence and immutability –
we are forced into the corner of recognition that God would have to have a predetermined plan for
everything with that kind of sovereignty. Being all-knowing alone demands it.
He either knows everything that is
going to happen, or He doesn’t know everything.
The only way for any being to have knowledge
of all future events, is to orchestrate them itself. Such it is with God.
All at once, God is all. He is all of His attributes all at once, which is why we sing
of Him being our All in All! The Latin word for “all” is “Omni”, hence the way
in which we describe His attributes. This is about as good as a finite mind
could express our God of infiniteness. And being that God is eternal, having
always been in existence without having been created by anything, we can count
on the fact that God will remain eternal and immutably so – without any
variation or shadow due to change (James 1:17).
All of this must be established in order
to have a chance at understanding and believing that the more specific
attributes of God are also immutable, such as His mercy & justice, love
& wrath, etc. How can God be unchangeable if He, Himself, being these things (i.e. God is love), is also someone who exercises
justice and sends unrepentant sinners to Hell? Does He shift a few degrees to
the left or right depending on the situation? Isn’t that considered a type of change?
This only seems impossible to answer if
our assumption is that mercy and justice are always at odds with each other and
cannot coexist fully at the same time. God is always a God of mercy and of
justice and, as A. W. Pink once said, His sovereignty determines how it is
exercised, for He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy (Ex. 33:19 &
Rom. 9:15-18). Where we must stop in our attempt at explaining God is in
demanding an answer to “why?” from God. As Paul says about this very
temptation, “Who are you, oh man, to answer back to God” (Rom. 9:20)?
This difficult reconciliation of justice
and mercy can be better explained in this way: If God were only a God of
justice and not a God of mercy, we would all be sent to Hell. Our sin has
easily earned us a spot there. If God were only a God of mercy and not of
justice, then sin would never be punished and all of human-kind would suffer immensely
since the only way to know what justice looks like is to have it existent in
the ultimate Judge. The problem of sin would never be rectified since it could
never be dealt with…only winked at by God – an absurd possibility! God must be just and merciful all at the
same time according to His will. Having mercy on a few does not mean He is not
all-merciful based on the fact that all of human kind did not receive mercy;
rather He is all-merciful to the few He chose.
Let’s not stop there. Even in God’s
selection of whom He has mercy unto eternal life, it would not be right to say
that not one person has every experienced the mercy of God, for when the
punishment for sin is death, it is obvious in our wicked world that many
reprobate minds are experiencing a temporal mercy of God in the time they have
to repent of sin. Paul warns us, though, in Romans, not to presume on this
gracious gift:
“Do you suppose, O man […] that you will
escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and
forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you
to repentance? But
because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself
on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed” (Rom.
2:3-5).
You see? Even the wicked experience the
grace and mercy of God – every day they aren’t rightly killed by Him. God is
indeed all-merciful and just, all at
the same time.
Calvin also commented on this temporal
mercy of God: “When any one crime calls forth visible manifestations of His
anger, it must be because He hates all crimes; and, on the other hand, his
leaving many crimes unpunished, only proves that there is a judgment in
reserve, when the punishment now delayed shall be inflicted. In like manner,
how richly does He supply with the means of contemplating his mercy, when, as
frequently happens, he continues to visit miserable sinners with unwearied
kindness, until He subdues their depravity, and woos them back with more than a
parent’s fondness?”
Jonathan Edwards once said: “This world
is all the Hell that a true Christian is to ever endure, and it is all the
Heaven that unbelievers shall ever enjoy.” How true it is when we are extended
life when it is not deserved. It should be the conviction of every true
Christian to tell people about the temporary mercy of God they are already
getting, but the coming Judgment that will once and for all come down on anyone
who doesn’t yield to God’s kindness leading us to repentance. Christ was the substitutionary death for us!
Tozer talked about the archbishop of
Canterbury, Anselm, and his findings when studying the justice and mercy of
God. According to Tozer, “Anselm’s findings may be paraphrased this way: God’s
being is unitary; it is not composed of a number of parts working harmoniously,
but simply one. There is nothing in His justice which forbids the exercise of
His mercy. To think of God as we sometimes think of a court where a kindly
judge, compelled by law, sentences a man to death with tears and apologies, is
to think in a manner wholly unworthy of the true God. God is never at
cross-purposes with Himself. No attribute of God is in conflict with another.”
I will end this segment with another
human example. There is a story of then Governor George W. Bush who had a
difficult decision on his hands as a professing Christian in public office. A
middle aged female criminal was tried and found guilty of serious crimes
warranting the death penalty. While on death row, in prison, she allegedly placed
in her faith in Christ, repenting of her sin and obvious immorality. Some of the
public desired to see her released as she seemed to have been genuinely saved
by God. Even Bush’s own family urged him to let her go. In Bush’s conviction of
justice and mercy, He did not lift the penalty. He stated it was his
responsibility to exercise justice as the Governor in power, but that if she
was a Christian she would only experience the eternal mercy of God sooner than
she ever thought.
Everyone experiences some level of mercy
and grace of God, but it is to allow us time to repent of sin and start living
obedient lives to God in anticipation of the glory of Heaven where God’s mercy
is shown in the presence of His people and His justice is satisfied and shown
in the death and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ, who graciously paid the
penalty of sin for us. This drives the saints to their knees in thankfulness
and worship. It is surely in the marvelous truth of God's immutability that we can find peace that surpasses understanding!
To be continued…
