As believers, we often use the terms “omnipotence,” “omnipresent” and “omniscience” to speak of God being all powerful, everywhere present and all knowing. And we use the term “immutability” to speak of His quality of changelessness. Just as Hebrews 13:8 declares Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever, we can know that God in the fullness of His being does not change. He declared to the prophet Malachi, “I the Lord do not change” (Mal. 3:6). All that God created is subject to change, but the Creator Himself does not change. Addressing God, Psalm 102:25–27 declares: “Of old You laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands. They will perish, but You will endure; yes, they will all grow old like a garment; like a cloak You will change them, and they will be changed. But You are the same, and Your years will have no end.”
Sure word from God
The New Testament witness says, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17). In its last book, the Bible gives us this sure word from God: “‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, ‘who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty’” (Rev. 1:8).
God’s immutability extends to His Word; it is dependable. We can trust it. His promises are forever sure. His warnings also are forever serious; the day of His wrath will come. As Jesus put it, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away” (Matt. 24:35). Furthermore, God’s unchangeableness extends to His attributes. His mercies never fail. His love is everlasting. His goodness never waxes and wanes. God is good all the time. His truthfulness endures to all generations. His power never lessens. His wisdom does not diminish. His holiness never becomes tainted.
Readers of the Bible might wonder, however, about the immutability of God when coming across statements like Jonah 3:10 concerning Nineveh: “God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil that He had said that He would do unto them, and He did it not.” Does God’s change of mind about the repentant Ninevites belie the claim that He is unchanging? Not at all. What is unchanging is His mercy. God’s mercy always reacts the same to genuine repentance. Repentance inevitably brings forgiveness.
What changed in Nineveh was not God but the Ninevites. God operates according to the unchanging principle given in Jeremiah 18:7–8: “If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it.”
Divine immutability is a double-edged truth. It offers no comfort to unrepentant sinners, for God has decreed sure and eternal punishment for them. It offers great comfort to believers as we have assurance that the God who sought us, called us and gave us salvation does not change. Thomas Chisholm captured God’s immutability in the opening words of a hymn, writing, “Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father; there is no shadow of turning with Thee; Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not; as Thou hast been, Thou forever wilt be.”
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